It would be real easy to turn this into a big long argument. I shouldn't but I will.
Kenny your user rights will not be revoked for speaking out, you are not going to be run off this board. You are going to be encouraged to stay, Only one person here has the horse powder to actually ban you. He will have a great big internet fist fight with me if he tries and I don't think he is even considering it. Graybeard and I have argued before. The day that he runs someone off for speaking out, I follow you! And I believe many on this board will be right with us. Bill may be a cranky O.F. sometimes, but he is fair. You are only going leave because you choose.
Have I been eating a bit off humble pie? No I have not!
Am I apologetic, yes I am.
But you hold some culpability in the tenor of this thread also.
You are well with in your bounds to ask if anyone else had any problems and wait for the response. That’s part of the research I suggest in the Caveat.
We would have found out Brooks has communication issues. We could have worked to resolve the issue amicably.
But you had to add, "I'm wondering if I got rooked." Now I don't know what that means to your generation, but to my generation that means "I'm wondering if I got cheated"
If you had left that statement out, this thread would have ended long ago.
There was nothing stated in your post that supported that you were about to get cheated.
Given what had been posted on the board about Brooks at that time there was no reason to suspect you where about to be anything but very happy with a very nice cannon. Actually there still isn’t reason to suspect that.
Your implication that Brooks was about to cheat you was and still is unfounded and uncalled for.
It sure didn't appear to me you heeded the Caveat I posted before you ordered. You pinned down neither the order timeline nor the phone number
before you ordered. If you had you would have never made the post at all. Did you even communicate with Brooks at all before the order? How was that communication? Did he respond to your email and furnish you with phone numbers, and delivery schedules?
When you queried the board you found no complaints about Brooks, because no one had reported problems to the board or the Moderators. You should have posted a question on the board about Brooks before you ordered. You would have found there were problems just showing up.
If my staunch defense of Brooks at then time it was made was incorrect, why did you order from them. You ordered from Brooks because at the time you ordered Brooks reputation was excellent.
Your statement “sponsorship is thicker than readership, and it's more important to keep a sponsor than to keep a board user.” Is also unfounded and I find it a bit offensive and it couldn’t be further from the truth.
As far as sponsor goes as long as they are honest and up right I will support them. The second I think they are cheating someone or not tending to business I will be after Graybeard to take them down. The Sponsors play by the rules on this board. The only thing they can do that you can’t is offer things for sale on the board.
I know Graybeard feels the same way about this as he has refused a sponsor for our board due the questionable website they had. Didn’t matter that they changed hosting service, they still tried to lie to him and they don’t advertise on Graybeards.
You Idea about a sponsor notifying the Moderators about business problems is a good one. I wish Brooks had told us earlier.
The Caveat Emptor about doing business on the internet stands. You have to protect yourself. I originally wrote that caveat for my Martini list at
http://www.martinihenry.com/links.htm after an Internet supplier who was on the list bilked Martini shooters out of thousands of dollars in shooting supplies. I modified it for the cannon list when the issues with Cannon Mania came up.
It stands as fair warning to protect you.
When writing messages on the internet it is very difficult to communicate voice inflection and facial expression, both part of good communication.
When I read your message what I read was that you had 2 weeks before placed a direct order on Brooks website with no prior contact and felt you were about to be cheated. That is the message you conveyed to me. Two weeks is not sufficient time to receive an order and not a reasonable time to feel cheated.
If that is not the message you intended to convey, then again you have my apology, but that is the message, I got.
Enough of this, lets put this to rest and get back talking cannons.
