Early last month, I placed an order for a couple of inexpensive items through Amazon.com. I like Amazon, overall, and while I’ve had customer service issues now and again over the years, these have all been resolved. It’s a lot easier to get a human being on the phone at Amazon than it used to be, for which I’m grateful. You can buy almost anything on Amazon, and I’m grateful for that, too. The wide number of affiliate sellers offering items and fulfilling orders through Amazon’s sales portal, however, has recently given me cause to mistrust at least one of these merchants.
I placed my order on July 8th. One of the items was a $4.41 USD straight razor from Kriegar. When the affiliate seller, “CutleryUSA,” tacked on more than seven dollars in shipping, I was irritated. This, by itself, was no big deal. Lots of things irritate me. What I was more annoyed about was that, at that price, there was no tracking number. Priority mail for a small item like this should be around five dollars. Why, then, was I charged more for less service? With a delivery window of the 14th to the 19th, I had to wonder — was my package shipped “media mail,” or something? It doesn’t take ten days for a first class letter to travel from coast to coast in the United States.
The 19th approached, but my “Kriegar Stag Bone Razor Folding Knife” never arrived. I e-mailed the seller through Amazon. The next day, when I still hadn’t received a reply, I called Amazon directly and spoke with a representative. The response was underwhelming, to say the least. I was told that I had to wait for a specific period of time after my shipping date passed before I could file a claim. At that time, Amazon would step in. “Maybe next time,” the customer service representative told me, “you should choose a shipper who is local to you, or who offers tracking for the package.”
“So you’re telling me,” I said to her, “that the solution to my problem is to go back in time and not be your customer? I’ll keep that in mind the next time I’m tempted to shop with you.” Then I hung up.
Perhaps coincidentally (or perhaps not), shortly after I placed this call, I got a reply from “Cutlery USA.” The response is appended to my original message here:
—–Original Message—–
From: Phil Elmore – Amazon Marketplace [mailto:[e-mail address removed]]
Posted At: Monday, July 18, 2011 8:40 AM
Posted To: Amazon Support
Conversation: Shipping inquiry from Amazon customer Phil Elmore (Order: [redacted])
Subject: Shipping inquiry from Amazon customer Phil Elmore (Order: [redacted])Order ID [redacted]:
1 of Kriegar Stag Bone Razor Folding Knife [ASIN: B001HZEUY4]————- Begin message ————-
Is there any tracking information available for this package? It hasn’t arrived yet.
from CutleryUSA – Amazon Marketplace scmjnkc0mxzdhzt@marketplace.amazon.com
to Phil Elmore <phil@philelmore.com>
date Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 9:44 AM
subject RE: Shipping inquiry from Amazon customer Phil Elmore (Order: [redacted])Thank you for your recent order with Cutlery USA. I am showing the order was shipped 7/11/11. The package was shipped out USPS and does not show a tracking number for your package. Usually, you should receive the package within 7-10 business days. I apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you. If you have any more questions or concerns, please email me or call (800)956-1667.
Kindest Regards,
Ebony Stanford
Cutlery USA————- End message ————-
This really made me angry. The obvious form letter essentially told me that the product I didn’t receive should have arrived already — but there was nothing they could do about that because they hadn’t bothered to ship the order by any means that could be tracked. On the 21st, exactly 10 days after I was told the item was shipped, I used the telephone number I was given in “Ebony Stanford’s” e-mail to me.
You can imagine my surprise when someone from “Bud K” answered the phone. Bud K is a knife company with whom I’ve never had a fully positive experience. Everything I’ve ever ordered from them was a disappointment, when their shipping or customer service didn’t somehow displease me. I would not have ordered from them voluntarily. For their Amazon department to be named “CutleryUSA” is, to me, a bait-and-switch, in which customers already very familiar with Bud K are duped into buying from them anyway.
Furthering the illusion is the fact that the order ships with a catalog, not from Bud K, but from “Kennesaw.” The catalog is indistinguishable from the Bud K catalog except for its branding. But I digress.
