Not sure where to put this for the most effect but had an extremely negative dealing with a local (Fort Worth, TX) accessory shop this past week. Here's the scoop: (rather long)
When I bought my WD hitch a few weeks ago, all that was available locally for a 2 5/16" ball was a 10k GTW ball, which I installed and towed my dad's smaller TT with. I wanted to be able to buy a larger TT in the future so I bought a 14k ball (more than what was needed) for the hitch off of Etrailer.com. Not having the rather large tools required to put the ball on (1 1/4" shank), I went to a local RV dealer who was too busy to swap the hitch ball. :think: Went to a couple of other places and ended up at All Pro Truck Accessories :mad: in Haltom City, TX, off of Hwy 121 at the Carson St exit.
The manager/owner of the store, a rather large guy named Ricky, told me that it would be no problem to swap out the hitch balls. I know how simple it is to do the job, like I said, I just didn't have any big tools. So I watched as the two numskulls that worked in the shop removed the old hitch ball with an impact wrench, no problem. I took the old ball, threaded the nut back onto it and held on to it.
I then watched as the guys put the new $30 ball on the hitch, not seating it all the way onto the platform. They then put the nut on about two threads and hit it with the impact wrench. Now most people know that it you are going to do anything with an impact you start off slow to make sure you don't strip the threads. Well guess what, threads on a 1 1/4" shank will strip too.
I watched for 15 minutes as they tried to tighten and loosen the nut without ever getting close to getting it tight. The guy finally gave up and went to get Ricky. Ricky came out and tried to get the ball off and even put the hitch on my truck, used a long a** breaker bar to try and loosen it to no avail. So he cut MY brand new hitch ball off with a sawzall. This is not to mention the 1/4' grooves that were cut into the ball by the pipe wrench he used to try and hold onto the ball itself.
Now you can't just find a 14k GTW 2 5/16" ball anywhere. He came out with a 10k ball and started to put it on my hitch to replace the one he had to cut off. I stopped him, checked the weight rating on the ball and told him I wanted a like item to the one he ruined. He told me they didn't carry them and then told me my hitch was only rated for 10k anyway. I corrected him and told him it was rated for 12k and that was why I wanted at least a 12 or 14k ball on there. He got an attitude and told me they could get one and handed me the hitch and told me to walk. I informed him that since he ruined my ball that I brought in to him that I would like the $30 for the ball he ruined. Ricky then proceeded to tell me that they DIDN'T ruin my ball. :wtf: He tried to tell me that there was a problem with the ball and that "you can't strip the threads on a ball that big". I am fairly certain that my ball was good since I had just unthreaded the nut from the base of the ball and to my knowledge, anything that has threads can be stripped out. Ricky then said that if I'm going to play that way he can play that way too. He then told me he wanted $30 for the labor he just did. That would be the labor that went into the process of ruining my hitch ball.
Now granted it was only $30, but $30 is $30 and the principal of the fact was that he wasn't owning up to his guys screwing up someone elses property and be willing to fix it with a like item. That is the least I would expect from a store and I would do no less if it was my screw up.
Well I refused to pay him so he then GRABBED MY $300 HITCH OUT OF MY HANDS :badidea: and told me he was going to keep it until I paid. Well, I am a police officer not far from that store and I know, as most people know, he can't do that in Texas. That would be considered theft from a person since that hitch is my personal property. ):h
Well, I called for a uniformed patrol unit to keep me from getting into anything that Ricky would regret later. The officer told Ricky some things he didn't want to hear and I got my hitch back. :grd: Ricky refused to give me $30 but I was okay with that, I just wanted to get the hell out of there.
I later found a trailer dealer on the far side of town that had a 12k ball and they installed it FOR FREE and it ended up costing less than I lost at the other place.
SOOOOO, long story short, BOYCOTT THE HELL out of All Pro Truck accessories if you are in Fort Worth. I have had other people tell me that they have had dealings with Ricky and they have not been good. The Better Business Bureau and the Haltom City Chamber of Commerce will know about this first thing Monday morning.
I'm done ranting now!:rant:

Thanks for the heads up. I think they just opened another one on 377 (N of 820) in Haltom City. I'll avoid that one as well.

