I wish I had come to this section before ordering.  I ordered an item on Ebay from them and paid 1 1/2 weeks ago and have not got a single repsonse from them until I emailed them today asking why my item isn't here yet.


Their ebay adds are missleading:
">>SHIPPING<<

If payment notification is received before 2:00 pm. CST M-F your order will be shipped the same day.  If you provide us with your e-mail address we will send you the tracking number the same day your order ships."  <––- This did not happen

Ok well this explains what could have happened:
"~~In Stock~~
We pride ourselves in maintaining a large inventory, but from time to time due to issues beyond our control we do run out of stock.  Items listed in our eBay store are also for sale locally and in rare cases may not be in stock.  We pull down auctions for items that are not in stock as soon as possible, but there is a narrow window when products might be listed but not in stock.  Should you order one, we will process it as soon as possible or immediately refund your payment (your choice)." <––- Well I could understand this but why do you keep listing the items for sale again if I mine is back ordered 2-3 weeks?


I am posting this as a heads up to people who plan to order from their ebay store.  I have no intentions to cancel my order since I used the live.com rebate but I hope SWFA can at least change their misleading adds and have better contact with buyers.  I will no longer be ordering from SWFA in the future.

I just ordered a SWFA Super Sniper Scope 16x and had nothing but excellent service from them.

+1 for SWFA

I asked a ? through eBay almost a week ago and no reply.  I guess they are too busy listing items to actually service customers they have.

Piss poor performance IMO.  Guess they don't need the money!

Well as you can see from my thread in this forum. I had the same issue. I think what's really killing them is the communication. They apparently need to hire more CS reps (or stick a foot up the @ss of the current staff) but one way or the other, they really need to respond quicker to customer inquiries.

I mean look at this forum - when was the last time someone from SWFA responded to something here?

Make an eBay complaint for non-delivery of said item, that will light a fire.

I don't want to because I used the live.com cashback.  I just want SWFA to change their practices with their ebay auctions for future buyers or at least change the disclamers in their auctions.  Basically stop relisting products they know they don't have in stock.

Have you called them?

A few points...

-Placeing an order with ebay is not placing an order with SWFA...Not immediately, anyway.
The have to close the ebay sale, and then enter it into their order system.  There is a lag.

-This time of year, with that Live.com rebate happening, they are balls to the wall busy.

-when the item is listed on ebay, it was in stock.   If they received multiple orders simultaneously,
you can imagine what happens.

Just sayin. My ebay/SWFA/Live.com order came off without a hitch, though it too did not actually ship until the next day.

I bought off the E-Bay store, did you read the whole AD before ordering?

Your getting a discount that you would not have gotten if you purchased direct, and in the Add they expressly described thier intentions at that time with the all exceptions listed.

I feel you should call them and ask about the order. I think you should be a little more understanding because you are getting a discount that otherwise you would not have received.

They will make it right so long as you communicate with them in a respectful manner. Posting on a site complaining is not going to get your issue solved any sooner.

Nonsense - I posted a question through ebay - no reply in over a week - screw them.  if they are gonna sell on eBay, then they ought to do it right.

Not replying to email questions is piss poor and nothing excuses that behaviour.

I have already emailed them an I have talked to them about the situation.  You obviously didn't read my first post completely because it explains how their add is misleading.  The fact that they keep re listing items they obviously don't have in stock is goes against their disclaimers stating they cuickly try to remove adds they no longer have in stock.  I'm fine with the possibility of the item being out of stock but not with them re-listing the same items pretending they are in stock to other potential buyers.

You are wrong about one very important point.  SWFA is listing products they know  are not in stock.  Eotecth 516s were re-listed on their ebay store the week after they told me mine was back ordered.  I called them and they are still back ordered.  They still owed me one and yet placed a new listing on ebay that claimed 5 "available".  That is shady.

Look men, I like their products, but at some point the PITA of dealing with them outweighs the benefit.

If they are selling on eBay, they are obligated to do it right.

If they have a presence her, they are obligated to monitor the forum.

They have done neither.

I need a scope for a rifle and I'd very much like to buy from someone who supports the site and shooters.

I'm only gonna put up with so much before I go elsewhere and so are others.

You'd think a company with millions in inventory would be actively trying to sell and that includes decent CS.

