Question:
I have just had a very unpleasant business interaction with Green
Mountain Humidors. If you are considering doing business with them,
read the following emails and decide for yourself?
Answer:
I purchased cigars from Green Mountain more than once. Last time we had a
situation take place where my order was screwed up. Without going into details,
it was corrected promptly by Eric, to my complete satisfaction. He didn't have
to, but he went out of his way to make me happy. No complaints here.
Don't want to get into a debate on the original subject. Cristopher and
Eric will work that out. Just a comment on the post I am responding to.
I think it is kind of a standard that Humidors are "rated" in capacity
based on Coronas or smaller. Even the Coronas would be packed tight in any
humidor if the quantity matched the size rating.
If you have any amount of larger cigars than the Coronas then I don't
think anyone's humidors meet the capacity given.
As would I. I have three. All dark cherry. I am also a fan of J&S.
Not so strange...I do have to recharge mine about twice a year. Mid-winter
and spring. House gets pretty dry in the northern winters.
I purchased my first humidor from Green Mountain, a Tio Pepe 50-cigar, and
have been extremely happy
with it and other purchases and service from Eric. While I don't agree
with Chris Allen's reasoning for returning
his merchandise, I think this would be solved by a clear policy of return
shipping is the responsibility of the
purchaser. Purchasers are always allowed to return products, even if it is
for no reason at all. However, Eric
should not be responsible to cover the cost of people shopping via the
internet(shipping).
I won't do business with any business that refuses to accept returns. There's
too many good companies who will.
I don't know about the laws of the states in question here, but in Georgia
all sales are final - whether or not the merchant accepts returns is
entirely their decision.
I do know that Eric and Green Mountain enjoy an excellent reputation in this
newsgroup.
Hope you can work out a solution to both parties satisfaction - perhaps
posting the humidor AND the bonus humidor in a.s.c.marketplace might
alleviate the situation - as a matter of fact email me with the price.
I have communicated with Eric from GMU and as I suspected there is
another side to the story.
Green Mountain's good reputation is intact with me. Eric is a gentleman
and a good vendor.
I understand that ASCers may want to give Green Mountain the benefit of
the doubt because the company used to donate items to ASC events. (Have
you noticed that they don't any more? Call them as a "civilian" and
you'll get an earful of the reasons why.) There's nothing new about
charitable donations being made by businesses whose actual business
practices are questionable. I believe the members of ASC are adult
enough to understand that the two issues are separate, and to look with
an open mind at the record I posted of how Green Mountain treated this
paying customer. I reported my experience with Green Mountain here on
the newsgroup in the spirit of helping the ASC community by providing
information. I took great pains to keep the report as neutral as
possible; I simply said I'd had an unpleasant business experience, and
then posted the actual messages so people could read and decide for
themselves. Considering the callous attitude taken by Green Mountain,
my staying neutral demonstrates a lot of restraint.
The laws of a given state are irrelevant in this case, because the
product is falsely advertised. According to the Uniform Commercial
Code--a federal law which supersedes any state law--a product that is
falsely advertised
must be accepted for return regardless of the state in which it was
purchased. The Green Mountain web site claims dimensions for their
largest humidor which are 70 cubic inches larger than the box's actual
dimensions. The site's owner knows about this, yet he refuses to accept
the returned product and make a refund--and he leaves the erroneous
information on the site. That is against federal law. The fact that
the site's owner used to donate items to ASC events does not change
that.
The bottom line is that I paid $590 for a humidor that is substantially
smaller than advertised. I believe that's an event that the ASC
community deserves to know about. If I get many more messages defending
the perpetrator, though, I'll take that to mean the group would rather
not know.
