I found a great source of Codbags the other day. The site is brilliant. It is called, simply, www.complaints.com. It is an open forum for people to lodge complaints online. Great concept. Vendors have the opportunity to rebuff complaints, but it doesn’t appear that anyone gets notified when a complaint is lodged against them. I guess you just check in periodically to see if anyone is dragging your name through the mud.
I was working on a project and had to look up Lumber Liquidators anyway, so I searched them on the site. Low-and-behold some knucklehead had lobbed a grenade at them. Now before you read this you should know that the wood this guy bought, Brazilian Teak, runs about $12-$25 per square foot plus delivery in a typical retail store like Lowes or Home Depot.
His Gripe:
Company: Lumber Liquidators
"We purchased 682sq.ft of Brazilian Teak Select and spent almost $4,000." [for those of you without a calculator, that’s less than $6/sqft] "We have defective flooring. The wood has milling issues, some of it is shaped like a trapezoid and almost all of it has different widths, not noticeable to the eye. We also learned the wood has high moisture content, and now believe the wood may have not been dried completely during manufacturing. We contacted LL at the beginning of our installation about the small gaps; we didn’t quite understand that it was a milling issue, but that lines weren’t nice. We were told to use wood filler and that they wouldn't take it back because it was a nonstock item. After more complaining the man said they'd take back the unopened boxes for a 20% restocking fee. Twenty percent would be about $800.00." [Blah, Blah, Blah. He cries more about the quality and then it gets funny]. "I feel it’s completely unreasonable that I should have known their product well enough to determine it was defective. The installation instructions don’t require consumers to check the wood flooring for moisture content or the milling. In my opinion, by their logic those that purchase their product need to be experts and catch defects the manufacturer couldn’t, yet they market to Do-it-Yourselfers."
I couldn’t help myself. I signed up for an account on Complaints.com and posted a comment:
"What exactly do you think the word LIQUIDATOR means? Lumber Liquidators liquidate lumber. By their very name you should expect it to be secondary product... That's why you got such a great deal. People who pay full retail for defective product have a right to complain. People who pay liquidation prices should expect to make up the difference with sweat equity or creative installation techniques."
This guy’s final statement gets to the heart of the matter, “those that purchase their product need to be experts […] yet they market to Do-it-Yourselfers.” The problem is that this guy assumes that willingness to do it yourself makes you a “Do-it-Yourselfer.” With no apparent research, training, help or advice he hopped into a project he was woefully unprepared to do and now wants to blame the world for his screw-up. Well sir, I am afraid to say you are not a Do-it-Yourselfer. You are, in fact, a Codbag. Congratulations.
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3 comments:
I used to get codbags when I was a cashier at Target. The worst were people who would bring up damaged items that were on mega-clearance (often up to 80% off the original price)...and wanted an extra 10% discount because the item was damaged. I would have to explain that the item is on 80% off clearance because of the damage ALREADY and that I can't give them an EXTRA 10% off for the damage. They still wouldn't get it. Management would have to be called. It was always ugly. They would usually do this at 5 minutes till closing knowing everyone was tired and just wanted to go home.
I believe you have unfairly flagged this guy as a CodBag. The term "liquidator" doesn't necessarily infer defective products, but more commonly discontinued products and leftover volume.
Perhaps the lumber store had marked the stock as second quality, perhaps not. If they had clearly marked the stock as such, this guy is clearly a CodBag. If they did not, I side with the consumer. Either way, most reputable stores will give a 100% refund on non-opened product if returned in a reasonable amount of time. They key is reasonable; perhaps building materials within 60 days; electronics within 30, etc.
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