I want to give a big SHOUT OUT to forum member Ed Keller. Ed is a stand-up guy.
We have a flyer out at Whittier Narrows named Hulan Mathies. Hulan is a great guy and brings many different planes to the circles. Then he changes out the motors and brings them out again for re-trimming. Hulan is also a free-flight guy and a gear-head motor-tuner. He recently showed me a .36 buggy motor that he bought, off-the-shelf, from Hobby Peeps, then he tore into it. He put the head in his lathe and removed all of the unnecessary cooling fins from that big aluminum hair-do, trimmed off some other fat, and fabricated a prop driver. It was a work of art. In any case Hulan worked on a ST-60 for me, did some machining on the head to make it more stunty, cleaned up the venturi and NVA, and tested it. It was very low mileage and hardly any scratches or other rash to start, and Hulan said it was one of the best one’s he’s seen after he tested it, but then he might have just been trying to make me feel good. I have admired a couple of Brodak Stregas that Hulan brings out and flies, and another friend, Warren Walker of Man-Cave Dinner and BBQ fame also flies one. Hulan said “you know what you should get for this Tigre-60? You should get a Strega!” It was like he knew I already wanted one, and so I was pushed over the edge into the search for one I could afford.
So on or about Feb 22nd 2016 I agreed to purchase a Brodak Strega ARC kit from Ed, who advertised one for sale here, and mailed him a check. Let’s call this Day 1.
On March 4th 2016 (Day 12) Fedex left it on my porch as indicated on their tracking log. When I arrived home after work and inspected the shipment there were two obvious and ominous defects: 1) a large footprint on the top of the box right next to the shipping label (see photo) of approximately size 13 (I’m an 11), and 2) the rattle of shattered balsa. I opened the box and found an enormous amount of damage. This was the old-style Strega ARC with a one-piece wing in a long box. So when they ship it the wing is flat on the bottom of the box, and the fuselage is laying on top of it with a corrugated cardboard divider between them. The foot landed squarely on the side of the fuselage and pressed the fuselage into the top of the wing (see pictures), causing broken ribs, broken cap strips, broken sheeting, and serious cracking the central joint. The fuselage suffered a few breaks also, but it does not seem to have suffered true crush damage. The fuselage might be salvageable. The wing is history. The good news is that the hardware package survived completely undamaged as if that’s useful. Sigh…
Sometime during March and April I made some phone calls to Fedex to seek remedy. On more than three occasions I was disconnected! I did speak to approximately four Customer Service Representatives. They refused to give me any last name, employee #, or any other identifier other than their first name. Eventually, after me explaining the problem several times to several different people, one of them shed some light. He said “You’re not our customer, the party that paid us to ship you the package is our customer, he will have to initiate the claim.” Face palm.
May 4th (Day 73) Ed says he will be glad to take this up with Fedex.
May 10th (Day 79) I provide pictures and relevant information to Ed so that he can get up in Fedex’s grille.
June 20th (Day 120) I nudged Ed. Ed says “he is going that way later today and will check with them”. He is going that way? Ed is going to confront Fedex in person? Ed is my new hero. Statistics show that it is 87% easier for corporate cogs, tools, (customer service reps) to blow you off over the phone than it is in person when they have to look you in the eye. Of course, according to Larry Renger, 57% of Internet statistics are made up on the spot. But Ed is going to go look them in the eye and make them take the hard road. Ed is a steely-eyed missile man.
June 28th (Day 128) I nudged Ed again.
July 4th (Happy Independence Day! Day 134) Ed said: “I finally got someone over at Fed X to tell me what to do on this, & we got on the phone with a representative. She advised that a claim had been filed some time ago, & it was closed, & they required a letter from me stating that I would not claim any payment or funds which were paid due to the claim, & payment was to go to you. As soon as they acknowledge the letter, sent by email or faxed, I will let you know. They said the claim would be re-opened. Ed
I do not recall opening a claim in fact I distinctly recall them telling me that “I am not their customer”. All of this smells very distinctly like carefully orchestrated delaying tactics. Do you remember when some large health insurance provider got in huge trouble because every time (100% of the time) that someone needed a heart transplant they would stamp it DENIED and make the customer slog through the appeals process. Many customers prevailed and got new hearts. Many others died while waiting and those operations that were not performed resulted in a TON of money/profit to the insurance provider just because they used a delaying tactic. I’ll bet the guy who thought that up works for Fedex now.
August 1st (Day 162) I nudged Ed again.
August 9th (Day 170) Ed said: “I received an acknowledgment from Fed X that they received my letter. I asked them to contact you. I have a phone number & a fax No. I will call them tomorrow & see if they have done anything. Ed
Tuesday, August 23rd (Day 184) a refund check arrived in the mail. They paid what I paid for the Strega and they paid shipping. I am flush, but I am now without a Strega. Or even worse, I have an injured Strega and I am tempted to try and fix it. What I SHOULD do is bin it, and buy a new one from John Brodak. But I'll probably cover the whole thing with Polyspan and SLC and try to fly it, and when things don't go well I'll tell Larry it's all his fault. =)
I will NEVER use Fedex again as long as I live, and will make every effort to ensure that those whom I buy from use UPS, or maybe USPS (gasp, once I bought a quad-set of foam cores from The Core House and Phil C. used USPS and they 90% destroyed a box full of Styrofoam, the only thing that survived was my SLC Sample).
Of secondary importance is that the poor old Strega Flew!!! Yeah it was inside of a cargo jet but that’s probably more miles than most other CL models do in a lifetime…
I want to thank Ed for not just dealing with Fedex but also for going out of his way to walk in to their place of business and look them in the eye. That and putting up with my persistent nudging along the way. Ed is one of those people that makes this hobby for the most part, a good place to be.
Thanks Ed.
Paul Wescott
Topic: The 184 day saga of the crushed Strega (Read 1202 times)