Boarders Mall

Has any one had a problem with boarders mall? My roommate was trying to buy a board for her boyfriend's birthday through them and they charged her card and 4 days later tell her they dont carry that board any more and are giving her crap about the refund. I think its a bunch of crap that a company will charge someones card and then give them problems with the refund. Now my roomie is stuck in a hardplace she was trying to get her boyfriend the board by this friday for his birthday but I think she is going to be out of luck. Just wanted to give people a heads up Wathc ur self if ur buying from boarders mall

boarders mall is great ,im sure someone will be on here to take care of it real fast.

She talk to some one yesterday and said all she had was problems. I have never had a problem my self with them but when stuff like this happens I have to second guess buying from them.

(Message edited by gwperry2 on June 16, 2009)

I doubt they are charging her, keeping the money, and not deliverying the board. More to the story maybe?

can we create a section on here for company rants that are attempting to draw attention from someone with said place.

I am not saying she wont get her refund back I am saying its kind of jacked to get charged then 3 or 4 days later get an email that says hay sorry we dont carry that board. Then the person being charged goes back to the web site and its still on there web site stating they have it in stock.

support@boardersmall.com

Boarder's Mall is definitely the sharpest tack in the drawer when it comes to customer service. I've never come across a company that flat out will not answer their phone. Even if you select sales from their phone tree message they will not answer the phone! What company would not answer the phone when people are calling your SALES line?

I recently had a few transactions with them. I debated whether or not I would share my experience with BM on the message boards, but it really seems that they have some issues that need to be addressed. My intent isn’t to bash them, but more so to get their attention in hopes that they will make some changes to how they operate. For example, when people come on here and bring up an issue with Supra, Rick Tinker is all over it instantly. In the end his company comes out the winner and gains respect for how he handles problems that arise. It’s a long story and somewhat hard to believe that the ball could be dropped so many times, but here it is…..

I had to send some bindings back that had a warranty issue. Being that they don't answer their phones it took 2 days before getting an e-mail approval to send the boots back. After they received them it took yet a couple more days of e-mailing them before they authorized a store credit. I wanted to use my credit to buy some different items rather than get the same style of boots back. However, to use my credit they told me I had to complete the transaction over the phone or e-mail. Again, since they NEVER answer the phone it took yet another day of e-mailing them to get my order submitted.

They finally call me and take my order over the phone. Shortly after I receive an automated e-mail notification that the 3 items I have purchased with my credit have shipped. But wait..... After 4 days only one item shows to be in transit with UPS; the other two only show that the billing information has been received. I call UPS to verify and sure enough only one of my three items has shipped. I call BM to ask where my other two items are….oh yeah, they NEVER answer their phones! I e-mail them and they respond later that day telling me that one item didn’t ship because it was missing a lace and the other didn’t ship because they couldn’t find it.

Heaven forbid that they actually call me the day they discovered these issues to see what I wanted to do, heck no, they blow it off and wait for me to contact them to see where my stuff is. I end up having to select a new pair of boots to replace the ones they couldn’t find…no big deal. But wait…. Later that day they e-mail me that they found the original boots I ordered, that they will replace the lace on the other pair, and then ship them both out…..Fine. The next day I track both packages and guess what? They only shipped one of them. I would call them, but you guessed it…they NEVER answer their phones. Yet another e-mail and they respond saying “you’re correct, it didn’t ship. We’ll ship it out today”. The next day they finally get my last package shipped. After 12 days of dealing with them I finally received my last package yesterday.

In the end BM came through and kept their word. I have no doubt that they will do what’s right in the end. If you can get through to Anthony he will take care of you. However, because it was such a hassle to complete my transactions I don’t think I’ll be purchasing anything from them again. I would rather pay a little more at a local shop where I know that I can get someone to answer the phone if I have an issue. Really, if BM would just answer the freakin’ phone the issues I had could have been resolved in half the time and I wouldn’t be fearful of doing business with them again.

I have had good experience with them on several purchases but have never had an issue that needed to be resolved that would have required customer / sales support. I have always kind of viewed them as a budget online sales shop and just never EXPECTED too much service. They make it pretty clear that they do not accept returns on their clearance sales if the item arrives in good condition so I know there is a little bit of risk when I hit the payment button. If I wanted service and some hand holding with guaranteed inventory, I would go to a local shop.

If the BDay is Fri, there is still time to get something and it sounds like her credit card was refunded which seems they made it right. She can vote with her feet and take her dollars somewhere else now if she is really not happy with how it turned out, but I would buy from them again.

