The Elephant Boys

Review: On Friday, May 30, 2014 at 10:36 A.M. I purchased a Sidekick inflatable tube designed to be pulled behind a motor boat, from The Elephant Boys store located at 12622 E. Sprague, Spokane Valley, WA. The retail price was $189.99 and after taxes of $16.53 the total purchase price came to $206.52, which I paid for with my Visa credit card.

I opened the product's box on Sunday morning, June 1, 2014, around 9:00 A.M., in preparation to going to the lake to enjoy the use of our boat and our newly purchased product. Immediately after opening the box, I read the complete owner's manual for this product. The instructions were written in English, French and Spanish (6 pages for each language) and consisted primarily of extensive warnings, safety information, a description of the 90 day warranty and how to contact the manufacturer if needed. I was surprised and disappointed that there was no drawing, photograph or other depiction of the product and absolutely NO INFORMATION regarding how to prepare the product for use, other than how to attach a tow rope. There was an obvious valve on the upper surface of the product for air insertion and I used this to inflate the tube, without difficulty. We then proceeded to the lake.

Initially, we noticed no problems with the product while two of my sons each took a turn being pulled behind the boat. However, when my daughter and her boyfriend rode simultaneously (the product is designed and advertised for 2 riders), we became aware of huge amounts of spray coming from the front of the tube, primarily from the tube's left side. The spray became so prominent so that we could not even see the riders inside the tube and at this point we knew that something was wrong. We had been using the product less than 20 minutes and had NOT done anything unusual with it. We had simply drug it behind the boat, without extremely sharp cornering, at speeds under 20 m.p.h., as indicated in the product instructions.

We returned to the dock to investigate the problem and immediately began by checking the seams on the cover of the tube. In doing so, we discovered that there were zippers along the floor of each of the two places designed for riders to sit. We had not even been aware that these zippers existed, since they are concealed beneath a flap of fabric in the bottom of the seats. Looking further, we noticed that there were two smaller air bladders (one for each seat) totally concealed out of view beneath the floors of the seats. These bladders had valves for air insertion, but we had not inflated them because they were never mentioned in the owner's manual and were completely invisible to anyone simply looking at the inside of the tube. We inflated them both, but when we attempted to zip up the zippers that were securing them in place we noticed that one of the zippers was damaged. It had become detached from the starting position and the two sides of the zipper did NOT line up. One side was about 1.5 inches longer than the other in relation to to the zipper's pull handle. We ended our tubing for the day and returned home disappointed that we were going to have to return our tube with the defective zipper.

Today, shortly before 11:00 A.M., Monday, June 2, 2014, we returned to The Elephant Boys store with our receipt and the defective product repackaged in it's original container, complete with all documentation, etc, as close to the same condition as we had received it 3 days ago as possible. We approached the service counter and spoke with a younger gentleman, explaining the problems we had encountered and requesting that we be allowed to exchange our defective tube for a different one. It was my intention to immediately unpack the new tube to inspect the zippers to ensure that they did not have a similar problem as we had discovered in the tube we had already purchased. The clerk stated that he was unable to authorize the exchange and directed us to an older male, with graying hair and a beard. The very first words out of his mouth were that he had been listening to our description of the problem to his co-worker or employee and that, "Whenever I have problems like this with zippers, I just take them to my shoe repair shop and they can generally fix it without a problem." This was a totally unacceptable response to me. He basically was asking me to go somewhere else and spend additional money to attempt to repair a problem with a product that I had purchased from his business 3 days earlier. I informed him that I did not want to do that. I simply wanted to exchange my defective tube for a new one. At this point he informed me, "Well, I have several other customers ahead of you that I am going to have to take care of first before I can get to this." I advised him that that was NOT a problem. I was willing to wait. I repeatedly requested that he go ahead and take care of these other customers and then address my desire to exchange products. He became more and more resistant about giving us any of his time or attention at the present time and said that it "might take up to 5 days" to take care of these other customers. At this point, I confronted him verbally and said that I was going to wait in the store until he could take care of my concerns. He countered my response with, "You're willing to wait 5 days ?" To which I responded, "I really doubt it's going to take you 5 days to take care of them." I challenged him to point these other customers out to me and he refused to respond other than to say that some of them were not in the store at the moment. I suggested that he take care of the customer (ME) that WAS in the store at the present moment and the longer we went back and forth, the more adamant he became about insisting that he was NOT going to address my concerns at the present time. Eventually, he declared, "You know what, I've decided that I am done doing business with you. You are being unreasonable." He lifted the box from the floor where the clerk has positioned it, shoved it toward me on the counter and indicated that he wanted me to leave the store. I informed him that I suspected that he was "lying" about these so-called other customers and that the truth of the matter was that he simply did not want to give me the exchange to which I felt entitled. The use of the word "lying" seemed to be the final straw for his willingness to engage us any further. He threw up his hands and made it clear that he was absolutely not going to tolerate the suggestion that he might be "lying". It would have taken him literally less than 2 minutes to take the tube out of the box and allow me to show him the damaged zipper, but he was not even willing to open the box and take a look. He repeatedly claimed that I was being "UNREASONABLE" because I was unwilling to leave the tube with him for "5 days" until he could find the time to investigate the problem. As it became increasingly obvious that he was NOT going to provide me the "customer service" which I was requesting, I finally asked him, "Does this mean I am going to have to sue you?", he replied, "Go ahead. I'm done with you." I said, "What about the 90 day warranty that comes with this product?" and he indicated, "I don't care." It became obvious that I was going to have to pursue other channels than the simple exchange of packages which I had requested and would have been totally satisfied with (unless the new tube also had a defective zipper). We took the defective $200+ tube and departed the store.

Later, when I called my credit card company to indicate that I wanted to dispute the charges to my account for this purchase, the representative asked me to read the sales receipt to see if there was any language about The Elephant Boys' return/exchange policy. I was amused to read the words written all in capital letters "NO REFUNDS/EXCHANGES GLADLY". I couldn't help but think that the man from whom I had requested a simple exchange must not be the same person who put these words on the receipt. I think I would describe his personal policy as "NO REFUNDS/EXCHANGES OVER MY DEAD BODY".Desired Settlement: I would like The Elephant Boys to "gladly" exchange my defective tube for a different one, as they indicate is their policy, instead of suggesting that I take my defective product somewhere else or refusing to even look at the defective product that I returned. It's not like I was returning a car or a complicated product with an engine. I could have been in and out of the store in less than 5 minutes, completely satisfied, if only he had honored the "EXCHANGES GLADLY" policy so prominently displayed on my sales receipt.

I suppose a secondary "desired outcome" would be that this complaint be disseminated to as many consumers as possible so that they can be warned about the potential nightmare they face if they attempt to return a defective product to The Elephant Boys for an exchange.

Business

Response:

To Whom It May Concern;

I have attached photos of the towable Mr. [redacted] purchased from our store as well as the Instruction booklet that comes with all items of said type. Pictured is the sample we have to show the customer on how the tube should look with proper inflation. The customer inspected this tube before his purchase but did not follow instructions. The customer states the inflaters were not visible. See attached pictures showing three visible valves. When he returned with the product, he announced at the start that he towed it with only one of the three chambers inflated properly. He wanted us to replace it. The Kwik Tek Company Warranty does not cover failures caused by under or over inflation.