Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Oct 29, 2010 10:03:47 GMT
...
|
|
|
Post by Dave Kelly on Oct 29, 2010 10:26:36 GMT
Johnny:
Feel terrible for you, that this experience has gone so badly. In retrospect, I'd have contacted KOA at some point PRIOR to damaging the sword :?
Would you really get stuck with taxes and vats and postage on a returned item?
You didn't comment on your experience of Japanese swords. Mine isn't particularly great. I've never seen a leather wrap before. It's different. And it is going to bind differently than a cloth one: passing over the pins and the closing knots on the binding are going to stand out. I think, in your frustration, you may be demanding something here that isn't fair to the aesthetic of the piece.
Be that as it may. Sorry to hear it didn't go well. Do hope you make something like a break even on the resale. ( 'less 'course a potential customer happens to read what ya just posted... :oops: )
|
|
|
Post by SwordFan on Oct 30, 2010 3:30:42 GMT
Sorry to hear about your bad experience , seems yours might have slipped through the QC checks . I also have one I got from KOA and mine is the total opposite with a very nice tight wrap , no marks on the saya and just an overall great katana for $400 . Is it worth the Hanwei MSRP Of $1300 , well perssonally I think not ,but Im happy to pay the $400 and even at $600 I think it would be a fair price . I have many Hanwei and overall I must say I find their QC to be the best (in my personal experiences). Other Katana in my collection are Dynasty Forge , Kris , Musashi and I have picked up more problems with them overall ,but it just goes to show that a lemon can slip through no matter from which Forge . With regards to the shim in the tsuka , this is not uncommon with Hanwei and even Dynasty Forge ,all I can say that at least with the Hanwei shimming its done with one piece of shim along the Tang (from what iv noticed in my collection) vs Dynasty Forge who have used small pieces of thicker shim at the top of the tsuka ,this caused 3 of my Dynasty Forge Katana tsuka to arrive cracked as the tsuka was over shimmed and then forced on causing it to crack rather badly on 1 Musha , 1 Bushi 1095 and 1 Bushi Folded . Anyhow hope you manage to at least break even , I know what you mean re the high taxes and customs .It makes it very difficult to return any defective sword as one is then left to repay those darn taxes and customs not to mention the return shipping , all for a problem which is no fault of the buyers . Have a Karma for your honest review
|
|
|
Post by Hyoujinsama on Oct 30, 2010 4:00:31 GMT
Yeowch. Sorry for the bad experience.
Looking at these pictures (especially of the ito), I can say with certainty that this sword has been used (At least swung around for a while) at some point before the review. As I assume these pictures are straight from the box, I think it would be safe to say that this blade was most likely a return at some point in its life.
|
|
|
Post by Vincent Dolan on Oct 30, 2010 4:12:31 GMT
That was my first thought, as well; that or it was in their scratch & dent section. Either way, this is a pretty sucky experience, particularly with such an expensive sword. Even more so since I've never heard anything bad about Kult of Athena or the Tori.
|
|
|
Post by Hyoujinsama on Oct 30, 2010 4:26:25 GMT
I guess it could have been scratch and dent. The thing that really caught me as being a very "used sword" thing was the matting of the fuzz on the ito. Notice how dark and shiny it is? That happens with a combination of sweat, skin oil and friction. All of my swords look like that, and they don't start really getting like that until they've been swung around for at least a good session.
|
|
|
Post by Vincent Dolan on Oct 30, 2010 4:44:48 GMT
I see it. Now that you say so, it does look like it's been swung a good deal; Kult of Athena has a 45-day return policy, meaning the person swung it a lot. Perhaps after wielding it some (but perhaps not cutting with it, since that would void the policy), they found they didn't like it and returned it? The thing that, personally, worries me the most is the shims in the tsuka. I don't know much, but something just tells me that's not supposed to be there at all.
|
|
|
Post by Hyoujinsama on Oct 30, 2010 4:55:08 GMT
Most sword companies end up using shims of some sort in at least a few of their tsuka. When done right, it's no real problem.
