Quoted: 4 - if you say ANYTHING questioning LF (or K2) or even *slightly* negative in his forums, you get absolutely SLAMMED

Who is K2??

Quoted: Who is K2??

They are now out of business, but they had a shop in Richardson, TX.
Their shop had "by appt only hours" and they tended to cater more to LEO, so I stated that in a thread and TBK1.......read previous post as I don't want to venture "too far" off topic.

K2 is out of business, eh?

[LF]Success is hard.[/LF]

Quoted: Does anyone just ask if something is in stock, when you call to order?!?!?!? If you do, fine. If not, why do you gripe??  If you don't care enought to ask, why does it matter, after the fact??

Ummm, most of the issue is web orders.  I HATE when web vendors have something on their website but don't show when the item is not in stock.  THAT is the source of this problem.  

I suppose the answer could be to NEVER place a web order, use the phone, and to just use the website as a web-based catalog.  

Quoted: Quoted: <snip> Waa waa!!! You didn't get your gear for your 'tactical' class in time.  Guess what?  There's a lot of guys fighting REAL wars right now.  Ever think that they should come first??? I've waited a long time for gear from Lightfighter and I know how you feel, it sucks.  But there are people that NEED the gear more than us, so there is no sense in badmouthing the guys that equip some of our soldiers.

If they can't fulfill civilian orders in a reasonable timeframe, then they should not accept them. Businesses can live or die based upon reputation alone and as there is NO excuse for poor service the numerous horror stories mentioned here doesn't help at all one bit.

I just left there 5 minutes ago and the shop was still there and open. The guy there said they are short on CS help so emails are behind and the phone isn't as well manned as in the past. I'd try the phone early in the day to get through to a real live person.

Quoted: I just left there 5 minutes ago and the shop was still there and open. The guy there said they are short on CS help so emails are behind and the phone isn't as well manned as in the past. I'd try the phone early in the day to get through to a real live person.

Not exactly confidence-inspiring news.

I talked to a real live, nice lady this afternoon.  I won't give her name, because it's not my place to do so.

She spent several minutes with me on the phone.  Just as nice and as helpful as could be!

I dunno...could just be me....

Hmm...  sounds like they need to hire a consultant to help them get situated and organized, or hire another employee.  I personally know of at least a dozen people that have stopped buying from LF because of the customer service issues, and there's got to be a lot more.

Of course, since he's next to an Army base, his target customer base may have shifted from online to walk-in customers.  When that happens, online orders suffer and bad experiences from online customers spread much more rapidly.

Quoted: I talked to a real live, nice lady this afternoon.  I won't give her name, because it's not my place to do so. She spent several minutes with me on the phone.  Just as nice and as helpful as could be! I dunno...could just be me....

what 900# ya callin'?

Uh.. anybody remember what we were even talking about here (originally).........

Sorry, but if you want to split hairs, start another thread. I, for one, would like to know why I still can't seem to find their site. I could get to it today, but now it is some generic storefront. I posted a thread in my hometown forum and some guy said he could get to it. I can't though. Anybody know what is the story with the website and/or the business in general?

Quoted: Uh.. anybody remember what we were even talking about here (originally)......... Sorry, but if you want to split hairs, start another thread. I, for one, would like to know why I still can't seem to find their site. I could get to it today, but now it is some generic storefront. I posted a thread in my hometown forum and some guy said he could get to it. I can't though. Anybody know what is the story with the website and/or the business in general?

Try and keep up. Someone mentioned on the first page that they got slammed with that worm that's going around now, and took down thousands of systems all over the world.

I like their new web site. (LF)

the links appear to work fine...
www.lightfighter.com
www.lightfighter.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWCATS&Category=12

Quoted: Quoted: Uh.. anybody remember what we were even talking about here (originally)......... Sorry, but if you want to split hairs, start another thread. I, for one, would like to know why I still can't seem to find their site. I could get to it today, but now it is some generic storefront. I posted a thread in my hometown forum and some guy said he could get to it. I can't though. Anybody know what is the story with the website and/or the business in general? Try and keep up. Someone mentioned on the first page that they got slammed with that worm that's going around now, and took down thousands of systems all over the world.

