[HomeBrew] Sad Experience with McMaster-Carr

[mlmccauley]

Byron Tatum wrote:

>I talked to the shipping manager and they would not make it right, I was told that they shipped items as they pleased and gave no consideration to the customer.
>

I would *NEVER* take cr_p like that off an employee of any outfit, 
anywhere, and you shouldn't either!

For what it's worth, if that happened to me I would write a letter to 
the CEO of M-C, stating exactly what had happened, and demand an apology 
and a refund on the freight. Be sure to mail it registered, receipt 
requested. That draws a *lot* of attention.

The problem is that most people seem to feel that there is some law 
somewhere that the top managers of big outfits are to be treated like 
they are royalty. BS! Anytime some paid-by-the-hour corporate slacker 
jerks me around, I *immediately* contact the guys supervisor. When I am 
talking to him, I make a point to tell him that either he can make it 
right, or I *will, for sure, immediately* go straight to the top, that I 
*will* mention all the names of all the guys who refused to help me out 
up to that point, and that this is going to be my one and only phone 
call to him, so he needs to decide right now what he wants to happen 
next. Most times that statement quickly changes the tune of a guy who is 
being uncooperative.

When that doesn't work, I have had about an 80% success rate at getting 
what is fair out of the CEO. The guys at the top are a lot more 
interested in not getting bad press in the marketplace (like your 
email), in that they realize that guys like you and I will believe an 
email like yours over any number of slick ads they paid big bucks for.

Atlanta is M-C headquarters. Call up customer service and ask for the 
name and postal address of the CEO. If they don't want to come across, 
and try to shuffle you to some "customer service representative", 
casually mention that "you guess you'll have to call the SEC and get it 
from them". Boy, does that get results! No public corporation in the US 
*even* wants to get a call from a Securities and Exchange Commission 
investigator wanting to know why they are refusing to give out what is 
*by law* public information.

Don't give up! That's exactly what they are counting on you doing!