bee suits

[James Gauthier]

I have ordered a pair of pants and sent money. Then I ordered a complete suit and paid by paypal and have received nothing. It has been almost a year pertaining to the pants and more than a month about the suit and still I have nothing. I have e-mailed him and called him to no avail. Anyone out there have any such experience. This was ordered with Magnet Man

[swabby]

I know he had some medical problems sometime ago.I have not had recent contact with him.I suppose this is not very helpful in your situation. Have you searched his last activity on beesource?

[alpha6]

Go to paypal fraud/resolution dept. They should be able to give you your money back. As far as the cash sent...good luck with that.

[no1cowboy]

Magnet Man was last on Yesterday 09:34 PM his home page is
http://www.honeymoonapiaries.com

[Ben Brewcat]

He can be pretty frustrating to work with from a traditional customer-service perspective, I had the same delays and frustrations but based on my and others' experiences he comes through and you'll be happy with the product. Just don't expect anything close to Amazon.com service :). I'll order from him again, but like the season before I need the product.

[rweakley]

Go to paypal fraud/resolution dept. They should be able to give you your money back. As far as the cash sent...good luck with that.


Why go straight to the fraud aspect? I have heard enough on here about magnet man, to know that this is probably a case of a simple mistake. Go to the website listed and or Call him. I'm sure this can be worked out. Sounds like his product is almost worth waiting a year for. When I get my next suit it will be from him.

Rod

[KQ6AR]

Bill's a good guy, I got 2 jackets from him about 3 weeks ago. It took him 2 weeks to respond to me because he's busy, but everything went smooth.

I don't think he makes pants yet, their in the R&D phase still. Are you sure you got the right guy?

[terri lynn]

I ordered a jacket from him and had to change sizes. Each took a while to receive (3-4 weeks) but he was great about wanting me to be happy with the correct size. I had hoped to have it for the 100-110 degree temps we've had here this summer, so was very antsy. Ben Brewcat is right on the money. I wish I'd made the committment and ordered earlier. Keep in mind he's a pretty small business and I believe works elsewhere as well. I think he takes extra time on the suits also, to ensure quality. He also told me himself that he can be forgetful, so I'm sure that accounts for your problem. I sure fraud doesn't enter in at all. He's trying to build a business.

[bhfury]

I know he had some medical problems sometime ago.I have not had recent contact with him.I suppose this is not very helpful in your situation. Have you searched his last activity on beesource?

Last time on the board was Last Activity: 08-11-2009 09:34 PM. Also, he is a moderator.

[CaneyCreekFarm]

We are new beekeepers, but we had a very pleasant experience ordering from Magnet Man. I ordered a full suit for my husband as a birthday gift and though I only got the idea and ordered one week before his birthday, we had the suit only a little over a week after. And Mr. Samples was very friendly and helpful to me in selecting the right size and getting it ordered.

Best of all, my husband absolutely loves the Ultra Breeze. He wanted a full suit as he is kind hypersensitive to stings (and is a bee, wasp, hornet magnet), and he says he can quickly throw it on over whatever he has on from skivies to Carhartts and be comfortable, cool, and protected too. Also, the visibility from the hood is so much better than the old hat/veil combo. If I can figure out how to put in photo links, I'll show you how it looks. He is 6'1" and about 195 lb, wide in the shoulders and narrow in the hips (see, hardly any bum at all) and it gives him plenty of working room. The workmanship on the suit is nearly unbelievable in today's era of manufactured throw-aways.

Anyway, I hope you work it out and get your Ultra Breeze products. They can't be beat in our book. The fabric is amazing -- NO stings since he got the suit. And even if the bee stings the suit, the stinger doesn't hang and pull out of the bee in the net-waffle-net fabric, so you don't have another squadron of screaming valkyries out to revenge their fallen sister attacking you!
http://photobucket.com/CaneyCreekFarm/P7050094
http://photobucket.com/CaneyCreekFarm/P7050095
http://photobucket.com/CaneyCreekFarm/P7050096

[Hambone]

Hey James,

Sorry your having this problem! I see you are a new poster, so welcome to the forum. I hope this gets resolved soon. I would not be happy either.

