UDC service problems

General
1

Newsgroups: rec.sport.unicycling
From: Serious Juggling <i...@SeriousJuggling.com>
Date: Fri, 6 Feb 2009 15:45:45 -0800 (PST)
Local: Fri, Feb 6 2009 3:45 pm
Subject: UDC service problems

Dear unicycle community,

We are going to share with you a bit of our recent experiences with
UDC in order to solicit other comments and to hopefully come to some
sort of resolution.

We tried to place an order online at UDC Friday January 30th, but
could not because rail adaptors were not back on their website. (We
actually tried to order the rail adaptors about a month before but Amy
had to refund our credit card after they had already charged for them
because UDC did not actually have them.) That same day in a call to
UDC we were told the rail adaptors were indeed now in stock and to
order by phone because the UDC server was acting oddly. We also
informed Amy that we have been getting bounce backs from UDC the last
2 orders. She has not cared to address this in any manner. We called
on Saturday and left a message for UDC to call us Monday but heard
back from no one.

On Monday we called UDC to order and were told we had to order by
computer. Late Monday evening we ordered online and had to make big
notes (because they often mess up) to add the rail adaptors as they
STILL were not up on the site. We had to order using a Windows 98
machine because our main computer is down (we told UDC of this, and
that email was not easy for us to read right now).

We ordered ground shipping and saw a shipping value of approximately
$30. The next day in our afternoon we were able to login into a web
based email server and saw a UPS Quantum view notification that said 2
DAY AIR. Our first thought was that UDC had shipped 2 day because not
unlike in the past, they felt bad about having delayed our shipment
several days. We called immediately to say it was not what we ordered
and never received a call back. We sent an email and never received an
email back. We tried to fax the fax number advertised on UDCs site and
found out the next day that it is only valid during UDC business
hours. We received a second set of emails because a human at UDC had
to enter our rail adaptors and use second day air. Amy was not in on
Monday yet she is astoundingly confident in her company’s lack of
responsibility for this issue. She would rather stick one of her
largest customers with a $200 shipping bill (a difference of
approximately $170).

We never have supplier orders ship by air. However in our experience
UDC has been VERY CASUAL TO SHIP AIR for cheap parts they have
forgotten in our orders even when we have insisted air is not
neccessary.

In our 15 years of business we have not dealt with any other company
that makes as many errors as UDC. It has actually become somewhat of a
joke here locally. Amy has told us that they have made so many errors
that they resort to writing the person responsible’s name in chalk on
the wall at UDC. Early on in our dealings with UDC we were part of a
group of people who received emails asking for our credit card number
that was a result of some sort of hack on UDC’s end. Sadly due to the
frustration and for our peace of mind we for some time now deal with
alternate and sometimes more direct sources for unicycle/bike parts.

We have tried to order a model of Kris Holm unicycle only to be told
that not many fit in the container because they were kicked out by
Nimbus (UDC house brand) products. The remaining KH unicycles were
being kept by UDC to be sold themselves. We have had people so
frustrated by UDC that they have gone to Canada and UK to order items.

We used to like dealing with Amy, but our opinion of her has slowly
degraded into one of overconfidence, arrogance and hypocrisy. She did
not care to hear about the situation and would not allow us to speak.
UDC has been soliciting feedback about their service. And we were
astounded by her statement of “bring it on.”

We have been selling unicycles in our retail store and online for 15
years now (long before UDC ever existed). This is a bit of an appeal
to people like Kris Holm, Florian Schlumpf and others to end their
monopoly distribution through UDC, or to our mutual friends to talk
some sense into Amy.

In our opinion a goal of 10 “million dollar companies” is also not a
very “christian” value. Especially when the one you currently have is
causing others harm.

Sincerely,
Ben Schoenberg
Serious Juggling


503-233-2577

2

Please work this out further with UDC before slamming them on this forum! It sounds like they are struggling with a few computers issues that are distracting them for the moment, but please spend a little time making your frustrations known to them and give them some time to respond.

Your accusation of “overconfidence, arrogance and hypocrisy” are fighting words.

Thanks,
Aaron

3

Seriously Lame Ben…

One vendor calling out another on a public forum.??
(And the “christian” comment is unwarranted and borderline racist.)

You are the same guys that had the beef with Jason Garfield, I don’t think you appreciated his calling you out for stealing his videos.

You are shooting yourself in the foot with posts like these.
I would never order anything from Serious Juggling based on your butt-hurt, angry posts.