I explained my problem to the customer service representative, one Tonya Houston. I explained that my product never arrived and that I wished to have a replacement sent out. I asked to be copied on any correspondence sent in this regard, so Ms. Houston copied me on her e-mail to… drumroll, please…Ebony Stanford. The message read as follows:
From: Tonya Houston <thouston@budk.com>
To: Ebony Stanford <estanford@budk.com>
Cc: PHILELMORE@[redacted]
Sent: Thursday, July 21, 2011 1:33 PM
Subject: Amazon order[order number redacted]
Phil Elmore
Amazon customer
[redacted]
KG104– 4.41
His order was shipped on 7/11/11 and he has not rec’d it. Will you please reship?
Tonya Houston
Customer Service Representative
Bud K Worldwide Inc.
(800)956-1667
thouston@budk.com
Hearing nothing, further, on 25 July 2011, I wrote back to “Ebony,” wanting to know if she had indeed received the e-mail from Tonya Houston four days previously:
show details Jul 25 (2 days ago)
Ebony,
I wanted to check to see if a replacement item for this order had indeed been shipped out…? I still have not received my item.
Phil Elmore
I received no reply whatsoever. On 27 July, 2011, almost 20 days after placing my order originally, I still had no item. You may be wondering, at this point, what the object of all this back-and-forth actually looks like. Here it is:
Disgusted, I filed a claim with Amazon. I then waited until about 10:00 a.m. before calling Bud K. This time, I said to them, “Hi. You have a woman there named Ebony Stanford, whose job it is to fulfill Amazon orders. I’d like to speak to her manager.” I was then connected with a woman named Brandi, whom I was told was “the manager.”
I spoke to Brandi and told her my tale of woe. We then sat there for a full nine minutes of near silence as her computer magically, slowly worked its way to my order. When the order finally came up, I was put on hold. The hold music informed me that Bud K sincerely believes there is no substitute for quality service, and that the company has built its reputation on that. The hold message promised that someone would be with me shortly.
Brandi came back on the line after only a couple of minutes. She told me that the full amount of my purchase was being refunded to me, and that a replacement straight razor would be shipped to me. I asked that it be sent UPS so it could be tracked. She told me she would send me the tracking number when the shipment was processed.
(Brandi did not contact me. I had to e-mail her to follow-up before I received the tracking number. My package did, eventually, arrive, and it did so within a reasonable amount of time per the UPS ground shipping tables from Georgia to New York.)
Minutes after my conversation with the manager, I received confirmation that my payment source had been credited and Amazon had closed my claim for the missing straight razor. Almost a month after placing my order originally, I did finally have the product in question in hand. The punchline to this story, however, isn’t the least bit funny.
When I asked what went wrong with my order, I was told that “Tonya Houston” told her manager that she “got busy” and had not had a chance to fulfill my order by shipping the replacement razor. This means that Ms. Houston failed to do her job, not once, but twice: She did not ship my original item (or, at the very least, she did not ship it by some method through which its progress could be tracked should it go missing), and she did not ship my replacement item. What’s more, I’m not the only customer who was similarly inconvenienced during this time period.
I checked the negative feedback scores. At least one other customer who shopped close to the time I did had to complain about never receiving his merchandise. On top of all this, while the manager, “Brandi,” was polite and apologetic, I was not impressed by her lack of vehemence. Confronted with blatant evidence of an employee’s flat refusal to do her job, she should have been considerably more outraged, in my opinion. As I said, she did see to it that I got my money, which means I eventually got a free razor for my trouble. But this was an utter and contemptible failure of customer service — and it should be sufficient reason for any customer to think twice about shopping with Bud K, Kennesaw, or CutleryUSA.
As in all online shopping, caveat emptor must be the watchwords. It is considerably more difficult for the buyer to beware, however, when the seller plays a shell game with its brand identity, using different names for different venues while fulfilling (or, in this case, not fulfilling) orders through the same location and personnel. When these lapses in customer service are identified, they should be exposed, and when they are exposed, names should be named. I have done so in this case. I hope my month of poor customer service will help you avoid similar problems in your own online shopping.
