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I've been buying from them for years. Great company to do bidness with! They get two thumbs up from me.
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www.micromatic.com

Purchased a few items from them this morning.

Shipping notice within 6 hours and I should have a package on my doorstep on Friday, two days after ordering.

Refreshing
 
I just wanted to let people know that the customer service hasn't improved much in the last month or 2.

I ordered a single keg kit & a temp controller on 7/23.. received most of my order on 8/8.. it's now 8/13 I still don't have a shank & tailpiece to mount my faucet. I asked Tom to overnight the missing parts and he said there would be an additional charge if I wanted them shipped overnight. Needless to say, I'm very disappointed with this company since I believed his line that "most orders ship in 3 days".
 
Purchased a few items from them this morning.

Shipping notice within 6 hours and I should have a package on my doorstep on Friday, two days after ordering.

Refreshing

Ya gotta love www.micromatic.com when it comes to customer service and pretty good prices on kegging equipment. :rockin:
 
Needless to say, I'm very disappointed with this company since I believed his line that "most orders ship in 3 days".

Well, it's technically true. After he took his sweet time packaging my order up for a month, UPS took 3 days to deliver the items to my door.

:mad::mad::mad::mad:
 
Well, it's technically true. After he took his sweet time packaging my order up for a month, UPS took 3 days to deliver the items to my door.

:mad::mad::mad::mad:

eh - ships in 3 days means that it is out of his hands in 3 days. I have met Tom and thought he was a nice enough guy, but I am not going to even try and defend this to you all. It is unacceptable business. I think he has basically bitten off more than his current part time business model can chew and I hope he fixes it before its too late.
 
Purchased a few items from them this morning.

Shipping notice within 6 hours and I should have a package on my doorstep on Friday, two days after ordering.

Refreshing

eh - ships in 3 days means that it is out of his hands in 3 days. I have met Tom and thought he was a nice enough guy, but I am not going to even try and defend this to you all. It is unacceptable business. I think he has basically bitten off more than his current part time business model can chew and I hope he fixes it before its too late.

Yep, it is a shame if that is the case as he has lost the trust of many potential customers by taking so freaking long to ship orders. No one can expect to stay in business doing that unless they were the only one selling the stuff. Great prices don't merit your money being tied up for a month or so waiting for the stuff when customers could spend a couple bucks more, get their stuff right away and start enjoying it.
 
+1 for micromatic....

The only issue I had was apparently my isp wouldn't let the email updates through, but that wasn't a big deal since I could just call them and they were more than helpful (even after I called for the third time because I kept losing my tracking #'s... hehe)
 
I've used www.kegworks.com (not to be confused with kegkits) and love using them. My guess is they're not the best prices (although I don't think they're bad) but i get a box with every sinlge thing I ordered in two days tops. It's like they have someone sitting by the computers and sprinting around packing boxes the second the order comes in.

Quality has always been excellent, I think the price is good and the shipping is always really really fast.
 
Sorry I didn't know where else to post this.
Has anyone else ever had trouble with this merchant?
I paid for an order via their website 2 weeks ago (paypal)
I have not gotten any sort of confirmation from them.
Sent them an email asking about this 3 days ago -and no reply at all.
Sent another email today asking to get back to me ASAP or I will need to get in touch with Paypal.
 
Keep harping on them and post your results here. I'm not one for making an issue out of a business making the occasional mistake, but it looks like KegKits has some serious issues.
 
Here we go again on Huntsville based Kegkits.com. Let us know as it seems they take a month to ship orders.

I am guessing they take your money you paid and then place their order for your parts. You wait for them to receive them and then ship them to you.

Folks should call Kegkits.com first and ask if they have something in stock and ask for shipping date commitment (I doubt they will get one).

The alternative is order from a real business like MicroMatic.com - Draft Keg Beer Equipment, Kegerator, Taps and get it in a few days.
 
Some stuff they keep in stock, but some they order in batches when they get enough orders I think......then it takes a while to get it......

I would not order unless I could personally go pick it up when you order...at least from Kegkits.........

Plus I know that Tom is out of town right now......
I called wanting to know if I could get some grain to brew, and he told me.....
 
So after a few days of sending emails and not getting replies and talking to you folks here I decided that I would put in a paypal "dispute" which means paypal sends an email to the merchant to ask "hey whats going on"
And magically I get a reply from Hargreves within the hour.
Says :
we've been very busy...blah blah blah....I'll have someone contact you (and this is the part that kills me - direct quote):

" I’d have my son or other employee in shipping chase this but a typical response from them will be “it shipped” or “I don’t know”. "

So anyway I'll give them to next week to see what happens and then maybe "escalate" the paypal issue to a "claim".
 
cancel the order. it's gonna be a couple weeks before you get anything in the mail.

