Has SlikStik Ripped me off??

[jdmagoo]

 
Does anybody know if SlikStik has folded as a business?

I placed an online order on the 08DEC06 for a Tornado Spinner which was processed through the online store, this process occurred without errors. My credit card was charged the correct amount and I received an email confirming the order information.
As per the SlikStik website I was then suppose to receive an email with the order status along with the order tracking number, but still to this day I have received no such email.
I waited 4 days until I sent an email (sent on the 12DEC06) to SlikStik asking if they could provide an Online tracking number and to inform me of the status of the order, but again no reply.
So today (19DEC06) I tried ringing there telephone number as stated on there website, but all I received was a message saying this number has been disconnected. So I figured maybe there number has changed but there website has not been updated, so I did a search for SlikStik on whitepages.com but as expected no number was listed.
So my question is, have I been ripped? Has SlikStik folded as a business? And how much longer should I wait before getting the banks involved to retrieve my money?

Thanks for your replies

James

[Fozzy The Bear]

Good Luck James.....

SickSlick oops sorry for the typo... SlickStick are notorious for this sort of thing. There are people on here who waited months for their pre cut control panel blanks. There are others who waited a ridiculous amount of time for their components and parts. 

I'm afraid Christian from SlickStick is notorious for his miserable customer service and even more notorious for the insults he flings at customers and competitors on here every so often. Your story as above is not the first one like this, by a long stretch.

I'd strongly recommend you cancel your order and get your credit card company to refund you. I'd also recommend you check out alternative products, where you will get better customer service.

The Groovy Game Gear "Turbotwist2" Is a much much better spinner than the SlickStick one, you'll find it here: http://groovygamegear.com and the customer service can't be faulted. Also check out this thread:
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=60502.0

Best Regards,
Julian (Fozzy The Bear)

[leapinlew]

Good Luck James.....

SickSlick oops sorry for the typo... SlickStick are notorious for this sort of thing. There are people on here who waited months for their pre cut control panel blanks. There are others who waited a ridiculous amount of time for their components and parts. 

I'm afraid Christian from SlickStick is notorious for his miserable customer service and even more notorious for the insults he flings at customers and competitors on here every so often. Your story as above is not the first one like this, by a long stretch.

I'd strongly recommend you cancel your order and get your credit card company to refund you. I'd also recommend you check out alternative products, where you will get better customer service.

I agree with Fozzy on most everything he says.

I would give them the alotted time to provide you the product you requested. It took them every second of the 6 weeks they said it would to make the control panel we ordered. It did show up within the promised time though. I know what it's like to be anxiously awaiting a product and it taking a long time to get there. Give them the benefit of the doubt. Good luck.

[FrizzleFried]

I wlll second the suggestion on using GroovyGameGear.   I ordered their Turbo Twist 2 and I love it!  I had my spinner in my hot little hands less than a week after I ordered it.

[jdmagoo]

I agree with Fozzy on most everything he says.

I would give them the alotted time to provide you the product you requested. It took them every second of the 6 weeks they said it would to make the control panel we ordered. It did show up within the promised time though. I know what it's like to be anxiously awaiting a product and it taking a long time to get there. Give them the benefit of the doubt. Good luck.

The problem is they haven’t given me an allotted time; in fact they haven’t contacted me at all with regards to the order or replied to my emails. It looks like I may have get a refund from the bank and let them chase him down.
Bugger I was hoping to get my CP finished before Xmas.

[screaming]

maybe there's something randy could do to help you out...

[ScottS]

Does anyone know if you have better results when ordering the SlikStick Tornado through Happ? Does Happ keep their stuff in stock or just have it drop shipped from SlikStick? Given the recommendations, I'll probably go with the GGG spinner but I have to admit to liking some of the SlikStick knobs...

[FrizzleFried]

You can use the Tornado knobs on the Turbo Twist spinner I do believe...and I will tell you what,  I would rather be waiting with bated breath for a knob,  using the stock one that came from GGG than waiting with bated breath for the entire spinner...or an email... or something!

[Drews Arcade]

This sounds about right, I made one order with them a while ago. They charge your credit card as soon they get the order and ship out 4-6 weeks later. I have not made a order from them since, I was not happy.
 

