Think twice before ordering from Panda Motorworks (cancellation fees on backorders)

[chris@pandamotorworks]

My intention was to warn others about Panda policies that may hurt other forum members.

I didn't intend to air any specifics, since my particular dispute is already in the hands of my credit card company. Panda brought in specifics to discredit me or excuse their fees. Maybe forum members will learn something from that as well.

That you were trying to hide the entire story. The specifics should be known. A business has its right to stand up for itself and we intend to do that any time it is required. I would never looked or commented on this if you just were 100% upfront with the entire transaction. Instead you shared what you thought would hurt us.

Sponsored

 

[OhhhhhhSnap]

This is an ironic statement since a 'forum' by definition is designed to do exactly what we're doing in this thread. This is the room.

Not when both sides are saying he said she said and talking about taking legal action.

 

[nwGTS]

Not when both sides are saying he said she said and talking about taking legal action.

Legal action and legal interpretation are two very different things. The latter is all we're discussing along with application and implications of disclosure by vendors to customers. Panda Motorworks is in a more educated position than the customer, but certainly has the right (and is encouraged) to enter the conversation when the customer seeks more information about the legal and ethical interpretation of its business practices by using a forum as a means to gather and discuss information. You are coming into 'the room' to tell people to 'get a room'.

 

[DapperDeeds]

You agreed to wait and were fully understanding of the new product so hence no mention of fee

This is kinda shady though... You made the assumption that he knew it applied to all orders and he, and others, are saying it should apply to refunds of actually received products. If you told him the fee would be added whether or not the product was ever shipped or even produced do you believe he would have carried on with the transaction? That's a rhetorical question.

 

[PeneBear]

Panda Motorworks has a policy of charging a 7% cancellation fee on backordered items.

While a reasonable person might assume that this policy applies only to returns, they are applying it to backordered items that are not yet in production and have no delivery date.

Fine print in final checkout (one section of long document talking about returns):

I filed a dispute with my credit card company and will let them decide whether they will let Panda charge me $284 for something they never shipped and isn't in production yet.


What do you think? Should I be outraged at this cancellation fee or do you agree with Panda?

Appreciate the heads up. Was thinking about ordering from them.. not now. Will look else where.

 

[Ig_bronco]

@rtaylor the 7% charge is not for returning the goods, it is the fee that the payment provider charges them to process both your primary payment and the refund. Some processors only charge once for this and some hit you both times to process it. They will have to pay this fee so it appears they pass it on to a customer that cancels.

@UtahBrandon is correct that the right way to do this is NOT to charge a customer in advance for items that aren’t available. This resolves the problem.

I hope the insight helps but I hate you are in the middle of that. That is awful.

I was charged for my awe exhaust from lethal in full then in small print it said "ships from manufacturer." Two and a quarter months later. I get a huge package delivered.... It's the exhaust... No tracking, no nothing. If I hadn't called awe directly I would have never known to expect a package mid March.

 

[rtaylor]

That you were trying to hide the entire story. The specifics should be known. A business has its right to stand up for itself and we intend to do that any time it is required. I would never looked or commented on this if you just were 100% upfront with the entire transaction. Instead you shared what you thought would hurt us.

If at any point I knew there were cancellation fees involved, I would never have pre-ordered an item from Panda. That would be crazy in this world of backorders. You can try to blame it on me, but your policy speaks for itself.

 

[chris@pandamotorworks]

This is kinda shady though... You made the assumption that he knew it applied to all orders and he, and others, are saying it should apply to refunds of actually received products. If you told him the fee would be added whether or not the product was ever shipped or even produced do you believe he would have carried on with the transaction? That's a rhetorical question.

I did not make any assumption. Matter of fact he never even replied to our email once we stated there would be a 7% fee he just posted here.


The biggest issue here is he didnt even want to work with us or explain his side and let us explain ours. He ran straight to the forum to try and hurt us over it. I have no idea why but I am more than happy to talk to any customer and work out an agreement but this is not what he wanted at all.

Appreciate the heads up. Was thinking about ordering from them.. not now. Will look else where.

That is truly unfortunate. We have helped a thousand plus bronco customers already with great feedback and support. We would love to offer you a discount or open ended agreement to try our services and products before letting this one experience turn you off from our site.

 

[chris@pandamotorworks]

If at any point I knew there were cancellation fees involved, I would never have pre-ordered an item from Panda. That would be crazy in this world of backorders. You can try to blame it on me, but your policy speaks for itself.

I have never once tried to point blame at you. I am not sure why you keep trying to put words in my mouth. All I have ever done is explain our side. I am still awaiting reply from the email that was sent this morning explaining the fee on our end. You could have easily said I feel this not fair because I did not understand or explain why you wanted to cancel so we could work with you.