I don’t care what UDC did or did not do. Work out your dirty laundry in private.

Lame.

4

We have tried to resolve the situation with Amy. Some mutual friends do not think Amy’s ego will allow her to correct this.

As for Jason Garfield, he WAS a friend to many people. The police were called on Jason for harrassment. And he tells half truths to deceive.

~Yvette
503-233-2577

5

Personal attacks have no place on this forum. You really are shooting yourself in the foot by making this personal.

-Aaron

6

Sorry you had a bad experience with them. In all reality, being a company that is pretty much the backbone of the unicycle community in regards to supplying parts, I can’t see the community or companies changing their dealings with UDC because of this.

Would you rather an unhappy customer of your company come on here and ranted about you to the community, or would you rather they took the time and had the patience to deal with you directly?

7

I always believe in speaking with an individual as directly as possible.
In this case the person is unwilling to hear much or deal with the problem.

We have spoken to Dan Heaton on the phone and he was in our store on Saturday. We spoke to Kris Holm for 2 hours Friday evening. We spoke to Nathan Hoover for almost an hour today. We have spoken to others as well.

All these individuals hope that Amy will do what is right to resolve this.

~Yvette
503-233-5777

8

If that’s the case, why the rant on here? Why the “personal attack” on a public forum?

OK, the problem you describe may not be being dealt by UDC in the most professional way, but This you posting this thread isn’t ecaxtly the most professional way of dealing with the problem either.

9

I care how other people treat my friends and non friends. I don’t shut a blind eye to things.

When “people” allow their ego, and emotions to override their normal judgment, and harm other small businesses, they make it personal.

~Yvette

10

I grew up catholic, and went to a catholic school. I don’t think that comment is unwarranted or racist. I grew up with very different beliefs about Jesus.
Even though I now call myself an atheist and seriously question many christians motives, I do believe that Jesus was a great philospher/leader for his day.

~Yvette

11

Wow…you are digging yourself in deeper Yvette.

Quit PM ing me, I do not want to “talk” about this. You put this in the public forum, you can talk about it publicly.

Two things about the internet:

  1. Posting a Rant like this only reflects badly on you, the poster.
  2. Never ever post your phone number like that…

You are in no position to judge who is acting “christian” and who is not.
You signed your first post as Ben, a known Jewish juggler. So yes…that sounded boder-line racist to me.

I never cared much for Garfield either, but now I am thinking he may have had a point.
You didn’t care for his “half-truths” being posted on the internet, you denied them but the damage had already been done. Now you are doing the same thing to UDC.

I am sure Dan and Kris appreciate being dragged into this.
Are you trying to burn ALL of your bridges?
I recommend you post this to Rec.Juggling and Anthony’s site…
That way EVERYONE can see how silly you are acting.

Oops…popcorn is ready.
Bye.

12

Ben may have grown up Jewish but he too considers himself atheist.
There is a website of “Jewish” jugglers but most people on that list were not asked to be placed on it. (done out of assumption) In fact several of the jugglers listed on it make jokes about it and prefer not to be on it.

UDC makes a public face of their christianity so anyone can call that into question. And many people we know do.

I chose to pm you to call me so that we could speak in person in a more reasonable manner. Sorry to see you prefer childish taunts.

As for listing our phone number it has been the publicly known store number for 15 years.

If this were a person who was getting mistreated by UDC I’m sure some of you would be reacting differently.

13

I’m not exactly big on religion, but I’d bet actions like you have taken by ranting about UDC, trying to sway people away from UDC, and “personal attacks” are frowned upon.

Loads of people have had bad experiences with mail order companies, they don’t whinge to the world and insult the offending person.

You have posted this on here, on the internet, and now your rant about UDC and their staff can be found on search engines, which isn’t exactly a professional thing to do. Justice would be to have the same done to your company, to have someone bad mouth your company and your staff on a public forum for potential customers and the world to see.

Come on, you started this in a public forum rather than sticking with trying to sort it with UDC. There is no need to go sending PM’s to users, the discussion is here. How on earth has Bondo shown the he “prefers childish taunts”? If anything, you are damaging UDC and your company with this childish and uncalled for rant.

And what on earth has christianity to do with anything here?

14

Fraggle,

I post with my real name. I invite anyone to speak to me by phone as it is a much more REAL and normal medium. I am incredibly honest as well.

Amy actually said “Bring it on” and we were jaw drop astounded by her lack of concern or caring. She barely let us speak to her and she was away when our shipment happened.

