At the Winter NAMM show (a music industry convention) in January of Mr. Shambro approached us to ask about reviewing a new product we had just introduced. I let him know that once it was available for demo, we would be happy to send him a system for his evaluation.
It took longer than I had originally anticipated before we had a system for him. During that time, Mr. Shambro checked in from time to time about the availability of the system for his review for the Home Recording section of About.com.
In October, we shipped a system to him, valued at $4,430 "street price" (what a paying customer would actually pay for this equipment in a retail store).in the following few weeks, we had several communications about the system, including the fact that one of the components of the sysetm was malfunctioning. We promptly shipped him a replacement unit and received the defective unit back.
After the usual gestation period for a review of a couple months (I have been in this business for more than 15 years) I started trying to reach Mr. Shambro about the disposition of the loan and the review. This is the first phase when I did not hear from Mr. Shambro for several months. I tried reaching him by phone & by email to no avail.
Then in February of I tried getting Mr. Shambro's attention by posting some notes on his About.com pages. This prompted a response on February 6. Mr. Shambro apologized profusely and claimed that my emails had been caught in his spam filter. He asked if there were any special instructions required to return the system. I gave him the information including our UPS account number which he could use for the return shipment. I did not hear anything more until May.
On May 4, Mr. Shambro claimed by email to have sent an email "a few weeks ago" but I had not received anything. I thought it was odd because I received his email on May 4, so I knew that I could receive his emails (they were not getting caught in my spam filter). Also in the email was his claim that "everything was ready to go including the review" and claimed that there had been "an issue with shipping on the units" something about an invalid shipping account number (not true). He again asked me to "remind me of your return process and I'll make sure it gets done Monday morning." I again provided him with that information.
I have not heard anything from him since then, despite several attempts via phone and email. On July 10 I made one last ditch attempt to reach him by email. At the end of July our accounting department sent him a registered letter. The post office made three attempts to deliver the letter without success. As of this writing, we still have not received either the equipment back, payment for it, or a review.
0 comments