jwaj2002

Blazer I would suggest insted of USPS use UPS or DHL from now on, my experience with USPS is if they don't loose it its broken when you get it, even over night they loose 1/2 the time, and you generally spend 3 - 4 hours waiting on the 1 person at the counter to get the other 3000 customers ahead of you, not ragging on you, but maybe usps is a lame duck and you should use a real mail carrier, sorry bout this man

Luc1f3r

barely tried to contact you?

i sent you a PM AND AN EMAIL to make sure you received my gauges.
i sent you an email on thursday asking if my gauges had shipped out
i sent you a pm and email asking where my gauges where on friday.
i sent you an email and made 2 post about not receiving them on saturday.

how much more communication is needed? im sorry i didnt call you at the number NOT provided to more immediate results.

you said on the phone that you have gone to school for both business and electronics... did none of your classes teach you how to work with customers? your phone call and this post make it seem as though youre out to save your own name rather then making sure the customer is happy.

1 thing you need to learn is it doesnt matter how good your work is, people will say what they want about it. all you can do is make the customer happy so they will say good things about you.

as i told you on the phone, i am a store manager for a multi million dollar a year store, and i ____ING HATE PEOPLE! but you know what, even if the customer is DEAD WRONG, i make them believe that with a smile on their face. keep your customers happy and your business will grow, your growing business will not make your customers happy.

engifineer

Paul. First of all it isnt a competition thing, as I have said many times before. I send as much work other peoples way as I take these days. I dont have a ton of time to spend on mods, so I only take what I can garauntee will be done on time, even if that means not taking work for periods of time. I do that to effectively manage my schedule and my customers expectations.

There are way too many posts out there, and conversations I had with people, regarding work you sent back not working.. head units that are broken, etc, with people still waiting for you to do something about it. One guy simply went out and bought new parts because of no response.

If you promise 1 day turnaround and the customer pays more for overnight shipping, then they obviously expect it back 2 days after you get it. If it takes 4-5, then they are owed a refund for shipping. I have paid for overnight when the customer asked for 3 day before if I was running late for some reason. It is just good business.

If you want good words from others, then I suggest you stop taking new mods and focus on taking care of the people still hangning out there. Just from the forums alone there is a good line of them. After that, start managing your time effectively rather than taking work you know you cant finish on time. I will send good word of a good business as much as is possible. I would trust my own stuff to jeremy or trung and have no problems spreading good word about them. That goes for any parts or service company I feel does good business. But I wont sit here and say sorry for simply stating what is true. Like I said before, I have customers leary to ship out their stuff to anyone at all, based on threads here and on ystc about bad experiences.

If you take care of your business and start treating ALL of your customers like you should, I will be happy to pass along good words. But simply appologizing for the same things over and over, then doing it again, isnt a good start. If you are the nice guy that you seem to be you should understand that.

LEDMods_net

I understand what you're saying. In my delivery zone, UPS delivers very late (5PM and later), and this is not acceptable for business). I've also had problems with them mishandling their packages (in fact, they are known to mishandle packages). DHL is a good company, I may consider them. The reason I use USPS, is because they have been around for a long time, and you can count on them to arrive between 11am and 2pm, Saturdays included. Everyone else charges extra to deliver on Saturdays. Thanks for the suggestion though, I will look into other options.




I replied to all of your messages as soon as I could. If I don't reply to them immediately, you need to understand my business is not to sit at the computer checking e-mails. You have sent me many e-mails before you sent out your gauges, and I guess you didn't notice, but I replied to every one.

I don't know what you want me to do to make you happy, I am very limited in this situation. The only thing to do is to check with the post office. I can tell you again what I did on my part, but it seems to make no difference. I learned a lot in my business classes, that is why I'm known to have good customer service. But when the business I created from the ground up 8 years ago is being unreasonably attacked, I have to defend it. This business is to me what a child is to a parent. I want it to grow and be unlimited in success, and I protect it when being attacked.