It may seem like a small thing, but if a company can’t fulfill small orders, they shouldn’t be trusted to fulfill larger ones. The conclusion in this case is the only one logically possible: Avoid Bud K, Kennesaw, Amazon’s “CutleryUSA,” and any other incarnations of Bud K as a company. Customer disservice of the type they provide should give us all pause.
Have had similar problems with Budk shipping department. Three times I have spent the extra 30 or so dollars for next day air. All three times the item was sent regular UPS and took a week to ten days. After many emails, I got the extra shipping costs returned, all 3 times, but they still charged the standard shipping of 7 something I believe. I have also ordered items that were on back order, which I had to find out after the items I was waiting for never showed. I really dislike Budk, they are lucky they have items that I cant seem to find elsewhere or I would be done with them.
On three separate occasions I have ordered buy one get one free knives. On all three purchases Budk never sent the second knife. I have called Budk and spoken to customer service, they said they would immediately ship the knives but they never have.
Thanks for the article and warning!
Bud K also has a company called CH Kadels. Here’s their website: http://chkadels.com.
It’s strange that one company would need 3+ separate names to sell their products. Most companies put all of their time and money into placing their name into the public’s mind. Not the case with this/these company/companies, who seems to be displacing their true name to the public.
This is a very big red flag for knife owners and this article saved me from possibly a lot of frustration and anguish. I was going to place a purchase with Bud K & Cutlery USA this very night not even realizing they were the same company.
Thanks again for the article/warning and thanks to Google for yielding this site in my search!
I used to work at budk and it was a great place to work but the management they have now sucks most of the customer service are temps who know they only have a job there for a few months because its cheaper then hiring full time so they dont care about it. And budk is also Matthews cutlery, United cutlery and a few others some of these where separate companies that budk bought out or started up.budk also sells alot of knives that say USA made and I have unloaded them off of containers from China so dont always believe it when it says USA made. About five years ago they lost some good managers and hired ones that only care about saving money so they got rid of alot of there long time employees for temporary workers cause as the operations manager said he doesn’t have to pay them health benefits,vacation,sick days, or retirement. after over four years of service and a good work record I was let go because they didn’t need my position anymore only for it to be filled with a temp two days later yea they really appreciate there employees
BUDK,with their apparent love of so many products Nazi and Confederacy related, I get the strong feeling it speaks volumes about the owner/management. Also, “BUDK” says it all about their original intent to make BUDK imprinted knives look like “BUCK” knives. Kind of like “FONY” looks like “SONY”.
For a $4 blade, expect to be disappointed.
Not the point. Whether the product costs four dollars or four hundred dollars, when the person responsible for order fulfillment simply doesn’t bother to fill the order, the company has failed the customer and should be avoided.
BudK also owns Kennesaw Cutlery, with whom I have done business several times, and (oddly enough)I have had no problems whatsoever with that arm of his conglomerate.
I have ordered direct from BudK on several occasions. The price is right (ok, they rape you on s&h)and shipping has always been very fast. The product has always been what I expected. I did have a wrong charge one time and customer service corrected it quickly. Much like anything on the net these days, mileage may vary. What I do appreciate is the reviews of the products. Much like Amazon. Some are informed and some are not. Sorry you had a bad experience. I do LOVE that you hold them accountable though and do so on a public forum that more than likely appeals to their buyers. Way to go! Again! I LOVE the Martialist!
Thank you so much for sharing your experience. As a past retailer of BUDK products, I an attest that their customer service for their wholesale buyers is the same as the pithy customer service you’ve described.
Nearly every single order we placed from BUDK (orders of anywhere from $1k to $6k worth of product) were flawed in some way. I cannot remember a single order that was completely correct. We’d receive random items that we certainly never requested–cowboy hats, masks, and things that we couldn’t give away. We’d also have several items missing from our order but charged on our invoice anyway. We’d call and argue for 30min until we were finally credit the proper amount that was missing from our order. The biggest frustration with BUDK (and our main reason for dropping them as a supplier) is that several of their products are purchased from other retail suppliers; the only difference is that BUDK tosses these items in a shiny new BUDK box and jacks up the price.
