I've purchased fabric two or three times from
DIY Tactical, principally their 1.1 oz MARPAT camo ripstop. So when I exhausted my supply, on Dec. 2 I put in an order for 20 yards. I used paypal.
Per usual I got an automated email response saying the order had been received and was in processing. Per usual it said I would get an email when it had been shipped.
Two weeks went by and I began to wonder what was going on. But I then had a business trip that distracted me, I came home to Christmas in full swing, after Christmas I was busy with my sons shooting a video, and come early January I realized it had been a month since I'd placed the order, and no package, no response.
So I dropped a query to the email address given for questions about orders in my solitary communication with them. I gave it several days, no response, I tried calling. Google voice redirected me to a recording taker. As before I identified myself, the order number, the items ordered. Left a contact phone number. Several more days, nothing. Tried email again, several more days, nothing.
I knew paypal has some kind of mechanism for reclaiming $$ for items not delivered, and so I started down that path. What I learned was that I first file a "dispute" with paypal, explaining the situation. What paypal does is notify the vendor that a dispute has been filed, and encourages the vendor to work it out with the buyer. Paypal provides the email exchange between vendor and buyer. So I awaited a response from DIY Tactical.
I gave DIY Tactical one full week, and there was no response through any channel. So the next step in the paypal process is to escalate the dispute to a "claim", which is the point where some human at paypal eventually gets involved in looking at the correspondence (or lack of it!) to assess the claim. I escalated the dispute to a claim.
Shortly thereafter I got an email from paypal copying a message from the vendor. It was a USPS tracking number. "Huh?" sez I, "maybe that package got lost. Wonder when happens
then.." So I went to USPS package tracking and entered the number, and saw the state was that the vendor had alerted USPS that the vendor would in the future be providing a package for delivery associated with this tracking number. The date given for when this notification was forwarded was half-way between when I filed the dispute and when I escalated it to a claim. It was a response to the dispute notification, but the vendor provided no communication to me or paypal.
Five days passed, nothing. Six days passed, nothing. I resolved I would wait out one full week and then see if there was a mechanism to record with paypal that despite the tracking number, nothing had come, or seemingly was going to come.
The full week went by. I had one last look at the tracking site, and (at last) saw that several hours before USPS had taken receipt of the package and it was on its way.
All of this with not a word from the vendor to me.
The package did come. You better believe I checked that all the yardage I'd ordered was present. It was. You better believe that that was the last order I'll be placing with DIY Tactical. Had it not been the leverage of working through paypal this might still be dragging on.
I only went to them for the camo, my other fabric I get from Speers, OWF, questoutfitters, rockywoods. Camo is so last week anyway…..
Caveat emptor
Originally Posted by UCMWINGS
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