As I told you over the phone, I work 12 - 15 hours EVERYDAY. Not everyday except Sunday, not everyday for 2 weeks, then a few days off. Every day. You are a manager of a multi-million dollar business. You tell me what would happen when you or your employees worked 12 - 15 hours everyday. I would like to know what you thing about that.

From my late teens until my late 20's I've put everything I have in this business, and you can manage your business all you want, but let me ask you something. What happens when your company fails? You will most likely move on. I don't think you are dedicated to your company the way I'm dedicated to mine. If my company fails, I bring it back up. If a parents child fails, they bring it back up, and make it work. There is no fail in my business. Don't try and compare your position in your company to my business. Hate people all you want, but I love people, cars, and making things better. That is what I'm about. This is why I'll attend car shows, I'll meet with car clubs, go out and promote my company.

As I said on the phone, you're still my customer, and you only have 1 gauge cluster in your car that I can mod, so I have to depend on my reputation to my customers being a positive one so they can refer their friends and family.

I know you will be happy with my work - it speaks for itself. But I need to make sure you are happy with the overall experience, because if you're not, you won't be confident to send referrals. I can only do so much at a time - only a business owner knows how much work goes into a business. I perform on all aspects of the business. From organizing meetings with manufacturers, to meeting with reps, keeping up e-mails, working on parts, keeping up my local appointments, and an unlimited amount of more tasks. Running a business is definitely not easy.

As I said, I'll do what I can to help you out and see what the situation is, I just have to ask you to be patient and keep an open communication with me.

Garage1217

iTrader: (5)

Actually Paul, I backed you up for a long time hopeing it was for the better. You gave us all a long winded pm accusing me and others of slandering you long ago that you never responded to when I asked what the crap you were talking about and to show me were I slandered you because I never said a word at that time and was hopeing all your crap was a missunderstanding. Now you bring my name up yet again? "and in pm you never respond so you are getting a responce here"

When I had to start repairing your work, shipping parts to your customers because you scratched there stuff up, and selling / loaning entire gauge clusters, hvac units etc.. to your customers because you dissapeared for MONTHS not shipping there stuff and not returning a single email or pm, making them go without AC or gauges, going through hardship because of your personal crap it really ticked me off as well as the rest of us. In fact I lost and am currently loosing sales because of your crappy business practices and ignoring customers. I have people now messaging me that they are afraid to ship anything to anyone because of the crap you put others through and they are worried that the rest of us may do the crap you pulled when in fact we have been nothing but honest and the best we can be to our customers from the start.

In reality I can give a rats @ss about you now as a business person or the things you have gone through in life or the things you have done, big whoop. Man there were 100 better ways you could have handled things in a situation like this. Instead you chose to CRAP on your customers, then come back thinking an apologie will make it all better and you act all high and mighty now talking about your reputation and it makes me laugh. If I had a medical emergency and tons of customers parts I would have straight out told everyone and started sending work to the other swappers and paying for parts that were already shipped to me, to be sent to the other swappers to make sure none of my customers were crapped on. That is just one easy example of how you could have handled it. You think your the only certified installer on this forum or only guy with electronics certifications?? *LOL* Also what exact certification(s) do you have? Are you simply MECP or? Would love to know. Please tell us all about the certifications you have.


I do not mind competition at all, in fact I recommend a lot of business to Trung, and engifineer as well as I used to do the same for you back before you lost your ways. Would I recommend you after all the crap these last few months? Sorry I cannot. You might want to try jumping into a new line of work were your name does not = false promises, 1-2 month long delays, non tested product or scratched up / torn up product etc and stop bringing us down just like that stupid roses of huston did to all of us when he pulled the same crap you have.

Sorry man but when I start loosing business because of your crap, it ends. I kept my mouth shut for a long time on this and I am sick of it. Either own up and be a man getting things back to customers ON TIME or shipping stuff at all or get the heck out of this scene period as all you have done is make the whole led swapping scene look like crap. Do I think you should be banned? Yeah I do and I am suprised that the scionlife staff waited so long to even consider such a thing. Heck I am surpised they are giving you a 3rd chance as you pulled this crap before long ago. If I dissapeared for 2 weeks on my customers I would expect at least a temporary ban, not months later. If you had not pulled all this then I would never say a word and go on with life sending people to you if needed or being happy to help. Not anymore, you brought all the crap on yourself period. Personal matters, medical matters, shipping company matters bah, there are no exuses when it comes to customers. You do the right thing period and that is it.

