Sorry to hear hq. Here's why I advise staying the hell away from gungrip.com, aka NC Ordinance:
Their "customer service" is a joke. It consists of a lady who runs the internet orders and answers the phone, and doesn't know squat about firearms.
The owner, Bill Harvey, is extremely rude, and is just out to get your money. I don't like saying this about a business, but read on and you'll see why.
When I received my rosewood grips, they did not fit the gun flush at all. The edges stuck out beyond the frame of the handle, which is a) ugly and downright erroneous, and b) not comfortable when firing. It's just wrong. I wrote a long, courteous, professional email pointing out this problem, attached different photos showing the issues, and asked if I could return them for an exchange. His email response "
that's fine." Literally just one word; no signature, no thank you, no regards - nothing. I thought that was strange, but whatever, I didn't care too much.
When I replied to that email and asked what his return process was (because many places have their own specific return process that they like to stick to) his next email response was "
put them in the mail."
That's it. No address, no RMA#, nothing. WOW, I thought. So "put them in the mail" huh? Really!!? I would've never guessed!
My reply email:
"Bill, I understand that the only way to return them is to mail them back to you. However, I feel that I should not be liable to pay for return shipping costs. I am having to return the item because I was sent an inferior product, therefore the burden falls on the seller for failing to fulfill their end of the agreement to supply the buyer with an exceptional product as promised and as was paid for. Given the past email conversations, it may be easier to speak over the phone rather than through brief emails. I can be reached at xxx-xxx-xxxx. Please call me at your earliest convenience. I look forward to speaking with you regarding this matter soon."
Well over a week went by and he never replied to that email, surprise surprise. I decided to call him instead of waiting for him to call me, and for the first couple of attempts no one would answer the phone. Eventually I finally got his assistant, the lady who does the internet orders and helps with the website. I tried explaining my situation to her, but it fell on deaf ears. Her response was basically "I just do the internet orders and run the website, I don't run the business, you need to speak to Bill. He's not in right now so I can take a message and have him call you at X o'clock when he returns". Well of course he never returned the call. So the next day I tried again, same thing happened, but eventually, I finally got to talk to Bill on the phone.
When I re-briefed him as to who I was and what my situation was, he said, "Oh, my supplier made a mistake and we got a bad batch. Hey [so & so], (lady who answers phone) were the rosewood grips for the Colt Frontier Scout part of that bad batch"? She said she didn't know, so Bill said "yeah I think they were." In my head I am thinking well if they were you idiot why would you sell them to people in the first place!? I told him that I wanted to send them back for an exchange and he told me that I would have to pay for return shipping, and that he would NOT refund me on the original shipping, and that I had to pay for the return shipping as well as the shipping for the new grips I was exchanging for. But wait a minute, I'm not the one who screwed up here, HE WAS! I kept my cool, because I knew that getting pissed off wouldn't help. So when I tried to explain in a courteous and professional way, he said cut me off and said "
part of the policy" and hung up on me before I could get another word out!! I called back immediately and told him that I did not appreciate him hanging up on me and that it was very rude, and again he interrupted me before I could finish and said "
I don't have time to argue" and hung up on me again!
I kept calling every 20 minutes or so, and I finally got an answer, and finally got to talk to Bill, (prior attempts, he was "too busy"). But I finally got to speak to Bill again. I told him fine, I'll pay for return shipping and new shipping, just do the exchange so I have a pair of grips that fit properly. All I want are grips that fit. Well wait until you hear this:
He goes on to tell me that Colt did not have a strict forging process when they made the gun, so that none of the grips would perfectly fit, because every gun was different because it was hand made (or some bull). Idk if this is true or if he is full of it. Anyway, I originally wanted to do an exchange, but he said
I probably shoudn't even bother doing an exchange, because I'd probably never get a pair of grips that fit properly due to how Colt manufactured the revolver. I was shocked and awed that he would say this! He is basically admitting to selling inferior junk! And it's total bull because Colt used plastic grips and those plastic grips are all identical because you don't make plastic by hand on an assembly line, you use injection molding, and the original plastic grips fit the gun flawlessly. To me it sounds like Bill has a terrible supplier who is doing a half ass job and doesn't care if they fit or not, they just want to make and sell as many as they can. I told him he shouldn't even be selling the grips in this case, and that if he absolutely must sell them than he should at the very least put a disclaimer on the website under these grips so people don't make the same mistake that I did. I was even more upset knowing that he knew what he was doing but was still selling inferior products anyway. I asked how he expects me to pay for all of this when he KNOWS that he is shipping out inferior products. He ignored the question and tried to quote the "policy", and I told him that in all of the paperwork he sent with the grips, it didn't say anything about that. He then said, "
Well it's on the website then, you didn't check the website". I then told him that I DID check the website extensively and found nothing stating the return policy. Well before I could finish that sentence, he hung up on me. Shocker!
Well at this point I figured there was no sense in getting an exchange because he himself said that I'd never get grips that would properly fit (still shocked that he would admit this to a customer and be okay with selling inferior products). So I decided to just ship them back to him and get a refund, even though I'd be without grips for my Colt. (the original plastic grips broke, thus I needed something.) But first I did a google search on this guy and his business and found very similar stories to my story. No one had anything good to say about gungrip.com, and that dealing with Bill was an ultimate headache. The BBB website has similar complaints, and a lot of people who sent their defective items back to him never got a refund even after months of waiting, and their emails and phone calls were never returned. Also, they have an F rating on the BBB website. That's when I decided to just say screw it, keep the grips, because you may never get a refund and will be without grips and out of $80! That actually happened to another guy when I read the BBB website. The grips he received were cracked and scratched, he originally wanted an exchange, Bill never returned any of his emails or phone calls, so then the customer wanted to just get a refund seeing as how he didn't think he'd ever get an exchange, and Bill continued to ignore him so now the guy is out of the grips as well as his money! I didn't want this happening to me so I just kept my inferior grips and cut my losses. BBB website:
http://www.bbb.org/raleigh-durham/b...res/nc-ordinance-in-wilson-nc-7049/complaints
So that's my story. You can see why I didn't want to explain it at first, because it took forever to write out. But hopefully THR members will read this and tread with caution if they ever dare to venture over to the abomination that is gungrip.com.
hq, I wish the best of luck to you!
