[AlanY]

Quote:

Originally Posted by fogia.4 lol... now thats extreme... just complain to PayPal or your bank and youll get a refund...

It's not extreme. It's the proper venue for complaining about this type of thing.

If you don't file a complaint and just go to PayPal or your credit card company, you'll end up okay, but it won't prevent others from being screwed in the same way. How many people does this have to happen to?

 

[AlanY]

Quote:

Originally Posted by walkman666 Yeah, let's save those FBI resources for bigger fish, no? Jayzus. Get a refund, avoid future and business and move on. My goodness.

Nonsense. Filing an Internet fraud complaint doesn't take away resources from higher profile law enforcement tasks. The FBI set up their Internet fraud center specifically to solicit these kinds of complaints. There's at least one poster here who's been taken for more than $500 by Shellbrook. That's not small potatoes.

 

[n_maher]

GIANT DISCLAIMER COMING Most folks around here understand my relationship with Drew but for those who don't we conducted a group buy for PCB's recently. So, while I am also a Shellbrook customer I'm also not your average customer. One important thing of note is that I have no monetary link to Drew or Shellbrook.

That said, I've had no issues communicating with him over the past week and I will attempt to make him aware of this situation so that hopefully all parties involved can move on. I'm not here to make excuses for Drew, he's his own man and it's his own business. But as I've done in the past I'll do what I can to help.

Nate

 

[drewd]

Let me start off by saying that I'm sorry if anybody has sent emails to me without getting a response. I respond to every email that I receive, so if you haven't heard from me, then it's because I haven't received the email. I have no doubt that the problem is on my end. My email host is GoDaddy.com and their email service for shellbrooklab.com has been something less than robust over the past couple of months.

Shellbrook Audio Lab sells around 100 amps a month. I build them all and my wife ships them. It's a part-time job for me, about four hours a day, plus weekends. For those who think that I'm rolling in dough from this operation, the margins on the amplifiers are not all that great, so don't think that I'm in this for the money.

Over the past year, I've built and shipped over 1,000 amplifiers. In that period, I've gone through some god-awful growing pains. Last January and February that peaked to the point that I stopped taking orders for nearly two months so that I could catch up and reorganize. Since April, things have been running much more smoothly, although you may not be able to tell that from reading this thread. Out of about 500 shipped amplifiers, I've responded to ten to twenty complaints, mostly relating to late deliveries. I've resolved every complaint that I've received, with the exception of two. I have had no contact from those two, although I believe that one of them has posted in this thread, so I am contacting him via PM to find out. That means that if you have an unresolved problem, it's because I don't know about it. PM me here!

The issue over at iPodStudio is unfortunate. I received an email on Tuesday from him regarding complaints that he said that he'd received. I spent Wednesday trying to track down the problems, only to find that on Thursday, the storefront was closed. I'll say here what I said there. Duncan pulled the trigger very quickly. Duncan also has never paid Shellbrook Audio for any merchandise that was sold through the store, nor has he responded to my emails or PMs asking about it.

I'm not going to address specific customer complaints in this forum, but I am going to follow up every one of them via PMs. Feel free to contact those individuals to find out the results - or they are, of course, free to post what happens as well. Likewise, I am not going to respond to anyone on this forum who has spoken up against me (or for me), yet who has not has any relationship with me.

I've PM'd Jude regarding the sticky in the Feedback forum. Because of issues going on that are separate from this thread, I will not address that either, until I hear from Jude.

Here's the long and the short of it. Most of the business that I do is driven through Head-Fi or iPodStudio. As I said before, that's over a hundred amps a month. Without belittling the issues from customers raised here, that's a lot of satisfied customers. Every now and then, somebody takes me up on the no questions asked refund. And, every now and then, something goes tragically wrong. If I know about it, then I try to fix it. If I don't know about it, then I can't fix it. And if there is fault to be laid, I'll take it squarely.