At $10 an hour, a CS rep is 20K a year +/-

Is that really too much to ask?

eBay will ream their ass, as well they should, for running things like they are so my advice is to straighten up and fly right.

I called and spoke to them the other day.  As you can see, it had ZERO effect.

My advice - buy elsewhere.  The SS scopes ain't all that and a bag of chips.

We have hundreds of products on eBay and most of them are set up to auto-relist.  We do e-mail everyone that purchases something that is not in stock with the option to remain on back order or be refunded immediately.  Can say why you did not get you e-mail.  Could have been entered wrong or bounced.

Many items were put up at request of AR15 members just for the Live discount and many of these items were hard to get back ordered items, the people that wanted the auctions put up knew this, the people that stumbled across the auctions did not.

We have set all time sales records every month of 2008 except for three, the year was an all time record by a large margin as was the month of December.  We are operating beyond our capacity right now with no room to hire more staff.  Things like eBay that are not the major part of our business are suffering because of these growing pains.  This is the first time we've been here in a while because honestly we just don't remember to come here because we can't get caught up on our own emails.

We will not be renewing our AR15.com Industry sponsorship this year for the first time since it's inception because we are not able to monitor it like we would like to.

I apologize for your order being on back order and wish you would give us another chance but understand if you no longer wish to do business with us.  Please let me know your name and zip code and I will get your order cancelled immediately and refund you  PayPal payment.  I may be able to pull it up from your email and get it done right now.

Perhaps the messages are not reaching us, I don't know.  I see about 200 emails in our box right now that we are answering as fast as we can get to them and still answer the phones and get orders out.  Sometimes emails through eBay may not be the best wasy to communicate, especially if it is urgent on your end.

I agree, we just don't have the staff or time right now.  It takes all we have to just get the orders out every day.  We are working over time but its hard to get people to work over time during the holiday season and especially after they work all day as hard as they do now.

We just bought 12 acres and are in the process of working with an arcitect to design a new facility that will be 3x this one.  Growing pains are hurting us pretty bad right now.

Thank you for understanding.  Wish there were more like you.  People are quick to complain and run to the Internet and cry these days over relatively minor issues.

We have a guy on the phone right now actually threatening to come to ar15.com and make negative posts about us because he recieved an Aimpoint ring with a factory imperfection.  We said we will refund him, send a call tag, send a replacement, etc.  He is demanding that we either give him $50. or additional product at free and replace it...OR ELSE!  Its almost comical but he is serious.

Thank you, thank you x1000.  Another sane person.  LOL.

Unfortunatley this has become the norm for these guys.  If you don't do this I am going to the Internet.  We make our share of mistakes trust me and until I figure out away to replavce all my people with robots we will continue to but man, give us a break sometime.  I promise we are doing all we can do and then some.  My family doesn't recognize me anymore.  My boys are going to start calling the mail man daddy and what if he is their daddy?????

What is your user name on eBay?  I can fix any problems you are having with us on eBay really quickly.

It's the freakin' eBay software, they just changed everything when they added the 30 day listings.  When you select how many days you want it run there is one choice called good till cancelled, it list 30 days and then relist (at least I think it does).  They have some kind of reward program where you come up higher in the seach if you do this so we started doing it then we started selling more than we could get and the auctions were still coming back.  It turned into a monster.

I'd hire five of those $10. an hour people you mention IF I had a place to put them.  I don't blame you for being mad I would be too, we just can't do more than what we are right now.  Our phones system is not big enough to handle the calls we've been getting lately.  OBAMA has caused our business to spike in such a manor that we could not have planned for.  GUYS, I don't know what else to tell ya or what else we can do.  I tried cloning my self and succeeded but the little rug rats are only 3 years old and 5 months old so it will be at least 13 years before they will be any help.

If ya'll want to read some really entertaining stuff, you've got to tune in and watch how this guys deal developes.  Turns out he has already started his negative campaign against us on this thread (user name ar15joe)
http://www.ar15.com/forums/topic.html?b=2&f=78&t=164288&page=2&#-1
I am chomping at the bit to go toe to toe with Mr. Joe.  Even if he does not want to air what has been going on with him and SWFA, I'm going to have to share it with ya'll so you can get a little glimpse of what it is like to be in the wonderful world of retail.

Chris
SWFA

Not trying to hammer SWFA - great products, but CS could be better.  I still bought another SS scope, so CS didn't deter me from their products.  YMMV