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Here is my portion of the conversation. I won't post others comments,
but they weren't fantastic or interesting anyway...

I sent my dash off to American Plastic Chrome to have the plastic
chroming process done. It was five months ago that I shipped it off to them. I
haven't heard a damn thing from these people since then. I called in
July, and left several messages. I had sent them a couple of emails, and no
response. I finally was able to get ahold of someone and they said they
were busy with various car shows, etc. I'd say five months is an exorbitant
amount of time to complete the project I pre-paid them $850.00 for!
I just called again today and got the answering machine again. What do
you guys think the next step should be for me?

Good advice, guys. I haven't sent any certified letters yet. I'm going
to type one up here in just a minute. The time frame they gave me was
three months, as I recall. Regardless, I think five months is
WAY more time than is necessary.
Yes, I got the feeling it was a side job too.

Oops...They've had the dash since March of this year. Six months.

I thought so too. I'd checked around with a BUNCH of folks who had
nothing but good to say. However, that has been the case here. I must say it
has been rather upsetting, waiting for that long for the final product.
In defense of the quality of their product, and if Tom isn't pulling my
chain, I'll post some pictures of the dash when I receive it.

The thing I'm saying is that I have no doubt the final product would be
really nice. That wasn't my point. This is my point:
If you are going to be in business, and take orders from customers in
which it can take time to complete those orders, then the prudent business
man would communicate with the customer if there are problems, delays, etc.
Very simple situation.

Pick up the phone, dial, "Hey, Sean, we appreciate your business but
we've run into a little snag. X, Y, and Z happened. Would it be acceptable to
take a little more time with this, so we know you're getting good results
with your product?"

As for the dash, I just received it from UPS today. The dash appears to
be absolutely beautiful. I haven't had time to inspect it fully, but I
think I'm going to like the results.

Thanks again for calling Rod, or Chuck or whoever you called. I
appreciate it. I wish Rod, or Chuck or whoever would have returned my two calls
from the other day, but they elected not to. Now I don't wonder if they
thought I got the dash back (when I hadn't even known it was shipped yet) and had
negative things to say about it. It's no wonder they didn't call back.
The only time they called me back was when I had called over to MI about
four times in a two day period back in July and left messages over and over.
I finally caught one of them at home pretty late at night. Just bad
business,
folks.

Yeah, there are two sides to every story.

To make matters worse...now that I've inspected the dash I'm 110% sure
THIS ISN'T MY DASH!!!
These son of a guns sent me a dash they are claiming is mine, and it's
NOT even close!

Example: I removed the brake release plastic tab that inserts into the
dash when I sent it in, and the dash came back with one in. Several of the
wiring loom snap ties I had removed with my wiring loom (and I still have on
the loom) came back with the dash. The dimples on the left of the heater
controls, on the face of the dash, are incorrect. My dash had two and
this one had one. The glove box catch rod that bolts to the top of the glove
box was removed, and the dash I received came back with one. I could go on
and on and on.

Not to mention the fact that these folks sent me the parts from another
customers dash as well. I received two glove box doors, two ash trays,
two steering column covers, etc. No, the dash they sent me they claim IS
mine, and the extra parts where from another customer.

I tried to call them about the dash and parts mix up, and they didn't
return my call AGAIN.

My official opinion is now that I would NEVER, EVER suggest anyone use
this vendor, EVER!!!! Especially if you want to get your OWN dash back, and
not some replacement!!!

GODBLAMIT I'm mad as HECK!!!!

The facts above remain the same...

The "other story" was that Rod and Chuck broke my dash in an
unfortunate accident during the rechroming/vacuum process. Accidents happen, no
doubt, but they neglected to notify me about the situation and keep me up to
date about what was going on.

In fact they didn't notify me that they had ruined my dash until they
had already shipped my replacement dash to me, and I had the thing for a
week, and had installed it in my car, and had mentioned here on TC that I had
dicovered the unit was not my original dash.

Rod called me yesterday and stated that the damage was a mistake and
not returning my calls or notifying me of the damage was an error, and he
was sorry. I said that since my car was NOT a concourse restoration I was
not seriously upset with the demise of my dash. They replaced it with a
suitable replacement in as good a shape as the original.

I AM, however, very upset that I was NOT notified of the damage until
after the replacement dash was shipped to me... SIX months later..I had
received the replacement dash, and had to discover for myself it wasn't my dash
and then CALL them on it.

You know what? If I had said NOTHING, they would have never said
anything either...and that's bullcrap.

Let's not try to paint the picture differently. The dash is beautiful,
and I've had so many complements on it in the last week, you wouldn't
believe.

The dash really is nice, and they do good work. The customer service
was terrible, though, and that's what this post was all about

Sean Thomas

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