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In reply to Post #16
Solar are a complete ****ing waste of space. I wont touch them now along with nash. I found the only way for solar to do anything is air your problem on facebook and they soon respond as they hate the bad publicity for the whole world to see. Solve the problem in the first place then there is no need to resort to facebook. Most companies respond if its put on social media not just tackle companies.
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In reply to Post #13
Next time you send something Spod that you have sold, use a signed for service. Make sure that your delivery is going to have REAL proof of delivery. It really does not cost that much more in reality. But it will save you being scammed. If that customer was dishonest, you have no way of proving that he did not receive his parcel. He will claim it was stolen from his doorstep. PayPal or the debit card company will find in his favour & you will lose your money. You will then have to go through the ball ache of trying to claim from Royal Mail. That's a whole new nightmare you don't need. We have never had a 'Special Next Day' before 1pm delivery go missing, that's with RM. Literally 1000's & 1000's of parcels sent this way. Not one has ever gone missing. Any orders over a certain amount get sent this way & we cover the extra cost. If I was you, sending something that someone has purchased as a one off.... I'd always send it that way. It will cost you a bit more. But you will not get any problems like you did. NOT EVER.
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In reply to Post #16
Yeah, that's not good whatsoever Wandle. The TackleBox will always help you. Johnson Ross carry that same reputation and both cover all of these businesses. The reason I said below that you are often better contacting the tackle shop is for that specific reason. Any company that is ignoring you, will answer the people who hold their stock & directly pay their invoices. That should not be the case. But in what you are saying it clearly is with some. If you have a problem with anything purchased from a shop, the shop should always be your first port of call.
Good customer service like Korda displayed in the first post is how it should be with EVERY company within carp fishing. We are a small community in reality. If it's not, why are you guys buying their stuff? Use the companies where you know you will get the customer service that you should be getting.
Yes Korda went above and beyond in the first post in this thread. But why should that be so hard for anyone else? You hear the same horror stories about the same big companies over & over again. They would soon sort themselves out if sales start to plummet because of it. I bet Nash take on a whole new ethos of customer service now parts of their business are clearly struggling. That was not always the case though going on internet information.
I would also say that in 2025, email is now pretty much dead. Find other ways to contact your business. The emails are likely never getting seen. We can get literally 100's & 100's of emails a day. 99% of them are all spam. We supply a mobile number and ask folks to WhatsApp message. Calls are not answered or no work would get done. Carp anglers call all day everyday. 99% are just looking for advice. As much as I love talking to carp anglers, if we answered that phone to calls no one would ever get any product. My whole day would be spent on the phone. If the company you are chasing have a telephone number.... That is always the best way to contact them. I know you said you were calling, but a lot of anglers reading this ONLY email people. Those emails in my experience don't get seen. When our new website is built, it will have no email contact on there. No contact form that comes in via email. Our current web designers built the contact page of our website into the actual site itself & have told me it can't be removed. I wanted that gone a couple of years ago for exactly this reason.
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In reply to Post #15
Quote.... Evri being the worst offenders.
I will not use them Scott. I will not buy something if it's being delivered by one of the shat delivery firms.... It just leads to far to much aggro & stress in the long run. Companies selling stuff direct should take note. Evri are a complete joke. ParcelForce are also a joke where I live. I often think it's down to the individual area, some firms are good in some areas, while the same delivery company is absolutely terrible in other areas.
I buy so much stuff online. I don't leave the house anymore in the UK, except to go to the airport. It's become a standing joke in my family to work out how many times Mark leaves the house in the UK in a whole year. Last year it was five times. In 2023 it was seven times. In the same time period I might have gone to the airport eight times per year. But I left the home apart from that just five times last year. Always to visit family. My actual 'life' gets lived abroad now. Really I only 'work' in the UK.
So EVERYTHING gets delivered. That's a lot of stuff, food, clothing, home appliances, absolutely everything is purchased online. I do not enter shops in the UK anymore and have not done so for years now.
If the delivery company being used is crap, I will not purchase from them. I will take my business elsewhere. Often the delivery company is not quoted, but once I learn, that's enough to make me stop purchasing from that business if they use Evri to deliver the products.
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In reply to Post #8
I'm still waiting to hear from Solar ,not a dicky bird have I heard ..repeated phone calls and emails ....I gave up..
However ,I contacted Tackle box , and got great service on what was a simple but hard to find bit for my Sod Pod....
Before Outlaw pro got taken over,I got outstanding service from them and Fox ,yes that's right, Fox were brilliant ...
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In reply to Post #13
Does my nut in when couriers leave parcels on the doorstep,then put a card through the door saying " left in your safe place"... there's no such thing where I live.
Evri being the worst offenders
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In reply to Post #13
Quote.... Out of interest, have you had many claiming the parcels were stolen from their doorstep?
No that one never actually happens with us. Our stuff gets sent on signature required services. You will find that what you are describing is stuff being sent by the sender via RM or couriers on non signed for services. It's cheaper, but they just require proof of delivery. That's when they chuck it on the doorstep & photo it.