Last, how about showing the forum a USPS delivery confirmation number which serves as a tracking number for the current guy that has now been delayed? That might help you save some face in this latest matter. If you shipped it express mail then you do have that number. And orange, have you received your package yet?

All in all I am finally ____ed and yeah I am speaking my mind, not playing politics anymore. Sorry if this offends some readers, or it turns off potential customers of mine, but I am already loosing them becasue of this crap so it makes me feel better to speak out about the bs.

engifineer

I just noticed the comment about "tutorial modders" after reading jeremys posts. I am not sure what that was supposed to mean either. I carry two degrees (one bachelors, one masters) in the feild of electronics, so I am certainly not in that category, and I dont beleive jeremy or squall are either. Regardless of that, if they do work and something goes wrong, the incident is taken care of right away and the customer still ends up happy, which, in the end, is what the customer cares about rather than certifications and degrees.

But degrees or not, if I cant live up to my promises schedule-wise I wont take the business. I would rather do no business than bad business.

LEDMods_net

Dave,

Thanks for a genuine response. I must say, I honestly do not know what you are referring to regarding me sending broken parts/parts not working. Please PM me more information on this so I can get this fixed. I have not received any messages or e-mails saying the parts returned broken. I had 2 instances where I received parts that broke during shipping (cracked LCD screen - when the HVAC was shipped without the housing, only the board. and a odometer pin on a gauge cluster).

As far as taking care of all the rest of my customers, I must ask you where do you find these customers? Because you may know something I don't. Now if you are referring to customers such as Viola000, she is a customer from ebay, who purchased something days before I went in for emergency surgery on a life-threatening infection. That is when my "absence" began. She never received the product she purchased, and she received a full refund. There are many other people the same as her, but they all received refunds from ebay.

I am caught up with my past work (my past ebay customers are not owed any parts as they have received full refunds), and I am in a position where I can accept new business.

If you come across a post/thread/email/PM/message, please have some courteousy and forward/relay the message to me. I don't have a lot of opportunity to browse the forums as often, so I may miss something.



Regarding the "tutorial modders", I should have specified. I consider us four (you, Trung, Jeremy, and myself) pretty much the main LED modders on the forum. I do know there are other modders, and I have seen people read the tutorials you created, and feel confident enough to not only do this for their own car, but for other people as well. This is what I meant. I know you are a qualified in electronics.

Luc1f3r

does no one else read that post and see how he only cares about me because i am a walking talking billboard for him. not that i am one of his customers?

i work in the furniture business. no it is not car modding but as far as the repeat customers it is VERY similar, how many people refurnish a house on a regular basis? i relay on my customers to be happy to tell their friends. do i walk up to them and say "hey, how was your experience here, will you be telling your friends about my store?" NO THAT IS BAD BUSINESS. your goal is to make the customer feel like a customer, not an advertisement (though that is what they really are)

over all Paul, i am VERY happy with you. you slashed your prices to try and rebuild a client base. you answered your pms and email (i know not everyone has a TREO/BLACKBERRY/PPC/*) and you even called me... but i cant get past the fact that the call was only to make sure i would recommend other people... it wasnt to give me the tracking number... which i have no problem with you posting on this forum, so please do, at the very least PM/email it to me.

would i recommend you to other people? at full price prolly not.... however, for what i saved i can deal with a 4 day delay. however, if i dont have my gauges/ gauge trim/ havc controls by monday i will be calling the BBB in cali to talk to them... do you even have a business license as im sure you need for as much local work as you say you do...

