John, SpecialT, and his "business practices"

[Nuclearbacon]

Hello to DMCTalk! I'd like to share my recent experience with SpecialTauto. I ordered three things, a clutch bleeder, stainless sleeved slave cylinder and a down tube for my master. I placed the order online on Saturday August 10th, hoping it would come by Friday August 16th for the Back to the Future night that Friday. I placed my order with Paypal on his site.

On the morning of Friday, August 16th, I get an email from Sandra at SpecialT saying she needed my Paypal money. There is no place to put your paypal info on his site. I had a busy week at work and it kinda slipped my mind, then I receive the email the DAY I was hoping to have the unit in my hand. It obviously wasn't in my hand. No problem. I sent the money that minute, and wrote him an email to accompany the order, hoping I'd get some kind of conformation for my $146 I was sending into the apparent ether. In my email I wrote:

"Payment sent. I just called, but got a message machine. Is there a faster way to order? I placed my order last weekend, and was hoping I might have been able to install my slave cylinder this weekend, in time for my DeLorean show... but... guess not? This is also my first order with you guys.
Help!
thanks!
Luigi Oppido"

John wrote me back pretty quick:

"Luigi, I get 25 to 30 callas per day for all kinds of reasons and I try to call everyone back. Sometimes you may have to call more than once. If you don’t leave a message then I don’t call back. Also if you need something in a hurry then it’s best to put the order in computer and then leave me a message.
I’m a one man company and I do get behind.
Also, If you would use a credit card it would have already gone out by now.
Pay pal slows order processing down .
John"

And I had left a message. But never got a call back. No Problem John. I run a successful company with only one other employee. I completely understand the dynamics and wrote him back:

"Hello John!
I've heard great things from DMCTalk about you and your shop! I had no idea it was just you! I apologize if i came off snappy or short. I'll place my orders with my credit card in the future (its easier in my shop as well). Being a small business owner myself, I completely understand the phone situation, and the one man show, especially when you're in such demand!
Thank you again John! Hope you have a great weekend!
Luigi Oppido"

The week goes on, and I've received all my parts from DMCCA, waiting on my slave cylinder, bleeder and downtube from SpecialT so my dad (who's travelling 150 miles to come help me install it this weekend) can give me a hand.

And here we are on Friday, before the weekend my dad is coming down, and I've heard nothing. So I make my next mistake... and call John.

John answers the phone directly. He's not in the office he says, but he's answered his 1-800 number I used to call. I identify myself in a chipper voice and ask for a tracking number for my order. He tells me to hold on a second, not like "OK let me place you on hold" But a "now just hold on a second, how do you know I even have it in stock?.." then he goes OFF on me.

"You know, you did what other people do all the time, they 'drop and run' " as he called it. I kinda stopped in my tracks, not knowing how to answer his question of "if its in stock or not" I answered: "well sir, it's been about two weeks and I haven't heard anything from you besides for me to call. So here I am calling. Are you saying you don't have them in stock?" he responded: "I don't know I'm not in the shop, why don't you email me" "But I've emailed and you told me to call" This is where he got really upset.

"It says you need to call me and check on stock before you expect your part to show up. How do you know if I have it in stock.???" (he was getting pretty pissed at this point) "I tell everyone that orders that's the process. I'M NOT A MILLIONAIRE I DON'T HAVE EVERYTHING ALL THE TIME!!!"

I then explained about my fathers trip and how I've got to cancel it because he was't upfront with me when we've been talking. He gave me the same run around about him not being a millionaire and was incredibly rude.

This is my first order with him.

I cancelled my Paypal payment. Cancelled my order with him. and now I need a stainless slave cylinder, and his clutch bleeder, but I refuse to order from him. His business practices are......

Am I alone?

[ccurzio]

You're not alone. Hervey is awful with his customers almost universally. Every so often an order of his slips through with no issues, but more often than not people complain because he screwed something up.

And then he always falls back on his really old and tired excuse of:

I’m a one man company and I do get behind.

Hire some help or get out of the business, John. Either way, stop treating people like shit.

(This post represents my opinion and mine alone and does not represent the views of DMCTalk staff or management. But lots of other people will tell you he sucks too.)

[nullset]

If the "one man show" argument doesn't work, he'll tell you that no one else has had that problem out of the millions of cars his parts have been put on.

If you bought a sticker from DMC, he'll blame his part failures on the fact that you didn't buy HIS stickers.

I've removed everything from my car with his sticker on it, except for my bad shocks, and that's because I am saving up for a replacement set, and they will not come from him.

--buddy

[Silverbullet]

Ok... I read the whole thing... and am confused... You said you placed the order on the 10th with Pay Pal on his site... But it did not dawn on you that you never paid for it, as there is no place to put info?

Also there are different Pay Pal payments fyi, IF you have your account only tied a bank account, it takes like 6 days to verify, and if you ALSO have a credit card tied to it, it is right away... Not sure which you have.

I like you, expect that when people put stuff for sale on a web site, that they HAVE it to sell. If not it should say "Out of Stock", but to be fair, this does not always happen...

