Trouble with Bud's

[bigwakes]

I called Bud's today to order a Remington 700 SPS Tactical. The guy who answered the phone, John, was very friendly. I told him what I wanted to order he said "no problem", took my information as usual. Address, FFL, credit card #, etc. We spoke for probably 10 minutes before he charged my card. As soon as the card was charged he said "oh, by the way you should know it will take 10 days to ship." I asked why he didn't tell me that before charging the card and he said "we like to save that for the end." Wow! He said if I want to cancel the order just call back and there will be a full refund.

I was steaming that he waited to tell me the ship time until after the card was charged so I called back 20 minutes later to cancel the order. I was told by the guy who answered that there would be a restocking fee of 10%. I didn't say the dirty words that came to mind and asked for a supervisor. Next I spoke with Angela (I think that was her name) very helpful and agreed to refund 100% of my order, but it would take 5 days to get back on my card. Again thinking dirty words, but not saying them just said let the order go through. My thought was 5 days for a refund, 1-2 days for the next guy to ship and I would not get the thing any quicker. I told Angela that would be my last time shopping with Bud's Gun Shop. She did call back in about 20 minutes to say the funds would be in my account tomorrow morning.

I ordered from another shop and got the tracking number in about 3 hours and delivery will be Monday. I have had nothing but great experiences with Bud's until now and I don't even mind waiting for what I really want. But, I despise dishonest tactics to get complete a sale. I was told by Angela that she would tell John to always say the shipping time before the card is charged.

[Guest bkelm18]

I've never dealt with Buds on the phone. Always ordered through the website. Couldn't be any easier. I actually ordered a handgun from them yesterday and picked it up from my FFL this afternoon.

[hipower]

I've only ordered from Bud's once, and I must say I wasn't impressed with the service either. I'd heard how great they were at quickly shipping an order, so I was disgruntled to find that the order placed on a Monday morning didn't ship until the following Monday. I did recieve the package on the Thursday after the Monday shipping.

Maybe just a fluke in the system, but still not up to their rep.

[bigwakes]

I was speculating that either they didn't have it in stock and it had to ship from their supplier or they were trying to push the VIP same day shipping they advertise on the site.

[Beltaine]

I have a feeling lead times on shipping are going to get artificially longer so they can push their VIP package.

It's a shame

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[D3vo]

You spoke to an idiot. There is no excuse for that. I have ordered from buds 5 times in the last 14 months and the only time it didnt arrive in 3 days was this week. On Sept 13th, day 7, I got a Buds email bast that included" Due to an extremely high increase in sales since the recent Labor Day weekend, our processing and shipping staff are admittedly behind schedule." I emailed them and it arrived the next day. Cant say they are perfect, but they have done me right every time.

[RobertNashville]

I've never ordered from Bud's but I will say that no store/business is perfect...that's just life. What matters is how well or how poorly the store handles the problem once they screw-up. Maybe they were just having a bad day?

[Sandman]

I ordered a gun...two weeks to ship it. Got it two days ago.

[TN-popo]

I've ordered from them a couple of times and have had no issues.

However, just yesterday, one of my officers called them about the availability of a S&W 642 (they were showing in-stock on their civilian site, but out-of-stock on their LE site...S&W offers a pretty good LE discount so the difference in price was noticeable).

The guy who answered the phone apparently got a pretty crappy attitude and my officer ended up ordering from a different dealer.

[gnmwilliams]

You spoke to an idiot. There is no excuse for that. I have ordered from buds 5 times in the last 14 months and the only time it didnt arrive in 3 days was this week. On Sept 13th, day 7, I got a Buds email bast that included" Due to an extremely high increase in sales since the recent Labor Day weekend, our processing and shipping staff are admittedly behind schedule." I emailed them and it arrived the next day. Cant say they are perfect, but they have done me right every time.

This. Plus shipping can also be affected by the FFL you are shipping to. My local FFL guy happens to be one of Bud's preferred FFL's so my orders drop ship directly to them instead of having to come from Louisiana, then to Kentucky, then to me. Saves a ton of time. I tried to order a mossberg 930 but got one with a messed up front sight. I called, they physically inspected every 930 in their inventory, found out Mossberg dropped the ball on each, and called me back and gave me a discount on a Tri-rail 590A1 with adjustable stock. Ordered Friday came Tuesday. Great service.

[bigwakes]

This. Plus shipping can also be affected by the FFL you are shipping to. My local FFL guy happens to be one of Bud's preferred FFL's so my orders drop ship directly to them instead of having to come from Louisiana, then to Kentucky, then to me. Saves a ton of time. I tried to order a mossberg 930 but got one with a messed up front sight. I called, they physically inspected every 930 in their inventory, found out Mossberg dropped the ball on each, and called me back and gave me a discount on a Tri-rail 590A1 with adjustable stock. Ordered Friday came Tuesday. Great service.

I understand the concept of drop shipping and let me be clear I DON'T CARE ABOUT THE SHIP TIME! I care about not being told what the ship time is until my card is charged. I was also told by John that they have 37 of the rifle I ordered.

[Guest TargetShooter84]

No issues with Bud's so far and I've ordered from them a couple of times. But it was through the website.

Maybe you should do the website instead....save ya that trouble. Just sayin'

[gnmwilliams]

I guess my thinking is that even when you order online you never know exactly how long it'll take either cause it always says allow for 7-10 business days for delivery. But we still seem to place our orders without knowing exactly how long it'll take. I do agree that he didn't have to make the smart alek remarks though or just assume that you'd be ok with the shipping. But that's why I prefer to order online anyway. Whenever you bring the humans into it I always seem to get the doofuses.