Like stated above we were working on getting your rebate for the sale price they came out with 3 weeks later to see what was possible and explain the options going forward.

 

[DapperDeeds]

I did not make any assumption. Matter of fact he never even replied to our email once we stated there would be a 7% fee he just posted here.

The biggest issue here is he didnt even want to work with us or explain his side and let us explain ours. He ran straight to the forum to try and hurt us over it. I have no idea why but I am more than happy to talk to any customer and work out an agreement but this is not what he wanted at all.

You said he agreed to wait and was fully understanding of the new product hence no mention of a fee.

That's called an assumption. You just made the assumption that he "fully understood" everything concerning the new product, including the fee that your company would charge for this same product that wasn't even shipped or produced. Most people would be upset by this, yourself included i'm sure if you were brazen enough to admit it. Never the less it leads me back to my previous post. As a company, if you know someone is hesitant to place the order because of a 7% fee and dont tell them that applies to unshipped products and cancellations than that is shady practices.

That is good PandaWorks is willing to work with customers and work out an agreement but doesn't help that it was not known, discussed, or listed on the website about preorders or unshipped parts. Also, I checked out BBB just to see if you guys were on there and there are a lot of the same type of reviews where people worked out an agreement but then never get the refund, lost, etc.

People nowadays seem to confuse the word "pandemic" with "money hungry"

 

[chris@pandamotorworks]

You said he agreed to wait and was fully understanding of the new product hence no mention of a fee.

That's called an assumption. You just made the assumption that he "fully understood" everything concerning the new product, including the fee that your company would charge for this same product that wasn't even shipped or produced. Most people would be upset by this, yourself included i'm sure if you were brazen enough to admit it. Never the less it leads me back to my previous post. As a company, if you know someone is hesitant to place the order because of a 7% fee and dont tell them that applies to unshipped products and cancellations than that is shady practices.

That is good PandaWorks is willing to work with customers and work out an agreement but doesn't help that it was not known, discussed, or listed on the website about preorders or unshipped parts. Also, I checked out BBB just to see if you guys were on there and there are a lot of the same type of reviews where people worked out an agreement but then never get the refund, lost, etc.

People nowadays seem to confuse the word "pandemic" with "money hungry"

We have no issue working with customers. The BBB is mostly on claims were warranty was denied from us or manufactures after we worked on a performance car and people did not take care of said car. If we were so bad at what we do we would not have a highly rated badge on google or a good reputation on other forums. Sure there will always be someone upset and that is there right just like here but this entire situation could have been avoided if he just replied to the email and let us work it out. Instead he ignored replying and ran to the forum

We are an open book. I never made an assumption and again 95% of the time the fee is not even enforced. We are here to work with customers but they must be willing to work with us as well. This is not a one way street just because we are a business. I would not be mad at the fee because I agreed to it no I maybe disappointed but I do not like you assuming you know me or how I would respond to something.

 

[Rex21c]

I'm still trying to get around why would a company charge for something they don't have, inventory control and money for POs is not the customer's responsibility, the company needs to have that money already available to purchase their product. Then why the customer would fully pay for something that the seller doesn't currently have. I understand a deposit, but to fully pay for a at the time not present product? But then again I'm not in either shoe right now.

 

[UtahBrandon]

Adam at 4x4truckleds...


For the record, I've purchased at both Panda and 4x4truckleds and have had no issues.

 

[rtaylor]

Matter of fact he never even replied to our email once we stated there would be a 7% fee he just posted here.

Here was my response when notified of a cancellation fee.

This is the final response from Panda. There was nothing left to say. My interpretation of the terms is not the same as Panda's, so the CC company will have to work that out with Panda.

 

[chris@pandamotorworks]

I'm still trying to get around why would a company charge for something they don't have, inventory control and money for POs is not the customer's responsibility, the company needs to have that money already available to purchase their product. Then why the customer would fully pay for something that the seller doesn't currently have. I understand a deposit, but to fully pay for a at the time not present product? But then again I'm not in either shoe right now.

We use to do deposits on big orders like this but had to many bad apples ruin the process for others and we had to adopt.

To note the first sentence we are working on adopting live inventory and drop ship notices on the sites. Current issue is time and cost as we have to pull from our warehouse and 3 others to have accurate info displayed for the customer. The company goal is to have this up and running by the start of Q4. Currently we have a email that goes out about a backorder and on large items a phone call to make sure we are transparent with the customer. Of course we fall short sometimes as manufactures can be harder than ever to get ahold of for an updated ETA or they miss ETA's which makes it even harder for us.

We have missed 4 ETA's on our top selling bronco product we do not produce and are giving credit back to show how much we can and working with the customer to understand we are doing everything we can. Again we are here to work with customers and provide value. Without the value we would be no one. Everything would be sold on Amazon.

Sponsored