Ok, after a compaint with the Better Business Bureau, I finally got a resolution to All Pro's asinine treatment by the manager. The owner called me and asked what could be done to resolve the situation. I talked to him and subsequently got my $30 from the ruined hitch ball and he gave me a billet aluminum Bowtie hitch plug "for my troubles"
I really have no hard feelings against the company, just his idiot manager. I WILL NOT do business with the store on 121 in Haltom City but I will in the future consider doing business at their other store on Hwy 377 in Watauga.

Anyway, BOYCOTT the 121 store but I would do business again with the owner, Yancy Freeman and the fact that he was willing treslove it with no qualms.:cool2:

that's:funnypost

Mr. Freeman did the right thing. Good story.

I will be keeping that one in mind!

Great a new truck accessory just opened up the road from me. There goes my money again.

I hope you're talking about All Pro on Denton Hwy and not the one on 121?

If your asking me, I live about a mile or two form the one on Denton HWY. I think I saw it two weekends ago, but did not think anything about it.

..... Did you wonder why the other stores had no time for you? I think your post says it all. You wanted some *free* help and you burned the one guy that tried to help you. Also, I read nothing of you helping the two fellas put the thing to gether? .........Yeah, you got the old one off and were to lazy to start the new one? Almost sounds like you had pre-striped a thread and did not want to touch it.



........All this banter to a business and they "give" you twice as much as you lost and you still slamm the business.



You outt'a pull the post.:mad:

First of all, I never asked for a handout., I fully expected to have to pay for the little bit of labor involved.
Second, the only reason I didn't do the whole thing myself was because I didn't have the tools. I didn't remove the old ball, they did right before their sorry attempt at trying to put the new one on.
All I was getting at was that the customer service sucked at the store I went to. I had threaded and unthreaded the brand new ball when I handed it to them, they watched me do it right in front of them.
I never asked for anything but the money I had outlayed for the ball to begin with. The owner was gracious enough to recognize his employee's mistake and wanted to try and make things right in the name of customer satisfaction.
Make your own assumptions but the facts are the facts. If you want to deal with them, that is your own business. I have no hard feeling towards the 377 store, only the store on 121 that is managed by people who only care about making a buck and nothing about owning up to a mistake made by them and trying to make the customer happy.

First of all, I never asked for a handout., I fully expected to have to pay for the little bit of labor involved.
Second, the only reason I didn't do the whole thing myself was because I didn't have the tools. I didn't remove the old ball, they did right before their sorry attempt at trying to put the new one on.
All I was getting at was that the customer service sucked at the store I went to. I had threaded and unthreaded the brand new ball when I handed it to them, they watched me do it right in front of them.
I never asked for anything but the money I had outlayed for the ball to begin with. The owner was gracious enough to recognize his employee's mistake and wanted to try and make things right in the name of customer satisfaction.
Make your own assumptions but the facts are the facts. If you want to deal with them, that is your own business. I have no hard feeling towards the 377 store, only the store on 121 that is managed by people who only care about making a buck and nothing about owning up to a mistake made by them and trying to make the customer happy.
:exactly: Isn't that what having a good business is all about? Going the extra mile to help your customer. I would rather go to a business that might charge a few extra bucks but you know you can go back and get taken care of. It is true that Haulinbass02 had not spent any money in the store up to that point, but if I was the manager I would have taken care of him. If my dip $hit employees messed up HIS stuff I would of replaced it or found a way to make it right. People remember stuff like that and, i might have lost money that day but doing the right thing will always pay off in the long run. IMO

but he said never to use "that store" again? The MGT guy tries to ammend the "goof" and still doesn't get a break.

The manager of the store in question didn't do diddly to make it right. The OWNER of both All Pro Truck Accessories made amends for his employee's mistake. I refuse to go to the store that the idiot manager is at. I have no hard feelings and would go to the new store that the owner actually manages. Maybe I need to go back and edit my previous posts.

:rant: Well you were lucky the owner of the chain was resonable. Before my Duramax I had a V10 Dodge and purchased $2300 worth of accessories from a guy in Houston that owns Magnum Performance. I have been fighting with this guy for 3 years to get my money back or my parts. He allways promises the parts but I haven't seen a part yet. Took him to the BBS and to the Attorney General of Texas but since I live in North Dakota I have little recourse. The only thing I can do now is take him to small claims court and there is no guarantee he will pay up after that either. As long as these guys don't make too big of waves the state will do nothing. Now that is a SCREW JOB!