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ALmom
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| Posted: July 03 2007 at 5:36pm | IP Logged
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My materials just came in and I am ready to cry. I have spoken to the company and hopefully they are replacing my materials. I did not feel like they were all that willing to make sure I was satisfied. I'm left a little concerned that they might be taking advantage of my ignorance.
Every single item, almost, that I ordered, had something wrong with it. They cannot inspect the part of my order that I have not yet received, so I have no idea about those items yet. When I spoke to the company, they are replacing 1 item for sure and sending me an inset to replace the one that was too tight and a missing rod. However, they did not indicate that they thought that the red/blue rods (numerical rods) were defective even though the paint lines did not match. I cannot repaint myself as I do not have the fine motor or eye hand to do this. If he finds one that is painted so that all the paint lines match then he will replace that item, but if not, I guess I'm left with either returning it or taking it as is at my own cost(ie if the rest of the batch have the same problem, he isn't considering this a defect).
I do regret ordering from them as I feel like it is such a pain to have to rebox and send back almost everything I ordered and I was left feeling like he isn't convinced that some things are defective. I am not sure I will order from them again even though they came highly recommended. From now on, I'm going with the cheapest as it doesn't seem to make a hill of beans of difference in quality.
Now for my questions - just so I know whether or not I'm being over picky. The Introduction to the Decimal System with trays - my 10 bead chain was shorter than my 100 bead chain so the loops at the end did not match up and they couldn't be easily stacked on top of the 100 square to compare (I thought this was a defect, the company did not). My hundred squares, even when I lined them up in the corner, kept shifting all over the place, I do want them to be able to place them in the corner of the box, lining them up and comparing to the 1000 cube. I also want the paint lines (ie spacing on my numerical rods) to be consistent. He is obviously replacing the inset that was too tight and the missing red rod. He is replacing my Intro to Decimal w/trays but because of the broken 100 board and the sticky glue on some of them (which makes it obviously defective). I don't know if the one he will replace it with will actually do what I want or whether the length of the beads will match the length of the hundred board.
He kept saying that their materials are made to AMI specifications and that they have never had any problems before. He keeps trying to convince me that cheaper catelogues are inferior in quality but the material that others have ordered are better from what I am hearing from another local person who ordered from cheaper vendors. I'm tempted to just tell him to cancel my whole order and I'll go cheap.
Also are the insets supposed to fill the inset tray or are they supposed to only take up one corner with lots of space around the edges. He indicated that the insets were not supposed to fill the tray and that I'd see this if I looked in a Niehus catelogue - so I went to my Niehaus catelogue and looked. It doesn't show the inset tray but does give the measurements of the insets and the inset paper to be identical. The insets pictured in my Bruins catelogue seem to just fit inside the tray without a lot of excessive space. I just don't know and right now I simply don't trust this place.
I don't want to be unreasonable, but to be honest, I'm panicing at how much money we spent and crying that we didn't get what we expected. Now maybe I'm just too picky and I do want to be fair and maybe some of this is due to my ignorance in starting out. Please would someone with more experience let me know one way or another.
Janet
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SeaStar
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| Posted: July 03 2007 at 6:10pm | IP Logged
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Oh, Janet! I am so sorry to hear you had a bad experience. At the price of the materials, you expect good quality. I am still waiting for my order (had to delay shipping since I was out of town), so I can't give you any comparisons, just lots of sympathy. I'll be praying that the company works this out for you.
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ALmom
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| Posted: July 03 2007 at 7:05pm | IP Logged
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Well, thank you and Mackfam for prayers. The company just returned my second call. After a disappointing initial contact from the company, my dh came home and measured every single piece with a tape measure. When we had numbers, the company immediately said they would be sending replacements and shipping label for these items (most of the things but they are making it good). I'm not sure about the beads, but it wasn't a huge investment and will be usuable when it is replaced. Mine may not have been laying right due to the original defect and they are being replaced. If I'm not 100% pleased, I'll simply check out Mackfarms and order from them for the rest of my beads.
I thought about the insets and looked again and other than the sticky oval, they are really beautiful and as dh said, you have to have enough space to get the insets in and out of the tray  so that one was me being panicy. I'm calmer now, though I think what I will ask next time is where is your factory. If it is in China, I'm going elsewhere at whatever price and I'm not paying much attention to company name, it all changes every time they change a factory. Just my opinion.
Janet
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Mackfam
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| Posted: July 03 2007 at 7:30pm | IP Logged
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Janet -
Just got through checking all my stuff and thought I'd respond to you here rather than email in case anyone else encountered something similar. Here goes...
