In minor defense for Rusty it is very hard to ship a product with multiple components and to do it error-free 100% of the time.
I have spent a few thousand on Jeep related purchases the last 7 months and have received product from a handful of vendors (Rusty's wasn't one of them). From three of those 6-7 vendors I had received screwed up shipments.
One vendor in particular stands out. They didn't send me all of what I ordered but sent me $200 more in parts I didn't (my order total was only $76).
I immediately contacted the vendor to let them know that they sent me the wrong and more expensive component and that my actual order was incomplete. In discussion on the phone I told the owner that it wasn't necessary to send the missing items because they were only worth $15 and I didn't have 4 days to wait for them to ship. We then made arrangements to send his items back, which took SIX different phone conversations.
Even though he was extremely grateful that I was honest and contacted them about their mistake and made arrangements to ship those items back, he didn't offer to credit my account the $15 for my missing goods. He insisted that he would send out the missing parts, even though it was too late to be used. Despite my mentioning what he said to himself and to two employees during three separate phone conversations they never did ship my parts.
Ultimately they lost a customer, which was bad for them because I spent $1500 with a second vendor that would have originally been spent with them. That was my second transaction with that particular vendor. The first transaction went smooth and everything shipped fine, but the fab parts were 3/16" when I was told everything was 1/4". Everything was well made, but a little thinner than I was comfortable for my application and ultimately repurchased the items from RuffStuff (who had took my order and delivered the fastest from any of the 7 I dealt with) in an appropriate thickness.
In retrospect the first order should have been enough to make me go elsewhere, but I had a whole project I was working on and had planned a number of purchases through them. Fortunately I learned a cheaper lesson. This is a large fab parts vendor along the lines of a Poison Spyder or BTF, but not them. Well thought of in general. Down the road I will undoubtedly give them another chance, but I will go in with my eyes open.
Getting back to Rusty's, it is possible that Rusty's is large enough that even though there seems to be numerous complaints regarding his service, that the actual screw-ups are a small percentage of his sales. It COULD be he is that large. And if that is the case he could stay in business for a long time due to his large, mostly satisfied customers.
Sponsor. Not that it means he is ever on the site.
