I feel the need to share my personal experience with the Owner of this company as his conduct is anything but professional
and he has an "extended area surcharge" statement on his site that authorizes him to add additional shipping costs to your order.
He is very evasive and defensive when confronted with this policy as my emails will prove. After further research online,
I found that this company has had shipping complaints! PLS READ MY EXPERIENCE!
I contacted Mr Alan Martinson (OWNER) @ "APW Distributing and Portable Power Equipment" via email
on Sunday May 19, 2013 @ 6:12AM PST regarding a shipping inquiry surrounding a potential purchase.
For the record, initially, I didn't realize he was the Owner.
He responded later on that evening. We had a back and forth conversation surrounding some shipping option
concerns I had and he was prompt and thorough with his replies.
For what ever reason, his thoroughness disappeared, his demeanor seemed to change altogether and he
evaded the topic of conversation surrounding a paragraph on his site that states "some areas may be charged
an Extended Area Surcharge. You will be contacted by a Representative if additional charges need to be collected."
I advised him that the purchase wouldn't be worth it for me if additional charges applied and I asked him to
check into that for me. I also asked how long it would take to arrive at my destination.
Mr Martinson's response to that email was, "I suspect 7-10 days." He didn't even acknowledge
the "extended area surcharge" concern.
My email response to Mr Martinson was to please check to ensure that my area doesn't fall under
the "extended area surcharge." I advised him again that it just wouldn't be worth it to pay any additional costs.
Mr Martinson's entire response was, "it will say in the check out."
My response @ 4:56PM PST was, "it flat out states that a Rep will contact you if additional shipping
charges need to be collected." In an attempt to diffuse the situation, I advised Alan that as long as I
could cancel the order (if these additional charges applied) that we could move forward with the purchase.
Mr Martinson simply vanished and did not reply to the above email.
Two and a half hours later, at 7:31PM PST, I sent another email to Mr Martinson that entailed question marks.
Again, no response from Mr Martinson.
The next morning, I awoke at 730AM EST (I live in the EST zone), so @ 8:01AM EST or 5:01AM PST, I contacted Mr Martinson with an email:
"Alan,
I'm not in the business of making trouble, but I certainly am in the business of protecting my better interest.
If you can't answer my questions, maybe you can forward me to a person who can. If I don't hear from you, I'll do so on my own accord.
Please get back to me with the answers to my questions and concerns. I have detected some evasiveness coming from
you throughout our entire conversation. Not to mention flat out disappearing in the midst of asking about this "extended
area surcharge." is that how you deal with all your customers? vanish and leave on that kind of note? Ok, fine, if it is a
Sunday and you are off, then I suppose I understand to some degree, but that being said, maybe you should have responded
to me during business hours or at least have the common courtesy to not leave me hanging like that. The line of communication
with you is like pulling teeth. I wonder how your Boss or the Owner would feel about this type of behavior?
Word of mouth travels faster than anything.
Please advise what you would like me to do."
Mr Martinson responded approximately 20 minutes later with, " I need to check with our shipping manager for an answer.'
One minute later, he followed up with another email stating, " Wont you allow me to sleep at night?"
He followed up a minute after that with, "I'm the Owner!"
I followed up with:
Sleep at night? Do most people in Oregon go to sleep at 5PM or maybe even 730PM?
Perhaps you should put away that chip on your shoulder and open up your line of communication to inform me
(the paying customer) of these things. I don't force you to do anything my friend, including the negative aspect.
You do that well enough on your own.
As previously stated, if you don't want to bring business home to bed with you and require a good night's sleep,
then feel free to contact me during business hours. I didn't tell you to return my email inquiry on a Sunday evening and
I am certainly not interested in your poor excuse.
Mr Martinson's response was simply, "I don't think we care for your business."
In a nutshell, I provided Mr Martinson with an email stating that we can address my concerns and fix the
issues at hand or that he can settle for my personal experience posted online so that others are made
aware of his shipping policy and personal conduct. I gave him an opportunity to address my concerns and clearly
stated how I felt about his conduct. He did not respond
Please note that I gave him a negative review on Yelp.com and he felt the need to have that review removed
via contacting them. He did not even attempt to contact me to fix this. He was more worried about his reputation.
This speaks volumes as to the type of person you are dealing with, so I took it upon myself to post the same review
here as I know he will have much more difficulty escaping the truth here. I have had some good results in the past with
this site, so I am hoping for similar results this time around!