Blau and their excuses

["Geoff Jenkins" <jenkinsg@pilot.msu.edu>]

While there's no way to definitely identify how "good" or "bad" Blau is,
there's something worrying in the consistency of the complaints against
them. If it was all innocent and nothing more than random errors, we would
expect a mix of problems.

Instead, as I read it, people seem to keep repeating three major issues (i)
inaccurate pricing (and post-order changes in price) (ii) blaming screw-ups
on UPS and (iii) a hostile attitude to consumers who try to take advantage
of their credit card protection (i.e. cancel charges etc).

I've only ordered once from Blau (based on the list's then-apparent liking
of them), for a right rear brake caliper for the S4, and in the process saw
all three problems. They changed their position on price and availability
_after_ I ordered ("the computer's fault"), everything arrived late ("UPS's
fault"), shipped the wrong part ("the supplier's fault"), wouldn't accept
the full cost of shipping the correct part ("not our fault"), double-charged
me on both the caliper and the core charge ("the computer's fault"), and
then took a very long time to refund the returns ("Citibank's fault"). At
each stage, where I could check (UPS, Citibank) the people who Blau blamed
did a very good impersonation of innocence.

Now, parts screw-ups are inevitable, no matter how well the operation is
run, but it does appear that:
a) Blau needs a better, clearer policy on pricing, and one which doesn't
change from case to case
b) Either UPS in Manitowoc is useless, or Blau needs to accept blame for
shipping/packing errors
c) They should be a little more careful to be tolerant of credit card users'
legal protection

Would I still buy from them? Yes, but if and only if I didn't need the part
in a hurry, so that if the screw-ups were repeated I could either wait them
out or just take my business elsewhere.

Geoff

...who also had trouble with Blau's "free bonuses" (Decals/T-shirts) but
wasn't in the mood to even bother to correct that lot...