No more problem than the fact that most of the tsuka are not individually fit to each nakago, but fit "well enough".
|
|
kaiyo
Member
Posts: 1,201
|
Post by kaiyo on Oct 30, 2010 9:34:58 GMT
guys i wrote this already on a other forum - so garde you dont need to comment this.. "...i feel terribly sorry about this, cause this is also my fault, should have checked this before, i noticed the nick in the saya and wrote garde about this, maybe i was just too psyched about the swórds ... to get this straight its also my fault cause i wanted to ship the sword asap overloocked these flaws, i will fix the problem for garge myself if things with KOA doesn't go well ... im really mad at KOA for shipping such crap, but they surely also do mistakes - so KOA is contacted but the situation sucks cause a return of this sword is impossible cause of the regulations of export shipping, so basically we have to hope for their well ...? generosity... ? cause they wont get the sword back and have to believe me with all the noticed flaws. ... maybe these Tori's are really return swords or factory seconds
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Oct 30, 2010 12:20:06 GMT
kaiyo: well yes i have to comment this ;-) hehe ok i wont then :-)
I just hope i'm the only one getting this kind of sword, so really hope the rest of you guys that bought a Tori is going to get at great sword....
|
|
TomK
Member
Senior Forumite
Posts: 2,377
|
Post by TomK on Oct 31, 2010 7:06:25 GMT
I agree with Kevin, this is certainly a used sword. I have often wondered what the final fate of all those returned KOA swords would be. sadly, this is exactly what I suspected: if they keep sending the sword out eventually it will end up in the hands of someone who doesn't know well enough or is for some reason unable to return it. in the mean time, they still get the money for every sale they just have to shuffle things around until they stick.
if I were the OP I wouldn't use this experience as a reason to not buy Hanwei, I'd use it as a reason to not buy Kult of Athena unless they find a way to fix the issue. this is not to say that KOA isn't a fine company, I know their track record and I have always had good luck with them, but there's no way around it: this one falls on KOA's responsibility. they dropped the ball, the only question is will they pick it up? I hope so.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Oct 31, 2010 8:42:09 GMT
TomK: Yes, i am 100% sure it is used, it looks as used as my Iaito i have used for Iai the last 6 month 3 times a week. For them picking up the ball, just have to wait and see, i think there are al ot of people waiting to see how good KOAs costumer service really is. For me, this is really a matter of buying from the again. But i have a hunch, they wont do semprini.
As for Kaiyo, well, i'm just glad that he is willing to write them, cause hi is the one on that "bought it " for me. Once more, kudoes to you Kaiyo. And thanks a million for the help so far ;-)
|
|
|
Post by Google on Nov 1, 2010 1:00:19 GMT
The tori may be one of hanwei's higher end, but every time I look at it it just doesn't seem worth the money. After going through several practical to mid-range hanwei, I can say that without feeling the actual sword in person, I will not buy a hanwei,
|
|
|
Post by soupsandwich on Nov 4, 2010 16:42:16 GMT
Sorry to see such a bad example of what I think is a great product shipped as new (the ito definitely looks darkened from handling). I had ordered 2 Tori Elite through the SBG store special as it was comparable in price to KoA w/ shipping, and both of mine are beautiful, perhaps because they shipped from Hanwei's domestic warehouse in Tennessee. Too bad SBG's special was for USA sales only.
|
|
|
Post by Crimsoned on Nov 4, 2010 21:53:14 GMT
Full story was made, and I have changed my mind. Shame on all of us.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Nov 4, 2010 22:01:19 GMT
Kayio have written KOA a couple of days ago, but no response. We will give then the weekend, i write them again.