I'm no William Goody, let's be clear on that. I'm just a guy who sells a lot of amplifiers at a decent price - and, for better or for worse, it occaisionally ends up giving me some relatively crushing business.

I'll be sending out a number of PMs to those who have posted here to find out who they are and why I don't know what's been going on. The problems will be resolved.

Thanks,

Drew

 

[bitWrangler]

Quote:

Originally Posted by drewd Let me start off by saying that I'm sorry if anybody has sent emails to me without getting a response. I respond to every email that I receive, so if you haven't heard from me, then it's because I haven't received the email. I have no doubt that the problem is on my end. My email host is GoDaddy.com and their email service for shellbrooklab.com has been something less than robust over the past couple of months.

Recommendation, get a new email provider. If you are not getting peoples email, it's your problem, not your email providers, esp if it's been occuring for a couple of months. This is both in potential lost sales and (judging from things around here) a lot of truely massive ill will. If I were one of those people trying to get a hold of you, your statement above would not be very placating. Better yet, get a seperate email address for existing customers so they can explictly follow up. FYI, I use Yahoo Small Business Services for my email (and DNS) and they've been very reliable.

I truely wish you the best of luck, small business makes the world go around and I personally know that it can get tough, esp when you have other obligations.

 

[digitalcat]

What about people being told that their amps were shipped but in fact it wan't ?

 

[plainsong]

Quote:

Originally Posted by digitalcat What about people being told that their amps were shipped but in fact it wan't ?

And I'd like to chime in and ask that as well? Why is it that there are still complaints popping up about people being outright lied to as to when their amps shipped? It's not good to blame the wife. I also handle the grunt work of my husband's graphics hobby, and if I didn't do the work, then he'd have to either do it himself or close up shop.

For the record, regarding that other site that I'm not allowed to say the name of, Drew was contacted multiple times in multiple formats by multiple people over the course of weeks, not days. I'm sure he'll say it ain't so, but just remember if you consider one side of a story, you have to consider the other. We tried to consider his!

 

[Wodgy]

It's always someone else's fault. It's the fault of his email provider, it's his wife's fault, it's the fault of his suppliers, it's because he's changing to new circuit boards that he hasn't ordered yet, it's because too many orders are coming in, etc. Here's the truth: all of these are ultimately your fault, if you're operating a business and taking people's money. The buck has to stop somewhere.

I don't think Drew is a crook. He's probably a really nice guy. But he obviously has serious problems with avoidance, particularly in dealing with people in any kind of stressful or confrontational situation. He seems to just ignore them, or lie for a while and then ignore them.

Believe it or not, this is not an uncommon personality problem among engineers. I won't go into the reasons why, but if anyone is interested, the book "Distancing: Avoidant Personality Disorder" by Martin Kantor has a good analysis of why this type of behavior is more common among members of certain professions. I will say that the tendency to lie comes about because engineering is a very precise profession, where you can be hammered for even the smallest mistakes, and this pushes some people to become very reluctant to confess faults or errors.

Anyway, here's what Drew should do:
- advertise "4 to 6 weeks" delivery time for products on his website
- if an order is not shipped within 4 weeks exactly of the order being placed, he should just automatically refund the customer's money; don't even try to talk to the customer, making excuses... this will just cause stress and trigger your avoidant tendencies... just refund the money and send an email saying you've done it
- if a repair comes in, if the repair is not completed and shipped within 4 weeks, refund the customer's entire purchase price for the amp and just keep it.

Bingo. Problem solved. Everyone would be happy, and there would be way less stress for Drew.

(Don't try to extend this policy to "6 to 8 weeks" or longer because people will start complaining that they're just giving you a free short term loan when they send you their money.)

