California Bill
Sacramento,#2Consumer Comment
Fri, June 19, 2009
I just Googled "Internet Lumber" (EL) because I wanted to make a purchase. I was so appalled by Mr. B's report that I've taken the time to register so I speak up. I purchased 100 board feet of purple heart from EL 2-3 years ago, as well as 100 BF of hard rock maple. It cost me, altogether, around $1,800. It arrived as promised, was of exceptionally high quality, and was EXACTLY what I had ordered. True, talking to someone "live", wasn't the greatest of experiences and it is something they should work on, but that was decidedly NOT why I bought from them. I wanted the lowest price I could get while still retaining high quality. I got it in spades. Suggestion to Mr. B: My wife and I talked about this very thing the other day. She asked why is it so many of our friends have problems in transactions or services and yet we don't? It can be ANYTHING, be it HMO, hospital, DMV, or purchases on the internet. I told her it was simple: We NEVER are demanding because we plan far in advance, we're empathetic to any difficulties by the other party, we understand exactly what will happen and when, and we're always polite. Don't get me wrong, Mr. B. I was trained as an army interrogator and can get in someone's face with the best of them. It's just that I don't HAVE to. Also, I try to make them my best buds early on. My wife isn't so good at this but then she wasn't trained as an interrogator. (-: Bottom line to anyone reading Mr. B's complaint, don't buy into it. As Pogo once said: "I met the enemy and they is us."
Simon
Mocksville,#3REBUTTAL Owner of company
Thu, July 17, 2008
Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to respond to Mr. B's complaints relating to his purchase of 1x4 Tongue and grooved hardwood decking from us. First I want to apologize to Mr. B for the delays he experienced with his order, the order did take longer than our stated lead times (at the time of his order our stated lead times for custom milled decking products was 1-2 weeks plus transit time) I cannot comment as to the accuracy of his claim that he was committed a quicker lead time by one of our representatives, through numerous discussions of this matter in 2007 and reviews of internal emails, job scheduling requests, etc. we determined internally that this commitment never occurred, that said we did miss our stated shipping guidelines by 10 calendar weeks with the order shipping on 5/9/07 when it should have shipped between 4/23/07 and 4/30/07. As Mr B stated this was a custom milled product and we experienced unexpected delays with a key subcontractor that effected Mr B and approximately six other customers. We did communicate as accurately as we could the delays as information was made available to us. Since that time we have now brought all production of this product line in house, hopefully eliminating such delays in the future. At the time of delivery Mr B correctly noted that there were some damaged boards in the shipment and we made arrangements with our subcontractor to mill replacements for 15 boards worth of material. The replacement process was delayed by lack of raw material but the replacements were sent to Mr Bredesen along with his additional order of material and accepted by him. As to the claims of misrepresentation of sizes, all decking suppliers both online and brick and mortar stores purchase and resell decking based on dimension lumber standards which means that the material is sold by its nominal size, when you purchase a 2x4 from a hardware store it is 1-3/4" x 3-1/2" this nomenclature is industry standard and has been used for dimension lumber and decking trade in the United States for decades. The product Mr B purchased was a 1x4 T&G decking product, this material measures approximately 3-1/2" x 3/4" including the tongue on the board. I can say with 100% certainty that no representative of our company ever claimed it to be a full 1" by 4" material. I have noticed that Mr. B repeatedly in complaints here and elsewhere has referred to this product as a flooring product when in fact it is an exterior decking product, I believe much of his frustration and confusion relates to this fundamental misunderstanding of what he was purchasing. Since the product was categorized as decking, sold under a decking part number, from the decking section of our website I am not sure what more we could do to address this issue. Mr. B states that we undersold him the material that he needed to complete the job, this is inaccurate, we did not underestimate Mr B's order quantity, why would we? It is counterintuitive to reduce the value of the transaction and cause further problems for ourselves, the only possible result of such behavior. We provided Mr B with the specifications for the product and he did his calculations which were erroneous because they were based on his misunderstanding of industry standards for dimensional lumber sizing. As to the product quality concerns Mr B raises, we did in fact replace 15 boards which he claimed were totally unusable, we have to date received no physical samples to confirm that such mis-milling existed. We do not claim to be perfect and the tolerances for an exterior decking product are looser than for an interior flooring product by design, however, we routinely sell this material and have installed it ourselves for use at trade shows, etc. and have never received feedback that it was difficult to install. We estimate and clearly state that a waste allowance of 5-10% should be added to each order, since Mr B under estimated his order initially not only did he have too little material he had no waste allowance in the material he received. We repeatedly provided Mr. B with guidance on installation as he expressed his frustration and difficulty in installing the product. Unfortunately, by the time it had gotten to that point Mr B was noticeably frustrated with the delays and seemed unwilling to participate in such discussions with us. Finally as it relates to the communication issues Mr B refers to, I can only say that our staff at all times tried to provide Mr B with the most accurate information and feedback we were able to provide, we feel that we worked with Mr B in a calm and professional manner throughout his discussions with us. In summary 1) We were at fault in delivering the correct product later than expected 2) Mr B was at fault for underestimating material due to lack of information provided to us and his miscalculations based on misunderstanding of sizing and lack of a waste allowance in his calculations 3) Mr B received damaged material or material which he felt was unusable which we replaced in as timely a fashion as we were able to 4) Mr B has been frustrated with us since very early in the progress of the transaction, while we certainly understand this frustration we feel it would have been far more beneficial for both parties to have had a more constructive discourse in order to address his concerns and technical challenges with the installation. 5) As stated in the opening paragraph we apologize to Mr B for the delays in his project, if he is still in need of technical assistance I would hope that he would contact myself or Mr. Jerry Little our director of operations directly for further guidance with his installation. Thank you for posting my response, Simon Briggs Managing Director Internet-Lumber