Nates 4x4 - buyers beware

I've had a bad experience with Nates 4x4 that should serve as a warning to anyone considering doing business with this guy. The short version is that he made a simple mistake that should have been easily and quickly corrected, but he will not respond to any telephone calls or e-mails attempting to resolve the problem, which seems to be part of a longstanding pattern of customer neglect.

Here are the details for anyone interested in knowing the complete story:

I called Nates on Friday October 7 to ask if they had any of the XJ rear bumper frame-rail tie-in brackets in stock and ready to ship. There was no answer, but I left a voice message. Receiving no response, I called again on Monday the 10th and spoke to someone I assume was Nathan or Nate himself. He told me he had the brackets ready to ship, so I told him I'd go ahead and place the order via the online order form form on his website, which I then did right after hanging up. I never received an order confirmation or any shipping information, which I thought was kind of unusual, but not really any cause for concern.

I received the brackets on Monday the 17th, which was pretty quick delivery from Michigan. So I was a happy Jeeper.

On Tuesday the 25th, I cut into the left-side frame-rail and was fairly well satisfied with the fitment of the bracket. Then I started working on the right side and noticed for the first time that Nates had sent me two left brackets. That wasn't a big deal to me. I understand that mistakes happen and I figured this mistake would be pretty easy to fix. I called Nates that day, just after noon Pacific time, which would have been just after 3 p.m. in Michigan. No one answered the phone, but I left a message explaining problem and asking for a returned call. I also explained that I was in a hurry to finish my project and that I'd appreciate a prompt response. That message went unanswered.

I called again on Wednesday. There was no answer and the voice mailbox was full and not accepting messages. Same on Thursday.

Also on Wednesday, I sent an e-mail via the "contact us" feature on the Nates 4x4 website. That message bounced back without having been delivered for this stated reason: "Email rejected per DMARC policy for yahoo.com (G15) (in reply to end of DATA command)." When I saw the failure send notification on Thursday, I sent an e-mail to "[email protected]" that read as follows: "Nathan: [¶] left a voice mail for you on Tuesday. Now your voice mailbox is full. [¶] You sent me two left tie-in brackets. I need a right side bracket. Please call me ASAP and let me know when I can expect a right side bracket to ship. I need to finish this job and reattach my bumper ASAP. [¶] Thanks." I also provided my name, email address, shipping address, and phone number. I include the full text of the message here so that anyone reading it can see that I was not yet taking an aggressive tone and that I was still trying to resolve the situation amicably. That e-mail did not bounce back, but has gone unanswered.

I called again on Friday October 28 at 9:14 a.m. Pacific time and left another message, with a less friendly and understanding tone. No response.

I called again yesterday morning and left a pretty angry message, and then called back just a few minutes later and left a message demanding a refund because I'm just thoroughly fed up.

This behavior by Nathan, sticking his head in the ground rather than dealing with customer service issues is nothing new. Its been the subject of at least one thread on , and has been complained about on other forums as well. Here's a link to the the thread: http://www.naxja.org/forum/showthread.php?t=1011254. And here's a link to another forum on which a user compiled and posted a list of similar complaints: http://www.militaryjeepers.com/community/archive/index.php/t-11650.html. I actually looked at some of these discussions before ordering from Nates, but I noticed that the complaints were pretty old and figured he had cleaned up his act. Alas, he hasn't changed. As far as I'm concerned, at this point, he's provided nothing of value to me for my money and is no better than a thief.

I paid by credit card and have initiated a claim with the credit card issuer. Nate will either have to respond to them or risk being denied merchant credit card services. I'm betting that he'll respond.

Sorry about the double post. I tried to do an edit and this was the result. Mods, please delete duplicate post! Thanks.

I'm not saying he's in the right, but as someone who runs a small business, life happens sometimes. Server's break (or the credit card paying it expires). A rare vacation has you off the grid when you thought you'd still have cell service. Worse is an accident that leaves you or a loved one in an ER. It happens.

These scenarios all happened to me.

You haven't even gotten through yet, have no idea whether he's even received your messages and you're already calling him a thief online after 5 business days? Really? And this is despite being initially very happy with the product and a simple error? I get that you're frustrated, but this needs more time and could easily have a reasonable explanation. Patience friend... This escalated far too quickly for my taste, that includes the credit card challenge but especially this post.

