Horrible Experience with MP3car support

**Tidder** · 04-01-2009, 02:12 PM

Omg, now that is some bad a$$ customer service.

**hari-bhari** · 04-01-2009, 02:27 PM

Originally Posted by Fiberoptic

I would like to first of all say that we go out of our way to help customers with needs. All of our e-mail is tracked by a very accurate CRM system to help us work with the volume of customers who write to us. We retain all messages from all customers for several years.

I have gmail that also allows me to track and save my email for several years. Big whoop. Does not make a difference if nobody reads them or bothers to respond. If you want, I will post every single email I have sent you guys regarding this issue as well as every single email I have received back. The forum members can then see what the turnaround time was for each message, and the number of occasions where I received no response at all. Would you all like some proof that I am not making this up?

The customer first bought from us 756 days ago and bought a p1290. 37 days later we allowed him a no cost exchange this for a p2140. His p2140 order was placed 714 days ago.

No cost exchange? I PAID the difference in price, and the 1290 had not even been opened or used. It was in 100% resaleable condition.

~630 days after the free p2140 exchange the customer destroyed their unit by overloading his DYLON. Even though this was out of warranty and it was damaged by the customer two of our engineers repaired his unit at our cost and we even paid for the return shipping. Engineering and manual component replacement takes time. There is no way around it.

Destroyed the unit?? Like I said, the unit was FULLY functional except the DLYON, a problem which could have been circumvented by triggering my amp with the ignition wire. So please don't claim it was a totally dead/useless unit that you miraculously brought back to life. Also, as if 30-45 day turnaround time is not absurd enough (what other company takes so long to send back a repair, not Xenarc or LinITX!), this one took in excess of 60 days. The time delay was not due to the complexity of the issue (it was a single transistor that was replaced), but rather the understaffing for Carnetix products (one employee - Goce, who then had to contact the original company owner/tech for additional help).

The unfortunate misunderstanding occurred with the return address. We seem to have gotten every other e-mail from this customer and mysteriously the last minute after the fact address change e-mail doesn’t show up.

It should also be noted that in previous communications the new return address was never noted by the customer before he sent us the unit.

Neither one of us know what happened to this last minute plea for a change of address, but none the less the customer waits 15 days to contact us a second time.

As far as a 4 day turnaround time on this e-mail, the customer sent an e-mail Friday at ~5.30pm. We replied 2 business days later on Tuesday after we had time to research the issue.

We did not tell the customer to ****** himself. We politely asked if he could contact the person who signed for his package at the old address and kindly ask them to forward it along. He refused to do that and decided to post this thread and tell us he was filling a complaint.

I think that someone should have had the presence of mind to request a current address before shipment, or make a spot on the RMA form. Don't blame that on me.

Given that we went out of our way to repair the unit out of warranty at no cost that the customer destroyed we would have appreciated some cooperation in contacting his old address, a little bit more gratitude and a little less hostility.

Again and again, I have stated that I never requested a freebie. I KNOW my product was out of warranty and I offered to pay for the repair. Just because a product is out of warranty does not render it irreparable, it just means the repair won't be free (are you expected to throw away your a 2 year old refrigerator because of a damaged coil since it's now out of warranty? No!). Any reasonable company has more than one repairmen or technician to service such a large customer base. And if I ever get my 2140 back, I will PAY YOU for your time to repair it, I am not some cheap ********. Anyone reading this thread can see that I was extremely polite and patient until my last email. But just like every other thread in this forum, MP3Car wants to blame it on the customer as if the whole thing is my fault and you all bear none of the blame.

It seems like the only way to get a response from Mp3car was to file a publicly viewable complaint, because in all the email exchanges I had with them, I never got this kind of answer. So now you all know what to do. I think all the facts have been stated here and I have been totally open and honest with the issue. People who read this thread can make a decision for themselves now, I have nothing more to add.

Oh and lest I seem ungrateful - THANK YOU for finally resolving this issue and having my product shipped to me. I'm sorry it had to be done this way, for both of our sakes, however I am happy that this is resolved.

**TruckinMP3** · 04-01-2009, 02:46 PM

Originally Posted by hari-bhari

SNIP
I think all the facts have been stated here and I have been totally open and honest with the issue. People who read this thread can make a decision for themselves now, I have nothing more to add.

Note: I do not work for the store but have been a member for 'awhile'.

It is clear this person was not happy with the results of doing business with the store.... It does seem that the store did work to come up with a solution.

Being two sides to the story and all that, I will not hesitate to do business with the store in the future.

Cheers

**Enforcer** · 04-01-2009, 02:46 PM

What stopped you, Hari, from contacting the people at your old address to see if they had the package and could ship it to you?

Surely it would have been a lot easier for you to do that than FiberOptic?

If it had been me that would have been the first thing I would have done.

