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Sorry AllStar Rod customer service experience #12140948 03/14/17 09:09 PM
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tonykarter Offline OP
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Like Dennis Miller says, "Now I don't want to get off a rant here", but the truth is...yeah I do:

With one phone call to Spirit Lake Iowa it was confirmed that AllStar Rods is not the same company that I bought these rods from a few years ago. The person I spoke with must have worked for the State Department in a previous iteration of themselves. He did not answer a single question that I presented to him. He quickly adopted a "I can neither confirm or deny that statement" attitude. How does somebody in customer service attain such a defensive attitude anyway? He did not even try to impart to me even one bit of product information, or highlight any features/benefits of his products. Rather, his prime directive seemed only to be that I understood fully that Academy was handling their products. I already knew that, and had called Academy first. They could not answer my question, and had referred me to AllStar.

When I made the mistake of asking if Academy now owned AllStar he went off on a long diatribe about the relationship between Academy and AllStar. A simple "no" would have sufficed Podna'. How do people like this guy ever get into customer service anyway? They seek only to thwart and refute the customer.

I have a PT66MH Pro Series casting rod, medium heavy action that I bought a few years ago. Was about $108 if I remember correctly. Bought it the same day I bought one of their flippin' sticks for about $118. You'd think spending that much money on a rod would at least get you a straight answer about it from the company. My only question to them: Which rod in your line is now closest to it? Him: "None of them." Really, you made a fishing rod that has absolutely no similarities to the fishing rods you make now? NONE? Can't you just decide which is remotely close to it? I guess according to this guy every rod in their line is now completely divergent from this rod. Heck, I guess we are left to believe that they are probably so dissimilar that mine and one of theirs probably couldn't even catch the same species of fish if thrown consecutively into the same school. So just f8arkin' shoot me for God sakes. (Insert clip of John BelushI'S SCENE-ENDING self-destructing on SNL's Weekend Update skit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwuzX38x_Ro )

If anybody knows which rod is close, please reply. I will go to Academy, get my replacement, and never darken All Star's door again. Thanks!

Last edited by tonykarter; 03/17/17 02:34 AM.

I do the things I do because the voices in my wife's head tell me to do them.
Re: Sorry AllStar Rod customer service experience [Re: tonykarter] #12141610 03/15/17 10:51 AM
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Fisherdad58 Offline
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Sounds like the guy stuck to his customer service training very well. Unfortunately that means not committing the company to anything without senior management approval, and being a civil litigator on the defense side. This seems more true the bigger the company gets.
Should have called SERVICE. You know the guys that actually do the work. But they probably took their phone out.


"Be as straight as you can be and as crooked as you have to be, for what's right"

Psalm 8
Re: Sorry AllStar Rod customer service experience [Re: tonykarter] #12142028 03/15/17 03:38 PM
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lenahorse Offline
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Look at TFO rods in Dallas Tx

you will not get that from them, I had 1 that was hit by another rod and broke it, called TFO they delivered a new replacement free at my work, not 1 question asked and brought a hat and rod cover free.

I also have Allstar but an older one anl use it a lot buy not even compares with the TFO

Last edited by lenahorse; 03/15/17 03:40 PM.
Re: Sorry AllStar Rod customer service experience [Re: lenahorse] #12142520 03/15/17 09:00 PM
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forkduc Offline
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Didn't All Star used to be in Houston?

Re: Sorry AllStar Rod customer service experience [Re: forkduc] #12142771 03/15/17 11:59 PM
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"Old School" Offline
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Originally Posted By: forkduc
Didn't All Star used to be in Houston?


Yes.

Re: Sorry AllStar Rod customer service experience [Re: tonykarter] #12143475 03/16/17 01:34 PM
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Bulletman99 Offline
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Allstar sold out several years ago and are nowhere near the quality they once were. In the 90s all my rods were Allstars but were stolen. The now "Classic" IM6 series were top-quality rods way back when and sold for over $100 (now around $50). They shortly thereafter started adding even more higher quality rods to their line-up. After the sale of the company, they are now made (I think could be wrong) in Korea, and the quality diminished practically overnight. Don't take this wrong, an IM6 or higher graphite rod is still a great rod, it's just that with technological advances in higher modulus graphite, Allstar rods are simply no longer the "Top-Shelf" rods they once were.