When I first got my Delorean, I needed a fuel pump Combo, and ordered from DMC in TX and paid for next day shipping, they took the order online... I waited, no pump... I called, and was told it would be a month untill they had it... and did I still want Next Day Shipping... They did not call to tell me it was not in stock... So I called DMC Mid-West, and they had in stock, and sent out Next Day Air to me... So, it happens, and maybe he had a bad day, and he is not well organized... maybe he is over worked... I know there have been a lot of issues in the past... But if I need a part, I don't wait a week, I have learned to ask "IF" it is in stock, and when it will ship, and get a tracking #.

Some people do not understand the value of a customer and future business.

It is sad it went down as it did...

Craig

[Josh]

My question is, where did you hear good things about Hervey on here? lol

[Chris4099]

I'll step up! LOL

Over the last 10 years of ownership (my God it's been a long time), I've placed dozens of orders from him. Last one was a year ago (haven't had a need to order anything else since then). Several of these items have included cores and pretty much never had any ordering issues with him. Here are the only issues I can think of:

-Rebuilt front hubs, one unit had blasting media work it's way into the bearings which I noticed before installation. Shipped it back with some other cores and he shipped a replacement out right away.
-New fuel pump arrived with a manufacturing defect. Shipped it back and he shipped a replacement right away.
-That replacement fuel pump developed a bad hum after about 6 months, he shipped a replacement and no problems since (I would have to check my records at home but that happened about 6 years ago).
-D110 alternator had a voltage regulator start to fail after 4.5 years (was purchased back when he offered a 5 year warranty on them). Shipped him the bad unit and he shipped me a whole new one and it has been working great since. I suspect the failure was due to a bad engine ground which I later fixed.

If I ever need a part urgently, I always call the vendor. Any vendor! Although I typically use Toby since he can ship out that day if I call early enough and he's close so the shipping is cheap.

All vendors have their pros and cons. I do however agree John needs to get a second employee. It's nice he can keep costs down a bit but some of his delays are hurting his business.

Reminds me of the time DMCH had their web site hacked and customer CC numbers stolen. So they shutdown their website for a few weeks to be fixed. This resulted in John getting overloaded with orders. I happened to be talking to him about an order and he said he was happy with the increased business but rather not have earned it that way. If he's not too busy, he could talk your ears off if he wanted to.

[ccurzio]

It's not just the delays that hurt John. It's his bad attitude, condescending tone, and self-assigned entitlement stature which plague none of the other vendors in our community.

Any of the staff at any of the DMC franchises as well as Josh at DPI are all very nice and totally happy, super professional, and grateful for your business. Hervey has an overall "you're lucky I'm around" kind of air to the way he conducts himself, talks down to you, and ships whatever he feels like shipping whenever he feels like shipping it. And if you dare call him out on it and he's backed into a corner, he'll get mad at you and explain via phone-rant about how he's only one person.

I started another thread recently asking about the long-term viability of parts vendors in niche markets, and I suspect the absolute only reason John has thrived for as long as he has is because there are few to no alternatives for some of the things he offers. If someone - anyone - could step up and offer all of his same parts at the same quality and add the unthinkable notion of decent customer service, he'd either be put out of business super quickly, or he'd scramble like a madman to whip his operation into shape. (As arrogant as he is, I can't see anything but the former.)

I really hate to speak negatively about a vendor because our community needs all the help it can get, but so many people have been burned by this guy (myself included) that everyone deserves to know both sides of the issue here. Does he fulfill some orders with no problems? Sure. Does that happen with enough regularity to be recognized as a decent operation with which to do business? Absolutely not.

[Bitsyncmaster]

I have not ordered from John in many years but I mostly got the things I've ordered. Was just wondering, how old is John? Wondering if he getting some age related memory problem. I've talked with him at DCS shows and seems to be a normal guy.

He does have some items that can not be found elsewhere. His easy lift door struts are one and the clutch bleed line is another.

[nullset]

I have not ordered from John in many years but I mostly got the things I've ordered. Was just wondering, how old is John? Wondering if he getting some age related memory problem. I've talked with him at DCS shows and seems to be a normal guy.

He does have some items that can not be found elsewhere. His easy lift door struts are one and the clutch bleed line is another.

I've got those struts on my car. They're 2-3 years old and have failed.......

How long do door struts normally last?

--buddy

[Rich]

I've got those struts on my car. They're 2-3 years old and have failed.......

How long do door struts normally last?

I've had the car a long time. Have had sets that last as long as 5 years, some as little as 2-3 years. Have never tracked them as to reliability.

Door struts are certainly considered to be a wear item on the car. A bit worse than a typical 12V battery, for example.

Keep in mind that the vendors don't always have the exact same lift struts they might have had when you last bought from them. They buy batches from one or more vendors themselves, so associating a vendor's name to a strut can be misleading, at least historically. On top of that there is probably batch-to-batch and even strut-to-strut variation in quality/durability even from one mfgr.