Club Obi Wan

This will be a bit of a rant. Beware of text blocks.

This saturday I've an event at the country club pool I manage where we're doing an Indiana Jones theme day. We're bringing in a 32 foot rockwall, we're doing tons of adventure themed games for the kids and decorating the area with snakes and tiki torches and cob webs, and at night we'll be showing The Last Crusade. For about 6 hours during the day, I'm billed to be Indy, and ordered all of the gear for this. The only thing that isn't here is my shirt.

I ordered a medium shirt from him at the very end of may, hoping to have it here in time. About three weeks ago I got worried it wouldn't arrive and emailed Todd to see what the status was. He didn't have any mediums, but he said he would send me a large, so I said sure. He emailed me the next day to tell me that he had sent off the last large, and so he had already went ahead and sent me a large WPG shirt instead, and told me that if any mediums came back in stock he would tell me. Last monday he emailed me to tell me the mediums were in stock and that I could return the other shirt. Fantastic! I paypaled him 10 bucks for shipping and shipped the WPG shirt back to him.

Still hadn't received anything today and am getting really nervous, so I called them up and asked them what the status was on the shirt. Apparently, they sold off all of their mediums and larges already and hadn't saved one for me. It's down to the wire, I'm in a corner, and so I went with a small and they're overnighting it to me at the price of an additional $42. I knew a Magnoli or a Wested wouldn't get to me in time.

Maybe I'm being unreasonable, but I feel like they screwed up along the way and their screw up cost me time, money, and I'm stuck with a shirt that probably won't fit when I wash it. (My chest size is 37.5, the Todds is a 38, and its neck and sleeve are too small.)

Who knows, maybe the small will be the perfect fit for me, but at the moment I'm one frustraited gearhead.

You have every right to be upset. That's unprofessional to say the least. I called them up about 2 months ago and asked if I could pre-order a size Large shirt. I was yold "No, we don't do pre-orders but don't worry, we're getting a big batch of shirts". I said okay, but I don't want to miss out again on these shirts like I missed out last time. I was told again "We're getting in alot of shirts, they won't sell out."

Well, they got Larges in finally and before I could open my wallet they were gone. If they let people pre-order shirts then they would have the money up front to buy the shirts and they'd know exactly how many they would need. Doesn't make sense.

When I ordered my shirt from Wested I had it in hand in 6 days.

No expert on Indy stuff, but it might have been a good idea to have gotten something easy like a Cabelas safari shirt when you thought there might have been a problem getting the Todd's in time. Wouldn't be perfect, but if you don't have anything else... Plus it would have been not much more than the cost of the extra shipping you paid and you'd have a second shirt for normal wear.

And I'm not making excuses for the service you recieved, just good to have a back-up when waiting on smaller suppliers.

Raider S wrote:No expert on Indy stuff, but it might have been a good idea to have gotten something easy like a Cabelas safari shirt when you thought there might have been a problem getting the Todd's in time. Wouldn't be perfect, but if you don't have anything else... Plus it would have been not much more than the cost of the extra shipping you paid and you'd have a second shirt for normal wear.

And I'm not making excuses for the service you recieved, just good to have a back-up when waiting on smaller suppliers.

Cabelas probably would have been the more prudent option for last minute delivery, and I wish I had thought of it. Most of my anger here is that they didn't at least contact me last week to let me know they had sold the rest of their shirts (I had stressed the date I needed it by in my emails.)

If you don't get the shirt from Todd in time or if it doesn't fit, you might call the Cabela's store in Ft Worth and see if they have any safari shirts in stock. You be out some time and gas, but you could always drive over and pick one up. I was at Bass Pro the other day and noticed that they've started putting out fall and winter shirts. I imagine Cabela's is doing the same. Just a thought. Good luck!

Scott

I thought Todd does do pre-orders since I ordered my XL (a bit small) back in April and just got it a couple of weeks ago. Anyway, I would've held onto the large until the medium came in & then returned the large. This way you knew you had a shirt. And to pay for a shirt a size smaller for $42 overnighted and they dropped the ball, wow! I would've ordered a Cabela's in Stone and tell them forget it.

yep, that's a mistake, understand your frustration.l

I can totally understand you being upset about this, I would be too. However, what I have seen of Todd is that he's a pretty upstanding gent. I am sure this situation is not one he intended on. From what I have come to understand his shirt situation is a little crazy. In terms of a somewhat high demand while he is waiting on new stock to arrive.