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Re: Sorry AllStar Rod customer service experience [Re: tonykarter] #12143691 03/16/17 03:16 PM
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tonykarter Offline OP
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Agreed with all of you. Over the years, I have spent way too much money on hunting and fishing, but I cannot be accused of doing so into my rods. And I have had just as much fun were I to have spent twice as much on each rod. Rather, I put that money into more fishing trips. As such, I bought rods that were adequate, and most of them were $39.95 Berkleys. This $108 AllStar rod was an exception, a "gift" to myself, an extravagance. The call to AllStar was spawned from a broken Lightning Rod, a medium light casting that I use to overpower crappie and get them clear of my brushpiles. I just happened to notice the AllStar sitting there, broken a while back, and decided to take care of it too with Academy while doing the exchange on the Lightning Rod with Berkley.

My experience at Berkley could not have been more enjoyable, servicing a $39 rod, 180 degrees opposite of the welcome extended to me by Allstar on their $108 rod. I still have two of Berkley's cardboard rod tubes in my attic, left over from replacement rods that they had shipped to me in the past, going back into the mid-80s. To replace a rod, they only require an email containing a picture of the rod where it is broken, a picture of the model number on the rod, a copy of the receipt (if you still have it, but not required), and an address to which their replacement should be sent. Somebody STILL understands customer service!

Maybe for this reason I only have one AllStar left, but twenty-three Berkleys: Original Lightning Rods, some with origins back into the the Old Testament, second and third gen LRs from the late-80s and early-90s, Series Ones (my favorite), several of their Hank Parker Series, their Safari Series, Salt Flats sticks. Sadly, I recently broke one of their Original Lightning Rod Flippin' Sticks fishing a frog...I should have never been fishing it...it should have been in the Smithsonian. Such is life. I re-rodded 2-3 years ago, and bought nine LRs of various actions at Gander Mountain when Berkley started using the titanium line guides that do not use inserts. Rod guide INSERTS: I spit in their general direction. I have broken way too many of them out of the line guides over the years.

Thank you, Berkley, for understanding what drives future sales. I do want to give a shout out to Gander Mountain though, and here it is: YOU SUCK! I buy nine Lightning Rods from you, first six, then three more a week later. I call you to see if I can come back to exchange one of them and you too go off on a long spiel, grasping at straws trying to find a way to keep from having to replace a rod which has a manufacturers lifetime warranty on it, and in doing so reveal the true quality of your corporate character. I know you didnt hear a word I said, didn't even listen, about Berkleys lifetime warranty. How do I know? Because your associate had the gall to talk right past me without taking notice of what I said, he telling me that if I would have bought your two-year extension to the manufacturers warranty that you offered me at checkout that you could work with me as you put it, to possibly exchange the rodbut you would have to see it first to decide. (Insert clip of Sam Kinison screaming here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Czmb6tEwFE8) Lets see, the rod has a manufacturer's lifetime warranty into eternity, but you require me to buy your two-year extension to it if I am to expect you to assist me in the future to honor and service the manufacturer's lifetime warranty? W.T.F.? That is not a store warranty, that is nothing more than GANDER MOUNTAIN EXTORTION! So when does your warranty begin anyway? AFTER eternity? When would I ever have an opportunity to use it? And chain conglomerates wonder why their brick and mortar stores are failing miserably, (especially Gander Mountain), and why the internet is thriving. I do Amazon Primeand I LOVE IT. Refunds put on your credit card the exact second the UPS guy scans in the return package. HEY! SON OF A B8ITCH!!! LOOKY THERE!!! On a lark I just checked Amazon: I can buy Lightning Rods there that are priced $3 to $6.45 under Gander Mountain's or Academy's price! And with Amazon Prime, I get free 2-day shipping to my door! No driving 60 miles out of this Big Thicket to their store! None of my gas OR TIME wasted! Click, Click BOOM! DONE! Adios Allstar! Auf Wiedersehen Gander Mountain!