We are not trying to sway anyone away from UDC but just to provide alternatives or to talk some sense into Amy. Excuses are being made to end phone calls, or the call gets dropped with no return phone call. We are asking for help.

We are not perfect, and don’t claim to be. But I am an ex UPS driver I know all about shipping.

~Yvette
What choice has Amy left us?

15

Gay.

16

To “provide alternatives” would be to sway people from them.

We have only heard your side of this, no-one from UDC is here to defend UDC, so we only have your word to go on as to what went on. All people have done here is to point out that posting on a public forum isn’t the right way to go about dealing with the problem, and some have defended UDC in their absence on the matter.

Is it wrong of the community to point out that your rant about UDC being unprofessional is somewhat ironic?

At the end of the day, the way to deal with the problem is with UDC directly, not to post on here. It was your choice to post here, not Amy’s, any content of this thread that you don’t like is therefore down to you making the choice to post here.

17

It’s never a good thing when a dispute like this goes public. In a small community like ours, lots of people are friends with individuals on both sides of the issue, and the taking of sides can divide what had been a united community.

I met the Drummonds in 2003, and have seen them many times at uni events since then. Amy grew up in my home town in New Jersey. At California MUni Weekend, I spent a lot of time riding with Josh. They’re all good people, and they’ve done a lot to promote the spread of unicycling and make new technology available cheaply.

That being said, the UDC business runs embarrassingly badly. Other small bike-related shops manage to have online catalogs where items don’t disappear daily based on stocking levels; if an item is out of stock but expected back, you should still be able to see it and add it to your cart. UDC’s shipping charges seem very high, even for ground shipping on small items. And the frequency of major order errors is ridiculous. A friend of mine just had his unicycle ship without a seat, and with the wrong cranks. Another friend ordered a blue Nimbus and got a red one. I’ve seen a unicycle arrive from UDC with a wheel that had been laced but never tensioned or trued. I’m waiting for the day when I open my unicycle box and find a banjo.

Generally UDC is great about fixing problems, but I’d have to imagine that their business, and the unicycling community, would be much better off if they caused fewer problems in the first place.

So, I’m sad, but not surprised to see this thread. I hope it’s a silly misunderstanding and a conversation will clear it up. I wish Serious Juggling hadn’t brought it here. But I also hope it lights a fire under UDC to improve their quality.

18

Fraggle,

Provide alternatives to dealers. For our own peace of mind we have done that on our own when there is that option already.

We have been trying to deal with Amy. She was so angry/arrogant? she actually said “bring it on” when we spoke to her last.

Once again what choice do we have. Our phone calls are either not returned, delayed, or vanish into thin air.

Yes, Amy was nice. We have a lot in common, business wise. When we leave messages in December we also say take care get some sleep etc. I understand computer issues, our main computer is currently down. But the reality here is that UDC is the big fish and because they have a monopoly they feel they can do whatever to us.

We have over 40 unicycles set up in the store. I think that is unique in the US. It would be a shame to kill that.

~Yvette
503-233-2577

19

I for one appreciate you sharing your experience with us. UDC US has been getting cocky lately and I haven’t be a huge fan of how Amy is choosing to run the company.

UDC Canada knows where this sport is going and how to get there, they get my support.

20

not cool

Hey, I really don’t believe that it was kind or proper for you to post on this website in regards to the topic. I think that professionals should act professional at all times in public. When one doesn’t it drags down the stature of not only you but the rest of the profession (unicycling in this case), and makes it look like a childish and un-disciplined job. And if you can’t trust the stores then no one will buy from them

I don’t believe you posting only to point out some flaws and help her business, you plainly and boldly attacked her business and her personally. I don’t believe that this kind of behaviour should be posted on this website.

Finally you state a number of times that amy stated plainly “bring it on” however i would like to point out that without any context of the convorsation we can not get a clear picture of what she ment. You can not pick out one phrase and say that you can derive one meaning from it, rather in certain situations it will mean one thing and in others it might mean something completely different. Meaning is a personal thing, you take meaning of those words from your past experiences, amy may have expressed that with a completely different experience.

Also the whole christian thing, was out of line and mean. It was also discrimination, you were attacking her on the basis of her beliefs, doesn’t matter if you had or have the same beliefs your still attacking them.

Not cool
cheers
bry
p.s no i don’t want to phone you about this, nore get any PM
P.P.S Don’t bring Kris, dan or the others into this. it was your decision to post this! Don’t hide behind them!