Just order from micromatic or AHS
 
Placed order 13 Jan; spoke to (presumably Tom) on Friday the 23rd, asking
about status; the claim was that regulators were "on their way" and "it should ship Monday, Tuesday at the latest". It's Tuesday, and no email, and phone calls go to voicemail.

I appreciate how hard it is to run a business from your garage, but, yeah, as folks say, seriously...

I don't see how it's hard to send status saying "this is backordered, due in
on <date>" rather than complete radio silence. Even if you type with two fingers.

:(
 
For some reason I thought to give Tom another shot. Don't know why ... but did it. Ordered some parts I kinda needed weeks ago. After some time I didn't hear from anyone about the status so I decided to email - no response. Emailed again - no response again. Then after another couple of days I filed a claim with PayPal. Same day he replied that the faucet (part of the order) is on back order and should arrive later in the week. Well, I waited until Friday, responded to the claim about the status and he said stuff just arrived. He shipped everything a day later and I had it next day. He upgraded it for free :) Second experience with him was much better than the first one; HOWEVER, if I had the need for parts and knew I really need it at the end of the week or even the week after, I would not order. Simply because communcation does not exist! :( If they actually get that in order and hurry up with the shipments a little bit it might become a decent alternative to other stores
 
FWIW: In response to an urgent email message referencing this thread, Tom says:

Dan,

No excuses - we are a very small company and are buried. I'd love to
hire a 4th person but every time I looked at the cost, hiring someone
else would put us in the red. I've explained this several times. We will
ship your order as soon as possible. Or if you'd rather, you can order
from someone else and pay more for the same stuff.

Please copy this to the forum. I would respond myself if I had time but
I don't.


Thanks, Tom
kegkits.com
256-656-1924
 
I can deal with the waiting, I just can't deal with the "will be within three days" *plus* the "no response". IMO, if you don't have time to answer "where's my stuff", you shouldn't have accepted the order to begin with (and I simply don't believe you "don't have time". "Don't like to deal with email" is more like it.)
 
FWIW: In response to an urgent email message referencing this thread, Tom says:

Dan,

No excuses - we are a very small company and are buried. I'd love to
hire a 4th person but every time I looked at the cost, hiring someone
else would put us in the red. I've explained this several times. We will
ship your order as soon as possible. Or if you'd rather, you can order
from someone else and pay more for the same stuff.

Please copy this to the forum. I would respond myself if I had time but
I don't.


Thanks, Tom
kegkits.com
256-656-1924

No offense, but if he really gave a rat's ass, he'd take the time to make things right and post here. The negative response he is getting here is doing nothing for his business and the fact that more than one person here frequents other boards, it's not going to be contained to HBT for long.
 
Save a few bucks and wait a few weeks or months. Is the savings worth the wait?

Nope. My first experience with him was this way, and I'll never order from him again. I'd rather pay a couple bucks extra and have things in a reasonable amount of time...mostly saved on free/discounted shipping from the big places, if the order is large enough, so there's really no incentive. I mean, at least don't claim that most orders ship in 3 days when the evidence is clearly to the contrary.

I'd wager that if he improved his business practices, he could afford the 4th person...the numbers don't work at his current rate, but pretty soon, bad press is going to make the 3rd person too expensive...etc.

I guess if he's happy just making a couple bucks on the side, there will always be a few to whom time is less of an issue than dollars. This does speak volumes about how much he actually cares about his customers, though. He's offering cheap prices, period. Service and speed come with a price not factored into these.
 
Pity to see service continues to be an on going issue with KegKits and Tom. My order ended up missing a few O-rings but I was so happy to have finally received the order that I ignored it.

Looking through my invoice, I saved maybe $25 on a $250 dollar order over NB, Midwest, or AHS but the almost month long wait ate all of those savings plus some.

Hiring someone part time to pack boxes isn't going to put a viable business into the red. Yet another miss direction instead of customer service. My business was his to win or loose and he's obviously done nothing to win it.
 
Hiring someone part time to pack boxes isn't going to put a viable business into the red. Yet another miss direction instead of customer service.

I agree with all of you that saving sometimes does not outweight the time factor! That's why I usually don't order there either.

However, I think this is a pretty generic statement. While hiring a part-time person might not be as expensive as full-time, it always depends on the situation. If there is a reason he cannot hire another person then he knows why. I think it is wrong to say that he is missleading his customers ...
Don't take it personal ;)
 
I've had the same experience with Tom, but I only waited 3 weeks and no dip tube Orings in my order, but I got them from AHB. I just didn't want to deal with him any more but now I find myself in a tight spot I need some more Pin Lock kegs and Tom seems to be the only guy with them, do I dare try again or does anybody no where I could find some pin lock kegs?
 
