FrankyD

I had a disappointing experience with the Porsche parts distributor Pelican Parts. I promised their management some negative publicity and posted this on the PCA site and figured I should put it up here also.

I ordered among many other items a pair of late Carrerra sway bars 22 front and 21 rear in early January.
As of February 2 I had not recieved them and called pelican to find them indefinately backordered. I talked to my usual sales person Glen about it and I decided to upgrade to the weltmiester adjustable bars wich they had in stock. I had a Nasa event in late Feb. that I wanted to have them at. A week later I recieved an email stating they were backordered. I called Pelican and spoke to Glen and the sales manager John and they had been mistaken, the bars had not been in stock and were backordered, they then assured me that the bars would be on their way very soon. I soon recieved the front weltmiester bar but not the rear or the hardware for the front. I have spoken to the sales person Glen six times since then and each time he stated that the bar had been backordered but was finally on its way. I still dont have the rear bar and so I called them today and they confirmed the rear bar is still backordered but that they are expecting it tomorrow and it will ship out soon. I told the sales manager that I was cancelling the order and sending back the front bar and he became very short with me and explained I would have to pay for all the shipping both ways and a 15% restocking fee on everything. I called back and spent 20minutes on hold to speak with Management. Managements position is that they drop ship the products from weltmiesters warehouse and they would have to pay restocking fees and therefore must pass those cost on to me. They seem to think that I was being unreasonable not waiting because the bar would definately be shipped to me soon.
So I have patiently waited for Pelican Parts for over 2 months and eventually decided to give up on them and I'm stuck with $105 in restocking fees plus approx. $30 in shipping.

Just thought I would share this with anyone thats interested.

AOW162435

Frank,
That sounds like a horrible situation, not to mention extremely frustrating. I've had good service from them on numerous occasions.

I would put on your diplomat hat and ask to speak to one of the owners. Paying restocking fees for something that seems to be out of your control sounds bad.

Andreas

J. Brinkley

I would PM wayne with something in the subject line like "WAYNE I need help"

g-50cab

yeah just get far up the foodchain - Wayne is pretty reasonable. I'm sure there is another side of the story too - wonder what they get hit with restocking wise... I'm pretty sure there was a change of policy from PNA

PelicanParts.com

Hi Frank,

The Weltmeister bars are manufactured by Performance Products. We have had many problems getting products from their Weltmeister division on a timely basis. We try to keep our customers up-to-date with the current information that our vendor (in this case, Performance Products / Weltmeister) provides to us. We pass that information onto our customers, ultimately hoping that what we are being told is the truth in the matter. We have also had problems with Weltmeister product in the past being short-shipped (that is, items missing from the package).

I performed some research on what happened here, and it seems like there was a breakdown in communication on just about every issue here. I'm not sure where the breakdown happened.

- We do have the sway bar in stock - the U-tab kit is what we were waiting for from Weltmeister (had to be special-ordered - it would seem that they lost our order, from the notes in our system). The order should have shipped out without the u-tab (and the u-tab would have followed quickly behind with free shipping). I see this as an error in our warehouse, and I have sent an email off to our warehouse manager asking for an explaination.

- John also said in the notes that he attempted to get in touch with you, "but the gentleman answering the phone says he has your old phone number and I do not have a current one for you." I'm not sure what happened with the phone number here, but we were indeed trying to communicate with you on this order.

- I show in the notes here that any and all restocking fees have been waived on this order. If someone told you otherwise, then they were mistaken. I will make an additional note stating that any and all restocking fees will be waived.

It sounds like there were a bunch of problems with this order, mainly based upon our difficulty in sourcing the parts directly from Weltmeister. I have instructed my staff to make sure that they only give information to our customers that they can actually confirm, and not to rely on information provided by our vendors that may or may not be true. Unfortunately, it seems that a bunch of problems combined together to make this particular order a trying experience. I apologize for these problems. I see that you have placed several orders with us in the past, so you are familiar with the typical high level of service that we are famous for.

In fact, since we instituted new shipping and fulfillment processes in early January, our Customer Satisfaction rate has increased 46% in a mere two months (according to our surveys), so we must be doing somethings right. Unfortunately, on this order, a lot seemed to go wrong.

I have instructed Glenn to phone you in the morning - we can still ship the rear sway bar to you via free 2nd-day shipping in order to get it to you by the weekend. Although I cannot physically "see" the sway bar, the computer tells me that it's sitting in your order assembly area along with the turbo tie rod kit that you ordered.

Again, please accept my apologies for the problems you encountered on this order, and for any miscommunication that may have occurred on our behalf. I can assure you (and as you can see from your past orders), that problems & issues like these are not the norm here at Pelican Parts.

Thanks for your patience,

Wayne R. Dempsey
CEO, Pelican Parts Inc.

fixnprsh

unfortunate situation, but it is hard, and not always the fault of companies such as Pelican, who can not obtain parts from THEIR suppliers when they are promised.

I deal with this problem with BMW on a daily basis for MY customers cars. And I'm left holding the bag. It takes a little understanding.

Personaly, It sucks, but I would have held on to my one sway bar untill the other one arrived. YOU sent it back, so YOU should pay the restocking fee. By their good graces, they will waive them, lucky you.

Its the nature of the beast when you deal with niche market cars and parts. Want Parts that are in stock? Go buy a Civic and Pep Boys will have all the neon lights, front mount interfoolers and autometer guages you want.

