Complaint Review: Ogden Chrome - Ogden Utah

I just wanted to share my 2011 experience with having my '67 Plymouth's front bumper rechromed by Ogden Chrome.I was simply stunned at how good the results were. My core was rusty, bent & twisted, I mean UGLY. I was expecting clean driver quality at best and it came back absolutely perfect show quality. Straightening was no small feat as there were several factory compound curves to deal with in the bent areas. The whole process was ridiculously easy too, I just filled out their online quote form with a few pix of my ratty core, they called, discussed the job & gave me a quote. The cool thing is that you just wrap up the bumper & they arrange the shipping. Pricing was very reasonable  including shipping both ways. Definitely top notch service.  Getting ready to send them more work from one of my other cars, they are good. Bottom line is they have many, many elated customers, ao your problem seems to be unusual, and I'm sure there is plenty more to the story than just your side of it.

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I am  always happy to hear when things go well for someone. Unfortunatly not so well for me. The pictures tell my story.

I sent my front and rear bumpers for a 56 Buick to Ogden Chrome.  Both bumpers were significantly modified. Ogden Chrome informed me that I would not be pleased with my the rear bumper due to the complexity of the customization and it would not chrome well.   They did not want me to waste my money.

I asked two local chromers about the ability to chrome the bumper and they both told me the same thing.  By the way I just got my front bumper back from Ogden Chrome in about 5 weeks.  They called before they shipped it and asked that I contact them if I had any problems.

I could not be more pleased with the excellent job they did.  I would highly recommend them

Just to make it clear. Their BBB rating at the time of this incident was "F". Obviously they made some arangement to bring the rating up after I brought this to light.



Secondly, I can't speak for the other 99% of their customers. I can only tell you what I got, and that was screwed. And if anyone else wants to take the risk with their money and rare car parts, PLEASE be my guest.



As far as me "stop whinning", That will never happen.



So, you just go ahead and continue to make excuses for them.



And, you just go ahead and continue to do business with them.



I wish you the best. I hope you never have to deal with what I did.



BUT! When it happens to you, don't say you were not warned.

I'm an out of state customer and was extremely pleased with the work of ogden chrome .i looked at your pictures and also looked at the web site which you lied and said the company received an "f".it was a "c+".also the item you had looked extremely intricate which would have been difficult for ANY chroming company.quit whining and read the other 99%. Of the satisfied customers.

Just use some aluminum foil and save your money.

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This response from Ogden Chrome is the biggest crock of BS yet to date and is proof of the lengths that they will go to spew their lies.

Acted in good faith? HUH? They never contacted me once to inform me of any such problems or given me the opportunity to stop. Nor did they advise me not to go forward with the work.  Let me get this straight, they paid to ship my parts to them and then they tried to steer me away from doing the work? Yeah right!  The only contact I had with them was when I called them and it seemed like nobody knew what was going on. All I heard was were working on it.

By their own admission the parts were not in bad shape to begin with but were returned a mess.

If they would have given me the options they claim and were as sympathetic and professional as they claim in their response I would not be so pissed off. If I had any inclination that the parts would be anything but perfect I would not have done the work at all.

Their website claims they specialize in pot metal. I would assume that they could deal with a little bit of pitting. I would also assume that the exorbitant price that I was charged would have accounted for this.

So how do they explain the bubbles and countless sanding scratches? What about the areas where the plating is so thin it looks yellow? What excuse for this besides just piss poor workmanship?

Perhaps some of the scratches can be attributed to the ridicules manor that they were packed for return. Everything loosely tossed in a single box with a couple pieces of bubble wrap.

I could go on and on, but I will tell anyone considering using Ogden Chrome for their project that all I got was screwed. Just look at the pictures posted here. You can decide for yourself. Do you want to go through the hell that I did? Is this what you want your chrome to look like?

To Whom It May Concern,

We have let this customer bash us for too long. We believe that we have acted in good faith in our dealings with this customer and kept him apprised of the processes and risks involved with him on numerous occasions. We are very understanding when we are dealing with classic and sometimes irreplaceable parts, and we have not been in business for over fifty years by ripping people off.   

We were first contacted by this customer at a trade show in Reno, Nevada where he asked one of our employees to give him an estimate on chrome plating a few parts for him.  At this time he was given an estimate by our employee & was informed that the price wouldnt be completely accurate until the parts were at our facility and inspected.  A few months later, this customer emailed our Specialty parts Manager, Charlie Thornblad, to get more information and to get the job sent in.  At this time, Charlie informed this customer that the original pricing estimate seemed a little low and that he wouldnt be able to give an exact price until the parts were here and inspected.

On February 9th, 2011 the customers parts arrived at our facility and were un-packaged and inspected.  After inspection of the parts we called this customer in order to determine his expectations and to inform him of what the costs to plate his parts would be.  During this time, Charlie informed this customer of all of the risks involved with re-plating pot metal, as is our practice with every job for every customer that has pot metal to be worked.  We even tried to steer this customer away from doing his job as the outside appearance of his parts were not that bad and the risks involved were not worth re-working these parts.  This customer was given ample warning of the risks involved and still elected to proceed with the work.  After agreeing to have the work done, a deposit of 50% was collected to get the work started, another policy we have in place.

