They send catalogs to "preferred customers" who have no need for them, while the only way everyone else can get them is to buy from these scalpers...=20 (They've gone for as much as $76.00 in completed auctions)
To reply, please remove one letter from each side of "@" Spammers are VERMIN. Please kill them all.
Doug Warner wrote: ...
YOW! So, you people who are lucky enough to have them sent to you, ask yourself: "Do I want this catalog enough to give up the $75 I could get for it on eBay"? The catalog or $75, you have the choice.
Bob
On Sat, 29 Jan 2005 01:02:23 -0500, the inscrutable Doug Warner spake:
I got my older copy (104) from a nice gent here on RCM for $2.31, the exact cost of Media Mail shipping. Ask around.
I think it's McMC's way of extending their mystique. So far, it seems to be working.
======================================================== TANSTAAFL: There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.
Doug Warner wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:
Yikes, I had no idea. They just send them to us. I've got hundreds of catalogs from various companies. Do people buy others? Or is this a McMaster Carr thing? What do people pay for the previous years catalog?
Dan
if you spend enough money they send it to you, takes a while. I remember getting a little msity when my first one arrived.....
look, the new mcmaster carr catalog is here, I'm SOMEBODY!!!
Dan Murphy wrote:
McMaster-Carr is fine to deal with if you just order from their site and like what you get. If you need to call or email them for something special, god help you because they've got some of the rudest customer service people I've ever had the displeasure of dealing with. I don't know what the deal is with the catalog snobbery. If it were so expensive to print, they would just sell them. Making them hard to get and letting ebayers profit off them is NOT helping their business. The fewer people that have your catalog, the fewer orders you get--that is a basic business fact. The notion of mystique getting them extra business is fantasy.
MSC automatically sends me their newest catalog every year, and they automatically get my respect and business whenever I have the choice. That is fact.
That's not been my experience, at least with the folks in the Chicago operation. They were responsive to special ordering a $15 item for me a while back and responded (at 2:00 am!) to an email complaint for an item which was lost in shipping. They replaced the missing item on the following Tuesday with no hassles at all.
Mike
Because of where I am, I'm dealing primarily with the NJ branch. I recently purchased a pop-off valve that arrived damaged. They sent me out a replacement right away, but charged my account twice for it. They seems to think they shipped two replacements by mistake also, and keep sending me past-due invoices for the 2nd phantom valve. It's 3 months now and they have still not credited my account for the return either.
I also had a recent problem with a custom order too. I read in their online catalog that they will make custom springs. It took me hours to draft my spring in CAD and I sent it to them. Two days later I get back an email from their LA branch that says "No bid." That's the complete reply. I replied to this asking them to elaborate and explain what the problem is. The reply I get: "We decline to offer on this spring". Huh?? I sent them a very simple and not-at-all-unusual closed and ground compression spring design from a standard size music wire. I emailed again asking what it was about my drawing that made them decline. No reply. In the end, I placed my order with Century Spring. I will not be bothering with McMaster again for anything that's not in their catalog.
I have one more complaint too--they don't put manufacturers names or model numbers in their catalog. I wanted to get an exact replacement part once, and I had to have my inquiry forwarded to 3 people before I got them to cough up the manufacturer model # for a part in their catalog. Why this basic (and often critical) information is not in the catalog or available to the phone sales people is beyond me.
Yowza.. I give my old McMaster catalogs away. I once asked for their catalog on CD-ROM. The Cleveland branch shot one out the next day. Why pay for something they give away on the internet?
Some people have all the luck.....or something. The only time I tried to sell anything on Ebay, a bunch of new parallel machine files, I could not get a nibble for ten bucks. Maybe if I asked for seventy-five someone would have bid.
Yeah I just went through that with a Lee Spring that I had bought from them. Tried searching by Mfr. part #, no hits. I had to go through allmy records to find the item. Probably do not like to name their sources because on some items,they are really like a boutique. $$$$
PolyTech Forum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.