Just to add fuel to the fire. Seeing your location. You probably could have drove over and picked up a Golden.

I think this thread belongs in the consumer report though. :scratch:

[magnet-man]

James, sorry for not getting back to you. I have been very busy with my day job and lost my contract seamstress. Your suit was boxed last Wednesday and shipped Thursday. With everything going on I have not been able to finish developing the pants and never cashed your check. I will send your check back to you.

I do understand how frustrating it can be not to get something when you expect it. I really should have gotten back to you sooner.

[magnet-man]

I need to address a few items about this thread. James approached me about pants a few months after he purchased his jacket. At that time I told him I was developing them but was not close to selling any. James approached me several more times over the months about them and I finally said OK. I would use him as a guinea pig on the prototype and said I would charge him $50 for the pants. I believe that was two to three months ago. I would also like to point out that his check has not been cashed. I did not have James' $50 for a year, he only approached me about the pants a year ago.

James also mentioned that he placed his order for a suit over a month ago. He is mistaken. He placed his order according to Paypal on July 30th at 12:03. His suit was boxed and the label printed on Aug. 12, 2009 21:20:03 PDT and delivered to the UPS store on the 13th. UPS is schedule to deliver this Monday.



As a rule if an item is not in stock it takes two weekend cycles to produce. The material is cut out and the seamstress picks it up that weekend and returns it the following weekend. Do orders take longer than two weeks if it is not in stock. I am afraid it does some time as some of you are aware. If an order is shipped back to be a custom size that will take longer for a couple of reasons. One is that I tend to do those and second my memory is failing. I don't know why but I have my suspicions about my memory. But that doesn't make it any less frustrating for those that have a longer than normal wait.

Regarding orders that take a long time, I usually issue a discount or include a bonus in the shipment as some of you are well aware. As some of you know I have a regular day job since making bee apparel would not support my family.

Regarding my problem with my seamstress. I had a long talk with her and have agreed to pay her an additional $10 per suit and $5 per jacket inorder to be put back on the 1st customer priority list. I got classified as a back burner customer several months ago after I declined the requested price increase. So the good news is that things should get out the door quicker now. The bad new is there is going to be a price increase of $10 and $5 come January 1st.

I know that $245 for a suit is a lot of money, so I will be offering a down graded version of the suit come January. After speaking to the seamstress I expect I can offer the suit for $220 if I drop the zippers on the legs. Brass zippers are expensive and it takes a lot of time to put those zippers in.

When will pants be ready? Not until some time next year. There are 500 white suspenders waiting for pants in my shop now. Nobody wants pants done more than me. Those suspenders were not cheap.

Finally I hope to have tall sizes as a stock item next year. That is a hope and not a promise. The X Small and the 2X Small jackets are being discontinued because of lack of demand.

[Sundance]

Thanks Bill for clearing this up. We all are guilty of
having a McDonalds/Amazon expectation of getting
something. I remember that well when I ran a small
restaurant. Folks couldn't understand why it took
15 to 20 minutes for a hamburger (fresh ground
daily and charbroiled at order). Quality is worth
the wait. And having purchased a jacket from you
quality is top notch.

I am also glad you're going to offer a suit without
leg zippers. My GoldenBee has no zippers and it's
never been a problem in the least.

Keep up the great work.:gh:

[oldenglish]

I have not ordered a suit, but I appreciate the explanations.
I saw one of these suits in use this weekend and I think the money will be well worth it, I sweat like a pig in my current jacket on just warm days.

Have you considered trying to get a larger supplier to make these under license ?

[magnet-man]

The suits are very labor intensive to make because of the three layers and the volume in terms of contract sewing is very small. With such a small volume I would be on the very very back burner. I did contact two firms and minimum order ran around 1,000 with a four to six month lead time. Labor cost more than double using them.

If I was in the LA or New York area, finding in home people with industrial machines would not be a problem. In Tulsa they are few and far between.

My current seamstress does a quality job with normally good lead times. She just had more profitable business that came before me and that has been fixed.