After the parts had been stripped down to the substrate it was discovered that this customers parts were in much worse shape than could be originally determined prior to stripping.  The metal was very badly contaminated and pitted. Also a 1 diameter hole was located inside the main center portion of the grille in an area that would be very difficult to perfectly re-shape. This customer was informed of this and elected to have us try and fix the hole rather than holding off and finding another piece to plate as suggested. After working the part, contamination was also discovered which was causing the plating to bubble each time it was ran.  The customer was contacted several times about the challenges we were facing with his parts and given the following options:  stop the work, find a different piece, send the part back for his personal inspection, or cancel the job on that piece so as to not incur further charges.  At no time did he ever tell us to stop working on the parts and refund what money we could.  His only response to our warnings was, just do the best you can.  The parts were re-run multiple times during the 3 months we had them, but they continued to come out less than satisfactory.  On May 13th, 2011 the customer was contacted and informed that based on the substrate and makeup of the material of his parts, they had fallen into a small percentage of pot-metal that just could not be restored to a high standard and that if we continued to work them it would keep getting worse. Since the customer was informed of the problems & agreed to continue to work his parts, regardless of the many attempts by Ogden Chrome to convince him otherwise, final payment was collected and the customers parts were sent back to him.

On May 18th, 2011 the customer called our office to speak with Charlie. He was upset about the outcome of his parts and stated that he wanted a refund.  Charlie explained to him that more work was performed than had been originally quoted on his parts. Charlie also reminded him that we were in constant contact with him about this and that we couldnt refund his money due to the fact that he requested that we continue work on the piece. Charlie then reminded the customer that he was warned beforehand that this could happen. It is very rare, but it does happen.  The customer acknowledged that Charlie had explained this to him, and that we were in contact with him the entire time, but still wanted his money back. The customer demanded to speak with someone else, so Charlie passed the call onto Steve Wilmot, our Business Development Manager.  Speaking with Steve, the customer claimed that he was never informed of the risks involved, even after acknowledging with Charlie that he had been, and that he wanted his money back.  When Steve informed the customer again that he couldnt give him his money back in this situation because he was informed of the risks beforehand and during, the customer proceeded to tell Steve that he knew a lot of influential people and threatened Steve to refund his money.

Ogden Chrome is very understanding and sensitive to the fact that this customer is upset. We understand why he is, and how frustrating it is for him. The fact, however, is that he is not the only party to lose out in this situation.  We have invested more time and material in these parts than for which we received payment. This customer was warned by Ogden Chrome before, during, and after the entire chroming process of the risks involved. Ogden Chrome acted in a professional matter with this customer and performed the work as discussed and agreed upon. The customer chose not to take heed to our warnings about the risks involved before, the problems that happened during, and the end result after working the parts. As a result, we all have been thrust into this situation. In summary, though we still feel that our customers word on our quality is a very important and influential part of our business, we are not out to rip off anyone at anytime. We would have even been inclined to try and work the matter out with this particular customer in a way that would have resulted in a much better outcome, but he insisted on ignoring our warnings, even though we have been in business for over fifty years and are the experts in the matter. If the advice and cautions that are given by us to our customers are disregarded and fall on deaf ears then what are they worth?

We appreciate those of you who have taken the time to read our side in this matter and encourage you to make your own decision on what type of company Ogden Chrome is. This will be the only rebuttal we post.

Respectfully,

Ogden Chrome & Bumper, Inc.

Now that the dust has settled it's time for my summary. After Ogdon Chrome refused to do anything about the terrible job they did on my chrome I did contact the credit card company to stop payment on the charge.

It is not an easy job. You have to submit the paperwork with proof of your claim. In this case they wanted a letter from a third party, another chrome shop or body shop who has inspected the work and make a report. As you may guess, nobody  wants to get involved. However it was a good oppotunity to show all the body shops what a crappy job these jerks are doing.

I did find a shop that was willing to do it. I submitted the letter with the same pictures that are posted here. I used two different credit cards, one for the down payment and another for the final payment. So it was twice the work.

Both banks agreed that I got ripped off and reversed the charges.

I believe that Ogdon Chrome is counting on out of town customers so they can get paid for their lousy chrome, site unseen. Thats why they come and go at the local car shows and events. They feed you alot of bs and hype about "show chrome", you ship them the parts and you get back garbage after you have paid in full. Free shipping bla bla bla.

It doesn't do any good to complain either. They just ridicule you, talk trash and spew more lies.

And they are quite good at it. I can tell you that I wasn't their first unhappy customer. They spoke to me like it was  a common practice. Talking to these jerks to try  and resolve a problem is useless. They have your money, they shipped your parts and they are done. It doesn't matter that you got screwed. I sent the management pictures of their crap work. They agreed it was crap. All they had was lame excuses and more bs.

I am glad to be done with them. My advice to anyone else is to stay away. They are nothing more than a RIPP-OFF.

disputing the charges with the cc company.

Thats one CRAPPY job!