[TenTec] 30 day Return Policy

[Tommy]

Please read this, if you are so inclined, in it's entirety before responding.
************************************

I would be very pleased if you or your friend Tommy would post this 
response on the TT reflector relating to the deluge of comments that 
ensued over TT's 30-day Return Policy.  Please feel free to copy and 
past it verbatum, and with my name and call sign associated with 
it.  I want people to hear my side of the story straight from the 
horse's mouth.  Thanks for your kind consideration.

73,

Bob, KW4CQ


For Public Release 7/27/2005

TT's refusal to sell me an Orion II, by Bob, KW4CQ

Dear Orion (and Jupiter) owners. I posted my story about TT's refusal 
to sell me an Orion II with only one purpose in mind and that was 
simply to bring to the public's attention precisely what happened to 
me. I am not trying to be vindictive or put a spin on the facts. I 
will let you be the judge as to whether TenTec's practice of black 
listing former customers is ethically acceptable or not to you. There 
is no "rest of the story". What I have told you are the facts, which 
I will attempt to clarify and expand on here.

I ordered a Jupiter from TT several years ago, which was delivered 
and found to have an instability problem. TT generously replaced it 
with a second Jupiter, which was found to have significant birdies 
and low sensitivity on bands 17 through 10 meters. I called them to 
explain this and they agreed to refund my money after sending back 
the Jupiter, which I did of course. I never received an explanation 
from TT on the cause of the problems reported in the two Jupiters. 
Not hearing from them with an explanation, and not realizing at this 
point I had been black listed from ever buying products from them 
again, I wrote a critical review on the Jupiters and TT and posted 
this on eHam's Equipment Reviews under "Jupiter" transceivers. I 
would recommend that no one contemplating doing business with TT ever 
post negative reviews on eHam least you too get black listed by TT.

As to why I would want to buy a very expensive Orion II, let me say 
this. I have carefully studied all the posts on 
http://lists.contesting.com/archives/html/TenTec/2005-07/index.html 
and elsewhere regarding the Orion II and considering that TT has had 
ample time to work the bugs out of their original Orion firmware, I 
decided I would take the plunge. Little did I know at that time that 
TT would refuse my order. You see, I had more faith in their $4,000 
Orion II product quality and performance then they have apparently. 
Well, that thought has gone up in smoke now.  As many of you 
correctly pointed out; they didn't dare want to take a chance on my 
returning it or writing a negative review on eHam. I was so convinced 
they had the right product this time that I was even willing to buy 
the $4,000 Orion II without the protection of their 30-day return 
privilege. How dumb can I get some may ask?

So now you know the rest of the story. But just be careful what you 
write about TT on eHam's equipment reviews. TT is watching you and 
keeping score.  The world needs critics; movie critics, book critics, 
magazine critics, political critics, and even ham equipment 
critics.  If we were to give up our right to criticize  (pro or con) 
those things we have paid good money for wouldn't it be a wonderful 
world for those who only too willing to take our hard earned 
money?  Better to be informed by a critical review to aid you my 
fellow radio amateurs to making an intelligent purchasing decision 
than to be sorry later on.  Oh well, like Lee Iacocca said on TV, "If 
you can find a better transceiver, buy it", or something like 
that.  Maybe there is a lot to be said about eHam's policy of 
allowing chicken-hearted reviewers to log on with an Anonymous 
identification and no call sign.