Is this a good sign or a bad sign?

Is Midway getting hit with a Denial-of-service-attack or are they just real popular these days? I've been putting together an order over the last few evenings, but keep getting messages like this. Last night was real bad and I finally just gave up. Tonight it's working better but the message still pops up.

Is this a good sign, as in the millions of new gun owners are seeking accessories for their new purchases? Or just a malicious DOS attack from hackers.

I emailed the question into Midway's customer service. Look for an update with any replies.

UpdateMidway replies:

We were having system issues that caused some problems over the past few days. We do apologize for the problems.

No BS and they mean it!

I've heard it called "Dillon Precision's No BS lifetime warranty". While I can't specifically find anything about warranty on their website nor in the blue press, there is this statement in the "About Us" section of their website:

This is reflected in our warranty. No warranty cards, registration or serial numbers are necessary. Whether you are the first owner, or the seventeenth, all our hobby-level reloading machines have a lifetime warranty. If you break, damage or wear out anything on them, it will be fixed or replaced – whatever is necessary to restore the machine to normal operating condition.

After reloading for about a year and 5000 rounds (total of all calibers, not just .223), I finally had occasion to test this. I was reloading some .223 after a range session. Some of the rounds were very hard to resize and several had to be pushed back out of the die. Dillon has a very nice scheme - just run the decapping pin down into the resizing die and it pushes the case out.

After pushing out a few cases, the pin became hard to turn. Hmmm that's not normal. So I removed the pin to see what was wrong.

I called Dillon the next day and told them the story. They asked a few questions like "what caliber" and "What's your name". Then they said "We'll mail a new one out tomorrow!" Sure enough, today the new pin arrived and I'm back to reloading.

That's customer service done right!

Midway comes through

This story starts out normally. Boy places order to Midway USA, order arrives complete and as expected. Boy checks order and finds one item (a Holster) doesn't fit either of the guns intended.

Rats.

Oh well, Midway has great customer service, they'll take it back and it'll only cost me a couple extra bucks shipping. Holster is mailed back within a few days, with receipt and in original packaging and obviously unused.

Fast forward two months. A review of the credit card statements and the Midway account still shows no credit. Sent an email to Midway's customer support asking what happened. They responded two business days later saying the return had never been received.

Midway has a great reputation for customer service. It never occurred to me that there would be a hiccup in the return. So I didn't bother with proof of mailing nor insurance. So I had no documentation that I had indeed sent the package. At best I might have a credit card statement showing the shipping, but that probably wouldn't show the destination.

So when Midway's customer service replied that they never got it, I felt truly screwed. I had nothing to back up my story. Only thing I could do was to write off the loss and chalk up the lesson learned. And make plans to make purchases from other suppliers and forward copies of the receipts to Midway. I also considered taking a couple guesses at Larry Potterfield's email address to raise the issue to the top.

But I never got the chance. Today Midway emailed saying they were behind in returns and my return had been found. This reaffirms the faith I had in their customer service, with only half a ding for the near two month delay. I say half a ding because it's possible the package was never actually received and they just decided to eat the cost (under $20) in the interest of good service (smart choice for a good customer if this is the case).

Either way, I credit them for making it right. Now I can continue making plans for my next order. This will include a chronograph and I'd still like to find a holster for the PT-92.

PS I still may make a couple guesses at Larry P's e-address. Only this time it will be a "GoodOnYa" for customer support.

BSA comes through

Earlier in the month, Midway sent an inexpensive laser sight. It was really a $25 bet on a dry fire training aid as the laser makes any movement obvious. I can practice dry firing while keeping point of aim.

But one of the threaded holes for the mounting screws was a little too large. A replacement screw helped but didn't cure. So I called the number for BSA service. First off, the number is a toll call. Who these days does not have an 800 number for customer service? When the line answered, it put me on hold saying "All operators are busy helping other customers, please hold for the next available agent." This went on for 10 minutes then forwarded me to voicemail. I tried again. Same story. 10 minutes on hold just about to the second. I left my name and number and (politely) expressed my disappointment. This gave me lots of time to carefully read through the fine print on warranty support: you have to pay shipping both ways. They want $10 for S&H on their end and roughly $5 outbound. So in effect any warranty service on this item will cost 60% of a new item.

Given the strikes against them (toll call for help, voice jail & exorbitant shipping fees), I chalked it up as a "you get what you pay for" lesson learned. So I was genuinely surprised to get a call back. Jessica asked a couple questions including when did I buy it. She came back with "replacement of defective parts is free for the first 30 days. Just fax your receipt and a description of what is wrong."

A week or so later I got around to writing the letter and faxing it with the receipt.

The replacement parts arrived within a week and seems to have solved the problem.

