No Gobi Rack - 11 Weeks After Ordering
Posting here since I'm still new enough and lurk so much that my thread count is too low to meet the quota for posting new threads. That said, I think this deserves its own thread. Maybe a mod will upgrade it?
I ordered a Gobi Stealth rack through Trail Duty on September 28, 2015. From research here I knew it would take a while to get the rack, so I was patient.
One month turned into two months turned into 11 weeks and I called Trail Duty on Thursday afternoon last week to ask for an update. The rep seemed surprised I hadn't gotten my rack yet and said he would need to call Gobi and that it often took a little while to hear back from them, but that he'd call me back later that afternoon with an update. No call back on Thursday.
I called Trail Duty again on Friday. Same story. They'll have to call Gobi. Sometimes it takes a few hours. Was *assured* that I would get a call back that day. No call back on Friday. Or Saturday. Didn't expect one on Sunday.
I waited until after lunch today, then attempted another call to Trail Duty. Voicemail. Told their machine that given the situation I would prefer to get a refund. Left a call back number.
Waited a few minutes and decided to try Gobi directly. A rep answered the phone on the second ring. Took my name and order number. Said she'd have to look around, but would call me back. I chuckled, figuring more of the same, but gave her my number. Did *not* expect to hear back from them.
She called me within five minutes. She apologized. Said that Gobi had lost my order, but *hey presto* a group of racks was going to be shipped out this afternoon and that *good news!* my rack was among them.
I chuckled again. I don't have a heap of street smarts, but I have doubts that my lost order was found in time for their most recent production run. Most likely they were taking a rack that somebody else was waiting on and planning to send it to me rather than to the person who ordered it. Kudos on them for trying to help me out, but not at the expense of someone else's order.
Might have been dumb of me, but I decided to cancel the order. The Gobi rep said she'd need to check and see if Gobi could do that or if I'd need to work with Trail Duty.
While I was waiting for her to call me back, I called Trail Duty and got through. Explained that I had tired of waiting on them to call me, that I'd gotten in touch with Gobi, and asked if I could cancel my order and get a full refund.
Trail Duty's rep apologized. Said that Gobi had never called them back on Friday. He also said that I could and *would* get a full refund. He said he'd need to get in touch with Gobi to confirm, though. I asked him to call me back to verify. He said he would. That was about a half an hour ago, so my guess is that I won't hear back from Trail Duty.
Gobi rang back about a minute later. Their rep informed me that I'd have to work with Trail Duty since Gobi only handles production. I told her that she should be hearing from Trail Duty about my order. She apologized and said that she and Gobi hoped that I'd order from them again. Third chuckle for the day from me - I'm not inclined to beg someone to take $1,500 of my money after they messed up their first opportunity to get it.
Not much to rant about here (I'm not good at ranting anyway). It appears that Gobi tried to help me out and it looks like Trail Duty is going to do the right thing, so no really rancid customer service issues beyond Gobi losing my order and Trail Duty's failure to call back Friday after promising to. I know Gobi's reputation runs the full spectrum on the board here, so there's more ammunition for those who don't like / do like Gobi.
That said, and given the price of these racks, if I were a business owner selling Gobi I think I'd work on a tracking system that flagged unfilled orders so I'd at least have an idea if problems were developing.
Perhaps worst of all, I'm left without a roof rack. Will *not* be ordering another Gobi for obvious reasons. So I'll go back into research mode and see if I can find a rack that will do what I wanted the Gobi to do. Sucks, because I really wanted to get a Gobi and my garage crew is coming in for Christmas break from their colleges. With no rack for them to help me install, they'll have nothing to do but use up most of my wireless bandwidth, eat my food, and sleep in every day.
Posting here since I'm still new enough and lurk so much that my thread count is too low to meet the quota for posting new threads. That said, I think this deserves its own thread. Maybe a mod will upgrade it?
I ordered a Gobi Stealth rack through Trail Duty on September 28, 2015. From research here I knew it would take a while to get the rack, so I was patient.
One month turned into two months turned into 11 weeks and I called Trail Duty on Thursday afternoon last week to ask for an update. The rep seemed surprised I hadn't gotten my rack yet and said he would need to call Gobi and that it often took a little while to hear back from them, but that he'd call me back later that afternoon with an update. No call back on Thursday.
I called Trail Duty again on Friday. Same story. They'll have to call Gobi. Sometimes it takes a few hours. Was *assured* that I would get a call back that day. No call back on Friday. Or Saturday. Didn't expect one on Sunday.
I waited until after lunch today, then attempted another call to Trail Duty. Voicemail. Told their machine that given the situation I would prefer to get a refund. Left a call back number.
Waited a few minutes and decided to try Gobi directly. A rep answered the phone on the second ring. Took my name and order number. Said she'd have to look around, but would call me back. I chuckled, figuring more of the same, but gave her my number. Did *not* expect to hear back from them.
She called me within five minutes. She apologized. Said that Gobi had lost my order, but *hey presto* a group of racks was going to be shipped out this afternoon and that *good news!* my rack was among them.
I chuckled again. I don't have a heap of street smarts, but I have doubts that my lost order was found in time for their most recent production run. Most likely they were taking a rack that somebody else was waiting on and planning to send it to me rather than to the person who ordered it. Kudos on them for trying to help me out, but not at the expense of someone else's order.
Might have been dumb of me, but I decided to cancel the order. The Gobi rep said she'd need to check and see if Gobi could do that or if I'd need to work with Trail Duty.
While I was waiting for her to call me back, I called Trail Duty and got through. Explained that I had tired of waiting on them to call me, that I'd gotten in touch with Gobi, and asked if I could cancel my order and get a full refund.
Trail Duty's rep apologized. Said that Gobi had never called them back on Friday. He also said that I could and *would* get a full refund. He said he'd need to get in touch with Gobi to confirm, though. I asked him to call me back to verify. He said he would. That was about a half an hour ago, so my guess is that I won't hear back from Trail Duty.
Gobi rang back about a minute later. Their rep informed me that I'd have to work with Trail Duty since Gobi only handles production. I told her that she should be hearing from Trail Duty about my order. She apologized and said that she and Gobi hoped that I'd order from them again. Third chuckle for the day from me - I'm not inclined to beg someone to take $1,500 of my money after they messed up their first opportunity to get it.
Not much to rant about here (I'm not good at ranting anyway). It appears that Gobi tried to help me out and it looks like Trail Duty is going to do the right thing, so no really rancid customer service issues beyond Gobi losing my order and Trail Duty's failure to call back Friday after promising to. I know Gobi's reputation runs the full spectrum on the board here, so there's more ammunition for those who don't like / do like Gobi.
That said, and given the price of these racks, if I were a business owner selling Gobi I think I'd work on a tracking system that flagged unfilled orders so I'd at least have an idea if problems were developing.
Perhaps worst of all, I'm left without a roof rack. Will *not* be ordering another Gobi for obvious reasons. So I'll go back into research mode and see if I can find a rack that will do what I wanted the Gobi to do. Sucks, because I really wanted to get a Gobi and my garage crew is coming in for Christmas break from their colleges. With no rack for them to help me install, they'll have nothing to do but use up most of my wireless bandwidth, eat my food, and sleep in every day.
But aside from all the cry baby stuff I'm doing right now, When the rack arrived i was impressed! its a quality rack, just be prepared to wait, and stay persistent on Trail Duty if you order from them.