No good to us when it's normally £50 - £250 parcels.
We have had customers try it on claiming the signature on the tracking is not theirs... But it's standard practice for the postman or delivery driver for RM to sign that box themselves with a squiggle when they have handed it to the resident. But it will also have the GPS coordinates on the tracking, so when unscrupulous people try to use that to claim their stuff did not really come they are again directed to deal with their local sorting office. That'a always people trying it on. But RM will never leave a signed for parcel on a doorstep with just a photo of the front door. Not in my experience anyway.
Certain Amazon delivery drivers do this all of the time though and it really winds me up! Often the sausages can't even be bothered to ring the door bell either!
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In reply to Post #9
Out of interest, have you had many claiming the parcels were stolen from their doorstep? With RM's, (and other couriers) habit of just leaving them in broad daylight and taking a photo you do get the doorstep thieves touring estates to do exactly that.
I sold an item on eBay recently and had the buyer message me saying he knew it had been left but when he got back from work it wasn't there so what was I going to do about it? Thankfully he messaged me again a short while later to say a neighbour had taken it in as they had experienced a high amount of doorstep thefts in his area.
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In reply to Post #11
Oh I know that exactly. We are experts on how best to get our parcels through RM, been doing it a long old while & we send out a lot of parcels. I also have friends & family who work, or worked previously for RM.
The problem is, when 'marking' the outside of the standard 24hr parcels from us, or on the older first class signed for service, far to many parcels were going missing on their way through the system. We both know that once that parcel leaves the customers end sorting office and it's assigned to the driver or the postman.... NOTHING is ever going missing. But whilst travelling through the system up until that point, sadly things DO go missing sometimes. It's the same with all couriers. We still choose Royal Mail, but we can't mark the parcels. I don't even put in claims when stuff goes missing. It takes to much time & my time is more valuable when I'm working doing other things.
There would seem to be a lot of carp fishing staff who work for Royal Mail. We used to mark the parcels with a return address. But then when we grew, sadly far to many parcels started going missing. By not marking the parcels in anyway, 99.9999% of them always reach their destination. That suits us better.
That's the world we live in. It's not a slight on RM, it's just a fact of life unfortunately.
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In reply to Post #5
You'd get the parcels back if you put a return address on them. They only get sent to NI to be opened if there's no address to return to sender.
I worked for RM for more than 20 years and sent thousands of undeliverable/wrongly addressed parcels back to their senders... 
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In reply to Post #8
Regarding Solar, I'm not sure. I was told Lockey left a few weeks back.
Jake Anderson who is their product developer/manager is a regular customer of ours. Jake is a sound bloke in my dealings with him, so not certain what would be happening there.
With a company who only sell to tackle shops and not directly to the public, the anglers are always best to contact the tackle shop where they purchased said product if they get problems with said company. I'm sure this is how a lot of these companies function who do not sell direct. I know they used to have Solar 24/7, but I think these days it's only through tackle shops again.
It's far better to be like Korda as highlighted in the first post in this thread. Quick, simple, everybody is left happy. That really should be standard practice for all companies within our past time.
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In reply to Post #8
Thanks Bob.
When you sell direct to the public over a long period of time you always get folks trying to scam you. I could tell you stories that would make your toes curl.
The stuff is all fully tracked, so it does not ever work for them. They do try, but when the stuff has been delivered to their door, and they try to claim they did not receive it.... They are directed to Royal Mail... Because they are claiming that their RM delivery man (they don't come with postman no more) is a thief. I know that's not true, they know that's not true. They just melt away never to be heard from again after trying it on.
The bad ones are the ones who come up with the most crazy stories trying to get something for free. One young bloke last year sent me photos of a tub of our hook baits, claiming that one of them in the tub looked like it had been used. You could clearly see the floss still tied around the hook bait, you could clearly see it was very swollen & had been in the lake for a period of time. I called him instantly. He had some much older man in the background directing him what to say. It was that stupid, I thought it was actually a wind up for a while. But it was serious. They wanted more hook baits sent out, or their money back.
They got told in no uncertain terms there was no way on this earth those hook baits came to them like that. The younger bloke was told to tell the man directing him that it was a very stupid decision to start scamming people from their home address (big expensive house in a posh area). Really stupid. That sort of thing would come back to bite someone on the arse when they try to scam the 'wrong' people. They were also told their details would be passed to every tackle shop & supplier of carp gear in the UK. The bloke apologised and put the phone down pretty rapid. They never ordered anything from us again. Not under their own name anyway. It was so random it almost made no sense. Incredibly unintelligent people just trying it on. Afterwards I thought they must have been drinking or on heavy drugs. That's how stupid the whole thing was. But they were serious until they realised it was not going to work.
