Well I picked up the Escapade ARF on May 7th. Here it is June 3rd and after numerous emails with these pictures of the damage some with the plastic still on, I still have had no help. They emailed me back to say they didn't get the pictures and have no idea what i'm talking about. I'm getting very frustrated. It was a birthday gift for my 11 year old son and I'm not excepting the damage. My LHS says to call GP. I feel I'm in a no win situation. Hope that GP comes thru this time or I am done with there products. I understand that these things happen but what am I to do. My LHS does not want me opening it up in the store and then after getting it home this is what my son gets to open for his birthday. And then to add insult to injury I get the run a round for a month.

PS I also bought a GP cub for myself and that ARF came with broken wood in the wing tip. I told GP I would live with it as they have been good to me in the past but they have really dropped the ball this time and are about to lose one of there good customers. I buy GP prducts above all else because of the great service I have recieved but this one is going to sting for a long time. I've sent an email with this thread and I'm hoping I can report back that GP has finally come through. Cross your fingers. Thanks for listening.


<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);"><span style="font-size: large;">UPDATE. Great Planes called me and offered for me to take it back to my LHS and they will replace the ARF. Not sure what happened with all my emails but I'm happy and my son is looking forward to July when his new Escapade comes in. Thanks for all the reply's. I appreciate the advice on my issue. </span></span>

It is a shame that your LHS would not allow you to open the box to look atthe contents before purchase, and then they will not intervene to pressure GP for a relacement?? it sounds as though the LHSdoes not value your business much at all.
I have never had a problem getting service from GP in the past, I would sugest youkeep trying.

I think your LHS should have taken it back and given you a new one. Let them deal with GP. You could have bought it on line and not chose not to buy or dealwith them. If I had to do all the follow up on thisbecause myLHS would not then they lost a customer.

sorry about the issues your having to deal with. I feel the LHS is ultimately responsible since they are you primary point of contact and they took your money.

I count my lucky stars I have one of the best LHS's in the country. Simply the best service and they ALWAYS make the effort to fix an issues if they arise

good luck and keep hounding the LHS to help you

Mikecam,

It's a shame that you as a customer are being jammed between a rock and a hard place but it's not Great Planes that is at fault here but rather your LHS where you bought it that has let you down. They wouldn't let you open the box to inspect it while in the store??? What kind of a hobby shop does that?? Were they trying to hide the damaged parts inside?? And to tell you to deal with GP directly is BS. It sounds like they could care less about you as one of their customers. Did you notice any damage to the outside of the box because those photos sure look like shipping damage to me. I.ve never heard of such a practice in any LHS before.

To be fair to my LHS they would have exchanged it had they had another one. I expected to have been fixed up already and still hope that GP will come thru for me. They always have in the past. The LHS is very small and did allow me to pop the top off but everything looked good. Not the room to take things out and the way they tape everything it takes room to open everything up properly. This is my last hope and it would be a shame to have too order 2 rolls of covering for $40 to patch holes in a brand new plane. I've sent the link for this thread to GP so they can hopefully see the damage. Will let you know. Thanks

I sent pictures to GP of the box with zero damage to the outside. I know my LHS will take care of me but now I have to go back to them a month later. In the future I have told them that I will be inspecting every surface. They don't have a problem with that. Great Planes are the one's that told me in the past to not go back to my LHS. They said they would fix it, and they did, just not this time.

Is that Hangar Hobby you are talking about? I was there yesterday, nice place but too bad it is a long trip from whereI live.

When did you inspect it  relative to the day you picked it up? Was it that same day or days later?

the hs should have taken the plane back right  away and dealt w/ gp. think of buying any other product (cloths,furniture etc....) and how you would deal w/ it.  suprised by gp on this one.  there wrong. 

Bought on Fri. and opened fully Sat. morn. Had I known the problems with GP I would have packed it up and returned it and my LHS would have taken it back but because it was the only one they had I thought it would be faster to deal with GP. In my first email to GP I asked to return the plane but It took 2 weeks to hear back from them. I just feel I have fallen through the cracks on this one. Still have hope but with GP saying they haven't received any of the 5 emails I have sent over the last 4 weeks I'm a little worried.

Please realize that we do respond to ALL emails. Usually we get a response out within one business day of receipt. If the email has attachments, the email or the attachments may get "trapped" by the email system's firewall, which blocks spam, dangerous attachments, and the like. Too-large pictures will get blocked because of storage reasons. Some ISP's get blocked because there have been problems with them.

Whenever we get complaint about emails not being responded to, we check our email boxes: incoming, sent, archive, and trash. The trash gets emptied only a few times per year. If we get a good-enough reference, we can determine if we ever received an email.

Sometimes, our reply to a customer gets blocked by their ISP or spam blocker. You'd have to check your spam folder or your spam-blocker's block list to see if any of our correspondence is blocked. Some systems just delete without saving. If an email gets blocked, it just winds up in the email afterlife.

The key, is that we NEVER IGNORE a person's communications.

As far as your difficulty with your Great Planes kit goes, you would normally work through your hobby retailer. If the kit had shipping damage (and the box won't necessarily show impact or cuts), then it's up to the retailer and Great Planes Model Distributors to work it out. GPD will normally replace the kit and have the bad one picked-up from the retailer. If the kit's in stock, then a new one would be available in a few days. If it's out of stock, then you'd get a new one as soon as they come back into stock. Right now, the Escapade is out of stock, but due to arrive in mid-July. There's little anyone can do about that at this time. However, there's no reason you should have a bad kit. There should be zero difficulties in getting it replaced, or replaced with equal value.