Never had a problem in the shipping department but I will say the products themselves tend to be substandard. Their entire line of shinwa katanas are advertised as battle-ready, yet they are only half tangs. The bowie knives are great, the swords however, tend to be nothing more than decorative at best. But, for the price, who can really complain. $50 to around $100 is a decent price for a decorative sword. Websites that sell ACTUAL battle-ready quality swords can go beyond $1000+ per item
Ordered a couple knives from Bud K on Feb 12. They shipped on Feb 13. It’s now Feb 27 and no product. I checked the local USPS after the UPS said it was dropped off at the USPS for final delivery. The USPS said UPS did not drop off the package. I called Bud K and was told they won’t do anything until March 5th! I filed a complaint w/ the state AG office and told Bud K supervisor I want off their mailing and email lists immediately!
called matthews cutlery to request a current catalog, gave her my customer number and i was sent a budk catalog. no american knives what so ever. why didnt i get a matthews catalog per my request.
Well, the thing about budk is they hire young people that don’t want to do their job, and during that time period They had that new girl in the office not doing her job, and after they figure out she wasn’t doing it I’m sure they reprimanded her or let her go. Notice that because of all the inconvenience they gave you the razor FREE OF CHARGE? How many companies would just say you know what we have been screwing you here, and we’re sorry so we will give it to you free. I have never had a problem with budk, other than the shipping FedEx My Big bowie knife (timber rattler western outlaw) Was thrown so hard into the truck it stuck out of the package and bent the tip over hitting the wall of the truck, but that was a FedEx problem not a BUDK Problem. Budk may sell Mediocre decoratives, or Pakistan knives with a mix of good ones in between, but they are a VERY honest company and will never mess you over if they can keep from it. they benefit from a repeat buyer customer base and like to keep it.
I contacted BudK and told them I wanted to buy in Qty. They were suppose to set me up a dealer account…Well, it has been two weeks and all I have heard is excuses. No one can seem to accomplish it. They don’t seem to care….So I will just take my 5k order to another wholesaler.
Thank all of you for this very helpful information. I had never heard of BUDK and was surprised when I received a catalogue. Looking to buy a birthday present, a two bladed knife, your information keeps me from making a mess of a birthday present for someone very special to me. Thank you all, again
Bud K…is one of the worse knife companies to do wholesale business with. I had a wholesale account there for about 12 years. I always kept my Orders small 3-5 hundred dollars. Reason being Bud K just could not get it right. I just did not have the time to baby sit them through a half dozen phone calls to correct their mistakes. They would misquote COD amounts or just not provide one. Sometimes UPS would show-up at my door and the check I had ready was not the correct amount due Bud K’s wholesale dept. had provided me the wrong amount. I finally cancelled my account with Bud K. Just was not worth the hassle.
I just bought three roosky surplus gas masks, Two came alright, but # 3 looked like it was dug up in a war zone ! Not useable and not very good at all. Full of sand and dirt ! I asked for a replacement and am getting run around. Why don’t they look at the items before they ship them. The sand and dirt are free , I am guessing. They don’t seem to care and hope you will just keep the crappy item. $7.99 shipping really rips my shorts too ! So take this with a big bag of salt if you order from them. maybe Clin Kadel will take time from his golf game and see what is going on ! He owns CH Kadels, Budk, and Kennesaw. ALL COME FROM THE SAME ADDRESS !
Maybe I was lucky I didn’t even get past the ordering phase. I decided to give this company a second try (the first was the same). My order was canceled two hours after it was placed. The order was placed online, then I called them. On the phone they stated they need to call me to verify that I was me with by phone. This was the phone number attached to my account. Firstly if I made the account, so I could put whatever number I wanted on it, so that isn’t a real accurate verification. Then they said I had to mail them a copy of my ID to prove who I was in order to place my order. As if ID theft wasn’t rampant enough, now they want ID’s mailed? The reason was I have 2 accounts with them. This may be true since I have 2 addresses/houses and have had there catalog mailed to one of these addresses, but requiring an ID to be mailed? This company is either scamming people or setting them up to have ID theft. Try somewhere else.