Last edited by tonykarter; 03/17/17 02:39 AM.

I do the things I do because the voices in my wife's head tell me to do them.
Re: Sorry AllStar Rod customer service experience [Re: tonykarter] #12144060 03/16/17 06:32 PM
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Bulletman99 Offline
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Thats some funny S**T right there I don't care who you are!

I am not a lawyer nor do I claim to be an expert but I did take criminal, constitutional, and contract law classes in college. The "Law" says that when you purchase a product you have entered into a binding contract with the seller. That being said, I do not know how some retail stores are getting away with telling a customer to go through the manufacturer and not them. Your contract is with them not the manufacturer!! By Law, the seller is responsible for returning a warrantied item and returning a customers money, not the manufacturer. Some probably have found some loop-hole but when you buy a product do they have you sign anything or verbally tell you they will not honor a manufacturers warranty that you have to go through them??


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Re: Sorry AllStar Rod customer service experience [Re: tonykarter] #12144723 03/17/17 01:52 AM
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tonykarter Offline OP
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Offer. Acceptance. "Consideration" given by both parties, where and when neither party is under any pressure to either buy or sell.

Contract!

I sent a link to this thread to Gander Mountain. From the response that I received it appears that they couldn't give a rat's a8ss...

Last edited by tonykarter; 03/17/17 02:43 AM.

I do the things I do because the voices in my wife's head tell me to do them.
Re: Sorry AllStar Rod customer service experience [Re: tonykarter] #12145670 03/17/17 06:06 PM
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fouzman Offline
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Best customer service in the industry when they were local.


"Things turn out best for those who make the best of the way things turn out" - Zachary Troy Schrah - a young man with vision far beyond his years.
Re: Sorry AllStar Rod customer service experience [Re: fouzman] #12146337 03/18/17 02:53 AM
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Fisherdad58 Offline
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Originally Posted By: fouzman
Best customer service in the industry when they were local.


I still have one of their old Platinum Series rods that I use for jerkbaits and sometimes squarebills. I really like that rod so I hope nothing ever happens to it.
Somebody told me that they were using GLoomis blanks on those back in the day.


"Be as straight as you can be and as crooked as you have to be, for what's right"

Psalm 8
Re: Sorry AllStar Rod customer service experience [Re: tonykarter] #12148843 03/20/17 12:50 PM
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Academy has some of the best customer service around, and a "no questions asked" on most returns/exchanges.

I've got a bunch of Berkley Lighting Rods from the 90s and 2000s. had no problems with them.

Academy has some All Star rods on sale/clearance right now. Bought a few of the fast action 'Carolina Rig' models for $19.98 so far so good, but if they break, no big loss. They also had the 'Popping Rod' models but I'm not a fan of moderate action rods.


Re: Sorry AllStar Rod customer service experience [Re: tonykarter] #12150338 03/21/17 03:05 AM
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tonykarter you have 11 posts man did you just come here to bitch about companies that have sold out, gone bankrupt and went thru foreclosure. If so I hope it made you feel better. When All Star was made in Houston they were probably worth $100 now that they are made in China/Korea and the are selling for $19.95 at Academy I don't know why you would want one. jmho


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Re: Sorry AllStar Rod customer service experience [Re: tonykarter] #12157718 03/25/17 09:31 PM
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tonykarter Offline OP
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As for wanting one, you are correct: I would not buy one now. Quite frankly, fishing like I do now, pulling crappie out of brushpiles, I could use a cane pole and catch just as many, and have just as much fun [img]http://texasfishingforum.com/forums/pics..._bottom_2lb_4_o[/img]
.


I do the things I do because the voices in my wife's head tell me to do them.
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