Not smug at all i just predicted you would pile in.
Ref the other point about being defensive dam right i'm being defensive in his post on here and instagram he did mention "Shoddy business ethics" that to me is a bit personal he done well to last this long it sounds in the cricketing world selling all the bats he does do.
It no wonder the cricket industry is not overly keen on this forum which is a big shame and the forum is getting less and less popular.
Maybe @brokenbat if Dan does try to facetime you maybe answer i don't see what you can lose out on pal
Of course i understand how hard it to pick a bat if your not in the country it always going to be a struggle to match your exact mm size for weight if your a handmaker of bats i know another company who struggled even with a CNC....
Customers always right i guess all i have to say on this.
Does anybody post pictures of bats been away 18 or so months need some good picture of bats
Since this topic has been revived..here is a recap of why I was put off by the experience:
1. The bats I got were clearly the wrong specs - I have 20+ bats, and so it was very easy to prove this.
2. Upon seeing photos that clearly illustrated that a mistake had been made in the specs, Dan dismissed the evidence and said that the OTHER bats in the pictures I sent him were the wrong specs, not his. He was very standoffish and simply chose to ignore the evidence. I have attached some screenshots of my conversations with him in my original post that show this very clearly.
3. One of the specs that was off, was the bat width. When I had ordered, he assured me that they would be "full 108mm wide", and we had explicitly agreed on this. After I told him that the bat was much narrower, he went on the defensive claiming that he makes narrow bats for pros and they don't complain.... well then why give me false assurances when I placed the order? I would much rather have a bat maker tell me that what I am asking for is not doable, instead of accepting my order, and trying to jam through incorrect specs, and then scold the customer for pointing it out
4. What really set me off, was that once he had the bats back, he sent me a message saying that he would need to charge me an EXTRA GBP 40 PER BAT, as he needs to "re-machine" them before they can be re-sold. Not only was this NEVER mentioned before I shipped them back, it was also a totally bogus claim - why would you make fairly standard looking bats, smaller before trying to re-sell them? I am glad you mentioned that he re-sold them within 48 hours - shows how bogus the "I need to charge you 40 GBP per bat to re-spec them" claim was.
After a lot of back and forth, and some very strong pushback from me, he backed of this "extra charge" idea, but it was clear, that far from trying to make things right, his first instincts were still to extract whatever he could from the customer.
5. Mistakes happen, and its not a big deal - its how you deal with them. This was an excruciating experience, that dragged on and on and on, and hence why I felt compelled to write a negative review for the first time in my 12 year "career" of hoarding cricket gear.
I have nothing personal against them (I am sure Dan is a great bloke, and great family man, as you say), and lots of people are happy with their bats - I just think people outside the UK need to be very careful about ordering from him, as his customer service (for us outside the UK) is well below that of his competitors.
If that changes, then I'll be very happy for him, and for the larger cricket fraternity. But I couldn't let someone else go through the same experience without fair warning.