I am keeping up. Just because someone mentioned it doesn't mean that is definately the problem. I have other people telling me they can get to the site fine as we speak while I am still getting some generic storefront with bogus crap. Bottom line: don't believe everything you hear, especially on the Internet.


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Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: <snip> Waa waa!!! You didn't get your gear for your 'tactical' class in time.  Guess what?  There's a lot of guys fighting REAL wars right now.  Ever think that they should come first??? I've waited a long time for gear from Lightfighter and I know how you feel, it sucks.  But there are people that NEED the gear more than us, so there is no sense in badmouthing the guys that equip some of our soldiers. If they can't fulfill civilian orders in a reasonable timeframe, then they should not accept them. Businesses can live or die based upon reputation alone and as there is NO excuse for poor service the numerous horror stories mentioned here doesn't help at all one bit.

I agree.  

Bookhound - can you get to the Lightfigther website?

Bookhound - can you get to the Lightfigther website? Very weird, I am at work now and can get their fine. From home, I get crap. Probably my ISP's DNS is screwed up.

Okay here's my take on this company.

1. First off, tapping your card to see if it's good is NOT charging your card! (it may appear so when ya call and check your account info but this is not the same a charging your card because the charge goes away and your account is credited for the amount tapped after a few days, YES they did "tap" my card, but only billed me when each portion of the items I ordered shipped).

2. While they charged me initially for the shipping on the first items shipped out, they never charged me for shipping on the 3 subsequently shipped items (which made up my entire order).

3. Yes. like many online stores, ya don't know what's in stock and what's not, but you can't do much about that, other than not do business w/ them.

4. Yes, it took a few e-mail and phone calls to get their attention, and yep it took longer than I liked to get all my items ordered, but I did get them at a great price and NO additional shipping charges on the 3 BO'd follow up items.

5. Sure I would have preferred to have all my items in one box, but alot of what I ordered was "SUREFIRE" products and to tell ya the truth I was just happy to get them, (no matter the wait) at the prices I did and don't blame Lightfighter for the delivery of BO'd items which they had no control over and atleast I didn't have to pay what Surefire charges.

I try to spead my money around and have dealt with many of the fine dealers here, most of which are top-notch, is Lightfighter the best, maybe not, but I didn't get ripped off, I got my stuff, maybe not as quick as I'd hope, but I saved alot and got great products below cost.

Can't say I was 100% happy, but then when what was ordered is taken into consideration it could have been worse. I could still be waiting......

my 2 cents,
Mike

 Just got offf the phone with them.... They said they have that new virus and it has caused problems with their online ordering. She also said that it has been VERY busy in the past few weeks so it can be very hard to reach them on the phone. Only one person is answering the phone by the way. Hope this helps.....

The truth aint bad mouthing.  this has been going on for three months. i have spoken with and e-mailed people at lightfighter. their "worm"  probably didn't last all that time and it certainly did not keep them from charging me for items not received.  

thompsondd, yes I can get there no problem.

I only placed one order with them last year.  I never could get a straight answer from them on when my items would be in stock or when they’d ship.  They couldn’t even tell me when I placed the order (via phone) if the items were in stock.  I was assured if the items were not in stock, it would only be a matter of a few days.  They were not responsive to e-mails and phone calls yielded poor results (i.e. the friendly young lady couldn’t tell me anything, would promise to call me back and then never would).

What I was told should take, at most, a few days ended up being nearly two months.  Interestingly enough, I called the manufacturers of the gear I ordered and they had plenty of the items sitting on the shelves.  So did a few other vendors.  Like others, I was not charged until my items shipped.

I wasn’t exactly impressed with the overall experience.

Now I use Botach Tactical.

hehehehe!

