I&I SPORTS - Bad experiences with them

[Avery]

Well, I finally settled on buying the PT Punisher semi pistol from I&I Sports a couple of weeks ago, then lo and behold, it went on sale for a great price, with a holster! YAY!

Rapidly, I grabbed my Mastercard and placed my order. A week or so later I got a barely readable email saying that they would not accept my order, they only take American Express from Canadian customers, (there was no mention of this clause in their "We accept Mastercard" section, and is a very odd policy).

Promptly, I replied asking if I could send a money order or check in American funds. No reply.

I then contacted my mother, who has an American Express, and obtained her permission to purchase it with her card, and refiled my order. A week later I got another email saying that they will not accept that order, because the cardholder's address and the shipping address did not match.

Did I mention that their ONLY contact number was a 1-800 number that they do not allow Canadians to call? So I sent another email out, pleading with them to contact me. No reply.

So I hunt down one of their retail stores and call them (at my cost) to discuss this. The fellow there then tries to put the order through for me. Only he tries to ship me a PT Enforcer, not a PT Punisher.

"What? What was that that you just said? Enforcer? I ordered a Punisher..." I said. "We don't carry those, we're going to release a new one called the 'Professional' soon," he said. "But... but... 32* already sells a PT Enforcer, and that's beside the point, I ordered a PUNISHER, not an Enforcer."

"Okay, well, I hope you like blue, that's what we have," he said. "I ordered black, not blue. I was told there was black." "I'll try to find you a chrome one, is that okay?" he asked, to which I agreed.

Then came the issue of the bill. $99 dollars? It said the PT Punisher and a free Ronin holster for $69. Not $99. "No, that's the deal for the Enforcer," he said. "No, I know for a fact, that was a Punisher. The add said 'PT Punisher', the marker said 'Punisher' on the side in the picture."

Sigh. No offense, but $&#^ you! They then updated their webpage to change the add to PT Enforcer (I have the old add in my cache, those jerks). To make a long story short, I would recommend that you _never_ deal with I&I Sports.


:mad:

[death]

yeah. i always look in the magazines, and you know how they say they have the lowest prices, well the next page had an advertisement for a tippman package that came with more than theirs, and it costed less. i choose not to order from them. BBT Paintball RULES!!!!!!!!!!:D :D

[joker]

First of all, I got a package from Paintballonline.com, and they were good, and I was wonderin', what magazine (and is it free?) Please either respond here, or pm me.

-TY

[DasBaldDog]

Well it seems to me there is some type of discrepency. I have ordered over $2000 worth of equipment (clothes, packs, pods, hoppers.....etc.) over 1 year and a half in prolly 6-10 orders and I have had NO problem.

So why don't you lay off the attitude that they are out to screw you?


So you had ONE bad expierence with them. I just checked the website and I found nothing in your story to be concurrent with the site. Sure they could have changed it, but I highly doubt they'd go through the trouble JUST to screw you over.

There is NO company on earth that doesn't want AS MUCH business as possible. I find the entire account VERY hard to swallow.

[paintballer56]

that sucks dude, i feel your pain

[Avery]

Hey, I'm not saying they went out of their way to screw me, I'm just sharing my experience with others, so that they may benefit from it (that's what PB Review is about right? by players for players?).

I don't feel that they went out of their way to screw me at all, I just think that they did absolutely nothing to help me or acknowledge an obligation to do so. Perhaps you have had good experiences with them because you are American. If I was American I would have gotten the order on the first try (Although they likely would have sent me the BLUE pistol instead of the BLACK one, (just check Semi-Auto Sidearm Enthusiats Forums to see that happen to many people who went through that when dealing with I&I).

Perhaps they would actually email you back, or call you when they found out their toll-free line was inaccessible because you Do spend thousands of dollars, where as my $75 wasn't important enough for them to reply to my emails or attempts to call them.

I spoke with the webmaster of WARPIGS about this, and he was also surprised after his many satisfactory dealings with I&I. In fact, the fellow expressed sadness at my poor experience and offered to forward my message to the president of I&I, because that sort of behavior is uncommon for them (at least for Americans who spend money there regularly). You will note, however, that there are a lot of Canadians that cruise PB Review, and if nothing else I hope they can read of my experience, and not bother ordering unless they 1) Use American Express (not mentioned on their site) 2) Are mailing it to the same address as the Credit Card (not mentioned anywhere I could find, including Payment FAQ) 3) Wait weeks to find out your order didn't work for some reason 4) Be unable to call them by phone or get email replies 5) End up with either the wrong marker altogether because the sold out of the ones you originally ordered, or get the wrong color one.

[DasBaldDog]

Fair enough.

[Avery]

Well, the guys at WARPIG certainly are fantastic. When one of their guys heard about what happened, he sent an email to a person at I&I. I never did get replies to my emails, but when WARPIG sent a message I&I took action. I got an apologetic email today which explains a bit of what happened. Perhaps I&I isn't so bad if you are lucky enough to be either very important, or to be in contact with one of their senior people.

I'm not including the name of the guy that sent me the message, nor am I including the email address.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Dear Sir,
>
> I received this email from WARPIG, and was compelled to email you to see >if there was something I could do on behalf of my company to make things >right!
> I really apologize for the run-around you were given, in fact, I've already
> addressed some of the problems you mention in your email regarding
> international orders. I am aware of a 2-3 day period in November where
> there was a mistake on the website regarding the $69.95 special on the >PT Enforcer... I believe you're correct, the photo & description of the
> Punisher was shown... My website department goofed! I wasn't able to >look up your account, since I only have your email address, but I'd like to at
> least offer you a refund for the $30.00 difference between the two gun
> packages. We really appreciate long-time customers like yourself, and I
> would be very disappointed to lose your business after such a long time...
> Please let me know if there's anything else I can do to help mend our
> relationship.

[Paint Bulley]

see that right there is how you tell a good store. they said you were right, they gave you a re- imbursement (sp?) of $30 and said they hoped to keep you as a customer.

Now if they were a bad company they would of said screw him we got his $99, let him take his business elsewhere. that there shows you they are good.

[DasBaldDog]

Glad you are happy now.

[Avery]

Yes and no, I'd have to say. I didn't actually order anything in the end, so I'm not getting any real discount because I didn't buy anything. The fact that he emailed me is great, the fact that I got screwed around so bad in the first place makes me hesitate to say it's a good company though. I mean, if I hadn't emailed WARPIG I would never have gotten a reply. Should it have to come to that? You decide.

:confused:

[DasBaldDog]

You should do whatever it takes to obtain satisfaction from the companies. As a business, they expect your trust and you deserve they're time for giving it to them.

[Omega6_Virus]

Plus I&I is waaaaay over priced.

[Sid]

Originally posted by Avery
Yes and no, I'd have to say. I didn't actually order anything in the end, so I'm not getting any real discount because I didn't buy anything. The fact that he emailed me is great, the fact that I got screwed around so bad in the first place makes me hesitate to say it's a good company though. I mean, if I hadn't emailed WARPIG I would never have gotten a reply. Should it have to come to that? You decide.

:confused:

I just read this whole thread and I must say that is sad to hear. At least you did get some sort of resolution in the end. I find it amazing that so many companies don't ship to Canada (totally unrelated... but may also prove interesting). I can definitely sympathize as I am also Canadian... cruise over to the Canadian forums... there are some really great Canadian stores out there that I and many others can recommend. Yeah, I know the Punisher is exclusive to I&I.. but the professional is good too.

Good luck in the future.