|
|
|
Post by Lobster Hunter on Nov 5, 2010 0:58:35 GMT
What a bummer. If KoA won't fix the issue, one way you could salvage this situation is to get your sword re-wrapped, either by a pro or do-it-yourself. I just searched on-line for almost an hour to find tsukamaki service in Europe. Zip. How's that possible??? Maybe I'm just not looking right. I found this link to a Danish Iaido organization. Maybe they know something. shindenryu.dk/en_contact.htm
|
|
|
Post by CrystalKOA on Nov 6, 2010 1:02:30 GMT
First of all this is exactly why I do not post on this board. Too many people here post their opinions and misinformation as facts. As owner of Kult Of Athena, I do not appreciate your accusations that we ship out defective or used merchandise as new. This assumption is quite frankly moronic. We are one of the only vendors that actually does quality check the items before they ship. Is that going to catch everything? Of course not, but it does catch most things. We ship back tons of stuff that we do not feel meets our standards, and sell off others at discounts. This is more than the drop ship dealers can or will do. Ultimately everything we get comes directly from the suppliers. To assume that if you pay someone to have it sent to you directly, you would somehow get a "better" products is laughable. If you order something from a drop ship dealer, you get the luck of the draw. Whatever the Hanwei factory put in the box is what ultimately ends up at your door. Most of the time this will be pretty good, but not always. It is cheap and easy to run this type of business and if I did not give a semprini, that would be the way to go. Instead, I have the items shipped to us first so we can inspect them. This costs us much more to do than to lazily drop ship your orders. But we do it because it allows us to provide a better product. When something bad does slip out we take care of it, and replace the items with no additional cost to the customer. We do not simply ship out bad items again and again. How would this make any sense? For one thing it would piss off multiple customers, for another we would loose money each time the item came back. Do you really think anyone would do something that stupid? We can return defective items to Hanwei for replacement. How would it make any sense to deliberately ship them to customers? Sometimes we will list them in the blow out section, if we feel that a customer may appreciate a the product for a lower cost. Obviously, these items are not just sitting in the regular inventory. They are kept separate. So I would appreciate if some of you would nock off the KOA bashing and stop attempting to spread false rumors about us. It is not only unfair to other board members, but is borderline liable. I realize that some of you have an agenda to push your own or your friends businesses, I can only hope that others will see you for what you are and see beyond your lies. Now as for the specific sword in question. This sword came directly from Hanwei. It was NOT a return, nor was it from our blow out section. If this item had been used previously, Hanwei sold it to us as new. End of story. I know this for a fact, this is not in dispute. This specific sword would have been just as likely to ship out no matter where the order originated. Hanwei considered it good, so would have used it to fill any of their drop ship orders. To assume that they pay any more attention to these one off drop ships then to our large orders, is naive to say the least. Long story short, a bad sword got out. This we can take responsibility for. We try to weed out things like this and I have many other "new" swords from Hanwei that we rejected and are sitting on a shelf. In fact we have a room of items we have rejected from one source or another. We may not catch everything, but at least we try. Drop ship dealers are at the mercy of whatever the manufacturer ships out. Considering what I see from some of them, I can not believe there are not a lot more complaints about it. So when something like this happens we take care of it, as many customers can attest. Even if it was an international order we do what we can to correct the situation. We have lost hundreds of dollars in some cases to correct an international situation like this. Under normal circumstances. If a customer receives a defective item, they will notify us. Here is what should have happened. The customer finds that the sword is defective, he contacts us about it. We have him ship the sword back. Being international we can not send him a return label, but we ask him to ship the sword back to us and let us know how much it costs him. He does so. The sword comes back to us. We refund his return shipping costs back to his card. A new sword is inspected, this time by me personally in addition to our shipping dept. The sword is shipped back to the customer and the customs information is listed to explain that the sword is a replacement item. The sword arrives to the customer, and they do not have to pay taxes because they were taxed the first time. It is an inconvenience ,and takes time, but ultimately the customer receives the new sword at no additional cost. We take a loss on the sale and sell of the return as a blow out or return it to Hanwei (So they can put it in one of your drop ship orders). However this