Quoted: Quoted: Hmmmm.... must've been real quality service..... IM me if you get the chance, and give me a basic rundown (if you don't mind) on what their deal is. Some guys at work have been looking to buy some stuff and I heard them talking about this company...... An example: Lightfighter will not charge your credit card until your stuff ships. Botach charges you right away, even if everything is out of stock.

I don't know if this is true. I ordered some LED flashlights from them on a really good sale back in October of 2001 for Christmas presents (for Dec 2001). When my card got charged ten months later by Botash I thought it was a rip-off because I didn't remember ordering anything from them. A couple of weeks later the stuff arrived (I live less than 40 miles from them) and found an appology letter in the box mentioning 9-11 as the reason things were so late.

That was the last straw. I had about a 50/50 rate going with them but ten months was the worst customer service I have ever received. I imagine if I had canceled that credit card account they'd have sued me for trying to defaud them - don't know.

Okay a few points here:

I’m an impatient person, but I’ve grown to learn that in the gun and gear world sometimes you have to wait for the good stuff.

Lightfighter.com is definitely a specialty store.  They carry many different brands and products, some from very small manufacturers.  Many of these products are also in high demand by the military (and law enforcement) community.  Add in the fact that we have a lot of men overseas who NEED the gear, and I am a lot more forgiving of long shipping times.

It is impossible for them to stock every single item in every single color, configuration and size.  They’d need a giant warehouse and millions of dollars of inventory sitting around collecting dust.

First off, what are you ordering???  If you’re ordering a garden variety BlackHawk product, I’m sure they have a better chance of getting it pretty quickly.  If you’re ordering a custom built, new to the market, high demand product from one of the smaller gear makers, you should expect a wait.  Don’t order an XXXXL, pink, SOTECH Callahan v2.0 rig, with optional custom bells and whistles and expect to get it in three days.

Secondly, what else is in your order?  If you have 50 different items and you want them all to ship the same day, that’s silly.  Usually part of my order gets to me in a couple days, but the other more unique items take a few more days/weeks.

Think of it from their perspective.  They get the gear from the manufacturers (Company X and Y).  You order a few back-ordered items from LF.  LF makes the order with Company X and Y.  X is a small (made in the USA) company with a small number of employees spinning the gear by hand.  X also has to fill the orders of 50 other online retailers (in addition to the LF order).  Company Y has a big military contract to fill for that particular item you ordered.  They have to make sure the guys over in the hot zones get the gear before they can fill the order to LF.  When X and Y finally ship the order to LF, the LF employees still need to unpack it, organize it, prioritize their customers’ orders (according to who ordered what first), box up the individual orders, and ship to the customers.  

There are so many different variables and so many different hands involved and that is why your order might not get to you in 3 days.

And always remember rule #1 of internet shopping:

If you need it fast, CALL ahead!  The internet isn’t a magical product procurement device.  If you know you need a surefire light for your match this weekend, CALL (remember that ancient device called a telephone?) and speak to a human to see if the item is in stock.  

If someone doesn’t call ahead, I don’t feel sorry for them, period.  On the other hand, if you are promised a delivery date, and they don’t live up to it, well then you can bitch.   That’s why Lightfighter doesn’t give estimates for shipping dates.  If they don’t have it in stock and they honestly don’t know when the manufacturer will fill the order, it is irresponsible for them to say, “sure, we’ll get it to you next week.”  I waited a LONG time for my Hellcat, and I bugged the shit out of them on the phone, but the people on the phone were courteous and most importantly, HONEST.  They would tell me: “I’m sorry, we really have no idea when SOTECH will fill our order, we hope it is very soon.”

In a perfect world, you’d get your gear overnight, but unfortunately that isn’t always possible.  Moral of the story:  Lightfighter is a great company, but because of the nature of the business and the large selection of quality products that they deal in, they aren’t the fastest.  So if you’re even more impatient than I, perhaps LF isn’t the company for you…

I agree.

However, I think that the bottom line is tha Lightfighter's communication and customer service is VERY poor.  If they address that and fix it, I think that 95% of the complaints with them would disappear.

