[MR] attention leahterworkers

Sun Jun 17 12:42:29 PDT 2001

I know there are alot of people in the SCA that deal with leather in some
manner or another whether it is making their own armor or making
decoratively tooled accessories. I recently spent a long time looking for a
place to buy leatherworking tools from and finally decided on TANDY because
they were the ONLY place I could find ALL the tools at a decent price.

This e-mail is to tell anyone who would purchase from TANDY, absolutely NOT
TO buy from them!

I had such a horrible experience dealing with them-to which I will go into
detail below (for those who have the patience to read it, and for those who
don't just this:)
 Don't buy from TANDY Leather, their Customer Service is non-existent, their
Shipping Department is moronic, one hand doesn't know what the other is
doing, they charged me 3 times what they were supposed to, and I ACTUALLY
HAD TO REPORT MY CREDIT CARD LOST/STOLEN TO KEEP THEM FROM ADDING ANY MORE
WRONGFUL CHARGES ON MY CARD!!!!! They are just not worth the headache, I
would have rather figured out how to make my own tools!!!

Don't let this happen to you:

The whole Story: On May 17th I placed a $150 order (tools and dyes) with
Tandy. Delivery was to take 5-7 days UPS GROUND and there were some back
ordered items that would be shipped separately.

 On May 18th I called them again to tell them that I needed to change the
shipping address because I just found out I would be out of town when the
package would be arriving. They told me that they never placed the order
because my credit card has been declined (which I knew there was no reason
for it cause that card had plenty of credit on it) I said that there was
some communication trouble with the customer service person when I had
placed the order and to re-check the credit card number and lo and behold
she had written the wrong number-and they never called to tell me, If I
hadn't had a reason to call who knows when this would have been handled,
THEN since it was a FRIDAY-they had their credit card system down and
couldn't process my order till Monday the 21st but that my order would go
out on Monday and be sent to my parents home in NJ while I'm on Vacation.
The Delivery was to take 5-7 days UPS GROUND!

 Monday Morning I got a call from Tandy saying that the credit card went
through fine and that everything will be taken care of. Friday the 25th we
left for NJ. The order SHOULD have arrived on or before May 30th.

On May 30th one of the "back ordered" items arrived via regular Postal Mail
(it was a sponge-a frigging sponge), anyway I knew that then and there
something was wrong if the back ordered item came in before the rest of the
order. So I called Tandy and asked for the UPS Tracking number so I could
find out where my package was because I was going back home on June
2nd!!!-They couldn't find the tracking number and said they would call me
back-and that the order hadn't been shipped on Monday like they had said, it
was shipped on Friday the 25th!!!

The next day (May 31st) I called again, since they hadn't called me back,
and then they told me they could not find any information about the order
and that it was "LOST" and that they would send me a new order -I TOLD THEM
TO SEND IT TO MY HOME ADDRESS-to which they said -NO PROBLEM-and also told
them to make sure any other backordered items (they told me that the "wool
daubers" had just come in and would be sent out soon)get sent to my home as
well.

On June 2nd we went home, on the 5th my parents called to let me know that
they got a small package in the Postal Mail (another back ordered item- wool
daubers-so far the two item that have been shipped add up to about $1.10)
So I call Tandy because I knew they screwed up again. They told me "whoops"
they had resent the whole order to my parents and that what my parent should
do is refuse the shipment and when they get it back THEN they will send it
to me.

So here we are Tuseday June 5th my credit card had been charged $132 on May
22nd, I had a sponge and my parents had wool daubers and I would have to
wait till the shipment reaches my parents, gets sent back, then gets shipped
to me before I see the rest of my order (would take at least 2 weeks).
When My husband got home and heard that, HE called them to "complain". And
HE got them to send out a new shipment to my house and a pick slip to my
parents house so that if UPS dropped off the package without waiting for a
signature (which is EXACTLY what DID happen), that they would have a way to
return it. So the new Shipment would be sent 3rd day UPS and would be in by
FRIDAY the 8TH....

Monday June 11th I called Tandy again I STILL HAVEN'T GOTTEN THE PACKAGE YET
AND THEY RECHARGED MY CREDIT CARD JUNE 6th for $104.25 and given me a credit
of $16.78!!!!! So now I had been charged twice for an order I placed almost
a month ago and still hadn't received.  They said that they had sent a
credit for the original $132 and would check to see why it hadn't shown up
on my card yet. And that the order SHOULD be here today. They also said that
they had in some more of the backordered items and would send them out 3 day
UPS as well.
  Later that day I FINALLY GOT MY ORDER 25 days after I had ordered it with
a thousand headaches, BUT IT GETS WORSE!!!!!
They had forgotten an item that was listed as shipped and charged to my card
and they substituted an item without letting me know-GEE THANKS...anyway...

On June 15th some of the back ordered items came in. One had a strap cutter
and an embossing wheel and the other had a sponge-they sent me another damn
sponge and I had only ordered ONE AND THEY CHARGED ME FOR THE EXPRESS
SHIPPING!!! THEY CHARGED ME $11.09 for a $0.39 SPONGE!!!! they charged me
for express shipping on both packages separately (even though the sponge
could have fit in the other package!!!!!) SO I look at the invoice on the
order that came in on Monday and they had charged me express shipping on
that too, DOUBLE THE AMOUNT it should have been!!! A total of
$38 in shipping charges that should have been $12 !!!They had charged my
card an additional $35.38 and STILL HAVEN'T CREDITED THE ORIGINAL $132 -NOW
I WAS PISSED because my credit card had now been charged $271.22 and
credited $16.78 for a $150.00 order!!!!!!

I tried to call Tandy but the customer service supervisor was "out to lunch"
(for the next 2 hours)

I called my credit card company who said that Tandy had not sent any credit
other than the $16.78, and the only way to keep them from charging the
account any more was to report the card LOST/STOLEN and get a new card
number, they could still send me a credit but they would be unable to charge
me anymore. BUT NOW I cant use my credit card till the new one comes 7-10
days and the balance is getting close to my limit because of charges that
shouldn't be there!!!

SO I called Tandy AGAIN  and they said "whoops you shouldn't have been
charged the shipping on any of those orders"
And "Gee I don't know why the credit wasn't processed" and "I don't know how
this could happen" and I basically demanded that she send a credit for all
of the money I had been overcharged immediately.

There are still 3 things that were on back order that I never received and
they don't know when they are coming in.

If they had JUST lost the first shipment and then fixed it, it would have
been ok
If they had JUST sent the shipment to the wrong address and then fixed it,
it would have been ok
If they had JUST overcharged my card and then fixed it, it would have been
ok
If they had JUST added the extra shipping charges and then fixed it, it
would have been ok

But all of them added together in one order is more than just a screw up-it
is unforgivable
Plus I left out a lot of asinine problems just dealing with the Customer
Service Department and their whole system.

Does anyone know place I can buy leather working tools?-*NOT TANDY*

Thanks for reading my rambling, I know it was long but I would hate to see
anyone else get this kind of treatment!

 Alicia Rose Wolf
(mka Eileen Michaels)

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