Ordered in June. Still no shipment. Requesting refund.

I placed an order for a Transfer Case Skid Plate with MobTown online on June 27th.

Emailed September 30th (95 days later), got this response: "All of our skid plates are going to be worked on and completed within the next two weeks."

Emailed October 25th (120 days later), got this response: "We are behind on all of our skid plates, Joe is working as fast as he can to get caught up on those."

Emailed today December 25th (181 days later) for a full refund. Received a prompt reply promising my refund will be issued Monday. I would have very much preferred getting the product I ordered within a few months of the actual promised delivery. Merry Christmas.

I have not gotten a single email with an update without asking first.

I can't recommend sending money to these folks.

Edit 12/28: As promised MobTown has issued a full refund as of this morning. I won't bump this to the top with a new post but I wanted to make sure that everyone knew that they did as they said they would on the refund.

 

@Mobtown Offroad

This sounds like Gobi lead times

 

We’ve replied to your email informing it’ll be cancelled and refunded when we reopen Monday.

Lead times have been a complete guess this year unfortunately. All the companies we rely on to be on time have been late by 3x or 4x longer than what they were last year, which then puts us behind 3x or 4x beyond the estimated lead times. Example: We had skid plate laser cut/formed parts and rear bumper laser cut/formed parts on order since the beginning of August. After my constant calls to them I cancelled the ordered at the beginning of December and had to go elsewhere. We’ve used this company for 5 years now and never had delays.

My 2020 Motto: “It is what it is.”

 

Lead times this year seem to have been exceptional with any made to order product. I've seen a handful of threads here and on 4runners.com complaining about long lead times.

All you guys can do is communicate with the customers, and get things out as you get your hands on the material.

I'm sure vendors are not happy about the extra long wait times, either. The longer it takes them to produce and ship a product, the less money they're making. I can't imagine any fabricator dragging ass on purpose.

I've seen a delay on materials in my job as well.

 

maybe for customers who have orders exceed the shown lead time at purchase emails can be sent out explaining that. I placed an order with another company and had my order exceed shown lead time at purchase. If I had gotten an email explaining what you just explained I would of felt better. I’m sure a lot of people would rather have that than having to reach out constantly to the company for updates. And being given inaccurate ship times.

just my two cents

 

We all know there are issues, its 2020. What I do not understand and what you do not explain here is;
- Why you still list lead times on your website ("subject to change without notice") when you know you can't meet them. Right now you show skid plates at 4-5 weeks. My order is 24 weeks old. It is not hard to revise the website with a statement that reflects reality.
- You have not made one effort to contact me without me initiating it. If you had sent me a single email along the way describing the issues and asking me for more time I probably would have gone along.

I have seen your participation on this forum and your products seem well reviewed. Overall you seem like a good guy with good intentions. Too bad that doesn't seem like enough when you failed to honestly communicate with me once the money was in your hands. We would have both been better off if you had just sent an honest lead time estimate to discuss.

I appreciate the prompt reply on the request for a refund and I'll keep an eye out for that. Enjoy your holidays and I hope 2021 treats you better.

 

We’ve tried this, again relying on what we are told by the vendor making the few pieces we have to outsource. Then they’re late to us, with no response to us, which then makes us look like the asshole. We literally hired someone to answer phones and try to be responsive and honest but when our vendors lie to us, it’s kind of hard...

Our solution was to buy a bunch of fabrication equipment so we no longer have to outsource. That added a learning curve and redesign of every part that requires a bend because press brake tooling isn’t the same from one machine to the next. Our parts were designed to work with the old vendor tooling, our tooling is different.

 

Plus that second paragraph..that's also money out of your pocket short term. I cannot imagine what that outlay was..yikes

 

Yup, the brake cost us $30k which was a steal and the rigging and shipping was another $6k. Adding a crane and hoist to safely lift plate on and off the plasma cutting table and then the engineering time for redesign, training and then sitting on the expense of the material and added time of material handling and labor, the brake was the cheap part.

 

I've said of any business, big or small..in particular the one I'm involved in running as my second job. Money comes in a handful of ways and goes out a hundred.

 

These are hard times for many and especially businesses that have been affected by material sourcing etc. it becomes a trickle down effect. The customer doesn’t always get the ins and outs of the issues.

I’ve noticed the biggest problems with off-road/overland specific companies tend to lack customer service at some point in their operation due to whatever reason. It is for sure difficult to keep track of orders delayed due to this or that etc and informing customers but shouldn’t be an excuse.

It’s exacerbated in a lot of cases because the wait times are so long. Look at some of the wedge campers with 6-12 month lead times mostly due to popularity, but if a material can’t be sourced or a person quits or a major flaw is found it just extends that lead time and makes the customer a little more inpatient.

I am fairly surprised when most customers would just prefer to be updated and will typically go along with the issues up to a point.

Small businesses are a lot harder to run than large businesses but sometimes small businesses can learn a lot from how large businesses operate. Though implementing certain practices may come to a cost/profit discussion.

In the end you win some and you lose some.

 

@Mobtown Offroad Carry on guys. Every single fab company has been suffering. I don’t think people realize that a company, most at least, dont ever want to under deliver. I have purchased your stuff before and been stoked.

OP, just take your refund and be happy. No need to complain. Order from All Pro, they have plenty in stock.

 

Credit card protections usually have a time limit on charge disputes, charge reversals, or chargebacks.

That's what makes endless waiting for product risky.

Pelfreybilt is a perfect example, taking orders, giving delay notifications while sucking in more money, and then closing up shop and declaring bankruptcy, bilking hundreds of customers with expired credit card protections.

 

I feel your pain. Ordered my wife’s Christmas gift the 27th of November with a delivery date within 3 weeks. Just in time for Christmas right? Was updated yesterday and it might be here by March.

 

I think OP’s major complaint is the promises of dates that have been pushed back

 

Mobtown knew it was 2020 in June, right? I agree with the person spending money and waiting 6 months. “It is what it is.”

 

I feel bad for the OP!

Instead of "My 2020 Motto: “It is what it is.” wouldn't it have been more productive to have said "We're sorry and we screwed up, it's our fault and we apologize..."?

 

The response by Mobtown to any criticism or critique about their customer service is telling (particularly about lack of communication and proactiveness). Excuses and defensiveness. Just read threads on TW. People can choose to spend their money however they want. I would never choose to buy from Mobtown. There are enough companies that make quality products out there, so customer service is key for me.

 

In my experience, it doesn't matter what year it is. It always seems to take 9 months for these companies to birth product, see what I did there?

Back, way back in 2006 thru 2008, Shrockworks took forever to get stuff built and shipped. And they never communicated delays unless asked. I feel it's just par for the course with the industry.

I even recently tried to place an order, and NO ONE gets back to me. I want to spend money. "It is what it is." That's something I'm sick of hearing.

I'll most likely just be fabricating my own equipment for the truck.

 

When delays are as across the board for small businesses and fabrication outfits as they have been in 2020, the companies that don't make up for it with customer service will have a hard time rebounding when their suppliers do.