doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Caveat Emptor re Russ Gould of doublegun hq

Rus, Just read the emails you posted and they don't make you look just a whole lot better. About 20 people have said this already, but I am going to try just one more time: you used a gun case for which a customer paid in full to ship guns to yet another customer. That is inexcusable. There is no adequate explanation that you can offer which can suffice. And regardless of what any number of people in CA might or might not say about the condition of Ron's case .... the operative word being "Ron" ... you have the responsibility to make this right with your original customer. Our integrity is the single most valuable thing any of us own. I am stunned that you can't seem to undertand what dammage this does to many of our perceptions of yours. I would pay close attention to Geo's and Ken's notes above. And I think I would have someone you know and respect read the notes you just posted and give you some honest feedback. I wish you the best Rus.

When someone uses the expression " things are a little complicated” they are being disingenuous, only trying to justify their mistake. As a small dealer who sells a fraction of the guns he sells, I cannot for the life of me understand why he doesn’t have custom shipping boxes for shotguns and long guns made and on hand to ship whatever a customer buys without having to resort to what he did. Hell, I just had a hundred each of long gun boxes with sleeves and double gun boxes with dividers and sleeves made and they cost me about a thousand for the 200 boxes. That’s 5 bucks a box. So, to save 5 bucks on a box, he uses a case he sold to someone else to ship guns. Not what I would call a decision normally made by a good businessman.

The bottom line is that this was a bad decision on Russ’s part and he should just offer to take it back at no financial loss to the customer. There is too much room for speculation and the only way to clear the air is to do that. Anything short of this is quibbling at best and deceptive and fraudulent at worse.

I do have boxes Brian, but I don't ship matched pairs of guns, or any high grade gun for that matter, in cardboard boxes. I ship them in a hard case.

I have now offered to make Mr. Vella completely whole for the $50 he is out of pocket to make his case perfect, still waiting for his response.

I have admitted several times I should not have set the case via CA. Seemed like a good idea at the time. I was in a pinch and I figured UPS is going to ship this thing from one depot to another, what's another stop on the way? It's not as if it were a brand new case. It was a used case whose purpose was to ship guns around. I didn't try to conceal this from Mr. Vella, and I could have and just blamed everything on UPS. I believe I did the right thing offering to credit Mr. Vella at the time for the additional week delay. He refused and it was clear from his tone that he wasn't going to work in good faith on this matter.

But I never bought the damage story and I still don't. A picture or two would have helped resolve this months ago. However, I am still waiting for Mr. Vella's pictures of the damaged lining.

I'll say this to the many folks who say "refund everything he paid including his customs duty and let him keep the case". Maybe folks who put fat markups on everything can afford this kind of gesture (like Orvis, as another poster noted). I can't. If I did, my other customers would end up subsidizing a couple of CFHs. That's not right.

There is nothing wrong with proper cardboard boxes with protective sleeves. I know a number of dealers in high grade guns who use them to ship their "expensive" guns.

So, in order to save yourself 30-40 bucks on a hard case to ship a pair of guns that have to be worth at least 10 grand. , you use someone else's?????

Russ,
Since you only have one or two CFH's a year for a business that maintains several thousand items in inventory, I would say that it is a small price to pay to keep your reputation. One "oh Sh**" wipes out a thousand "atta boys". I have dealt with the CFH types and I lost money on them. But my rep is worth more than what I would lose refunding a purchase.

I am not going to get into this anymore other than repeat what Jimmney Cricket said; Let your conscience be your guide".

Mr. HQ has defended himself (over different topics) at length to his detriment on other BBS's.

It was unlikely I would have purchased from him due to those threads, now you can imagine the chances of me purchasing from him have dropped off a cliff.

I may have missed it in this long thread but that sounds like a hollow challenge. Mr. Vella has already stated he repaired the case and so you know it is unlikely that pictures would show anything.

A couple of other more prominent dealers have been down this tortuous route on this and the SSM BBS. They didn't fair any better than you are and they seemed to have learned from it. "The customer is always right." Suck it up dude, you lost this one.

I have bought several guns from Brian. His boxes are first class and ship well. Any bussinessman who claims that his margins are too thin to package his goods well is not goning to win any points in my book. Raise your prices. No one but you sets your prices. If you let your customers set your prices you would soon be broke.

Gentlemen, I believe that there is no resolution to this and we should let this thread die right here. Mr. Gould continues to call me a liar. I know the truth of the matter. My wife and my friends who saw the case when it arrived know the truth of the matter. As Utah notes above, I have already completely rebuilt the case so how could I now provide photos of the damage? As I have said since November, I do not want any money, nor any credit from Mr. Gould. That is not what this is about, as I explained at the outset. An acknowledgement that PERHAPS I was telling the truth would have been nice. An apology would have done it. Unfortunately, that is not in the man's makeup. What option did I have, to just suck it up and let this behaviour go? I guess that my refusal to do so makes me a "Customer From Hell"!

For heaven sakes! Why didn't the buyer take pictures of his damaged case to prove his point! Why didn't the seller have pictures of what is was selling to defend himself in the event a problem like this occurs. I really don't care how busy the buyer may have been, if the condition of the case was an issue, why did you wait 3mos (I think that is what you said) to air the problem now? Besides, now it is all repaired, how can we know what it was when it arrived. How can the seller know how it was when it left Calif., without pictures? I am not defending anyone, but there has sure been some serious mistakes made in this whole transaction, at least IMHO. This is a mess that I hope both parties recognize their mistakes over.

"One out of four ain't bad."