BSA could learn a lesson from RCBS, but they made good on the defective part. Will I buy another BSA product? Well this episode served to reinforce the old saw "you get what you pay for." With BSA, you don't pay much and it's a fair deal.

The laser itself is not bright enough for daytime use at the local outdoor range. But indoors and as a training aid, not to mention "Helping bad guys make informed choices". I'll say the $25 BSA you do have is better than the $300 Crimson Trace you don't. If it fails, I'm no worse off than without it.

RCBS - Great service!

Shortly after beginning reloading, it quickly became obvious I needed a way to undo mistakes. A bullet puller was a "need" not just a want.

So I included a RCBS puller with my next Midway order and for the next three months I was happily undo-ing my mistakes.

But one day I was pulling a .30 cal carbine bullet. The last smack dislodged the bullet but also sheared the plastic nut in half. The bullet, chuck assembly and case flew across the garage but were recovered undamaged. It's possible this is user error. I may not have snugged the nut down completely before starting a-whacking. Thus instead of spreading the impact evenly, it may have been concentrated in one spot allowing the break.

I tried to repair the nut using super glue and epoxy but neither held through more than 2-3 bullets.

This week while placing another order with Midway, I specifically phoned in the order instead of placing it online so I could inquire about replacement parts. Jessica searched her systems and advised replacement chuck assemblies are available, but the nut is not. (Hint to RCBS, if the part were available for a reasonable price, say under a dollar, I'd have just bought another or 5 and considered it a consumable item.) Jessica suggest calling RCBS direct. (Hey, why didn't I think of that two months ago?)

Calling RCBS, I didn't get out much more than "I have one of your pullers. The plastic nut broke and I'd like to get another one." She immediately came back asking for my mailing address. Wow! No game of "20 questions", no grief. Just "we'll send you a new one!".

This is a company that understands the big picture. The part itself probably only cost a penny or so to produce and another $1.34 to mail it to me. But that Buck thirty-five bought them a very positive customer perception and a leg up on future purchases. Lessee, I have immediate need of a case trimmer and a primer pocket stretcher. Those purchases are now more likely to be Green instead of Blue or Red.

That's what customer service should be!

MSN - You Suck!

Subtitled: Help me find a new broadband service!

BTW, LinkSys and Microsoft, I'm not too happy with you either. Warning, customer service rant below.

#pragma BeginRant [redundant]
The problem began when I decided to move the DSL modem & Router from one side of the room to the other. Everything worked fine before, but post-move no internet connection through the router. The net worked when bypassing the router and other systems were visible on the network. So individually, the net service and the router functions seemed to work, but not together.

We're on Qwest/MSN today and I'm not at all happy with their service. The call starts with a robot playing 20 questions. When finally plugged into a human being the call was answered with an accent that says "Thank you for calling India. Please hold a moment while I find my place in the script". And you just know this isn't going to end well.

I walked through the symptoms with "Bojo" and she pronounced the problem was not their problem and instead I should call LinkSys. Since I opened the call with this as a given, I was annoyed. I finally asked Bojo "Are you saying you have absolutely no information on how to set up a router with your service?" She said "yes". That is a bald face lie since it's on their website.
I pressed on with her "supervisor" who of course follows the same script complete with apologies but no actual solutions.

Bottom line here, I've never been happy with MSN (we're better than AOL) since signing up and I'd love to find a "real service". Any suggestions?

The LinkSys call wasn't much better. Second clue the call was answered in the far east (after the accent) was his complete acceptance of a well known cartoon character pseudonym as my name (hook, line & sinker!). Other info he asked about was the model & serial number of the router and when did I buy it. He went off to talk it over with his supervisor only to return to say (in effect) No Tech Support for you. But then went on to say "but for $29.99*, we can pass this over to advanced tech support and they can make it work like new". I called BS on him... if it was working fine 5 minutes ago and now it's not... the problem is not something that needs a firmware update to fix. That was it, no suggestion that help might be available on their website, just $29.99 please.

At that point my motivation switched to "how much of their time money and resources can I waste?" That cost them several more minutes of rant on the poor state of customer service all (and corresponding groveling apologies that solve nothing) and how the actual cost of poor customer service extends far beyond the $40 spent on this device, damaged reputations and resulting effect in terms future products not bought, and stocks not invested in.

The final insult is that the root cause likely resides with Microsoft's Windows Firewall preventing access.

So QWEST, LinkSys, and Microsoft - You're all on my pooplist**. While you saved money in the short term by terminating my service calls without solving my problem. In the long run you've hurt yourselves. I will permanently discount the future value of your products based on the poor customer service and absolutely never invest a so much as a plugged nickel in any company that won't stand behind their products.

#pragma EndRant

* IIRC, the router only cost $39.98 to begin with so in effect they wanted me to buy it again.
** While I have a vocabulary to keep up with the best sailors (heck I was one), I choose to keep it clean here.