My beads are from Montessori Concepts - I'm pleased. My unit of 10 beads is shorter than the unit of 100, it has to be because the 100 unit has the two spacers that hold the unit together and that adds a smidge to the overall length. They do still stack fairly nicely on top of the 100 unit. The beads themselves are all shaped nicely and uniform.
My metal insets are from Kid Advance - again I'm very happy. All of the insets fit nicely, not too snug, not too loose. They are all in good shape in terms of paint, and the knobs are a brass or metal, not plastic, and they are all centered in the shape. The insets do NOT fit exactly in the space provided on the tracing tray. There is approximately 1 cm of space on 2 sides, and I believe this is as your dh pointed out, to be able to get your fingers in there and remove the inset.
My red and blue number rods are the same as yours. Mine are from Kid Advance again. There are a couple that don't match up exactly in terms of paint lines being exact. I took them out to take a closer look. I have the small set that comes with 2 sets of rods. When looking closely at the number 3 rods from both sets side by side, you can tell that they just spray painted a quantity of number 3 rods all together because my two were identical. It seemed to just be those rods, not the whole set though.
Kid Advance has not yet shipped my replacement of knobbed cylinders, and I have to admit I'm holding my breath here. He said he'd ship with my binomial cube which was on backorder til sometime this month. So...I can't tell you if they have satisfied me there, but all in all I've been surprised to tell you the truth with their quality! I really expected to be getting lesser quality since I was shopping at the cheapest source I could find.
Bottom line - I think your insets are ok in terms of fitting into the tracing tray, and I'm betting the number rods will all be about the same - somewhat off on some of the colors (disappointing huh?) Your beads sound defective to me because of some of the shape issues and cracking, stickiness we talked about earlier, but I think the 10 unit is going to be shorter than the 100 unit because of the spacers.
I'm so sorry this happened. How utterly disappointing when you were so enthusiastic and excited. I don't think that this quality exists across the board, though I think you're right that we all have been taking some chances ordering from the cheaper Montessori providers.
I'm praying for this situation to be resolved quickly and in a way that gives you peace and satisfaction.
__________________
Jen Mackintosh
Wife to Rob, mom to dd 19 , ds 16, ds 11, dd 8, and dd 3
Wildflowers and Marbles
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lapazfarm
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| Posted: July 03 2007 at 7:34pm | IP Logged
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Wow, Janet! That is awful!What company is giving you such a hard time? I seem to recall you ordered from MO and Alisons, the same 2 companies I ordered from with fantastic results and service. Though I ordered different materials. I hope it all works out for you, but I agree it is such a pain to have to box it up and send it back. Ugh!
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Theresa
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ALmom
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| Posted: July 03 2007 at 9:38pm | IP Logged
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Well I am much happier now. The company is making it good and after seeing Jennifer's post, I think everything will be fine in the end. (Thank you so much for the information). I think that I really miscommunicated so other than the disappointment with so many defects in the order, I miscommunicated - not having enough knowledge on some things and thinking they were defective and then giving too generic information on some things that were. I guess I measured and inspected the rods more carefully after I had the broken off bead and the inset that didn't fit at all, so I was looking very closely. I started comparing everything to pictures in Bruins or Niehaus and so some of the things I started worrying about, really weren't problems as my dh pointed out.
This was probably a peanuts order for MO, but for me it was a huge investment and one we were really stretching to make. They were quick to acknowledge and volunteer to replace all the defective items. The intial fear I had related to the numerical rods, but my dh pointed out that I had been rather generic with my complaint here (paint didn't match up) and after also wondering about the inset tray and some other things that were not defects, they probably thought I was ignorant and maybe trying to get freebies. As soon as I had specific measurements, MO immediately said it was defective and they would replace both rod sets in addition to Intro to Decimal and the tight metal inset. When I asked about the length of wait for my replacements they said they'd just send out the replacements and place the label in this for my returns - so I could inspect the new material before sending back what I had. That is very kind of them, seeing as I have never ordered from them before and they don't have any knowledge of my reliability.
Hearing about the beads from Montessori Concepts from Jennifer, I think I'll end up being very, very happy with mine when they come in. There definitely was one broken hundred and some warping on the 10 beads and some glue stickiness on the hundreds but this is something MO identified as defective and were replacing from the start. I'm glad to know the difference in length is normal, so I think the trouble I had with mine laying in the box was related to the defect/warp and not the beads themselves. (It was my ignorance that was making me nervous about this item). The color is absolutely gorgeous. (It is hard to wrap them up and not look at it).