[pmc]

I had a good experience with them a year ago (ish). The knob wasn't in stock and they notified me via email and asked me what I wanted to do. I told 'em I could wait. An extra 2 weeks or more went by, and then the spinner shipped without incident. I wasn't in a hurry so I suppose that's why I was happy.

I still haven't figured out how to best mount it. It has small holes and it didn't come with mounting bolts. I was going to enlarge the holes and drive bolts from the top of a wood CP. So far I've procrastinated.

-pmc

[whynotpizza]

As an alternative, you might want to also consider Apache Controls.

All of their products are in stock and ship right away.

I've been beyond happy with my Blackhawk spinners, which are top notch.
  http://www.apachecontrols.com

Good luck,

 

   David

[destructor]

For my Tornado from SlikStik I wait over 6 months. For next order about 2 months. No words about shipping costs for second order. Never more.

[deadsoulz]

I have ordered 2 cabinets / arcade control sticks from them, and I would say there products are very nice quality.  Yes they are a little slow, but I imagine they sell a lot for the small operation that they are.   The stuff I bought them was definately worth the wait.  I have never ordered an individual spinner, or product like thet from them however.  Good Luck.

[shardian]

Don't worry, Christian will be on here shortly to publicly berate you for complaining of his service.

[divemaster127]

happ keeps the spinners in stock i have ordered 3 or 4 they ship within a week or so
dm

[Brax]

Don't worry, Christian will be on here shortly to publicly berate you for complaining of his service.

...and cancel your order, send you your money back and leave you high and dry ready to start all over again with another company.

Communication isn't one of their strong suits; just read any of Christian's posts.

[tranq]

That's strange he would come here.  Hm.  I got a fighter (which I ended up switching for a classic) in probly four or five weeks.   Generally, they're always busy as hell.  Sometimes they're on the ball, sometimes not.   If I need something, I call direct - which of course you can't do if you haven't ordered from them, cos they don't otherwise give out the number.  (I even have his cell number....but I can be persuasive.)

In any case, always check out Retroblast to see what else is out there, before making a purchase.  I didn't even know about them till the last six or eight months, but I've since gone through all their product reviews.  From now on, I'd buy, either, the Ulitmarc spinner or the TT2.

[SlikStik Christian]

James,

   Your order has been on hold due to you not following our international shipping policy when you placed your order. We have sent you 2 emails regarding your order and you have not replied to either, here is the latest email that was sent yesterday. Check your email...

From: "SlikStik"  Save Address | Headers
To : "James & Donna" <---email address munched by saint--->
CC :
Date : Wed, 20 Dec 2006 09:03:29 -0500
Subject : Re: Whats happened to my order??!!!!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
James,

   Your initial order has been processed by our system the day you made the purchase on our website but there is an issue, you did not follow our international shipping policy which is clearly stated on our website.

*All international orders require additional shipping costs above what our website already charges. If you are an international customer and would like to purchase products from SlikStik, you must email us with your full shipping address and postal/zip code for a custom shipping quote. If you are an international customer and you purchase items through our website and you do not notify us in advance that you are placing an international order, your order will be put on hold until all additional shipping funds are received.*

With that being said, you need to send in an additional $14.00 to complete your order. You can do this by going to this link http://www.slikstik.com/detail.aspx?ID=102 and adding 14 of that item to your cart and completing the checkout.

Once that payment is in your order will ship.

Christian
Team SlikStik
http://www.slikstik.com




---------- Original Message ----------------------------------
From: "James & Donna" <---email address munched by saint--->
Date:  Wed, 20 Dec 2006 08:52:58 +1030

Hey there,
 
My credit card has now been charged the full amount for this order however I
have not received any emails to confirm the shipping information or tracking
number.
I originally sent you an email on the 12DEC06 (as per below) but never
received a reply, I have also tried calling the telephone number as stated
on your website but all I get is "this number has been disconnected". So now
what am I suppose to think? I will give you 2 days to reply to this email >otherwise my bank will have to follow this up.
 
Many thanks

James 

[nostrebor]

Hey James no worries! Just send him $14 more bucks and all will be well.

[FrizzleFried]

Hmmm....I figured that it would somehow be the CUSTOMERS fault.  Hey Christian,  ever heard of a TELEPHONE?   You know...that think you talk through and it magically tansfers your voice across vast open spaces to the side where you "dialed" to.

Any company with even remotely interested in customer service would have PHONED after they didn't receive a reply to their email inquiring about the extra $14.00...especially after receiving a 2nd email from the guy.

