Luck Duck Pedals - shady, under-handed practices

[behndy]

... not quite sure how i'm going to proceed, but it's definitely not going to be accepting his VERY generous offer.

I'll tell you how you're going to proceed.

You're going to cease all correspondence with him and forget about it.

Admitting a pedal is broken and then trying to charge a restocking fee on a refund? RLY?

I'd like to hear his rebuttal.

I don't know about everyone else around here, but I'm willing to PayPal you $5 towards covering your expenses.

Your service in exposing pedal companies that shouldn't be dealt with is invaluable & well worth it.

you are a sweetie. loooooove you. i don't need any money sent to me, i'm lucky enough to have so few expenses right now that getting burnt on this sucks, but the money's not the issue. looooove you.

but yeah. i'm done talking to him. i had a long thing politely explaining all the reasons he's full of shit and citing examples from stuff i know Doc Sci and BriBri SS/BS/DFAS Matty Wren Cuff and Danno and Tommy Dalton and TayTay at IE and so many others have handled problems the RIGHT way.... and then deleted it. he doesn't get it, it'll come back on him.

... What if this was some 14 year old who had to mow yards and save up for months to but this pedal and he gets it and it's broken and he just has to sit there with a negative attitude and hurt feelings about custom pedals...

this right here. i know so many awesome musicians up on here. some of us are stoopid about pedz (EXCANE MY GAWD JEFE WHERE DO YOU EVEN PUT ALL THAT GLORIOUS LOOT??!?), and then some of us have to scrape and move things and wait until we can finally buy stuff. that's when this guy's antics decend into true dick-baggery.

i'm also lucky enough to have enough people check out the silly demo vidjas i put up that i have a small platform to disseminate information from. i think my vidja history has shown i don't trash builders, so hopefully it sticks out the one time i have. lol. it makes me so dayum HAPPY that that vidja is at about 650 views after a few days.

yah. i want nothing to do with this guy. leaning towards still doing the Slut Shaming Box, but i have a rule about waiting at least 2 hours before responding to emotionally charged emails, gonna give it the rest of the day to think about it.

thanks y'all for understanding where all this is coming from.

[goroth]

So this is basically in place so that we are not losing money every time a return is made and also for the hassle of fixing the pedal (time/money), and re-shipping the pedal (time/money).

What a paper thin argument. If he had any sort of QC then the ratio of good pedals/repair jobs should be pretty low, and the eventual repairs should be factored into the pedal pricing, not their post facto returns "policy". The "hassle of fixing the pedal" (which wasn't broken, but then it was, but it wasn't) is completely unrelated to a normal return. It's a warranty job, plain and simple, and there is no way the end user should be eating shit for his poor QC.

I also fail to see where the time/money loss is in shipping returns OF ADMITTEDLY FAULTY PEDALS which must be returned anyway. Postman delivers failed pedal. Time taken: 27 seconds from basement "workshop" to front door and back. Time lost in shipping back to Behnder: Printing a shipping label takes 15 seconds, dump it at the post office with your other outgoing pedals. Total time loss: 42 seconds.

Let's say the dude is raking it in and charging 150USD/hour for his services. He's clearly not but for the sake of the argument let's roll with that. That leaves his total expenditure for Behndy's return at $1.75. + the repair which needed to occur regardless of whether Behndy purchased the pedal or not. Broken pedal cannot be sold.

Let's have a look at another time/money scenario.
Customer claims pedal is broken.
Email 1: "Have you checked the power supply, and that the cables are plugged in the right way?"
Customer: Yep.
Email 2: Send it in straight away I'll sort this out for you.

Total time lost: 27 words, typing at a pedestrian 40 words a minute, working at a ridiculous 150USD/hr wage: $1.68

Situation 2:
Customer claims pedal is broken.
Shit load of emails. Time taken inventing dumb excuses: 10 minutes. Time taken typing out aforementioned obfuscation: 500 words @ 40 wpm = 12.5 minutes. Total time 22.5 minutes. Cost: $56.25
Bad publicity generated by 22.5 minutes woeful customer service: 8 ( ) potential sales down the drain. $1240
Total cost $1296.25

Luck Duck: We're not only bad at customer service, we suck at business maths.

Too many good and creative guys making pedals to put up with that sort of rubbish.

[FuzzHugger]

"So this is basically in place so that we are not losing money every time a return is made and also for the hassle of fixing the pedal (time/money), and re-shipping the pedal (time/money)."

Welcome to RUNNING A BUSINESS.

"and also for the hassle of fixing the pedal (time/money)"

But really,

[Mike]

he doesn't get it, it'll come back on him.

So... um... can you take some pictures of the component side and the trace side so we can... ermm... evaluate and discuss the design for educational purposes?

[behndy]

all good points and......

and also for the hassle of fixing the pedal (time/money)

But really,

fuck me. i didn't even catch that. the HASSLE. of fixing a pedal. that was broken from jump.

[behndy]

he doesn't get it, it'll come back on him.

So... um... can you take some pictures of the component side and the trace side so we can... ermm... evaluate and discuss the design for educational purposes?

this is what i have pics of.....





that good?

[goroth]

PCB_top.jpg (61.26 KiB) Viewed 2554 times

PCB_rear.jpg (53.66 KiB) Viewed 2554 times

Catalinbread Heliotrope - for reference

[warwick.hoy]

Damn; wish I made 150 bucks an hour.

[bodyisajerk]

i'd bet this a reworking of that analog bit crusher from experimentalist anonymous....just from a glance.

[morange]

i'd bet this a reworking of that analog bit crusher from experimentalist anonymous....just from a glance.

I concur.

[morange]

Sweet, I'm experienced now. This thread has turned me from a boy, into a man.

[behndy]

sooooo...... huh. i guess i kinda skimmed it at first, but when i was chatting with a friend about this and told him i just got a NEW (after the email i quoted in here) email from LDP guy saying he spent time on the circuit and made some improvements on the breadboard and i should send in the busted one and he'll swap guts my friend summed up more succinctly than i could -

"Hilarious damage control ensues.
1) it's not broke
2) it's broke
3) I made a newer nicer one"

but then i reread it and apparently he's offering to refund my entire original purchase amount AND to send me a newer, less noisy version. i am, again, conflicted. this was never about bullying someone into doing the right thing, people do make mistakes and he's doing a mea culpa and saying he didna handle it the best. i don't like talking shit about people. he sounds like he learned that this isn't the way to treat customers.

in the email he does apologize for how it went down, says he's new to the business side and has made mistakes.... that's plenty apology for me. i don't really want a free pedal under these conditions. it feels weird getting something free from someone that my only relationship with them is talking shit and shaming the experience publicly. makes me feel like a bully and a dick.

i think i'm going to tell him, "when i asked if it was supposed to sound like this and got the response "yes", at that point all i wanted was a full refund. i WAS very excited to get this pedal, so if you want to send one out to me after the redesign and if i click with it i can pay you for it, if i don't i can send it back, i would be interested in that.".

thoughts?

[Chankgeez]

Seems like a good plan.

[ChetMagongalo]

Seems like a good plan.

[Deltaphoenix]

You fucking Bully!

I kid, I say he learned a lesson about how to treat people. You do so much good karma here that I see nothing wrong with you getting the pedal for free. The only lessons that I learn and NEVER forget are the ones that were costly. So, you are helping ensure that Luck Duck McFuck will never forget the lesson and will hopefully treat all of his future customers better.