**pat_vrs** · 04-01-2009, 03:19 PM

Originally Posted by avengerki

If you were already used to slow email response. I would have sent the email. And also called them. Probably even faxed them since if they had the wrong address you have a very short period of time to get ahold of them to correct.

fax ?.. hey.. we are talking about car pc..
fax should be dead

maybe you could consider adding a fax to your car pc project ? loll

**HiJackZX1** · 04-01-2009, 04:16 PM

See that was nice.... they even contacted the old unit to get the package sent out to your new address. That is good customer service. I guess as with anyplace, you can have major issues. I buy my screens from Ebay from a seller that has a good rep and was refereed to me. The first screen was perfect, but screens 2 and 3 had dead pixels. Getting in contact took a bit, and I had to go through ebay to get their phone info. I then talked to them on the phone and they replaced both screens, but one of the new screens came back with another dead pixel. I then contacted them and they had that screen picked up and sent a new one. I am now happy and ordered a 4th awhile back, and he actually tested it for me before sending it out.

In all this world isn't perfect, $h!+ happens and there is nothing that can be done. This issue has obviously been resolved with MP3Car going way out and beyond what they should have to help hari-bhari.

**Heather** · 04-01-2009, 04:32 PM

I have been lurking here for a bit and would like to just set the record straight, as mp3Car staff, myself included, work very hard every day to provide good service and I am not going to let hari-bhari write that we do otherwise. Furthermore, this thread is sending the wrong message to the customers that support these forums.

For all of you reading this thread wondering if you should buy from mp3Car or not - I hope this helps.

We do have excellent customer service:
We ship thousands of packages all over the world, with excellent customer service. Weekly, we go above and beyond to ensure that our customers receive their purchase on time or even ahead of schedule so that they can do their computer build over the weekend, use our products for business purposes or even, purchase some items duty free while stopping in the US for just a few days. Some days, i sit by the computer after hours, just to get an order in that i then take to a UPS drop box, so the customer can get his product. What other company does this for you?

We go above and Beyond to support customers:
We are a small company of devoted employees who work hours of unpaid overtime, because we are motivated by our customers and the incredible work of the forum members.

This specific customer has received well over 5 hours of support time because mp3Car tried to go above and beyond to meet his needs in terms of:
1. replacing one unit (which we no longer sell)
2. going to great length to fix a P2140 that he himself destroyed.
We could have said, sorry customer, but you are out of warranty, but we did not.

We support customers when they are in the right:
Two mp3Car employees have actually taken the time to look for the email informing of the address change and have not found it anywhere - this is the first miss ship in over one year at mp3Car. Whenever we are in the wrong, we fix the problem. In the case of hari-bhari - we decided after looking over the events that there was not enough initiative on the part of the customer to justify sending a free unit.

hari-bhari - I am sorry for your misfortune, but I think after an hour of Fiberoptic's time today to find your previous home and forward your package on our cost, you would agree that we have gone above and beyond. And frankly, you are only doing the forum a dis-service, the fewer customers that we have the smaller budget mp3Car has to use to pay to develop/maintain the forums.

**malcom2073** · 04-01-2009, 06:24 PM

*edited out due to irrelevancy*

**quantum** · 04-01-2009, 11:34 PM

I've seen this movie before...

Irate customer posts thread on forum about customer service. Documentation gets entered into evidence, people come out in defense of both sides. Problem gets resolved 99% of the time, world keeps spinning until the next issue. Thread lives on forever.

Were mistakes made on both sides, breakdowns in communications committed, etc? Sure, no doubt. But this is common in all cases where something goes wrong and one party feels slighted or neglected.

The twist in the plots on this forum and with this store is many times the president of the company or a staff member actually pops on and makes a comment, correction, explaination, etc. How many other companies do or have done that? Also, in this case, it appears that over half the staff was working with the customer in some way.

As an aside, I personally have never had a bad experience with the mp3car store. But, things can and certainly do happen in any business transaction. A merchant should get a bonus point or two if they put forth a genuine effort to resolve the issue. I have had bad experiences with merchants too, we all have. But I find it real hard to chew them a new ******* if they are working with me and treating my issue as a priority. Admittedly, on more than one occassion a customer service rep needed a nibble or two to get to that stage.

Case in point - the store went one step further to locate / contact the wrong recipient, and request a UPS pick up so the item can be returned to its rightful owner. Can you imagine that phone call? "Hi, you don't know me, but you got a package we sent out, and I was wondering..." I do things like that at my own company, which contributes greatly to its success. People think it's overkill, but I think its just good customer service and good business.

This story, like most of the others, now has a happy ending. The customer will get a 100% refurbed product at no chargea and get his system back up and running, the store goes back to the needs of the many, and all is right in the world.

Glad to see it worked out for all!

Stay tuned for the next issue at some point down the road.

**Startingline13** · 04-02-2009, 09:02 AM

Hari, welcome to my world. I wrote two posts about this as well because it takes weeks to get a response from both Carnetix and Mp3car.

I only get a response after I write poor reviews on the forums as well. Look at my other posts. I need to wait at least a week between e-mail responses, and half the time their response has nothing to do with what I was writing about.