OpsGear: A Terrible Tale

[Zack The Ripper]

So I wanted to wait until my ordeal was finished and everything complete before posting anything about this, and I want to preface it with a personal note. I have been a customer of OpsGear for several years now and aside from the odd item being on back-order have had zero issues with them. Their customer service was very good with e-mail responses happening within 24 business hours - even with a photo and first name of the person you were speaking with, and even responded on weekends. Customer service telephone lines were always monitored, and orders generally shipped within just a couple of business days, as long as everything was in stock. Their website also used to be different; it saw major changes early last year if I remember correctly. It used to have very up to date stock information, even listing if something was on backorder as well as an estimate for when the item would be back in stock.

However, I will no longer be going to them for anything, and you will see why below.

On Sunday night, February 15, I placed a very large team order, totaling $743.88CAD - very large order, of black Tru-Spec combat shirts, a couple M81 woodland Tru-Spec tops, and some knee pad inserts for some stuff I already own. Confirmation and everything went through immediately on the Monday morning. I then quickly realized reading the confirmation that I forgot to add one of the black tops for a mate into the order. Immediately I sent them an e-mail asking to have the additional shirt added to my order, and this is something I have done in the past without any issues. It was not until Thursday, February 19, that I received an e-mail from someone at OpsGear with the initials "J Z" stating simply:

"I do apologize, once the order is sent over the warhouse fulfills it. If you did want the extra shirt you could order another and they would ship them both out."

This is a different process from what they normally would do, as to my knowledge in past dealings with them traditionally they had their own warehouse that they constantly kept stocked. They have a store front in Utah and that was a major factor in how they stocked their items. They would receive the order, pick it from their current stock, and ship almost immediately (again, as long as nothing on your order was on back-order). I also discovered that their site apparently no longer distinguishes between in stock, out of stock, or back ordered items as I received the following e-mail almost immediately after receiving the lackluster e-mail from "J Z":

"Dear Zachary Chatigny-Cushing,

We wanted to update you on the status of your order. The warehouse has informed us that your item:

TRU-SPEC 1/4 Zip TRU Nylon/Cotton Combat Shirt - CAMO COLORS
Woodland / Medium Long
SKU: 2545024

is backordered with an eta of early March. Do you want to wait for your item to return to stock or would you prefer to substitute it for another item/color?

Please let us know what else we can do to help you with your order or assist you with your GEAR needs.

Thank you for coming to OPSGEAR® - we sincerely appreciate your business!

support@opsgear.com"

This was the kind of professional response I was looking for. However, this e-mail also left me scratching my head. First off, the e-mail appears to be automated. In addition, if they are able to remove the woodland tops from my order with "the warehouse", how is it they are not able to change the quantity of large black tops on the order from 4 to 5? This didn't make sense, so I immediately inquired further regarding the additional top, as well as asking them to leave me in for the backordered woodland tops as a mate and I really wanted them, first via e-mail as well as calling their customer service line during their business hours in Utah. I was surprised to find that I was simply left on hold for several minutes before being brought to a recording prompting me to leave a voice mail. I left one in full detail with my order number, question and asked for a call back or response to my e-mail. One thing I noted in the recording prompt is the recording listed the support inbox for OpsGear being a good way to contact them as it "opens a time sensitive ticket" for them to look into the inquiry and respond to it. One thing I should also note is that I also copied their sales inbox, info inbox, as well as someone by the name of Michael within their company on my response to their e-mail as I noticed they were all copied on "J Z"'s response to my query. I figured he/she is copying them on his response, I'll copy them on mine. More visibility for everyone, and better chance at actually getting a timely response like they gave traditionally, right? Wrong.

Toward mid day the following Monday, February 23, I submitted a follow-up e-mail as well as left another voice mail asking for a response to my query, as none had been given to me since the two starkly different e-mails I'd received the week previously. I received nothing. Called several more times all throughout the business hours that day, and the next, with nobody ever answering their customer service line. Every single time I listened to some elevator style music for a couple minutes and then was brought to that same voice mail recording. So, at mid day on the Tuesday, February 24, I submitted an e-mail and left another voice mail stating that I was rather disappointed in the service I was getting and that I just wanted an answer to my query as I had submitted multiple e-mails and left several voice mails with a staff that under previous circumstances had been helpful pretty much on the spot. I remained friendly, but I was getting annoyed.