If the kit has actual manufacturing defects, then you can certainly send it to us, at the service center. We'd still have to backorder a new kit, but you'd be assured of getting a replacement. We could also work out an exchange of equal value, depending upon what's available.

If emails seem to not be working, we are always available by phone during business hours. We want all of our customers to be satisfied with any of our products they may have.

Bax,
That comment is not true about never ignoring comments!

<span style="color: #ff0000">YOUNEVERGOTBACKTOTHETHREADSONMONOKOTE!</span>


<table cellspacing="1" cellpadding="4" width="100%" border="0"> <tbody> <tr> <td class="ultrasmall" valign="top" nowrap="nowrap" width="150" background="/forum/image/ffffff" bgcolor="#fbfcff"><font color="#00265e" size="2">Bax</font>
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Posts: <font color="#00265e">13533</font>
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From: Champaign, IL, USA
Status: <font color="#008000">online</font> </td> <td class="msg" valign="top" width="100%" background="/forum/image/ffffff" bgcolor="#fbfcff">I have had the same question sent to me by Mr. MOTORMAN37 several times. I gave the only answer I had, and that was that I referred this thread to the people who can investigate these claims and see what's going on. Sending me several PM's, emails, and such from the same person, every day or two won't get an answer any faster. I have referred this thread to the the product managers involved. A response will be made as soon as I have any kind of answer from them.

As always, we stand behind our products. If you believe your item is defective in parts and workmanship of the original manufacture, then it should be sent to us per the warranty. <span class="info">

<font color="#242424">&lt; Message edited by Bax 10/10/2007 3:33 PM &gt; </font></span>

_____________________________

Bill Baxter, Manager Hobby Services/Futaba Service/North America
3002 N. Apollo Dr. Ste. 1 Champaign, IL 61822 USA
Service Phone: 217 398-0007
Email: <font color="#00265e">[email protected]</font>
</td> </tr> </tbody></table>

Applause for Bax for responding.

Now - Either goto your LHSand bring copy of response and ask that he help you work this out - 1) because he can being an authorized retailer 2) in order to keep you happy and keep your confidence in doing business with him/her.

If not...certainly contact GP Hobby Services ASAP and arrange for return of item and back order - or whatever it is you want at this time.

Good Luck. Sometimes things happen - but in the end...it all works itself out.

I have seen Bax reply about the Monokote many times! I use it and love it!

Thank you Bax. I have provided Mark F. with my phone numbers and feel replacement is the only option. Having a new kit shipped to my LHS would be for me the best option. I understand the July date and accept it and understand you have no control over it. I would like to state my LHS has always been great to me and I will continue to look to them for my future needs in the hobby. I'm also looking forward to hearing from Great Planes and getting this resolved. I look forward to the call and appreciate your input Bax into this matter. I hope that you can tell from my posts in this thread that I only wanted to get my issue resolved and once that has been done will continue to look at Great Planes for the products I require. Thank you again.

Deadeye,
Bax never responded with the truth on the coveringthat is on theRV-4. He said he would check with the product managers and post a responce but never did, and theystill advertise it as Monokote, even though the Clear constantly lifts on the covering.
Itoo like Monokote, but not the China Cote that they are covered with.

You should be dealing with the LHS. Even, if they don't have a replacement on hand, they should be the ones to go about getting your replacement in. Or, refunding your money. If the LHS will not work with you, report them to the manufacturer. They are the representative, and if they're not willing to handle this properly, the manufacturer has every right to not allow the LHS to carry their products.

Having worked 23 years in the automotive parts business, I can assure you I know what I'm talking about.

EJ

See the first post for update in blue.

I would do less business with your local hobby shop.

Never feel guilty about purchasing products seen on line and sent by mail. Which BTW is a big part of this hobby business.

If I made a list of what I have,which Ididn't get from my local Hobby Shop, you wouldn't believe the list.

Hey,that could actually be another Thread.

Charles

Well here is an update to my problems with GP. . It has now been almost 5 months and still no plane. I emailed Mark F. at great planes telling him how disappointed I am. He told me that he did not receive the damaged plane back so therefore did not send the replacement. When talking on the phone with Mark F. he said that a replacement would be shipped to my LHS when they came back in stock. Funny because I did try to take the damaged plane back to my LHS and they asked if I could keep it till the replacement plane came in with the return shipping paperwork. They have a small shop and so I had no problem keeping it for them till the return shipping documents came in with the replacement plane. I can understand GP waiting to receive the damaged plane before shipping the new one IF they were sending it to me. They were not however, the plan right from the beginning was to have GP deal with my LHS. My LHS called me and confirmed that GP had called them and were sending out a replacement plane. Sounds to me GP dropped the ball and now came up with this excuse to cover there incompetence. In the end I still have a 11 year old waiting for his birthday gift. Oh well I guess hopefully he will have it by his 12th birthday, although with GP customer service I wouldn't put money on it. I will start giving other company's a chance at my business and will learn from this experience. Thanks to all for the reply's and kind and helpful words.

Bax, Never did Mark F tell me that the damaged plane would have to be sent in first. I also talked to my LHS and they confirmed that also. If my LHS tells me to wait for the return shipping label before bringing down the damaged plane then someone is at fault here and it is not me or my LHS. Enough said, get me my plane you promised 5 months ago.