Guys they are a small company with only a few employees. Sometimes if they are really busy they can be slower to respond. Not sure about the phone issues. They have dedicated customer service people and sometimes they are the message boards but generally not as they are busy HELPING people out. They really need to be called/emailed and posting a thread about it doesn't usually help a ton. I think you can email anthony@boardersmall.com or see this thread http://forums.wakeboarder.com/viewtopic.php?t=81588&highlight=boardersmall

We really do care about our customers and try to have top notch customer service. But sometimes we mess up. Anthony, our customer service rep, works a lot of hours and goes out of his way to try and make things right. I don't think anybody could do a better job than he does at that job.

My name is Anthony and I am the Customer Service Manager with Boardersmall. If anyone has any questions or problems, please email me at anthony@boardersmall.com

It looks like there are 2 issues here that need some answers.

1st. Gary your roommate and I talked on Friday and yesterday and resolved this issue.

She purchased a 2009 Gator board that we do not carry any more. The board was (by mistake, sorry) not pulled off the website. We emailed her the following day to advise her of this and to see if she wanted to change her order. On Friday we talked on the phone and per her request, we canceled her order and issued a full refund. On Monday she called very upset that the funds were not back in her account. I tried to explain to her that the refund was issued on Friday and the funds should be in her account at any time. We issued the refund in a timely manner but we cannot control how quickly her bank deposits the funds back into her account.

I'm not really sure why this is now being posted on WW as if we are holding her money and not giving it back. I took a lot of HEAT from her yesterday and thought this was all resolved.

Please have her call me @ 866-667-9253 or have her email me if there is still an issue with the refund.

2nd. Richard you are 100% correct in your story. Sometimes things just don't go your way, well I should say “our” way.

The boots you were referring to with the missing laces were a 2006 pair. Someone must have "borrowed" the lace and did not mark the box. This error was only discovered when we went to ship out the boots. We did not have a grey lace in stock and ordered more. You are 100% correct. I should have called you and advised you of the situation. The other boots were at our board shop and originally I was told that there were not there. At that point I offered you a different pair of bindings. We agreed on a pair and we were all set. Shortly after that my boss comes walking in with the boots we were looking for. I then advised you that the boots were on the way. Again you are 100% correct in what you say. Like I said things just don't always go according to plan.

In regards to the phone calls… The phone never stops ringing. We try to answer as many calls as we can. Sorry you had trouble getting a hold of us.

Thanks again for all the support and if anyone needs anything please let me know.

We do apologize about any problems that happen. As far as never answering the phone we have a dedicated phone line for just sales. If we are on the phone, yes it goes to voicemail. Leave a message and we will call you back as soon as possible. We have a phone system that shows when people call and hang up, call back hang up etc.,. People will do this 3-4 times before leaving a message. Our other option is putting people on hold and taking calls as they come in. We thought that customers would not like being put on hold over and over again so we went the voicemail route. If you want to give us feedback please do at support@ boardersmall.com

Now if only this thread wouldn't pop up again in two more weeks...

Mike go out and ride...stop surfing the net

P.S - on another note, NOTHING but great experiences for me with Boardersmall and DWCboardshop. Gwen, Tommy and Tim are great people to work with (and Ant now too, apparently :-))! Thanks for all your hard work guys, I'm on the slingshot train now opening up shop in Mexico next Month!

Tim,

As I am in telecommunication sales there is voicemails that allow for queing or mini call center type applications. The voicemail can que an incoming call in order while the messaging on hold will alert the caller with an approx wait times. The caller can also have an option to leave a voicemail message at anytime by pressing "1" for instance.

I understand if your busy your busy and there isn't too much you can do always but I thought I would just throw it out there for knowledge as I obviously have no idea how your phone system is currently setup. The call tracking which it sounds like you already have is also a very good idea as well as it will allow you to see answered, missed, hung up, average call length, and caller ID information. It can also tell you your peak times and help you figure out whether you have enough incoming lines to support the call load.

Just some thoughts

Eder it's called work duh. Still trying to tune my boat up just right. Are you around town these days? Sounds like you've been busy!

You know for some of us we save are money to buy thinks because we live check by check and it sucks when you try and buy something then find out that the company does not have and they charged you. then you have to wait for your account to get refunded until you can go looking for what you want some other place and the only other place is on the other side of the country and there is no way that you will get the product in time for you or your friend's birthday. Anthony I have no problem with your guys company I have been completely satisfied with all my transaction it sucks when you refer a person to some were and ••••••••• goes hay wire.