The following day, Wednesday, February 25, I still had not received anything by early afternoon. I was not happy about this so I sent yet another e-mail and left another voice mail (because apparently they have nobody attending the phones) asking for an immediate phone call or e-mail to state they were actually doing some work on my query by the end of the day, or that I would be requesting my order to be cancelled and my PayPal refunded. Ahh PayPal, the internet shopper's best friend. They will play a larger part in this story in a bit, stay tuned..

Now onto Thursday, February 26. I still have received no response from anyone at OpsGear, so at 9:01am I submit the following along with a voice mail that essentially said the exact same thing:

"Hello OpsGear,
As nobody has deemed it necessary to contact me regarding my order I want it cancelled and I want to be refunded in full for all charges as nothing has shipped and nobody is providing ANY kind of customer service to me. If you do not issue a refund I will be contacting PayPal and opening a dispute. Please do not make this anymore difficult than it has already been.
Please conduct yourself accordingly.
Thank you,
Zack"

At 12:41pm I receive the following, again, from "J Z":

"I do apologize, we did see that you would like to wait for the backordered items to arrive. For a new item to be added, a new order would need to be placed to collect the payment as we do not keep your card information in our system to protect you. Please let us know what you would like to do and we will get back to you right away."

Now, not only did it take someone 1 whole week to get back to me when they are a company in which most of their sales and general business is done online, AND in the American corporate culture that requires you to be timely in your business practices, but they have completely ignored my e-mail and voice mail from four and a half hours earlier stating that I was fed up and wanted my order cancelled. I guess, in a way, I can somewhat understand "J Z"'s reasoning for not being able to add the additional shirt into my order, however if they do not have my PayPal information any longer how is it they can possibly refund me for the woodland tops, had I decided to have them removed from my order? How is it they cannot simply send me a PayPal request to pay for the additional shirt as they do have my e-mail and have payment history with me? Regardless of all of these odd things that don't entirely make sense at the time, the bottom line is they did little to no customer service on their part to help me, and they have basically ignored communication sent from me in more than one method asking them to have the order cancelled. You may be saying "Well Zack, is it possible that though you sent the e-mail over four hours prior, AND left a voice mail, that they maybe just missed it and responded to one of your other communications?". No, and you will understand why by the end of this spiel.

At 2:34pm the same day, I submit the following e-mail to everyone copied on the thread and again accompany this with a voice mail:

"Hello JZ and colleagues,
As per the slew of e-mails I have been sending I would like my full order cancelled. Please cancel the order and issue a full refund to my PayPal.
Once complete, please send me confirmation.
Thank you,
Zack"

Now, it gets silly. I submit an e-mail and leave a voice mail every single day from Thursday, February 27, until Thursday, March 5 asking for confirmation that my order has been cancelled and that my refund will be issued as until now I haven't received any e-mails, phone calls, nor do I see any refunds pending on my PayPal. So, still fed up, I opened a PayPal dispute, and sent the following, again, accompanied with a voice mail:

"Hello J Z and OpsGear colleagues,
As you have been ignoring nearly all of my communications to you and have ignored ALL of my requests via e-mail and voicemail to have my order cancelled and my credit card/PayPal refunded have been seemingly ignored, I have opened a PayPal dispute. I want this resolved IMMEDIATELY.
Cancel my order and provide me with a full refund and send me confirmation by e-mail once this is done."

Not so amazingly, I receive the following simple e-mail from "J Z":

"We will get this done for you right away."

Funny, it appears their customer service hours are only for several short hours on Thursdays, and only through e-mail I immediately send an e-mail thanking him for the response and asked for a confirmation e-mail to be sent to me once the order is cancelled and my refund has been submitted to PayPal. Unsurprisingly, no response.

Now, another week goes by, and this time I'm being extra patient. Not sending any e-mails, no voice mails, just waiting to give them another small chance for redemption. Nothing. Nothing pending in PayPal, nothing via e-mail, nadda. So on Thursday, March 12, I submit an e-mail and leave another voice mail:

"Hello J Z,
It has been a week now and I still have not received my refund or confirmation that my order has been cancelled. This is getting ridiculous. Please process my refund immediately."

I almost immediately get a response from "J Z":

"The refund can take 10-13 business days to be processed completly."

