Subject: Re: ENCO & DECEPTIVE PRACTICES

From: Ed Smega <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 12 Sep 1996 13:54:24 -0700

Eugene N. Neigoff wrote:
> 
> I am posting this message as a warning to anyone purchasing items from
> ENCO MANUFACTURING CO.
> 
> The have a little SCAM which I for one find very fraudulant.
> 
> If you purchase in person items and they dont have them in stock, they
> will without telling you "BACK ORDER" them and ship them to you without
> your approval.  Then they expect top be paid for the item and the
> shipping costs.  This has happened to me and I am going to let everyone
> know that this practice is very expensive.  Items are shipped
> individually via UPS and they expect payment.

I have not had that problem here in Cleveland.  They ask me how I want 
the back order handled - giving me the choice of coming back to the store 
to pick it up or having it shipped to my home.  I am not certain about 
this but I beleive there was not a charge for shipping to my home.

Ed Smega

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From: Mike Rehmus <[email-masked]>
Date: 13 Sep 1996 05:15:42 GMT

I do believe there is another supplier in Canada.  Frank McLean gave
me a catalog from them (I don't know what I did with it).  They appear
to have quite a nice stock of supplies and what have you.

Does anyone here know the name?  Yellow trimmed catalog.  Name reminds
me of busy bee or some such affiliation.

Anyway, Frank, who as you know, is a real contributor to the hobby likes
their stuff and, at one time, made bits and pieces for them (I think I
remember).

Best regards,

Mike Rehmus

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From: [email-masked] (Reg H. Beardsley)
Date: 12 Sep 1996 18:50:08 GMT

On my first trip to the local ENCO store several years ago I purchased
a number of hand files of various sizes and types.  Not knowing any 
better at the time.  I allowed them to ship them from another location.

I paid for everything at that time.

As it turned out, they were NOT in stock at the other locations and
were automatically back ordered.  For the next 6-9 months I would
occasionally find another UPS package at my door w/ 1 or 2 files in
it.  They never charged me a penny for the shipping which cost more
than the contents in almost every instance.

Since I did not particularly need any of the files, I was not troubled
by the mess, though I was a bit annoyed that I'd paid for the stuff and
it took so long to acutally get it.

Now I simply verify that it is in stock first.  No stock, no purchase.
I usually look at first things anyway since the quality can vary wildly.

I think people should remember that it costs money to operate a business.
ENCO & MSC sell much of the same stuff and ENCO is often substantially
cheaper.  Given the sometimes hilarious ineptitude of the ENCO staff
I've dealt with and the high turnover, I suspect the real differential
is the employee salaries.  You get what you pay for, and part of what
you're paying for is the employees.  I've been insulted, told not to buy
what I wanted and various other annoyances.  If I were in the metal
working business, I'd probably never use ENCO because of the hassles.
As it's only a hobby, I can take the idiocy in stride. Case in point was a
bill I received for balance due on a transaction in which I'd returned an
item and bought something else.  Supposedly I'd paid the difference in full
at the time.  I was annoyed and planned to protest.  Then I refigured the
bill myself and saw that they were billing me ~$6.00 on a transaction in
which the clerk's ineptitude had cheated them of almost $20.00.  At that 
point I just laughed and sent them the check for the amount they requested.

Have fun!

-- 

------------------------------------------------------------------------
               I am solely responsible for the contents...

Reginald H. Beardsley                                      [email-masked]

              Exploration Software Consultants Incorporated
------------------------------------------------------------------------

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From: [email-masked] (Peter Drumm)
Date: 14 Sep 1996 23:33:23 GMT

In message <[email-masked]> - [email-masked] (Garry
Foster)Sat, 14 Sep 1996 03:11:47 GMT writes:
:->
:->Well I ordered some stuff thru them and because I was ordering anyway
:->ordered a can of blueing. They backordered the blluining and shipped
:->it a couple of days later. The shipping alone made the can very
:->expensive and the only reason I had ordered it was to get it shipped
:->eith an exosting order. Actually they ended up shipping the order in
:->four seperate pieces and charging me shipping on all of them. I won't
:->order from them any more if I have a choice. I often order something I
:->was "going to get sometime" with an existing order but thier shipping
:->makes that a waste of dollars...

Some time ago, a couple yrs maybe, I ordered a 8x9x12 angle plate from
ENCO, along with a few other small items like a dial indicator, a
wiggler, and I forget what else. At the time, I -needed- the angle
plate for a job I was in the middle of, the other items were just "cuz
I wanted 'em". The small items were delivered in a few days, but no
angle plate. After waiting a few weeks, I wrote them to find out where
it was, and was told it was not in stock, but to expect it in 2 weeks.
This went on for months, I wrote them, they wrote me, always the same
story. Finally, after almost a full YEAR, I sent a letter to cancel
the angle plate, I never got a reply to this one. About 6 weeks later,
it shows up at my door, exactly 1 year and 2 weeks after I ordered
it(the wrong one, I might add, but I didn't complain since it was a
better model). Of course, the job I needed it for was long gone, I had
to farm out some of the work, which cost me more than I paid for the
angle plate.

This was the last order I will -ever- place with ENCO, if I ran my
business the same way, I'd be out-of-business!

[email-masked]
Wausau, WI. 44d 58m 00s N x 89d 36m 45s W
All opinions are my own, even if they are wrong!

