Botach. Great Prices, Horrible Customer Service.
Written: Apr 20 '05 (Updated Apr 20 '05)
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Botach Tactical is an online retailer of military type products. They offer hearing protection, safety equipment, flashlights, knives, kevlar body armor, knee pads, weapon magazines, rescue tools, sleeping bags, ladders, and the list goes on and on. Unfortunately they don’t offer good customer service but I will get to that later.
They actually have a very good web site with an online live help function during work hours (never used it but have seen it active). The home page is covered with scattered pictures of the current deals, military and government support logos, links (to forms, order tracking, search functions, return policy, low price guarantee, etc), e-mail and the Live Help button with its current status. You can do a search for a product or scroll through a list, by manufacturers or by product categories, which is helpful. They offer 128bit secure shopping to protect your information. They offer discounts to the military and government but it can be a pain to see the right prices, I think I had a separate link when I was in the Army. They offer special deals by e-mail as well. They accept all major credit cards.
Problems. There a good number of products on the web-site with no price and others with no description. When you want to order a product that has a price, you can use a dropdown menu for an option if there is one. Just because there is a price does not mean it is in stock or that they even know when it will be in stock.
When you want to track an order you click the link and are taken to a page with a window for you to put in your tracking number. There is a US map with UPS transit times on it.
Its been a while since I placed my order but the checkout process seemed pretty simple and straight forward. I got a conformation e-mail when I placed my order but have since lost it. It works through Yahoo shopping which can import your information.
My order:
I ordered a pair of Res-Q-Me tools that are designed to break car windows and cut through seat belts, they are reusable and work great.
A set of Aearo Combat Earplugs. They mention in the description that the DoD is strongly committed to promoting hearing protection but I doubt they would approve these. This is a little misleading. Aearo
Combat Earplugs have a stiff plastic insert that would most likely cause damage to your ear if impacted hard and there for prevent the DoD from accepting them. They do their job though.
Steamlight Pro Polymer LED Flashlight Model 4AA.
I wish I could find the Yahoo Merchant Review I posted but I cant since they are no longer on the Yahoo Merchant List even though they are one. I don’t remember all of the specifics so I will stick with what I remember correctly. Two weeks pass and no order. I e-mailed customer service twice and get no response. I call the next week and am told the flashlight I want is not in stock and they don’t know when it will be. Nice that no one bothered to inform me of this and I had to call to find out. I had a pile of other problems with the customer service that I cant remember specifically but I remember incompetence the most. Only after I gave them a negative rating did they seem to try and fix the problems. They would not offer me a discount on a flashlight up-grade so I upgraded for the 3C Model anyway and they were nice enough not to charge me shipping on it (yeah, that was sarcasm).
Botach made the mistake of offering customers the option to rate them. When I did, it was my unpleasant experience, spelled out truthfully. They did not like this at all. I got an immediate call asking me to re-rate them. I asked if they would upgrade the flashlight for one in stock and they said no. All they offered was the free shipping, so I updated the review with the almost worthless free shipping, but left it negative. I had to rate them negatively before I could get any real support form them.
Recommended:
No
What product did you purchase or try to purchase? Streamlight Pro Polymer LED Flashlight, Aearo Earplugs, and ResQmeTool
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Epinions.com ID:
tysonson
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Location: Denver, CO
Reviews written: 24
Trusted by: 3 members
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