ANS Gear hates their customers.

[pghp8ntballer]

After reading through all the back and forth convos, I’m fairly certain ANS is actually a subdivision of Comcast.

I have had conversations via chat service with Comcast that were literally that idiotic.

Glad this got resolved. Luckily I’ve never had issues with ANS, but I always keep this potential in the back of my mind... which limits my dealings.

[MuKen]

Christ what a bunch of assholes. Next time order one of these to put in the picture alongside the gun to prove that there's nothing funky with your camera and make it clear what a bunch of liars they are.

https://www.amazon.com/PUBLISHING-Notions-Essential-Color-Companion/dp/B01LQSORL2

[gabe]

Qualification here: I work in customer service and deal with customers like you quite a lot. I am the main tech support/customer support person in an aircraft parts sales company where if someone were to wave around the fact they bought a $1000 part we would laugh because that amounts to a set of spark plugs.

First off, you're writing novels when a few sentences would do. The CS guy is fully aware of how pissed you are and at some point insulting comments and calling him/her color blind is not helping your case at all. There becomes a point after the first multi-paragraph email that the CS person just skims your emails as to catch the high points because you're just verbally flailing about and trying to sound smart or important. Also don't wave around how much your gun cost and ESPECIALLY do no bring up what you may have (but didn't) buy in the future. It's a red herring argument and you both know you're not going to make those purchases now so ANS is at no risk of you continuing to be their customer so why bother to try and sooth you over. Basically you're a customer service nightmare.

From what I can tell the root of the issue is that you obviously didn't get the color you wanted and ANS is definitely not able to deliver the product you paid for. That leaves only a couple options: return the gun or keep it. ANS probably sent a few of these guns out for anno, got them back, some shipping person screwed up and sent you a pink one instead of purple and by the time all is said and done they sold the other purple guns and they don't have another to make things right with you.

Now on the other hand the CS person being obstuse, dishonest, and (this is the worst) allowing it to devolve into a tech/color matching argument is foolish. You can both tell what the issue is; it's not lighting, it's not anno dye, and it's not colorblindness. The gun is the wrong color. This is an amateur customer service mistake when you are afraid to just break bad news but I would imagine also management doesn't give this guy a lot of options so he's stalling you off to see how much you really want to come to a conclusion or if you'll drop it. Basicallly bad on both sides.

PSA for dealing with customer service personnel: they are people stuck between a pissed off customer and a company that probably doesn't give them the leeway needed to fix your problem right away. Anno takes time, costs money, and diverts already overworked people and it's easier to take the loss and refund your order than run down another batch of purple. Big one here: when communicating keep it professional, don't insult and for the love of god KEEP IT CONCISE. Don't think you can talk your way into a better situation. There's not pot of gold here, just keep or return the gun and mark this one up as a negative against ANS. They're a big company and the larger a company gets the less flexibility they have to deal with issues. They don't hate their customers and they're not out to screw you, they just don't have the options available to make this 100% right in your eyes.

[William the Third]

This is in response to the 01:53 EDT edit.

Yeah, context is important. In some context, $1,000 isn't a lot, in others, like the paintball world, it can be a fairly good amount. As such, dropping nearly $600 only to get the wrong item after waiting three months, and a CS rep that really has no interest in rectifying the situation, is a pretty big deal. I didn't bring up the cost of future purchases without reason. I won't claim it was a great, or even good reason, but I am a man of my word, and did have every intention of making every purchase I claimed. It was my intention to show that I wanted to work this out with ANS in a way that was favorable for all parties. I won't deny I can be customer service nightmare, but only after you try to bullshit me. You'll notice that everything only started going south after the 2021-03-30 email from ANS. Had ANS just said from the beginning that yes, it was the incorrect color, and no, they didn't know if they would ever have the correct color in stock again, then offered to send me a return label and fully reimburse me, things would have been different. It also would have helped had they just told me back in December 2020, rather than take my money and hold it for three months, send me the incorrect item, only to deny it was the incorrect item. Jerking me around really tends to piss me off.

Anyway, I am a masochist, and if ANS were to get the correct purple resurrection, and an orange sniper, I'd still totally buy them. There is still a good chance I'll probably buy everything else anyway, because as I stated, ANS is the Walmart (or maybe Amazon is more accurate) of the paintball world, and thus unavoidable. Too bad they don't have Walmart's customer service, which I haven't had to deal with, but I'm told is great. I have dealt with Amazon customer service a few times, and it has always been great. After all, ANS has screwed up about half of my orders, and their customer service has been a mixed bag. The previous order I placed with ANS was also messed up with the incorrect color sent, which ANS corrected in a way that actually got me to make an additional purchase that I hadn't intended to make.

Only was it suggested that he might be colorblind after he insulting suggested that it was actually the correct color all along when looked at under "normal" lights, and that I was taking deceptive pictures. As for "verbally flailing about and trying to sound smart or important", I don't agree. As I said, I'm a detail oriented person, and I am under no delusions that I am smart or important. However, what I am is a person who doesn't like bullshit, and doesn't like claims that I am taking deceptive picture, or that under "normal" light everything was correct all along. If they're going to make obviously incorrect claims/accusations, I am going to defend myself. As I stated in one email, don't piss on my leg and tell me it's raining.

[William the Third]

Anyway, I just wanted to make it clear that I took no offense to your post (though it would appear otherwise, what with this being my third comment), nor feel it was too harsh (the original, nor the edit). You made valid observations/suggestions, and I won't deny that I could have handled it better. Hell, the whole situation could have been handled better by all. And I can't deny that the subject was massively hyperbolic. However, after being jerked around, and blatantly lied to, one doesn't always make the best decisions. The hilarious part is the reaction of everyone I know locally. When they learned that I'd ordered it, only for it to be put on back-order a couple of days later, the general consensus was that ANS was going to screw it up somehow.

[gabe]

I'm glad you didn't take offense, or at least too much. I normally take the side of CS people as I am one and have seen thousands of interactions like this transpire with the inevitable outcome being always negative.

You're definitely right that the CS person didn't follow the "rules" of customer service engagements and make any sort of clear offer of restitution but continued to be defensive. If you read between the lines and get in their head you can kind of see it but it's definitely not clear. I would assume that since paintball isn't the most lucrative business (ANS is probably a $1MM/year or less company) they don't exactly attract top flight customer service reps who know how to direct a conversation in a way that keeps it constructive instead of just finger pointing. In any case after re-reading the exchange I either feel bad for the guy as I can almost feel management in the background telling him to stall you off and make the issue go away....or the dude is being purposefully belligerent.

You're in the right in this situation as it's obviously a pink gun and I don't know why the guy wrestled so much with that. This isn't a "what color is the dress" situation, you can very much tell it's pink. I guess my own verbal flailing late at night was to point out to prospective peoples that would deal with customer service to try and be kind and don't escalate a bad situation. By coming on hard on the guy you almost put him in an even more defensive posture and build an even larger roadblock to getting a resolution to this.

Make a firm ask of them, and preferably several different options. Perhaps lay out that you would accept a return but that would limit future business with ANS, or alternately return the gun and get a 10% discount on a custom gun of another type/color (companies love keeping the money in-house), or buy another gun-and have them verify that it's in stock and ready to ship-and roll the money into that gun. All of these would be reasonable conclusions and give the CS person something to take to management as options on how to resolve this and save some time and public image.