Edited September 17, 2011 by gnmwilliams

[QuietDan]

Call your credit card company and refuse the purchase. Done.

[Major Kong]

I'm not a big fan of the "VIP" crap they're doing now. How about just give me good service without charging me an annual fee for it? I'll still order from Bud's if it's convenient and I'm not in a hurry for my order but they aren't my go-to dealer anymore.

[monkeylizard]

bigwakes, that's odd. If it's in stock, I wonder why so long for shipping. It can't be because they're backed up right now in shipping. I ordered something on Friday late in the day. It shipped today and is on track to be at my FFL tomorrow.

You were treated poorly. There's no excuse for that. Ever.

[Guest JMB]

I'm not a big fan of the "VIP" crap they're doing now. How about just give me good service without charging me an annual fee for it? I'll still order from Bud's if it's convenient and I'm not in a hurry for my order but they aren't my go-to dealer anymore.

+1 Yep, I'm sure they'd be happy to ship quickly if you greased their palms a little bit.

Must have gotten too big for good customer service.

[D3vo]

+1 Yep, I'm sure they'd be happy to ship quickly if you greased their palms a little bit.

Must have gotten too big for good customer service.

Do you have any evidence to support this?

[monkeylizard]

I'm not a VIP member there and my order shipped the next business day. I suspect it would have gone the same day had I not ordered so late in the day on Friday. Are VIP members' orders processed ahead of non-VIP? Sure. Do they want more people to pay $25 to get not much of anything? Yes. Did bigwakes get lousy service from John? Absolutely. But to take that and suggest that Bud's is intentionally and systematically engaging in dishonest business practices is a bit of a stretch with what we have to go on here.

[Guest nicemac]

I ordered a Remington 700 SPS SS .308 from them last week. It did not ship from KY, but instead shipped from a Louisiana warehouse and was delivered to my ffl on the third business day after placing the order.

[Guest bkelm18]

I really don't see Bud's putting preference to their VIP customers above what the VIP program is essentially. When you're a VIP and you order a VIP item, your order basically gets moved to the front of the line. That may slow things down in the future for the non-VIPs, but I've yet to see it. Like I said earlier, I'm not a VIP, I ordered a handgun on Thursday last week, it was in my hands the very next day. That being said, I have had it take 3-4 days before it actually shipped before. They're a business. They can get bogged down. I know it's not an excuse for poor customer service, but there are plenty of other ways to purchase firearms.

[wcsc12]

I called Bud's today to order a Remington 700 SPS Tactical. The guy who answered the phone, John, was very friendly. I told him what I wanted to order he said "no problem", took my information as usual. Address, FFL, credit card #, etc. We spoke for probably 10 minutes before he charged my card. As soon as the card was charged he said "oh, by the way you should know it will take 10 days to ship." I asked why he didn't tell me that before charging the card and he said "we like to save that for the end." Wow! He said if I want to cancel the order just call back and there will be a full refund.

I was steaming that he waited to tell me the ship time until after the card was charged so I called back 20 minutes later to cancel the order. I was told by the guy who answered that there would be a restocking fee of 10%. I didn't say the dirty words that came to mind and asked for a supervisor. Next I spoke with Angela (I think that was her name) very helpful and agreed to refund 100% of my order, but it would take 5 days to get back on my card. Again thinking dirty words, but not saying them just said let the order go through. My thought was 5 days for a refund, 1-2 days for the next guy to ship and I would not get the thing any quicker. I told Angela that would be my last time shopping with Bud's Gun Shop. She did call back in about 20 minutes to say the funds would be in my account tomorrow morning.

I ordered from another shop and got the tracking number in about 3 hours and delivery will be Monday. I have had nothing but great experiences with Bud's until now and I don't even mind waiting for what I really want. But, I despise dishonest tactics to get complete a sale. I was told by Angela that she would tell John to always say the shipping time before the card is charged.

Don't feel bad...they got me as well when I went to order a P226 .22LR Conversion kit. They took my credit card info, charged my card at 9:30AM, then sent me an email at 2pm stating that they were going to call me to tell me that apparently the item I just paid for was out of stock (never came up when they were taking my credit card info at all) and that I should really call them back at their phone number. Now, I'm not really quick to anger but every time I read that email, I got madder. I never got a phone call at all from them. I just got an email stating that they were going to call me to tell me this but that I should really call them. Of course, I didn't get home until after 9pm and they are of course closed and I'm mad. So I decided to do the only thing I could do at 9pm which was make a post on resellerratings.com about my experience at Buds. I kid you not when I say not 5 minutes later, I got a call from Timothy at Buds who monitors all their resellerratings posts and who apologized and refunded my money right then and there for me. I was still irritated but some what appeased so I bumped their rating from a 1 to a 2 but it killed my experience with them entirely.

However, on a different side of the scale...there's a lot of people who seem to have the absolute best experiences with Buds...so to me that says it's hit or miss.

[bigwakes]

I did get the 700 on Monday. I may give Bud's another chance in the distant future, but it would have to be a pretty good deal for me. The other shop I went with was actually $20 cheaper than Bud's.

[D3vo]

Is a pattern emerging? Order online is good and calling is bad?

[wcsc12]

I did get the 700 on Monday. I may give Bud's another chance in the distant future, but it would have to be a pretty good deal for me. The other shop I went with was actually $20 cheaper than Bud's.

Wow...that's not bad at all then.