situation is much more complicated than this. This sword was ordered by Kaiyo and shipped to Germany. Apparently Kaiyo shipped it to Gardehusar in Denmark? And now Gardehusar is on here pissed at us because of a sword he bought from someone else? So the sword came from Hanwei to us to Kaiyo to Gardehusar. God only knows what happened to it once it left here. Why is it that all blame and responsibility to correct the situation falls on us? It's funny how the issue is not that Hanwei shipped a bad sword or that Gardehusar is mad at Kaiyo because of what he shipped him but that we must have knowingly shipped out a used sword. How do we even know that the sword Gardehusar received is the same one we shipped to Kaiyo? There are a lot of questions here, and before any of you start throwing semprini around, think about what you would do in a situation like this when it is your money on the line. It was not easy to figure all of this out, none of this is explained in Kaiyo's emails to us. We have only just pieced together the full situation. So apparently Gardehusar received the item, determined it was defective, then proceeded to disassemble the sword with a hammer, breaking the tip in the process. Now the sword is not only defective, but has been destroyed by the customer. Only then did he contact Kaiyo who contacted us, no one ever mentioned the fact that the sword was broken to us. Lucky, Gardehusar decided to post what he had done here otherwise we would never know the truth of the situation. For all we know it was the fact that he broke it that made him decide that it was now "defective" and that we should now replace the sword he broke. So now really what are we supposed to do? Our return policy is pretty clear, we do not accept returns that have been used. This sword was broken by the customer. We can not simply take back items after a customer damages them. Kaiyo is waiting for us to get back to him. I asked him what he would feel would be fair to which he did not have an answer. So now that Gardehusar has decided to make this public, I'll just reply here and bore everyone with the entire process. It has never been our policy to tell a customer "tough luck". I try to accommodate everyone to the best of my ability and the detriment to our own profit. The fact that the customer broke the sword, we are entirely in our right not to replace it at this point, but we will offer a compromise in this situation. Gardehusar, if you ship the sword back to us, I will send a replacement back to Kaiyo. You will loose out on the cost to ship it back to us, but considering that you broke it, I think this is more than fair. I do realize that being in Denmark makes this a more difficult process, but that is not our fault. If this is not possible, we'll see if we can work out something with Kaiyo, if he wants to work something out with you after the fact will be up to him. As for everyone else, do not think that this opens the door for you to do the same. If you ever receive a defective item, contact us immediately, do not make the situation worse than it has to be. I hope we can now get this behind us and get back to discussing something that matters rather than trying to fan the flames of this unfortunate situation. If any of you have any comments feel free to contact me directly, like a man, rather than talk about me or my business behind my back. I will happily explain any of our policies. If you have any questions about how we do business, just ask. Do not start harmful internet rumors just to up your post counts. Doing so is detrimental to this boards readers, it's owner, it's sponsors and the sword buying community as a whole.
Ryan Whittlinger
|
|
|
Post by Midori Kawakami on Nov 6, 2010 2:24:44 GMT
I gotta agree with Ryan on some points, here. After having worked for a sword seller, I've seen both sides of this coin. You can do your absolute utmost to make sure that the product sent to you is good before moving it on to the end user, but an occasional lemon slips through the cracks from time to time. We're all human, and we're all fallible. The seller has tried to rectify the situation fairly, in my opinion.
I would like to make the suggestion that, in the future, the seller is dealt with before a review is written and all necessary exchanges are made, because this type of thing--being right in the middle of the fray with tempers flared--helps no one. It can damage a sellers' reputation or make readers feel the OP is less than reliable when a seller has to jump on a thread like this. We as reviewers have a difficult time maintaining our objectivity when we're in situations like this, so it's always best to wait until a resolution has been reached and then post the whole story. I'm not saying anyone's to blame, but lets keep our heads about us and keep it civil and give the seller more time to respond and rectify the situation in the future. What say you, fellas?
|
|
|
Post by Vincent Dolan on Nov 6, 2010 2:45:55 GMT
In short, I agree with you, Midori, especially about posting the whole story. I can't seem to figure out how to type out the rest of what I'm thinking (it's all kind of jumbled in my head), so I'm not going to try. Ryan pretty much covered everything I could hope to say, as well as plenty I hadn't thought of; not much point in reiterating what he said.
|
|