Hey all, I am new to hammockForums and a first-time hammock user. I decided that a hammock would be my home of choice for hiking the oregon section of the PCT this summer.
After many hours of internet research, it was pretty obvious that the warbonnet blackbird was the best hammock out on the market. I opted for this over a less expensive hennessy hammock because I enjoy supporting small businesses who practice ethically (ie, made in the US.)
I received my hammock, the blackbird single layer 1.7, about a month ago after a brief, helpful exchange with Brandon about how fast orders are typically processed.
I finally got a chance to get out of NYC to the trees to set up my hammock this past weekend. I set up the hammock as instructed. I got the webbing and carabiners since this seemed idiot-proof. After setting it up, all seemed well and I was quite enamored with how comfy it was to lay in. However, upon climbing into my hammock the 3rd or 4th time, I heard a tear, and was promptly on the ground. The gathered end of one side of the hammock had opened and resulted in small tears of the bugnet and hammock. Additionally, I couldn't figure out a way to reattach the hammock to the ridgeline. Again, new to all this and not confident in any sewing skills.
I was less than two weeks out from my trip when this happened and I quickly sent an email and some photos of the damage. Brandon immediately responded with:
"It looks like you removed the suspension and then re-installed it incorrectly...the Ridgeline is not supposed to be connected to the buckles like that" and told me I should ship it back so he could assess the repair and potential cost.
I responded that I had not made any adjustments to the hammock besides attaching carabiners and webbing to trees and that being new to hammocks in general, I had no idea how to even go about reinstalling that, nor a reason to do so. And I sent a picture of both sides of the suspension in the case that the one side was somehow faulty.
I hadn't heard back Monday morning, but needed to ship the hammock before leaving for my flight to Oregon. I spent $60 dollars for 2-day shipping and hoped that Warbonnet could reimburse this partly, in addition to covering any repairs under warranty, despite the previous email from Brandon.
About an hour after shipping it, I received an email from Brandon saying that he received my photo of both sides of the suspension, "but I have to say, there's no way you got it like that from us."
At this point, I was pretty disappointed two-fold: one) the way that warbonnet/Brandon was handling this seemed really atypical of the excellent customer service I had heard about; and two) it didn't sound like Brandon was going to honor the warranty or reimburse part of my expensive shipping.
I'm thinking to just cut my losses and let Brandon keep the hammock. Getting it in time for my trip would require an additional $35 to pay for express shipping and a $15 repair for something that was out of my control. Adding up my shipping to get the hammock there ($60), I'm coming close to the full price of a new hammock.
I'm pretty surprised and disappointed that I had this experience. I'm wondering if maybe Warbonnet doesn't deal with total newbie hammockers often or if I was just the edge case here...but either way I feel pretty misled and am opting to go with the Kammok I bought as backup during this whole ordeal.
Here are links to the damage that I sent over to Warbonnet: http://imgur.com/a/Fv6OC
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