In the main carp anglers are very honest though Bob. It also takes a very stupid person to try to start scamming people from their own confirmed PayPal address like those two mentioned above. I've lost count of the amount of parcels that Royal Mail have 'lost'.... I've replaced the order for the customer.... And two weeks later the original parcel that is meant to arrive 24hr suddenly turns up. The anglers in question could very easily keep quiet and say nothing. They already had their order replaced. The original order likely got sent to the wrong sorting office on route, then gets stuck in the RM system. before being delivered very late. The tracking indicates 'in progress', so the parcel is thought to be 'lost'. EVERY TIME that has happened to my knowledge the anglers in question have contacted us to let us know the original parcel finally turned up & where should they send it back too.
They are ALWAYS thanked for their honesty, told to keep the second parcel with a happy Christmas.
Our community is a very honest one generally. When you are a company aligned with PayPal, who resolves all issues with customers over many many years.... PayPal will back you every single time anyway. I make them a lot of money. They have many years experience that we are very honest, that we resolve all problems for our customers. If I have a problem on eBay or the like buying anything myself.... I can contact PayPal on a direct line and any issue will get sorted out instantly in my favour, without any exception. If the need ever arose... All I need to do is contact PayPal if I felt we were being scammed by a customer, they would then take the hit, not me. We have full seller protection with them.
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In reply to Post #7
Good post Mark.👍
Unfortunately there are scammers out there that will find a way of capitalising on your ethics.
Someone managed to break one of my Solar landing net spreader blocks and Mikey who worked for them sent me one FOC.
As far as I can tell Mikey no longer works for them and Solar's reputation has nose dived.
Result= from being great customer service to no customer service.
It's good when something goes wrong and reporting the results good or bad here 
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In reply to Post #6
Yes, it was your fault. I completely understand that. In the same way as what i told you is the anglers fault entirely with us. I can guarantee you 100% that what I am talking about happens 500 times more often than someone stepping on a £200 net. Often sending more than £200 of hook baits too. We don't charge for postage for that either. We get people contact us who ordered six months ago, literally crazy stuff like that. Royal Mail tried to deliver them three times within a week of their order, but never left a card. Again it's not our fault. If we wanted, we could just supply the tracking & jog the customer on to deal with RM. We replace it, at our cost. In all cases we do not have too, it's just the right thing to do. It brings good things in the long run, and loyal returning customers.
It's all the same shizzle, keeping a customer happy. DF is a clever man. You will return to them over & over again. He will reap the benefits of helping you ten fold.
That should be the standard, as I said. Sadly, as can be seen on this forum on a daily basis that's not the standard though is it?
Well done to Korda again. But I stand by what I said, if it's your fault or not, even after two years.... If the company are smart they will go out of their way to help you. That's called good business ethics & looking after your customers. It should be the absolute standard. Especially in a small community like ours. They will carry spares for all of their products. It costs nothing for the business involved to keep you happy.
It's very good business sense to do that. The ones who don't do that, often know they will likely not be in business by the end of the year.
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In reply to Post #5
The emphasis was on me breaking the net standing on it not a defect on a 2 year old net. Nobody should expect a company to just give them free spares because they bought from them nevermind free postage etc on top? On top they sent a full replacement arm set instead of just the bare minimum arm I needed.
Just my 2 cents worth anyways. I was in a rush for a French trip and was ready to pay whatever it cost to fix my error. As mentioned I was pleasantly surprised.
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Quote.... Not many companies that would do this.
Why not? It should be the absolute standard for any business to keep their returning customers happy. Sadly it's something that does not exist for so many companies in carp fishing.
There is a reason why we have been in business for 11 years, but you NEVER hear people crying about not receiving their stuff from us. Quite the opposite. We get anglers all of the time who forget to change their PayPal delivery address when they move. The stuff normally gets refused by the new home owner, and then sent back to NI to the RM main centre and are lost forever. This is not our fault, it's the anglers fault. We still replace EVERY single order, it happens quite regular these days.
It would be quite scary for me to add up how much money this has cost me personally over the past few years. It's a very large sum of money. It does not matter. If the customer is not happy, they do not return. Treat someone with respect and go out of your way to help them... You will have a customer for life.
Well done to Korda. But it really should be the norm, not the exception.
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In reply to Post #1
They are up there as one of best imo,had 2 issues with different items.Both times it had been dealt with straight away
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In reply to Post #1
I'd also say that their customer service is excellent.
I had a korda compac low chair and one of the rear legs bent quite a bit.
I sent some pictures to the shop and korda via email.
Within a couple of days I had an email from korda saying they would send another one as soon as they were back in stock, and it duly arrived a couple of weeks later.
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In reply to Post #1
I second that, bought a drykore jacket but rarely used it over 18months.
The first actual testing of it in torrential rain and it was as good as wearing a paper bag!
A few emails later, I sent it back to them and received a new one.
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Thought would give Korda a thumbs up for their great customer service.
I managed to snap one of my Springbow landing net arms (stood on it by accident in the dark after a capture). Net was bought in 2023 so way past any sort of warranty period.
Emailed shop to buy a new arm to get an response that Korda has shipped me a replacement. Within a week a full replacement package consisting of 2 x arms with tension rope was delivered via DHL recorded delivery free of charge. Not many companies that would do this.
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