Now, PayPal has a maximum processing time of 7 business days for refunds from the time of refund submission. So, even with one or two business days grace period in allowing the seller to submit the refund request, at most this should take 9 or 10 business days on a really slow set of business days. As well, even if I am waiting the full 7 day period for PayPal to process this, I should still see on the PayPal site that the refund has been submitted by the seller and is being processed by PayPal with the normal disclaimer PayPal lists stating the possible wait times I already mentioned above. All in all, this is just a blatant lie on the part of this "J Z" contact. Past refunds from OpsGear have been near immediate, and I have three on-record refunds from them in the past that I have the e-mails for still sitting in my e-mail archive. I know because I checked out of frustration. It does not take 10-13 business days for a company to submit a request just for the 7 day PayPal processing period to begin. That is so dumb it makes me shake my head as I type this. I immediately submit a response stating what I have just typed above here and requested an immediate response, even though I knew I would not be getting one.

End of day Friday, March 13. I upgrade my PayPal dispute to a PayPal claim as I now feel like I am going to be had for my hard earned dollar. I was prudent enough to include the FULL e-mail thread between OpsGear and I for as much visibility on the issue as possible, as well as a bunch of other pertinent details including my past refund confirmations from OpsGear as proof that traditionally it has never taken this long.

Now, this is why PayPal is the internet shopper's best friend. Immediately this morning I had an e-mail confirmation from PayPal stating that after their review they have ruled in my favor and have refunded me the full $743.88CAD I paid for the order. I then receive two hours later an e-mail, which again appears to be automated, from OpsGear confirming my order as being cancelled. Simply waiting now for PayPal to work its magic in moving the funds through the PayPal system to my credit card so I don't have to pay interest on this failed purchase. I had the option to simply pay by credit card, or pay by PayPal when placing the order. I have always just paid using my credit card number with OpsGear, however for some odd reason when placing the order I decided to go the PayPal route. A gentle nudge from the universe saved me from having a $743.88CAD credit card balance with nothing to show for it. I am happy this nudge occurred, as I nearly had my wallet set on fire by a now un scrupulous company located in another country than I reside.

So, there are two morals here from the terrible tale I have just told. ONE: OpsGear can kick rocks. Terrible company who's customer service has avalanched down a slippery slope of shite, and I wouldn't trust them in any future dealings. Avoid them at all costs. TWO: Use PayPal WHEREVER POSSIBLE. I might even start biting the bullet to pay those +4% PayPal fees on private sales here on the classifieds because of this experience. It can save your credit card balance, and your sanity some day.

Thanks for reading my trials and tribulations. I hope this is helpful and hopefully steers good people with hard earned money away from this craptastic company.

Cheers,

Zack The Ripper

[BioRage]

Yeah, recall last year when we were talking about Ops-Gear? I ordered my BDU, and the order went through, and took two weeks to process..

Called them and they stated it was out of stock, yet the online stated it was still in stock, took me forever to get my refund too, and many US calls.

Never dealing with them again.

[lurkingknight]

it's a shame, I made an order years ago and their service was great as you described it. Maybe they've gone to a different logistics center and/or have gone to a drop ship model.

[redzaku]

yeah, i never liked them, placed an order a while back, said items was out of stock, then they went and redesigned their site. they deleted the items i had paid, from their site entirely and never even received a refund
however just got on their site, and now they have back... time to complain?

[Zack The Ripper]

Originally Posted by BioRage

Yeah, recall last year when we were talking about Ops-Gear? I ordered my BDU, and the order went through, and took two weeks to process..

Called them and they stated it was out of stock, yet the online stated it was still in stock, took me forever to get my refund too, and many US calls.

Never dealing with them again.

I do vaguely remember this. This is when I started to notice their service dropping off.

Originally Posted by lurkingknight

it's a shame, I made an order years ago and their service was great as you described it. Maybe they've gone to a different logistics center and/or have gone to a drop ship model.

Yeah, I'm not sure what happened. For a couple years I bought most of my gear as well as other odds and ends from them, took a lull last year, placed one small order that had no issues other than them taking awhile yo actually ship the item. Now this...

Originally Posted by redzaku

yeah, i never liked them, placed an order a while back, said items was out of stock, then they went and redesigned their site. they deleted the items i had paid, from their site entirely and never even received a refund
however just got on their site, and now they have back... time to complain?

I wouldn't count on getting anything. Seems like they were just going to put off my refund until the in stock items in my order shipped and then give me the "your items have already shipped, sorry" crap.

[stillbad]

yep, sounds like they were counting on you not raising that dispute...consistently doing shit like that makes you more money in those instances...except then customers don't come back and neither do their friends.

[known_fragger]

Same thing happened to me last June with OpsGear, thank god for paypal though