I just dealt with them on a set of crower I beam rods and a set of sprockets recently and hadn't seen this post....
Well, heres the deal, ordered and paid for a set of crower I beam rods on a monday and needed the rods by friday (saturday at the latest I told Jay), called back on tuesday evening to order some sprockets for my customers bike who had just dropped his bike off, and checked to see if the rods were sent out because I never got a tracking # on the rods, he said they were shipped tuesday morning but one of his "idiot" shop hands sent them and he forgot to get a tracking #, I told him again that I needed those rods by no later than saturday even if they had to next day air ship. Called back thursday after trying to reach him all day wednesday with no return calls or answers, and he said that he would go ahead and send another set of rods next day air (still hadn't sent the sprockets yet and wanted to save shipping by sending them with the rods, which was fine, as long as they got here by saturday at the latest), and they ended up getting shipped next day at the end of business time on friday (which was to late for saturday delivery), that next monday was a holiday, so I got the rods and the sprockets on the next tuesday, which through my bike build off, and had an excellent customer of mine (who is a monster of a man BTW) completely pissed because I had his bike from tuesday all the way to the next tuesday just putting sprockets and a swingarm on his bike, which should have been a few hour job once I had the parts in hand.
Here is the rest of the story, he said that he put a stop and return ship order on the first set of rods through usps, which never arrived here BTW, which is hard to believe seeing as I have tried to do this on 3 different occasions and it has NEVER worked either because the post office people said that there is no such thing, or because they tried and it didn't work, but I guess it worked for him because the other set of rods that were supposedly sent on tuesday morning never arrived, and he didn't put the stop ship order in till friday, which should have been how long it took to get from him to me via priority shipping...
Moral of the story, I may have got lied to a time or 2 (maybe not, who knows), but I did get the rods and sprockets that I ordered and they were shipped friday like he said "next day air" which he paid for out of his pocket to offset the screw up, and he also gave me a HELL of a deal on the rods and the sprockets. So all in all, it ended up working out and had I not been in a crunch for time, I wouldn't have minded at all seeing as the HELL of a deal I got on the parts...
Would I deal with Stedman again and give them a second chance? Probably, but not if I was in a crunch on time for something. I will more than likely try them one more time on something small just to see if everything works out correctly and see if this might have just been a fluke.
I know shit can get in the way sometimes for a busy shop (which unfortunately can kill their reputation via the information super-highway), and I had some stiff deadlines that needed to be met, so I think it can be over looked, but that goes without saying that I was pretty pissed that I had a lot on the line with my schedule and should have ordered the parts before this so I wouldn't have been in a crunch for time, and my needs didn't end up getting met in time. Jay was very nice to deal with every time I did get him on the phone though, even when I was less than nice to talk to because I was in a stressful time crunch for both my own personal bike build and a customers of mine's bike which I was remodeling.
Lastly, I hope they get their stuff straight that they need to and get back to "good to deal with" status on all of the boards, because Jay seems to really be a cool guy and pretty knowledgeable as well, and when you have him on the phone, he seems like he really wants to help you out instead of just be there with his hand out to get your money, which is damn hard to find out of any business these days and I appreciate a hell of a lot.
I'd be interested to hear member's thoughts about the restriction on Stedmans account.
As far as my opinion on restrictions, I think the guy should be given a chance to make wrongs right, and if he don't choose to do that, THEN move forward with further actions. That is just my opinion.