If not, go to Adventures in Homebrewing in Dearborn. He helped me get set up for a keg.


Probably my favorite LHBS out of all the ones close to me. I ordered quite a large setup from them, they forgot to send a few parts which I discovered as I was heating my strike water :mad: Called them up and took the hour drive there. When I got there they filled the complete order and knocked 20% off the new keggle and a couple of other things I bought while I was there.. PLUS gave a few ounces of hops. I have had nothing but good experiences with them and will continue to purchase all my equipment there. Unfortuantly for them Titgemiers is right around the corner from my office so I can get ingredients I need the same day I brew.
 
Ok wondering if anyone has had a problem ordering stuff from kegkits? I purchased a 2 keg system with 2 kegs a regulator and a 5lb CO2 tank. They were a great price so I went ahead and ordered. Three weeks go by with no shipping confirmation as promised or nothing coming in mail. I call and get the same voicemail message. I leave a message and no returned call. Finally I try on a Saturday and phone is answered and I was told kegs will be in next week. Another three weeks go by and I finally get everything I ordered. I find out the regulator is defective and try to call again and left message that regulator is broken and to please call me back so I can exchange for a new one. I also wrote an email with no response! After not hearing back from them in over a week I chocked it up as a loss and bought a brand new regulator from midwest that came in 2 days and works great.

I wanted to share my experience with everyone so no one gets stuck dealing with the same bad customer service I was, and that if you get a defective product most likely you will be stuck with it. :mad:
 
Yep ordered from them a big bottle of star san, Basically the same experience, but I did get the right thing. BTW, if you don't mind the wait or lack of communication they have a great price on star san.

I have a feeling that they drop ship everything like buy.com.
 
3 weeks for confirmation? Wow that sucks. I'm not sure how the keg places work. I just ordered a similar setup from Keg Connection. It took them longer than most online retailers to confirm my order and ship, but nothing worth complaining about.
 
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f19/online-ordering-rant-100024/

i ordered January 13th, and this past thursday April 9th i got my single keg. and to top it off it doesnt have a pressure relief valve in the lid, so i dont have an easy way of purging the CO2. i think the only reason i got my keg was because i ended up contacting my credit card company to get the charge removed.

i understand Tom (owner) is busy, but it took what like 4 months for me to get my full order, 2 months in he told me he was going to refund my money and never did. and to top it off, he is just this busy busy busy guy if you talk to him, but i get my AHA emails everyday and he is always responding to people, he even started his own forum on his webpage. i really dont like the guy or the company. i went with them because i always use AHS or Northerbrewer and figured it wouldnt hurt to expand and see who else is out there, and i thought some of his prices were pretty good. so now i use AHS or NB, and also a new place opened up here in Louisville, and the owner is great and its a mile from where i work.
 
Unfortunately, this sort of thing sounds all too common with KegKits.com -- there have been multiple threads to make similar complaints.

I believe Tom is developing a reputation for being notoriously bad at responding to customers. To me it seems odd because he is one of the most frequent posters to the daily AHA Tech Talk email discussion list. Clearly he receives email and responds to it frequently when he wants to.
 
Evan (not Evan!) posted a link to one of the many threads (above) on here about that vendor. It is a tough gray area on a forum as to how to communicate "proceed with caution" warnings to members & virtual friends. If you and I were work colleagues, friends outside of the virtual world, or two homebrewers sitting at a pub sharing a pint we would certainly caution each other as to the risk with a vendor or a bad experience.

But in a forum setting there is too much risk in calling someone out that it is over the top, emotion filled, and not always justified and the damage done to the vendor cant always be repaired.

In this case, I am confident there is enough history with this vendor that I am comfortable saying to all members and lurkers, "Proceed with Caution and use at your own risk" if you decide to do business with kegkits. It isn't slanderous or defaming to point out and share actual experiences.
 
Unfortunately, this sort of thing sounds all too common with KegKits.com -- there have been multiple threads to make similar complaints.

I believe Tom is developing a reputation for being notoriously bad at responding to customers. To me it seems odd because he is one of the most frequent posters to the daily AHA Tech Talk email discussion list. Clearly he receives email and responds to it frequently when he wants to.

yeah, i mean, i would have been more willing to work even a month or more after my order if he would have just been more upfront and said "hey your keg is back ordered ____ weeks". the day before i ordered i had a question, he answered me within hours...so it just comes down to him answering the ones he wants and just taking your money. AHS or NB don't charge my credit card until the order is ready to ship, i was charged the next day and it took 4 months for my full order.

wow, i got myself all worked up just thinking about it again, haha.
 
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