I once ordered a european headlight switch for my MK3 GTI, uncle Fritz had to put down the Heifweizen, put his monocle on and make a batch, took two and a half months, but what choice do you have? I have waited for MONTHS for parts. YEARS when it comes to a specific rare vintage part, like pop out windows for a split winow VW bug or JDM mirrors for an FJ60 Landcruiser

I will say that Pelican has the best website for BMW Porsche parts anywhere and the things I have ordered, have never had an issue, so I'm sure its an isolated case, and no need to drag a good business like Pelican through the mud for an unintentional act. If they have made right by you, I think an apology is deserved

KC911

IMO, 'doo doo occurs' that is outside of our (or anyone else's control)...it sound's as if Pelican made some mistakes in handling this order, but Wayne's post speaks for itself and it appears that he is trying to make the best out of a bad situation. If it were me, I would have contacted Wayne personally before making it public. Sorry for your frustration...good luck!

Keith

Kurt V

Once again Wayne steps up to the plate and makes good. How many other parts vendors out there will do that?

FrankyD

Thanks for the post Wayne, I appreciate your understanding of my situation. I was unable to speak to you when I went up the food chain yesterday. I understand problems happen, but I thought I was polite and had been very patient but I felt like I was being treated like a problem customer. I accept your not charging the restocking fees as a fair compromise. I have a 74 and an 82 911 that need lots of future investment and imagine I will continue to do business with Pelican in the future. The situation felt ironic to me because I have always preferred to do business with your company, sometimes at slightly greater expense, due to the great customer service I had recieved in the past.

I thank everyone else for their concern and kind words.

Jay Gratton

I also have had problems with my suppliers getting me parts in a orderly time. The frustrating part is because they are dragging their heals, I am taking the blame when I am on the phone everyday calling them to see what the hold up is. However, in the end it is the customer who suffers. Wayne, that was an outstanding letter and I thank you for fixing the matter. Best wishes - Jay

Eli at Pelican

Hi All,

I just wanted to make mention that during the course of my conversation with Frank, I informed him that this was brought to my attention that day, the missing part (Weltmeister U-tab Kit) would be expedited from our vendor and would arrive the following day (today). I then informed our customer that I would also have the shipment expedited from us to him at no additional charge. (Photo attached of complete shipment as of today 12:00 noon)

Just as I explained to Frank on the phone I would have all the items shipped today, I have them all here and ready to go. Unfortunately this was not a satisfactory solution according to Frank, and I was directed by Wayne to waive all restocking fees.

Once again the offer still stands Frank, if you’d like this package shipped out today you can call me directly and I’ll make sure it’s shipped out via 2nd Day Air at no additional charge.

(888) 280-7799

Eli Sesma
General Manager
Pelican Parts Inc.

g5o

I have placed nine (9) orders through Pelican since October of last year. The only one problem I had was with a faulty part, which I paid return shipping, but that's all ($3.50). I got a new one with 48 hours. On several occassions, the parts arrive earlier than promised. I find their website setup is extremely thorough and helpful to me, a newbie to the 911 world. Better yet, the tech articles and volumes of free advice are worth so much more.

My advice would be to accept Pelican's offer and enjoy your upgrades! Don't hold it against them. Just my $0.02.

Cheers,
Chris Graber

FrankyD

Eli, I understand that it may not make sense to you that I don't accept your offer to ship the parts immeadiatly. It may make more sense if you realize that this was not the first time I had been told the parts would ship "NEXT DAY". I ordered the original stock late model carrerra bars in january. When the original carrerra bars didn't show and I called Pelican on Feb. 2nd I was told they were indefinately backordered. Since I had a DE Febuary18-19 I needed something that would ship "NEXT DAY" I only agreed to get the weltmiesters because I was told they were in stock and would ship immeadiatly. I was patient and resonable over and over. I recieved a partial order. I called pelican and spoke to my sales person who informed me that a part was backordered but was definately "shipping tommorrow". Again the part didn't show. I called my sales person Glen who was very appologetic and was sure it would ship very soon. After I was told this several times and waited over another month I finally asked to speak to management. I got the sales manager Johns voicemail. I called back and left my current phone number with the customer service person, wich I have given to Pelican on multiple occasions, and asked to have John call me. At the end of the evening when John had not returned my call I phoned Pelican and asked the customer service person to cancel the order. The customer service person transfered me to John. I felt like I was treated rudely by John and he refused to waive the restocking fee. I called back and went above John and spoke to you Eli and you offered to waive the restocking fee for just the rear bar order but not the Front bar wich I had recieved as a partial order. I ended our conversation very dissapointed in the way I had been treated. I think I was very patient with Pelican during the multiple times I had called and was surprised by the way management painted me as an unreasonable customer.
I was pleasantly surprised when Wayne communicated with me through Email, and feel his offer to waive the fees for the complete order is reasonable. More importantly I felt like his tone was much more understanding. I write this having preferred to due business with Pelican in the past due to the good customer service and excellent website. I have several of Waynes books and Pelican stickers on my tool boxes. I have already spoken to your sales person glen and confirmed that the order is cancelled.
Sincerley,
Frank Insley

Clipboard

Shouldn't most all of this have been taken up off-line?
Scheisse happens. These aren't Chevy parts from Pep Boy's.
Just my US$0.02
All the best to all.
Tchuss
john

Eli at Pelican

It is part of my responsibility help in the resolution of customer/ vendor issues and disputes in order to come up with a reasonable solution when we have a communication brake-down.

Unfortunately I was never given the opportunity to make things right and when I stepped in I had the order ready to go within 24 hours. I appreciate your communication on this issue and I agree with Clipboard………

Best regards,

Eli Sesma
General Manager
Pelican Parts Inc.
www.pelicanparts.com