MO is checking each and every one of my replacement items before shipping (they just cannot check the original backordered items so I'll still have to see what happens when all of that comes in), and were very, very happy to replace once I had dimensions on the two rod sets. He said this is the first time they have had a problem like that - but he also told me how they just bought a factory in China and they own the factory. I'll be watching to see if they can get the quality control at the factory under control, but I guess I will give them a chance to work out the bugs with the new factory since they do really stand by their products. The quality is otherwise top notch. Vibrant bead colors, the vivid paint is very smooth and beautiful and looks like it will last a long, long time.
The hardest part is shipping it all back since it is so beautiful otherwise, and, of course there is a certain amount of time and inconvenience and stress when things are not just so - especially when the items are so expensive and I am so not patient. Patience is not one of my strong points so I'll be trying to offer that part up for all of the 4real requests that are so much more serious than a little snag in my order. Thank you all so much for helping me achieve some sort of perspective here.
Everything should be fine in the end. I hate to be so picky, but I have to have accurate measurements on my rods considering the ages of my dc and the expense of this whole thing(it was the primary reason I ordered from MO - they kept saying they made to AMI specifications) - also we will be doing a lot of measuring and calculations with this in a short time and I cannot afford compounding of error. Since he is shipping without waiting for my defectives and trusting me to be honest and return them in good shape as soon as I get the replacements, it shouldn't be that big of a delay. I am boxing them up now so we do get them back in exactly the same condition in which they arrived.
Everything MO said indicates that this is truely an unusual glitch. I know we weighed all the positive comments about quality very highly so even from the 4real comments, this must be an unusual thing. I don't want anyone to feel badly about MO, but it was disconcerting to have so much wrong - and evidently it was for them too and a bit hard to believe at first till I had measurements. They really are standing by the products and are replacing everything that is truely defective.
I have not received anything from Alisons yet. They were very, very kind and helpful when I placed my order, but since I haven't seen it yet, I cannot say what quality. I almost ordered everything from them but just ended up splitting up and doing geography from them and one other thing and the rest from MO since MO had a 25% sale that gave us quite a significant savings for what we believed was equivalent quality (of course I have no idea one way or another since I have not gotten anything from Allisons yet). Allisons had volunteered to put as many instructions/albums in with my manipulatives as possible which was very kind and had the price been close, we would have just ordered all from one place.
I was shocked by shipping on both. Allisons turned out to be about 25% of the order and MO was 20%. MO advertises set amount plus 10%, but the 10% is on the regular price, not the sale price. Basically, shipping was very close between both places. (I did not order the geography cabinet as dh is going to make that for me so we can fit every puzzle in it and not just 12)
Well thanks everyone. I'll try to be patient!!!
Janet
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chicken lady
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| Posted: July 03 2007 at 9:40pm | IP Logged
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THat is so frustrating, do let us know if they make it right!
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Kristin
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| Posted: July 03 2007 at 10:22pm | IP Logged
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I really feel for all that you've been through with this!  But it does sound like it's going to work out okay in the end --- WHEW!  Please do let us know what the outcome is!
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lapazfarm
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| Posted: July 04 2007 at 12:06am | IP Logged
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I am so glad it is all turning out OK. I was starting to feel bad about recommending them so highly. All of our stuff from them was so gorgeous, but it needs to be consistently so!
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Theresa
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LaPaz Home Learning
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Jordan
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| Posted: July 04 2007 at 7:01am | IP Logged
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Janet,
I'm sorry your order wasn't what you were expecting. I had a similar experience ordering materials last year from another online store. The quality wasn't what I expected but I didn't have anything else with which to compare.
I hope the replacements MO sends are much better. I also placed a recent order with them so we'll see how that turns out.
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Jordan
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Meredith
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| Posted: July 06 2007 at 11:19am | IP Logged
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OH JANET, big hugs here!!! I'm so sorry you had so much stress over this! I'm so glad the company is making good and I would remind them of all the silent onlookers here who might be making purchasing decisions based on their choices and our recommendations. You'd be surprised at how their customer service can change when they know how many people will be shopping with them (or NOT!) I do hope you will be happy with what you've chosen and do ask more questions if you have concerns about how to use something! Many blessings to you and God Bless your dh for being so calming for you
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Meredith
Mom of 4 Sweeties
Sweetness and Light
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4Real Forums : Nurturing the Years of Wonder
Topic: Montessori materials