But then again it appears from yours and others posts you have proven over and over again the fact that customer service isn't at top of your priority list.

Edit: Removed any reference to other companies...no need.

[FrizzleFried]

Geeee....and I also wonder how well James' going to like the fact this genius just posted his email address,  complete,  so the local spam bots can come in and harvest his email address and start sending him fun gay porn, etc.

How about showing at least a little professionalism Christian and blanking out (or at least removing the @ so the spambots don't attack) the guys email address.

Again,  another strengthening of my resolve to {edit} not use {/edit} your company for my arcade needs...

EDIT: I want to be 100% clear...I have no opinion of SlickStik's product.  I have not used any of their product.   From the looks of it,  it appears to be high quality and the folks who do own their product (when they get it) don't seem to be complaining about the quality.

My comments are directed at the horrendous customer service the COMPANY evidently provides.   I went through Christians posts out of curiosity.   Did you know this isnt the first time this VERY SAME issue was posted on this forum.   Thats right...the INTERNATIONAL SHIPPING instructions were somehow ignored by others as well...and this company didn't take the time to make a simple phone call...and then the person who did the ordering came here and posted and created more bad publicity for SlickStik...you'd have thought that the person in charge their would have pulled his/her head out of his/her posterior end for long enough to rectify this situation.   Evidently not.

Good luck with your endeavors Christian...you are going to need it unless you SERIOUSLY take a good look at your customer service policies.  Of the 25 or so posts I read from  you,  1/2 were defending your product,  the majority of the rest were defending your company.   Hmm...

Edit2: Removed any reference to other companies.

[squirrellydw]

you would think the order form would calculate this correctly, I mean it can't be that difficult.

[shardian]

Well, except for that part about major privacy violations by publicly posting the guys info, at least he didn't cop an attitude.

[tranq]

People can expect more than they give, or even give themselves.   You move on.

[screaming]

missed an email address there, saint!

[Zakk]

Cancel the order, either with cristtiaaan, or do it through your credit card company since you never received your product, and he has no intention of sending it to you.    Deal with a more reputable dealer next time and count yourself lucky.

[acevedor2]

Maybe I am the exception and not the rule, but I ordered my SlikStik Spinner with Blue knob about 2 weeks ago.  It arrived in 4 days.  No muss, no fuss, and without any problems.  Again, I realize I may be in the minority but my transaction was flawless.  Cheers and Merry Chirstmas.

[Zakk]

Maybe I am the exception and not the rule, but I ordered my SlikStik Spinner with Blue knob about 2 weeks ago.  It arrived in 4 days.  No muss, no fuss, and without any problems.  Again, I realize I may be in the minority but my transaction was flawless.  Cheers and Merry Chirstmas.

Yes, and I with my 5 posts have purchased a quality spinner (with unmatched workmanship!) from slik stik(tm) with no problem as well!  In fact it arrived instantly because it was on the stock shelf beside me!  Er, I mean, it took 2 days.

[shardian]

Maybe I am the exception and not the rule, but I ordered my SlikStik Spinner with Blue knob about 2 weeks ago.  It arrived in 4 days.  No muss, no fuss, and without any problems.  Again, I realize I may be in the minority but my transaction was flawless.  Cheers and Merry Chirstmas.

Yes, and I with my 5 posts have purchased a quality spinner (with unmatched workmanship!) from slik stik(tm) with no problem as well!  In fact it arrived instantly because it was on the stock shelf beside me!  Er, I mean, it took 2 days.

maybe you could have checked the guys post history before being such a jerk. You know, people can lurk before becoming members.

Ya gotta shrug certain things off new guy, comments like these are one of them. Welcome to the boards!


:modified for un-censored word:

[Zakk]

Thanks for being my conscience shardin.  I was looking for one of those!



*edit* I didn't have to remove any internet-tough-guy-language-and-then-post-that-I-removed-it. Why? Because I am oh-too-cool for that. 

[acevedor2]

No problem, I have tough skin, and I truly appreciate the experience of the members.  I have been reading as much as I can about the MAME (and other emulators) community.  Though I have been using MAME for a couple of years now, I am just now getting heavy into it and I just about have all the parts I need to start building my first cab.  There is quite a bit of expertise on this board and I look forward to benefiting from all of your knowledge.  Have a great day!