I know what its like to be frusterated about an order from Todds, I too had to wait for a shirt that seemed like it took forever to arrive plus I ordered an item that was discountinued. But now thats all behind me. Just make sure you keep in contact with todd so you can be updated on your order.

I've had good luck with Todd's service. I'm sorry to hear you had a lousy time.

I am surprised, as Todd's service has always been spot-on for me. Hopefully, this is an isolated incident. Sorry to hear you had such trouble. Your feelings are quite justified.

Sorry to hear about your difficulties. I have never been anything but satisfied with Todd's. I hope everything is alright. He has always had an ear to lend and bent over backwards for the community.
Scott

Still no shirt, though they said it would be here today. Which is why I payed them an extra 40 bucks. No tracking info to check, and since they never answer their phones or emails on the weekends, it seems I'm out of luck.

I've gone from kind of angry to really quite angry.

I think you should get that shipping money back. Did they say it was overnight? Express Mail at the post office wold have been simple and reliable.

Bogie1943 wrote:I can totally understand you being upset about this, I would be too. However, what I have seen of Todd is that he's a pretty upstanding gent. I am sure this situation is not one he intended on. From what I have come to understand his shirt situation is a little crazy. In terms of a somewhat high demand while he is waiting on new stock to arrive.

I would also say his shirt situation must be crazy judging from the fact that after I put one up for resale on this forum I instantly had a waiting list of about 6+ people before I could even make a post saying the shirt was sold.

They better refund your money or take it up with your credit card company or Paypal.

I don't understand what's so "magical" about Todd's shirt that it's worth this much trouble and hassle. I got my Wested shirt in less than 10 days. My Magnoli shirt took almost 2 months (being custom) but fits and looks like a champ!

Personally, I´d just get a good safari shirt from a good store at your local mall. Something you´d wear even if you´re not dressing up to BE Indy. I don´t think this event necessarily warrants precision screen accuracy to the umpteenth degree. The kids and/or parents at this event aren´t gearheads and will think you´re the real deal anyway. Don´t stress about this.

I'm sorry dealing with Todd's did not do well. I have ordered and recieved many items, and I am quite pleased. I would not hesitate to do business with them again.

Jake J

Anderson,

I sincerely apologize for your dilemma. I don't know exactly what happened, but I will look into it Monday when we're open again and get an explaination.

There is a misunderstanding about the shirts - we had an initial small order that sold out before it even arrived. We have another larger order that is on the boat right now on its way here. The medium shirt we offered you was a single returned shirt. As soon as it came in we offered it to you. The only guess is that someone in the "shipping department" picked it up and sent it off, not knowing it was for you.

We've been dealing with massive returns/exchanges, and we have a LONG waiting list. When a return comes in we try to match it up with someone waiting. It's been a logistical nightmare, totally unexpected, and Cissy and I make a lot of mistakes trying to remember who has a deadline, who doesn't, who's been waiting the longest, who needs refunds, who wants credit towards another item, who wants to exchange their shirt and add a whip holder and a whip but only one with a pineapple shaped knob and they want to combine shipping...but we're out of bag strap buckles so do we hold his order or refund the buckle so we can send it out...

The demand for Indy stuff this year has been through the roof. I'm grateful and want to thank all of my customers, but it was far more than we ever imagined it would be, and not by just a little either - I mean ten times more than we were prepared for. Our stock and supplies have been wiped out and we couldn't replace it fast enough. It has meant long waits for most while we try to re-stock the shelves.

Anderson, we did send the small shirt FedEx standard overnight on Thursday when we spoke. But even FedEx is not fool-proof. This is far from the first time FedEx or UPS has not delivered on time.

I truly hope you were able to find a substitute shirt (I've even seen pretty good ones at Walmart) and I hope your party goes off well. We will do whatever we can to make it right. Of course, FedEx will refund the $32 shipping you paid and we will refund the $10 shipping credit from your return, and we will refund the shirt of course. Beyond that, we'll discuss privately.

About the confusion about the pre-order/no pre-order confusion. There was a period where we were not taking pre-orders. It was when our pending delivery was already sold out, and we didn't have a firm date on the delivery of our second order. Once the second order was very well along and the date was reliable we resumed pre-ordering for the second order. I hope that is slightly clearer than mud.

Thank you, Todd.

And since Todd and Anderson have touched base here and plan to work out the remaining details offline, that brings this thread to a close. Thanks, guys.