Old Town Terrible Customer service

[Harry Hill]

Let me start off by saying I love my predator PDL, it's a great kayak. I bought it from OEX and have always gotten great service and support from OEX. Unfortunately my wife decided to buy a Predator PDL and wanted one in the black cherry color so ordered it directly from Old Town. They offer free delivery but there is a $100 surcharge for an oversize shipment. After about a month wait it was delivered last Friday. Upon unwrapping she discovered the side pocket had been installed incorrectly so there was a gap that will allow small items to fall out. When the pedal drive was packed it wasn't padded so it tore up the deck pad and damaged the hull under the pad. Whoever installed the pad put it on wrong so it intrudes into the hole where the pedal drive fits. She immediately emailed Old Town and was ignored. On Monday she called Old Town and was told the issue would be turned over to customer service who also never contacted her. She called twice more during the week and was transferred to an answering machine with no return calls. Finally one week later she received an email telling her to loosen the screw on the side pocket so the gap would close. Since the screw is in the wrong location that doesn't change anything, they will send her a new deck pad but don't address the damage to the hull. None of these issues would make a huge difference if she had bought a kayak that was discounted because of shipping damage but it isn't acceptable when purchasing a new kayak from the manufacturer. This is a ridiculous way to treat someone who bought directly from the manufacturer. If you are going to buy an old town product make sure you deal with someone like OEX who will take care of issues that arise because Old Town has no customer service.

[Hunters Pa]

Sucks. If you paid via credit card you can refute the chare until issues are addressed. That may get their attention

[Harry Hill]

Originally Posted by Hunters Pa

Sucks. If you paid via credit card you can refute the chare until issues are addressed. That may get their attention

That is my next step, we gave them a week to address the issue with no satisfaction. It may be they feel because she is a woman they can just ignore her but they don't know my wife.

[Harry Hill]

The more I inspect the kayak the more I can see it never received an inspection before leaving the factory. Excess plastic was left in the scuppers, there are scratches and gouges in the scuppers and a lot of debris inside the hull. The drive unit has an inspection sticker signed by SDB but there are no stickers on the hull indication anyone inspected it. It appears Old Town knows they let a unit go out without being inspected and don't want to be responsible. I'm wondering if they let the kayak leave like this is it safe for my wife to be out on the open ocean in it. What did they miss that I can't see?

[jorluivil]

That sucks, that's one of the drawbacks of buying large items online. Hope it all works out for you two. I had a bad experience myself recently. I called a local company to get some assistance and the guy that picked up the phone had an attitude from the get go, the dude was such an ass that rather than arguing with him I just ended the call.

mean people suck.

[Harry Hill]

After almost three weeks since the first contact my wife finally received an e-mail from the original customer service person she contacted. Only the second e-mail in all that time after multiple attempts to contact the CS Chastity. A word of advice, if you have to contact Old Town customer service ask for Ken, if you get Chastity you are in for a long process. Anyway, my wife finally got Chastity to answer her phone after talking with Ken first. She was given a song and dance about how busy she is but my wife worked CS for a major corporation and knows the job. Chastity promised an answer within the hour and after an hour my wife received an e-mail telling her Old Town would replace the hull, we should keep the seat and drive, and to cut a twelve by twelve inch section of hull out around the serial number and send that back to old town with pictures of the destroyed hull. No apology and no compensation for all our time and trouble, and maybe a month wait for a new boat it seems replacing faulty hulls takes hind tit in Old Towns feeding cycle. I believe Chastity was authorized to do more but feels the need to short change us in the deal. It's sad because I had a lot of faith in Old Town and Johnson Outdoors before all this happened. All I can say is if you want an Old Town product by directly from a local operation like OEX, Brent would have taken care of this immediately