[Zakk]

If you truly are legit, my apologies.  However, it's a common theme for a complete 'newbie' to come out of the woodwork and start heaping praise on slichschtik whenever one of these rumbles occurs, so it's hard not to be a bit cynical...it's happened more than once, in more than one forum or newsgroup (eh romboxx???)

[More Cowbell]

I'm surprised Slik didn't post JD's credit card info too.

[acevedor2]

Zakk,
  Not a problem at all.  I certainly understand.  That was truly not my intent.  To be honest I was more curious than anything else because my experience with them was pretty good and so many others, based on this thread, have been terrible.  I concur with you entirely that if a company has poor customer service, they will  not last long.  I routinely drive to stores farther away and pay more for the same product somewhere else simply because their customer service is better.  I'll just consider myself lucky in this particular case and be happy mine actually made it here   I look forward to more posts and I am sure I will need much help as I start to build this Mame cab in the next week or two (still waiting for parts to get here). It looks like this forum is a wealth of material and knowledge. Have a Merry Christmas!

[Gatt]

Let me preface this with if you look at my post history,  I'm not a new account,  and I've mentioned this before...

About a year ago I ordered a Slikstik blank panel,  with custom specs.  I also ordered a spinner,  trackball,  Flightstick,  and topfire joysticks.

The next day I got a call from Slikstik,  confirming my order and my custom layout.  The person on the other end expressed concern because I was replacing the dedicated 4-way with the flightstick,  and he pointed out it'd block the view in a cabinet installation,  which wasn't an issue as I was doing a modified table instead of a cabinet.

A couple hours later,  I got a second call,  because they had concerns about the layout they wanted to discuss.  First,  they wanted to move the spinner over a couple inches(I believe,  it was a year ago after all),  second they wanted to offer me their updated layout which put the trackball buttons on the left instead of the right.  I ok'd it,  and they then E-mailed me a screen shot of the layout for final confirmation.

I received the panel exactly on the day specified on the webpage,  exactly as specified.  The only issue was that one of the post's for the trackball had cracked during shipping,  which I didn't contact Slikstik about as it didn't affect functionality.

Am I an exception?  Don't know.  But overall my experience with Slikstik was a good one.

[Zakk]

sort of sounds like they wanted to send you a panel they had, instead of making the one you ordered.   No?  "they wanted to offer me their updated layout which put the trackball buttons on the left instead of the right"  I would have wanted the layout I ordered. (?)

Also, the cracked trackball, was it smashed due to insufficient packaging material, or during installation do you think?

[leapinlew]

Also, the cracked trackball, was it smashed due to insufficient packaging material, or during installation do you think?

I've ordered a panel from slikstik and there was definetly not a lack of packaging material. In fact, they went way overboard!

[JackTucky]

I've never ordered from slikstik and I think Zakk is a dirty realtor.

However, I think slikstik is also a realtor, so that makes them even on my part.

-J

[mccoy178]

I believe a major problem with Slickstick is that they are so hit are miss on the customer service.  There was quite the issue last year with a members control panel and Christian looked like a total tool when he came on here to defend himself. 

To different extents, it pains me to see some of the most influential guys in our hobby make themselves look bad for no reason.  Christian, Headkaze, RandyT, and Howard are among those I speak.  I honestly think Christian is a crappy vendor for coming through for some and not for others and acting like a --cream-filled twinkie-- on several occasions.  I think the other three just are too adamant about their cause sometime and it makes them look bad.  I think they do awesome things for our community, but I think they could be beloved by all if they could just see when they are making themselves look like asses.  I mean, Randy blindly sticks up for his products when he really shouldn't in threads that have nothing to do with him. (He should know the community would take care of him if he is wronged and that would benefit him more in the long run.  I mean, why the big hardon with Andy anymore or half of the guys who build spinners?)  Headkaze loves GameEx so much, he falls on his own sword a lot. (Why care about Youki?  If you would let it go, you would win more with respect then trying to prove useless points.  We've been around enough to know what is what in those goofy arguments).  And Howard, where to begin?   No one will ever change his opinion (or atleast he won't admit it), and I don't think he realizes or cares how bad that hurts his reputation, and that makes me sad .  I guess it's true that the same traits that make you great also hurt you.

Wow, I don't know if that has anything to do with this thread, but I sure do feel better.

[Kremmit]

Realtors are just plain mean.