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From: [email-masked] (Garry Foster)
Date: Sat, 14 Sep 1996 03:11:47 GMT

>Ed Smega

Well I ordered some stuff thru them and because I was ordering anyway
ordered a can of blueing. They backordered the blluining and shipped
it a couple of days later. The shipping alone made the can very
expensive and the only reason I had ordered it was to get it shipped
eith an exosting order. Actually they ended up shipping the order in
four seperate pieces and charging me shipping on all of them. I won't
order from them any more if I have a choice. I often order something I
was "going to get sometime" with an existing order but thier shipping
makes that a waste of dollars...

---

From: Dan Mauch <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 13 Sep 1996 08:37:58 -0700

I order quite a bit from Enco and never had that problem. It sound like 
just a local problem or some clerk that doesn't know what he is doing.
As a metter of fact I have found the local Enco easy to work with. Yes 
it is true that when they are out of stock they will ship from other 
locations at NO EXTRA CHARGE. Thats OK with me. Before I would contact 
the attorney general, I would call the local manager and see if this is 
company policy or his stores policy.
Good Luck
Dan

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From: [email-masked] (Edk4)
Date: 13 Sep 1996 02:58:38 -0400

The very first time I dealt with ENCO, I drove up to their NH
showroom with a list of 20 items I wanted to buy. After playing
"here it is - no that's not what I wanted", at the counter for half
an hour, we concluded that they only had ten of the twenty 
items I wanted. "No problem", they said, "we'll back order the
rest and you'll have them in a week or two".

I paid with a credit card and left. I continued to receive 'drops'
>from  that order for (I'm not making this up) 14 months! For a
while, it was like the tool-of-the-every-other-week-club, and was
sort of interesting, since none of the things back ordered were
critical in any way. By the time I had received the 3/8 x 16 tap,
one year and 2 months after placing the order, the 'fun' had
definitely worn thin.

The only saving grace was that, since the order was over $200
to start with, and I had paid with a credit card (or maybe that had
nothing to do with it - who knows with these people) none of the
subsequent shipments had any shipping costs. (to me anyway)

Getting backordered by ENCO *and* paying for the shipping is
really the worst of both worlds. Caveat emptor out there, especially
when dealing with ENCO. See it, touch it, hold it, buy it and take it
with you, or just say, "no thank you, please call me when it comes in"

------------------
Ed Kingsley

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From: [email-masked] (Greg Lewis)
Date: 15 Sep 1996 03:58:34 -0700

In article <[email-masked]>,
>All opinions are my own, even if they are wrong!

Pete: This sounds like a carbon copy of my experience (same item,
too). However I suffered insults and vulgar language from their
alledged customer service staff when I politely tried to resolve the
situation. In the end, nine months later, I started getting a bill for
merchandise I had returned (the angle plate was defective). After
ignoring the bill and receiving past-due notices, I called Usiskian
(the c.e.o.) collect and finally got the bill cancelled. Not only will
I never buy from them again, regardless of price, should they be the
sonly source for an item, I will do without. I hope they send me
catalogs for the rest of my life (it's been ten years and they keep
on...) as I enjoy tearing them in half and dropping them in the
dumpster. There is some small solace knowing that I am costing them
money this way.

It seems that the number of unhappy customers here on r.c.m.
outnumbers the happy ones. If this is a reflection of their customer
base as a whole, how to they stay in business?

___________________________________________________________________
[email-masked]      	   	     They don't
Photojournalism sequence      	   	     Call this place
Department of Mass Communication   	     An institution
     and Journalism 	      	   	     For nothing
CSU Fresno, Fresno, CA 93740-0010

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From: [email-masked] (Peter Brooks)
Date: 16 Sep 1996 17:47:57 GMT

At the San Jose store, when I go in with one of my lists, they first check
to see what's in local stock, and if not there, if they have it elsewhere.
If they do, they give me the option of getting it on backorder.  For
some small stuff, they sent it to the store, but for other times, they'd
ship it to me, free of charge.

OTOH, I had a long set of problems with getting billed for a small item
that I had previously prepaid.  Evidently, Chicago processes the bills,
but San Jose sends them in.  Most of the people there are pretty
competent, but one or two in the office have difficulty walking and
chewing gum simultaneously.  I suspect one of them (mis)handled the 
bill.

Pete Brooks

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From: [email-masked] (Dr. M. J. Di Girolamo)
Date: Sat, 14 Sep 1996 08:32:56 -0400

>makes that a waste of dollars...

  It has been my experience that anytime a company back-orders an item, it
is then sent free of charge, once released.  This is subject to
common-sense law i.e. if the item is a 3000# milling machine it would be
difficult to justify asking for free back-order shipping!  However, when
the item is light weight and small, shipping & handling charges can become
a significant percentage of the cost, call customer service and express
your concerns.  I have done this with ENCO and they take care of the
matter immmediately.  Often times it comes down to how customers present
things.  As another common-sense suggestion, I'd add; "be civil about it!"

Mike
-- 
M.J. DiGirolamo, OD, FAAO
Optometrist
Fellow of the American Academy of Optometry
[email-masked]
Charlottesville, VA

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From: [email-masked] (Jim Hanrahan)
Date: Thu, 19 Sep 1996 20:07:27 GMT

In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Felice Luftschein & Nicholas Carter) writes:

>ENCO pretty much lost my business for this reason, having sent me about three
>separate packages containing separate carbide bits, days apart. I use MSC right
>now, although they never send me their sales flyers...

The first year I had an account with MSC I either received the sales flyer 
later than others or skipped some. I don't know if it is intentional or not.
Lately however, I sometimes receive it a day or two before the same people who 
used to get it before me!

--------------------------------------------------------------
  Jim Hanrahan, PE, CP-IA         Naval Surface Warfare Center
  [email-masked]      Annapolis, Maryland, USA