in the end do i really care? no, not so much, its the risk you pay to ship your parts to some random guy across the country, but as others have said, you are ruining their names in the process. if you were local you may work better (it seems like all your local people love you, just us intraweb people have problems)

one more business tip... you told me on the phone you had some things come up the day of shipping and was part of your reason for rushing to the post office. thats fine with me LIFE HAPPENS, but you could have taking the time to let me know about the delay before i asked for it. the fact of the matter is that you run an internet based business so you should make more time to check/be on the internet to keep up your communications... hell, my phone number was on your work order, you could have called me as soon as you left the post office.

so, once again, i still respect you, you maned up and called me, and havent ignored the issue (so be it that its just to save your company) and i will let your work speak for itsself when i get it. and we will go from there as far as recommendations.

Luc1f3r

just wanted to let everyone know that my gauges were just delivered.

Luc1f3r

so with the fact that my tachometer doesnt work any more, what is your work saying about you now?

would one of you other modders please tell me what i need to do to fix my needle? when i idle it is at 0rmps. when i drive it NEVER gets over 1k. i can put it in park or N and rev it, but it wont go over 3k, ever... it worked fine before i shipped it off.... does it sound like Paul just didnt put the needle on right or what? please tell me its something simple and Paul didnt ruin my gauges!

thanks in advance guys!

Garage1217

iTrader: (5)

Not sure on that one guy, sounds odd. Does it act like it is sticking? poping as it goes up or yanking fast like it is hanging up on somthing? Other than that I would have to see it. As usual feel free to send it in, will see what I can do with it

Luc1f3r

yes, it seems like its sticking, one time i reved it up to 3k and the needle got stuck at 1k and then worked its way down... if its an easy fix think i could do it? i hate to be without my gauges, AGAIN. do i just need to pop the needle off, and put it back on? (little more to it then that im sure, but more or less?)

Garage1217

iTrader: (5)

Sounds like the needle is pushed on to far, somthing that should have been checked when put back together. Did you ship with the clear plastic lense on the cluster or were the needles exposed..?

To fix, take out cluster

- Remove clear plastic front

- Pull hard on the tach needle or use small spoons under each side of the tach needle and pry it up slightly. Should fix it.

- If you pull the needle totally off, will give ya the rest of how to fix it

Luc1f3r

LMAO thanks. i shipped with the cover..

how much for the steering wheel controls swapped to red? (if i dare to take apart my wheel)

Garage1217

iTrader: (5)

Wheel is no big worry, just do not pinch any of the airbag or wheel control wires when putting back on your airbag. I charge, $12.50 for wheel controls shipped back to you, not sure what paul charges.

Luc1f3r

i dont care what paul charges, he should pay me after all this.

ill let you know before i ship prolly be later this week or next.

engifineer

Jeremy's prices sound about right for the steering wheel. That is close to what I charge. I wouldnt pay more than that at all.

As a "ruler" on pricing, I wouldnt pay more than about $100 for a typical HVAC and Gauge LED swap. Much more than that is getting way too high. Now obviously, most arent typical, so anything custom costs more. But I think the highest I have charged in a long, long while was about $200, and that included custom work, recolored needles, head unit, etc. I cant say what THE price to pay is due to difference in designs, complexity, etc, but that at least gives you an idea of whether you are paying way too much or not.

As for the needle sticking, I would say it is exactly what Jeremy just stated. How you put one back together and not notice the needle is pushed down that far beats me... sounds like none of it was tested at all. By default, the back of the needle should be approx 1/8" from the gauge face. When you fix it, just spin it by hand. It should spin very easy.

And like Jeremy said, if you pull it back off, there is a simple way to make sure it is lined up, which any of us can post for you.

LEDMods_net

I must have put the needle on too far. It's a very simple fix, I can walk you through it over the phone.

I don't know why you're so upset with me orangesuburban, I did everything you wanted, you shouldn't feel cheated or ripped off. I would like to ask you to at least give me a chance to work out any problems you may have before eagerly posting here. I'm glad to help out.

-Paul

jwaj2002

atleast your trying Paul

Luc1f3r

trying what? trying to fix an issue that should have never left his "shop" in the first place? too little too late IMO.