Iron Baluster, Inc.

Initial Business Response /* (1000, 5, 2016/01/26) */
Contact Name and Title: Marci [redacted], Owner
Contact Phone: XXX-XXX-XXXX
Contact Email: [redacted]@stairsupplies.com
Customer placed his order online on 11/13/15. Here is the email conversation between customer and Customer Service:
11/19/15 6:19...

am Customer emailed C.S.
"I need to cancel this order. How can I go about doing that? The item is not going to fit my needs. Please process a refund to my original card."
11/19/15 8:47 am C.S. to Customer
"I am sorry, the wood has already been PRC'd (plain, ripped, chopped). We cannot cancel orders once the lumber has been cut down. Your order should be shipping out in the middle of next week. We can remove the stain and issue you a refund for this. Please let me know if you want to do that."
11/19/15 10:32 am Customer to C.S.
"I am confused. I was under the impression I could be refunded minus a 7.5% fee. Is this your return policy for all of your items? What am I supposed to do with a unstained piece of wood? If the item is stained already why can that be refunded, but the wood cannot be? There has to be something else that can be done. This was an expensive piece of wood that you are saying I now have to keep."
11/19/15 11:07 am C.S to Customer
"The item has not been stained yet, that is why we can cancel that portion. The cancellation fee only works if we have not purchased the lumber. I am sorry. Please let me know if you want me to remove the stain."
11/19/15 11:49 am Customer to C.S.
"I understand this is not your fault, but I am incredibly disappointed. My wood isn't being delivered until after next week, and I still do not have time to cancel because you say you ordered the lumber. What kind of lumber ordering process are we talking about for a 5 foot piece of oak readily available at home depot? Now, apparently I am stuck with no recourse for returns or cancellation because an order was placed. But your company is more than willing to send me unstained lumber for $70+dollars with shipping? Its absolutely ridiculous. If you are unwilling to cancel my order, or at least partially refund my purchase, please send the wood as ordered with the staining. I will chalk it up as a $93 lesson for myself. I am on the Board of a large HOA in NJ with over 250 homes. I will make sure that no one uses your company for the purchase of wood, or any other home improvement products for that matter, and make sure they know about the level of customer service offered by your company. Thank you."
11/30/15 11:33 am Customer to C.S.
"Is your company going to send my item that I ordered? I have received no notification of shipping, my money has not been refunded, and I don't have the item. Please explain."
11/30/15 12:04 pm Customer to C.S.
"I have submitted a fraudulent credit card dispute charge with my debit card company. Please do not send the item."
12/1/15 12:22 pm C.S. to Customer
"Thank you"
12/16/15 7:58 am Customer to C.S.
Please refund my shipping costs for this order. I have not received it and I don't want it. I paid almost $27 in shipping for an item that was never sent and should not be sent. Please refund that amount back to my card immediately. I have filed a Revdex.com complaint, as well as complaints with my bank. I will drop both if I get my shipping costs back."
12/16/15 1:29 pm C.S. to Customer
"You sent me an email on 12/1 that you did a chargeback so I cancelled the order at that time. I did not issue you a refund because the bank takes your money back as soon as you do a chargeback. So that is why it has not shipped."
12/16/15 3:26 pm Customer to C.S.
"Understand. Than you for the response. The bank can't issue a chargeback because it was a debit card. Please initiate on your end. Thank you."
12/22/15 9:47 am C.S to Customer
"We did not ship to you because you said you were doing a chargeback. We would have fought the chargeback and shipped you the product when we won. We do not stock wood items and we do not cancel wood orders once the product has been PRC'd. At this point we can ship the product to you. We cannot offer you a refund of the product because it was made "just for you". I am sorry for the inconvenience. I can see if there is a percentage of the product and the shipping that we can refund and not ship to you but it would be a small percentage."
12/22/15 2:02 pm Customer to C.S.
"Ship the product"
Our complete list of policies can be seen on our website at http://www.stairsupplies.com/policies/
Please note the specific lines that pertain specifically to this order:
Returns:
Wood Returns: All our wood products are built "Just For You".
** "Just For You" wood products are not returnable.
This customer seems incredulous that we would not cancel his 5 foot piece of red oak knee wall. We work with over 30 different species of lumber and manufacture all wood stair parts at the time of order. It is impossible for us to predict when we would ever have need of a 5 foot piece of red oak knee wall again. We are a custom manufacturer and do not stock any wood items. We have to adhere to our policy of not returning or canceling any wood product once it has started in production.
The customer stated that it took 9 weeks to receive his product. That is true only because he kept threatening a chargeback. You can see in the string of emails where he stated he did not want the product. We did not send the product merely because he would get his money back from his credit card dispute plus have the product. We shipped the product as soon as he sent the email stating us to do so.
The customer also commented about the poor quality of the product and inferior stain job. Again, we are happy to replace the product according to our policies. Our policies state that customer needs to inform Stair Supplies within 48 hours of receiving the product if there is a problem. We ask for pictures to be sent so that we can determine the issue and replace the product at no charge if necessary. We received no correspondence from the customer regarding any damages or inferior quality.
OFFER:
We will gladly follow our policies with this customer. If he wants to send us pictures of the product that says is poor quality, we will take a look at them and determine if a replacement piece needs to be made. We can not offer money for product that he ordered and clearly acknowledged throughout the check out process online. I apologize for this customer's frustration but we have followed our policies throughout this process.
Initial Consumer Rebuttal /* (3000, 7, 2016/01/26) */
(The consumer indicated he/she DID NOT accept the response from the business.)
Not acceptable. As long as folks can look up the company on the Internet and see my issue. I'm the eighth person to complain of this company's businesses practices, and almost all reference poor customer service and refund issues.