(Message edited by gwperry2 on June 16, 2009)

I bought bindings from Boarders Mall yesterday and service was nothing short of EXCELLENT. They matched a lower price I found, emailed quickly and even called my home to leave a message letting me know I would be refunded the difference in the prices. My item shipped today and will buy from them again!!!! Thanks Anthony!!

only if they didnt charge tax i know cant get around this but between that and shipping not worth it for ca residents. all other online retailers do no shipping costs and no tax outside of state their in.

I called today too and got a answering machine

did you leave a message? if so, rest assured you'll get a return call.

why do people make a big stink about getting an answering machine? most companies have them. do you bitch about getting other companies' voicemail too? they don't all call you back promptly like boarders mall does.

if you're in ca and the retailer's in ca, no, there's no way around paying sales tax. if that's such a big deal to you, buy from retailers outside of ca.

by the way, most credit card refunds take 3 business days to process (sat & sun are not business days).

Boardersmall = top notch customer service

my buddy had the same thing happen with a snowboard from them and he sent them an email saying he was a lawyer and was guna get money out of them unless they gave him a different board for free and it worked

your friend is a douchbag ^^^^^^

I have had great service from BM as well. The group there is all dedicated to their business and taking care of people. I own a business with 9 phone lines and still we have a answering machine for the rollover. That's life. It's much easier dealing with emails as you can do that while you are the phone and get twice the production.

Give them a little break and ALWAYS try to resolve with the management or owner before flamming. It will save a lot of hassle for everyone.

We don't give away boards for free, not even to godlike lawyers :>D Thanks Vin & Buff

I have worked for a couple banks over the last 6 years and i can see where we as consumers are fast to blame the company, and or our own banks for not making our refunds available as fast as the funds were taken out. We (as consumers) have to understand that when a merchant such as boardersmall refunds your account it has to be processed through the bank or company that operates their debit/credit card system, then through through their bank and then to the consumers bank and then to their account. This process takes much more time than when you make a purchase (which usually posts out of your account within 3 days) Yes having products listed that are no longer in stock is an issue but please remember that merchants are not dragging their feet when refunding your money.
patience my friends patience

^^^^^^^^ Exactly. Every business owner has gone through that.

I've used them many times and never ever had a problem. They've always gone above an beyond for me. Wake or Snow

I like boarders mall and their prices, overall their a good company but i do agree that they need to step up the service. When i ordered my new board and bindings for this year they had told me that they had shipped out my entire order, but really they only shipped my bindings and i called in for like a week straight and no answer. Instead of calling me they emailed my a week later. They told me that the board was shipped to but refused to give me a tracking number for the board. I ended up getting the board 3 weeks after i recived my bindings and missed riding the board on spring break.

I ordered my last board from them. Couldn't be happier with the service and price.

I bought my bindings from them...another customer satisfied by the service and price.

I have bought from them and have nothing but good things to say about them!!!

I think the main point Gary was trying to make was, why did they charge his credit card for a product they didn't have in stock and they don't plan on carrying anymore? I think this was his biggest gripe.

I understand refunds take time to process, I'm sure Gary does too, however, if they would have contacted him before charging the credit card and said we no longer carry the board you ordered what do you want to do he could have said thanks but no thanks and bought his board from a different retailer.

I'm sure Boarders Mall is ran by great people with nothing but the best of intentions but it does appear there is a little room for some self improvement.

As for the suggestion Dave made, I think that would be an great investment. Give people the option of leaving a message or waiting on hold with a message that gives the aprox. wait time. Hold isn't the end of the world. I think most of us just put our phones on speaker anyways so no worries there, and don't charge the customers card untell you have found the product.

Robert,

Wouldn't you think they probably have an automated system that is charging the card? It's not as if an individual is sitting there watching an order being placed and running back to make sure the item is available, then charging the card.

If that's what you'd prefer - I'm sure it would be fine then for orders to take significantly longer to ship and only be able to order items when someone is physically sitting in front of the computer to check these things - right?

(Message edited by lizzyb on June 18, 2009)

if i call someone to buy something and i get a VM i call the next person. Actually in Marketing classes in college there were several studies conducted that showed that was the norm. The numbers were really high that they would just move on.

As far as not having something in a good inv management system is only as good as the sales people who fill the orders. Its amazing how much these systems get thrown off from human errors.