Full disclaimer: it's highly possible this just rubbed a sore spot for me having been on the receiving end of a rant or two on occasion. I also have no clue who Nate's 4x4 is but with a name like that I'm assuming small business which often means limited fall back for communications. Good luck either way, I hope this has both an explanation and a quick resolution.

If you do get an apology and an explanation, do the guy a favor and ask the mods to delete this!

OTOH, responsible vendors will make a note on their website if they are going to be out of town or moving or in some other such fashion unable to provide their usual customer service. I think I have seen such a notice when Dirtbound moved. I think I have seen similar for Stinkyfab when Dallas has been at work testing his own products. I know I have received email auto-replies when any number of folks have been out of the office.

In this day and age a lack of communication is practically inexcusable. The OP has a point.

Sure, great. Verily verily, of course that's preferable.

But it only works if it's a planned event. I didn't know King's Canyon was off the grid when I went camping there. In "today's day and age" how is a well known national park with paid camping 100% off the grid? Never had that problem in Yosemite...

I have no issue at all with what Nimrod's doing. Maybe Nate is completely negligent and deserves every bit of it. The only part I couldn't help but take exception to was the timing....

Five ---- freaking ----- business days! Until you're trashing a small business's reputation online?!? The complaint is real, but that's just too fast (IMHO).

So back to potential constructive ideas: Nimrod, have you tried social media? Asking his friends if something's going on? I do hope this gets resolved well, as it's clearly a crap situation.

I take your point, frijolee. And if it should develop that there truly is a compelling reason for the lack of response I'll probably wish I had been more patient. But given the vendor's long-established reputation for this very sort of behavior, I'm not inclined at this point to give him the benefit of the doubt. I'm also mindful of the fact that sometime prior to my calling his shop and leaving a second voice message last Thursday he cleaned out his voicemail box, which tells me (unless I'm missing something) that he got the message I'd left on Tuesday and that he could have responded in some way.

Fair enough... Point taken on the likely message receipt. I missed that. FWIW your post served its purpose as well. I'm sure we all take feedback like this very seriously in whom we chose to do business with.

If I stumble across Nate's for something I wanted I'm now much less likely to shop with them. That's just the way of the interconnected world we live in I guess.

Good luck!
-Joel

FWIW, paypal helped me resolve a dispute with a deadbeat (non-jeep)
vendor. I received a full refund directly from paypal.

I waited 8 weeks for agr to finally
Screw me over, not 5 days. It happens that smaller vendors might not contact you for a week...i wouldnt stress about it. At 10 days start getting a little
Concerned .

I've ordered parts in the past, with success. Even had missing hardware, and I got it the next day after contacting them. But I know things change.

Ive had issues with Nate's as well. long and short of it...... 4 months for a roof rack mounting bracket that takes literally 5 minutes to make, missing parts, no shipment or order confirmations and poor communication. This was well over a year ago, so nothing new.

Just a quick update.

Nate has never responded to any of my efforts to reach him. No returned phone calls. No response to the one e-mail that I have reason to believe he received. He was given until December 27 to respond to the claim I lodged with MasterCard, but he blew them off too. So the upshot is that I have my money back but I don't have the bracket I need to finish my project. Nate's proven himself to be amply deserving of his longstanding reputation for providing terrible customer service. Caveat emptor.

Nimrod said:

Just a quick update.

Nate has never responded to any of my efforts to reach him. No returned phone calls. No response to the one e-mail that I have reason to believe he received. He was given until December 27 to respond to the claim I lodged with MasterCard, but he blew them off too. So the upshot is that I have my money back but I don't have the bracket I need to finish my project. Nate's proven himself to be amply deserving of his longstanding reputation for providing terrible customer service. Caveat emptor.

Click to expand...

I'm having this issue now too. Steven from Nate's called me. Told me they lost an employee who moved and were back logged due to it. He said my orders would ship out on the 28th of April. 28th came, no shipping info, no email nothing. So I called to verify. I get "Messaging turned off" after about 8 rings. I have emailed 3 times with no reply. I ordered the front and rear bumpers, total about $1000. I'm OK with delays, especially for a small business, but you have to keep me updated. I tried calling again today. No answer, and no voicemail. I've ordered from Nate before, back around 2008 or so, for a 95 XJ rear bumper. Came in on time, looked good, and everything was perfect. Apparently things have changed since then.

:rattle::rattle::rattle: