Sporty's Pilot Shop does not honor return policy

Ted DuPuis said:
Hey, news flash for those who don't seem to have noticed: they responded in a very prompt manner and are making it right. The solution sounds reasonable to me and is reasonable to Jesse. Sounds to me like they did a good job, even though it would have been nice if they'd just done it right the first time. I'm happy with their response, too.
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The only reason Jesse is happy is they responded to this thread and the bad publicity. They would NOT have responded to any other pilot with the same issue.

Getting religion after the fact is not getting religion at all. ;)
 
Geico266 said:
The only reason Jesse is happy is they responded to this thread and the bad publicity. They would NOT have responded to any other pilot with the same issue.

Getting religion after the fact is not getting religion at all. ;)
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Well, you don't know that for certain, although I am sure that the public thread did help the situation.

Either way, everyone makes mistakes. If they had decided to simply tell Jesse to pound sand after his letter and forced Jesse to go to his credit card company, then I would put them off of my potential vendors list. As it is, I'll still use them when appropriate.
 
jesse said:
Sporty's Vice-President, Jack Lynch, contacted me this evening and has offered to refund me what I paid for the framing for the two pictures (roughly $200). From there I can pay my local framer to re-frame both (although that will be more costly).

I will call him back tomorrow, accept his offer, and when my card is credited as per his offer I will consider this matter resolved to my satisfaction and will happily continue to do business with Sporty's. I appreciate Sporty's efforts to make this right - I just wish it wouldn't have had to come to this in the first place.
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Sporty's has made an opening offer in a negotiation. There is no need to accept that offer since the CC company will make it right and you will be refunded the full purchase price. I'd suggest offering that they refund the cost to you to have it re-framed with a goal of them refunding cost to you less shipping.

Sporty's is in the weak position and there is nothing wrong with making sure that you have no additional out-of-pocket costs to obtain the purchase you attempted to make and they agreed to deliver.
 
Geico266 said:
The only reason Jesse is happy is they responded to this thread and the bad publicity. They would NOT have responded to any other pilot with the same issue.

Getting religion after the fact is not getting religion at all. ;)
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You may be right, but I must admit Sporty's has done well by me. I purchased an powertow from them when I first purchased my plane. Before I purchased it they recommended one for me to buy, and after I paid for it the company producing the tow called me and it turned out not to be the right one. The one I needed was quite a bit more, and when I ordered it Sporty's called me to apologize for the confusion, and the delay in getting the tow to me and refunded me the difference in price and paid for shipping. I cannot think of many companies that would do that.
 
Geico266 said:
The only reason Jesse is happy is they responded to this thread and the bad publicity. They would NOT have responded to any other pilot with the same issue.

Getting religion after the fact is not getting religion at all. ;)
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I am astounded at your insight. I did not recognize the power of a post on PoA. :D

I suppose you believe there is zero posibilty they responded to his email because they felt the customer had been given the runaround by an employee and fixed it to the customer's satisfaction.

Cheers
 
I keep thinking that if I had taken JA's order I would have confirmed the framing on both pictures, especially since they were purchased by the same guy at the same time. And especially so if it's considered as a "special-order" deal with adverse warranty considerations.

And if i were a guy in NE who's ordering those pix I think I'd know the difference if they said I had ordered one Oak and one Rosewood. Just sayin'
 
wabower said:
I keep thinking that if I had taken JA's order I would have confirmed the framing on both pictures, especially since they were purchased by the same guy at the same time. And especially so if it's considered as a "special-order" deal with adverse warranty considerations.

And if i were a guy in NE who's ordering those pix I think I'd know the difference if they said I had ordered one Oak and one Rosewood. Just sayin'
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Maybe he ordered online, and then no human interaction in the ordering process, and my guess is that filling of orders is based on product number and not description.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
Hey, news flash for those who don't seem to have noticed: they responded in a very prompt manner and are making it right. The solution sounds reasonable to me and is reasonable to Jesse. Sounds to me like they did a good job, even though it would have been nice if they'd just done it right the first time. I'm happy with their response, too.
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Ted DuPuis said:
Well, you don't know that for certain, although I am sure that the public thread did help the situation.

Either way, everyone makes mistakes. If they had decided to simply tell Jesse to pound sand after his letter and forced Jesse to go to his credit card company, then I would put them off of my potential vendors list. As it is, I'll still use them when appropriate.
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:yeahthat:
 
Maybe so. I just ordered a Stratus and wanted to talk to somebody to be sure we were on the same page. And will always do so as choice #1. But I'm old.


douglas393 said:
Maybe he ordered online, and then no human interaction in the ordering process, and my guess is that filling of orders is based on product number and not description.
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Ted DuPuis said:
Hey, news flash for those who don't seem to have noticed: they responded in a very prompt manner and are making it right. The solution sounds reasonable to me and is reasonable to Jesse. Sounds to me like they did a good job, even though it would have been nice if they'd just done it right the first time. I'm happy with their response, too.
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Too late Ted...I think we've opened up a can of Sportys angst. It will be a couple pages before it runs its course.
 
I am very glad that they stepped up and, if Jess is satisfied, so am I.
 
saracelica said:
Such as.
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fltplan.com
mypilotstore.com
skygeek.com
Aircraft Spruce
faacharts.faa.gov

I'm sure there are more. Probably many more. I personally have used Sporty's and mypilotstore.com, along with one other place that I believe has since gone out of business.
 
Good on Sportys to make Jesse whole. That's all that matters - if Jesse feels whole, then the rest is just mental masturbation and wringing the hands at "evil corporations."

Let it die, and accept that a company did right.
 
They did right, but they also suffered for stupidity and that is ok.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
Hey, news flash for those who don't seem to have noticed: they responded in a very prompt manner and are making it right. The solution sounds reasonable to me and is reasonable to Jesse. Sounds to me like they did a good job, even though it would have been nice if they'd just done it right the first time. I'm happy with their response, too.
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my two cents: They did not make a reasonable offer nor did they offer to make it right.

The correct response by Sporty's would be to honor their return policy and take them back.

For sure and for certain, there is zero chance that will ever purchase anything from Sporty's again.
 
Off topic - all my local airports tell me to go to iPad/tablet for my charts.
 
Bob Noel said:
my two cents: They did not make a reasonable offer nor did they offer to make it right.

The correct response by Sporty's would be to honor their return policy and take them back.

For sure and for certain, there is zero chance that will ever purchase anything from Sporty's again.
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Jesse gave two options for what he thought was reasonable, and the preferred one involved reframing.

Were it your purchase, I suspect you could have gotten them to honor the return policy.
 
Fearless Tower said:
Too late Ted...I think we've opened up a can of Sportys angst. It will be a couple pages before it runs its course.
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Yeah, typical. Once the freight train gets moving.
 
I'm really glad Jesse was able to come to a mutually agreeable understanding with Sporty's. My guess is that it was a low-wage functionary who handled the phone, and I'm glad it got straightened out. The GA community is vanishingly small, and I doubt any of these retailers can afford bad word of mouth from any of us.
 
Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe said:
I can buy a lot of paper for the price of an iPad.
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My iPad and ForeFlight subscription paid for themselves within 18 months. When I bought the iPad I was traveling extensively for work and was spending well over $500/yr on paper.

After that, it was money in the bank.

Just depends on how often and far you fly I guess AND if you fly IFR.
 
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Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe said:
I can buy a lot of paper for the price of an iPad.
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Yes, but when you start adding the cost of toner.....the iPad prices are not bad at all. Kind of depends on how big of an area you fly and wether you do just VFR stuff or a combo of IFR/VFR.

For what I do, the iPad with FF and Jepp FD is a whole lot cheaper and more convenient than paper. And my flight bag lost 20 lbs of weight!
 
Geico266 said:
Sporty's still sucks. Over priced crap and rip off "pilot" gizmos. Never found anything there I could not find 20% cheaper some where else. :no:
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That's always been my impression. I've purchased <6 items over a lot of years as a result.

Aircraft Spruce is my preferred vendor for anything they carry (and they carry just about everything I've ever wanted aviation-wise from AN3-10 bolts to desktop junk). Of course as a homebuilder, one ends up getting quite intimate with ACS and UPS.

Based on this, I'm probably done with Sporty's in this lifetime. Hard to build trust but so bloody easy to lose it.

Bill "ACS did screw up their latest Web upgrade though" Watson
 
Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe said:
I can buy a lot of paper for the price of an iPad.
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Problem is you have to plan you flights off your local charts long enough in advance to get said charts. For something like Oshkosh that's fine, I'll go once the wx clears. But for a lot of flights I really don't know that I'm doing them until that day because of weather concerns. And if I want to do a spur-of-the-moment trip, good luck.

I bought the iPad the day I couldn't get the chart I needed at the airport.
 
wabower said:
That's nonsense. The reason customers are willing to do business long-distance is because they are comfortable with the return policies of the seller. When the seller invokes the weasel-words in an attempt to restate the public disclosures, the company deserves the bad publicity from making a bad decision.
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I agree completely.
 
douglas393 said:
Maybe he ordered online, and then no human interaction in the ordering process, and my guess is that filling of orders is based on product number and not description.
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Bingo. At the $$ the warehouse pickers are paid, they are not paid to 'think' about the reasoning behind an order profile. They are paid to read the item number on the order, find that item number on the shelf, and put it in the box. Lather, rinse, repeat...
 
I haven't purchased squat from Sporty's in heck I don't know how long, ever since they refused to honor their return policy to me.

My wife bought me a watch while I was out of country for my birthday. One thing leads to another and now its six months later. I tried to return the watch they refused to let me return it because it had been six months. I asked isn't your policy one year ? Yes... it is.... but no we won't take it back.

Long story short I've bought lot of stuff from other places the last few years and I will never buy from Sporty's again.
 
Geico266 said:
Sporty's still sucks. Over priced crap and rip off "pilot" gizmos. Never found anything there I could not find 20% cheaper some where else. :no:
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But that 20% is supposed to cover the cost of their generous return policy.:D

Actually I don't use Sporty's a lot but they are convenient when you want something quick and don't feel like shopping around and I have found them to be price competitive on some items. I do agree that they often hype fairly useless items but nothing says you can't ignore that easily.
 
I think Sporty's sells a lot of stuff to student pilots before they learn that there are plenty of other places to buy what they need. And, of course, that they simply don't need a lot of the crap they think they do. At least that has been my experience. I always look at stuff on Sporty's web site, but almost always end up buying somewhere else. Shopping around doesn't take long.

Having said that, if they draw my name to win the RV-12 I promise to buy some really nice stuff from them. :)
 
steingar said:
Problem is you have to plan you flights off your local charts long enough in advance to get said charts. For something like Oshkosh that's fine, I'll go once the wx clears. But for a lot of flights I really don't know that I'm doing them until that day because of weather concerns. And if I want to do a spur-of-the-moment trip, good luck.

I bought the iPad the day I couldn't get the chart I needed at the airport.
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It's almost a safety issue. I've definitely done trips without a needed chart or plate because I couldn't get it on time. With plates, having ALL of them means that diversions are a piece of cake. It won't be long before new pilots will gape in amazement, "you used 'paper' charts!! Man, that's really old school"
 
Bill Watson said:
It's almost a safety issue. I've definitely done trips without a needed chart or plate because I couldn't get it on time. With plates, having ALL of them means that diversions are a piece of cake. It won't be long before new pilots will gape in amazement, "you used 'paper' charts!! Man, that's really old school"
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For IFR the iPad is just a no-brainer. If I understand it correctly, you can load all the charts you might need before the flight. I can't imagine how much that would cost to purchase or how much time and toner you'd use printing the things.

For VFR it isn't as clear, since charts aren't all that expensive. But if you can't get them when you need them, then the iPad wins. At least, that's my take on it.
 
DaleB said:
fltplan.com
mypilotstore.com
skygeek.com
Aircraft Spruce
faacharts.faa.gov

I'm sure there are more. Probably many more. I personally have used Sporty's and mypilotstore.com, along with one other place that I believe has since gone out of business.
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Slight mod there.

Effective July 1, 2013, as current subscriptions expire, we are discontinuing our direct-to-the-public subscription sales of paper aeronautical charts and related paper products. Current subscriptions will be filled through their applicable expiration date and we will continue to offer individual (other than subscription) paper sales through our aeronav.faa.gov website until October 2013

Currently targeted for October 1, 2013, we will then discontinue all other direct-to-the-public individual sales of paper aeronautical charts and related paper products. Subsequently, all future individual purchases, and subscriptions of our aeronautical paper products will be sold expressly through the FAA's worldwide network of authorized chart sales agents. A list of these agents is available at: Chart Agents in Your Area.
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saracelica said:
So fine we all decide to ban Sportys until they make it right.

Where does someone suggest I get my Sectionals and/or Approach charts? I can't afford an iPad and so I still need paper.
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that's funny. I have an ipad because I couldn't afford all the paper
 
JHW said:
that's funny. I have an ipad because I couldn't afford all the paper
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For VFR flight? You couldn't afford a chart and a facility directory? What, is your airplane powered by a rubber band?
 
steingar said:
For VFR flight? You couldn't afford a chart and a facility directory? What, is your airplane powered by a rubber band?
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He runs it so lean of peak it actually generates fuel as it flies. And it's a Beechcraft, so it never breaks.
 
bnt83 said:
Does that make the Cont's magically oil tight forever too?
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The only Continental that's not leaking oil is the one with no oil inside! :D
 
Take your prints to a local, but well regarded custom picture framing shop and have them confirm or not that your prints were framed to standard archival conditions that are normally afforded all collectible paper art. I'm betting that they do not meet industry standards.

Once you have confirmation of this, take the officers of Sporties to small claims court, this will cost you very little, and whatever it does cost is more than likely recoverable when you prevail. In other words, throw the book at them. Get them for misrepresentation, and for damaging the artwork through improper framing.

After a collectible piece of paper art is removed from the framing, it should be in the exact same condition it was in before framing. No tape, or tape marks, no creases, fingerprints, or kinks in the paper.

Good luck.

-John
 
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