If they have enough business to be this busy, they should be able to either (1) hire someone else to do customer service all day (answer phones, check/reply email) or (2) hire an efficiency consultant to help them get their ducks in a row.

So again, how long should I wait for some Under Armour shirts, a web belt and a couple of pair of BDU's???

Quoted: I agree. However, I think that the bottom line is tha Lightfighter's communication and customer service is VERY poor.  If they address that and fix it, I think that 95% of the complaints with them would disappear. If they have enough business to be this busy, they should be able to either (1) hire someone else to do customer service all day (answer phones, check/reply email) or (2) hire an efficiency consultant to help them get their ducks in a row.

I don't know why you think Lightfighter has poor customer service.  

Poor customer service is calling up and having the dealer cuss you out.  Poor customer service is requesting a refund and being told NO.  Poor customer service is having a screwed up order and NOT getting it fixed.

I think they have excellent customer service.  The staff is friendly and knowledgable, and they tell me the truth, not just what I want to hear.  If they screw up and order, they take care of it, no questions asked.  If I want to call up 5 times and change my order around or add/subtract items (I've done this) no one complains.

I will agree that maybe their email communication is not the best, but again, I always get an answer when I call them on the phone.  If an item isn't in stock, there isn't much they can do.  Even if they called me every day to say "your item is still backorder" that would not make me feel better.  But they always email me when my order is placed and when it is shipped.  I don't expect much more, nor have I gotten any more from any other online retailer.

Maybe they could use a few more employees, I don't know, that's a business decision that only they can answer.  They probably should impliment something into the website that shows if the item is in stock or backordered.  That would be nice, but I'm sure some folks would still complain even if they knew they were ordering an item that was out of stock.  

You'll never be able to please 100% of the customers 100% of the time.  I think that 95% of the Lightfighter complaints are due to backordered items, which is a problem that can never be completely solved.

Quoted: So again, how long should I wait for some Under Armour shirts, a web belt and a couple of pair of BDU's???

Hey, don't ask me, I only have SOME of the answers!

Those sound like normal items to me, but maybe they are backordered on all the Girly-man sizes.

Quoted: Quoted: So again, how long should I wait for some Under Armour shirts, a web belt and a couple of pair of BDU's??? Those sound like normal items to me, but maybe they are backordered on all the Girly-man sizes.

If I'm of the girly-man size then some of you motherfuckers must be Paul Bunyan......

Quoted: If I'm of the girly-man size then some of you motherfuckers must be Paul Bunyan......

Well last time I checked, they are in stock on obsese armchair commando sized web gear.  

Quoted: Quoted: If I'm of the girly-man size then some of you motherfuckers must be Paul Bunyan...... Well last time I checked, they are in stock on obsese armchair commando sized web gear.

I was looking to buy them for my girlfriend.......she is a petite small framed doctor from Connecticut who wants to buy an AR....

Ooops ........wrong thread.

Seriously, I can get these Under Armour shirts in XL in just about any sporting goods store in the free world.  Not every one carries Army Brown, but I can get them from several other vendors who do....

BDU's are available at Sunny's but I choose to support board supporters when I can.

I can also get a web belt from various sources......how friggin' hard can this be....

Further, I believe the Jedi Ninja Armchair Assault squad members on the board like to be called , HUSKY not obese.......

There is no excuse for charging a customers card for items you do not have in stock. Usualy this is an indication of a very poor business practice of basicly not having enough money to operate on, and having to wait for the customers $$$ before you can afford to buy it.

I run a business that does an ever increasing amount of mail order and internet sales, and my policy is simple. Your credit card gets charged ONLY when your order is sitting in the box about to be shipped, and only for whats in the box. If you call I let you know if something is out of stock, if you order online you get an email within 48 hours (usually much much sooner) informing you if an item is out of stock and asking if you want to wait for all, ship whats in stock, or cancel all.


If I charge your card, the item is on its way to you that same day, 100% of the time.