 

[Wodgy]

I will also say that Drew's explanation in this thread is unlikely to be completely true. The latest thread in the member's lounge has been going on for three weeks, meanwhile Drew has made several posts in the DIY forum (so we know he's been visiting Head-Fi), yet he claims in his response above that he was not aware of the customer complaint because emails weren't getting through. I find it hard to believe that he wasn't aware of the member's lounge thread. Even this thread had gone on several days and it wasn't until someone started suggesting making a fraud complaint to the FBI that Drew suddenly showed an interest in replying. More likely he was just being avoidant.

 

[Edwood]

There is also that certain FTC law that states that goods must be delivered or payment refunded within 30 days.

Otherwise there must be notification of the delay, and permission must be given by the buyer, otherwise an immediate refund is to be given.

This is an old law that dates back to original mail order businesses. Before the conveniences of email and the internet.

-Ed

 

[drewd]

Well, I wasn't going to say anything else, but I guess that I can't help myself.

The email problem is my fault. I'm pretty sure that I said that, but if I didn't, then I'm saying it now. The shipping is my fault as well. Perhaps I didn't make things clear regarding that. I've never shirked responsibility for anything that has come up, positive or negative, regarding my business. And regarding lies, I've told no lies. But, without a doubt, I've set expectations poorly and estimated times terribly. It hasn't been intentionally - I'm not a liar and I'm not a scammer. But I am guilty of enough disorganization that it's affected some of my customers, and for that I most sincerely apologize.

Regarding the site that must not be named, I must respectfully disagree. I received an email on Tuesday. I have not received any communication from that site or its operator(s) since early June. Plainsong, if you're the same Plainsong that moderates on the unnamed web site, then you should be able to check that out.

I was not aware of any threads in any forums other than the DIY forum because that's the only forum that I happen to participate in. In fact, I didn't know that there was one in the Member's Lounge - I guess I'll have to go look there now. I responded because a couple of people sent me messages letting me know that the thread was here.

The reason that I don't read the amps forum is, to be honest, because there's nothing in it that interests me (other than a thread like this, obviously). And this thread is of interest for two reasons - the first (and foremost) because I want to take care of the problem and the second because it really amazes me that people who don't know me and who have never had anything to do with me are quite happy to accuse me of things in a forum that they would not have the guts to say to my face.

To be brutally honest, the only posts that I'm interested in are those from the four people who have a problem with their orders. Everybody else who feels the need to make accusations, assumptions and attacks on me and my character are, quite frankly, off base and out of line. And that's all I have to say on the subject. I'll head over to the Member's Lounge and see what's going on there.

By the way, I've contacted by PM each of the Head-Fi members who posted in this thread and who are my customers (a total of four). Two have replied back and we've resolved the issues. I'm waiting for the other two.

-Drew

 

[fogia.4]

Hehe, well I think it holds up...

The numbers are believable, the story holds up. Either he thought about it very carefully or hes telling the truth, and since he just got mad I think he's telling the truth.

 

[Wodgy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by drewd And regarding lies, I've told no lies. But, without a doubt, I've set expectations poorly and estimated times terribly. It hasn't been intentionally - I'm not a liar and I'm not a scammer.

Just to be clear, I wasn't accusing you of being a liar in general. I think you're probably an honest person and more avoidant than anything.

I did however use the word "lie" because several of your customers have complained that you told them an amp had been shipped, when in fact it had not. It would be useful if you could address this point. The rest of your explanation seems good to me.

 

[nysulli]

well regarding my issue, drew has contacted me and we're working on the issues as we speak

 

[gpalmer]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wodgy Just to be clear, I wasn't accusing you of being a liar in general. I think you're probably an honest person and more avoidant than anything.

Wodgy, do you have a degree in the analysis of strangers over the Internet? I'm just curious since you seemed to have skipped the steps of interviewing the subject before jumping into your earlier diagnosis. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it doesn't seem you know Drew and yet you are making some rather large assumptions about who he is and what his motivations are and posting them in a public place. I'm just asking why should we care about Wodgy's analysis of someone he doesn't know from Adam, 'cause I've tried and I really can't think of one?