I purchased a butterfly knife from Direct Knife Sales, which is apparently owned and operated by Richard Keeton, to give to my son as a birthday present. After my son received it, he told me it is defective. Mr. Keeton refused to allow me to return or exchange it, citing the company's five-day return policy, which is buried in their shipping terms page.
That page on their web site also says, 'we check our knives before they go out the door for imperfections. We do guarantee our knives. if you have any problems with them just let us know and we will fix the problem.'
They must not have checked this knife, or at least not well enough to discover the problem, and they certainly did NOT fix the problem. Here are the email exchanges over this:
9/3/08:
Richard,
Hi, we bought this butterfly knife as a birthday gift for our son. He tells us that it is defective (the blade sticks in one of the handles, exposing the sharp side of the blade, and not moving freely out of that handle, making it dangerous for the type of tricks or exercises he likes to do.
Can we return it for another knife? He says he'd also prefer one with a shorter blade, like 3.5 or 4 inches.
Thanks.
Brent
9/4/08:
our return policy is that you can return your knife as long as its within 5 days of you recieving it. thank you
9/4/08:
Well, it has obviously been more than five days, since we bought it well in advance of our son's birthday.
Are you saying we're out of luck even though you shipped us a defective knive?
It's not a case of just changing our mind. You'd be able to see the problem with this one right away, and we'd be willing to trade for a different one.
Brent
9/5/08:
if its past 5 days of you receiving it, then we cannot help you on that. you should have known within those 5 days if it was good or not. we have to keep our policy for everyone not just the few. thank you
9/5/08:
Richard,
You set the policy, and the fact that you set your policy with such an arbitrarily short return deadline (far shorter than any reasonable retail standard), even in cases of defective merchandise, obviously allows you to sell defective merchandise, keep the money, and then tell the innocent customer/victim, 'Oh, I'm so sorry, that's just our policy.'
Practices like that are what give online merchants a bad name, and it says a lot about your character.
Brent
Denver, Colorado
U.S.A.
The complaint has been investigated and resolved to the customer’s satisfaction.
If you paid w/you credit card, the seller doesn't have a case. Defective merchandise voids he return/refund policy. If you sent it back because of buyers remorse the seller would have a case, but not in the case of defective merchandise. Send back the knife and get a tracking #. In the mean time dispute the charge w/you card co.
I see that your complaint is from 2 yrs ago. So if you haven't done what I advised you of above, you pretty much don't have a leg to stand on, by now your case is too old. but you'll know better next time.
I tried to buy a butterfly knife and a switch blade knife then at the end of the process it says order failed but it made the charge to my card. Am i getting my stuff? Then i tried logging in and it says i do not have an account. Whats going on?
thats because your card was no good. we only keep records from people who have orders that processed.
I ordered 12 out the front knives from this company which were supposed to come with sheaths. There were no sheathes in my order. After a month of trying to get ahold of someone to talk to me I have given up and will never order anything from them again. I would warn anyone who wants to order a knive that there are a lot of reputable companies to order from and this isn't one of them. After they get your money they don't care about you. Order your knife from somewhere else. I am a knife seller and had a lot of business In mind, but there lack of service ruined that for me and them.
Great communication fast shipping! Helped me find a difficult to find out of stock item in less than a week, I couldn't ask for more, excellent shopping experience!
I have been buying from this company for years and never had any problems. If I got a bad knife I sent it back and got what I payed for. I wouldn't listen to the negatives on this site. I think its one of the best knife companies online. Its listed on their site as to the conditions and when you order you admit to those conditions. The people making negative comments need to re look at their position and what they are saying or stay off the internet if they don't know how to use it correctly. Stop slandering a great company for your mistakes or how you think it should be run. GROW UP PEOPLE!
HE SENT ME DEFECTIVE KNIVES.
I can only echo other reviews you've read here.
Getting the knife (Frank B Stiletto) was just fine. However it was broken and dangerous, opening in my pocket. I discovered, same day as delivered, that the catch was broken and started the return process within the allotted time required in the not so friendly return policy. I even offered to exchange it, but they declined. They said that if it was broken they would refund it.
After receiving the knife back, they said it was "perfect" when it obviously was not, and continued arguing that the knife was fine.
I cannot accept a clearly broken and dangerous knife, and the return process has been designed to dis-incentivize returns, so again I have nothing to gain here. I was able to recreate the "misfire" many times and am disappointed that I couldn't keep this knife.
I told the seller that if they resell the knife, the next customer will probably cite the same issue I had and return it. I told them that it would be unsafe for them to resell it as well.
They even charged the 50.00 restock fee, so now I'm out shipping both ways and the 50 bucks.
If the seller wants to contact me to resolve, I'll be happy to update my review and share my honest experience with future buyers.
I can only echo other reviews you've read here.
Getting the knife (Frank B Stiletto) was just fine. However it was broken and dangerous, opening in my pocket. I discovered, same day as delivered, that the catch was broken and started the return process within the allotted time required in the not so friendly return policy. I even offered to exchange it, but they declined. They said that if it was broken they would refund it.
After receiving the knife back, they said it was "perfect" when it obviously was not, and continued arguing that the knife was fine.
I cannot accept a clearly broken and dangerous knife, and the return process has been designed to dis-incentivize returns, so again I have nothing to gain here. I was able to recreate the "misfire" many times and am disappointed that I couldn't keep this knife.
I told the seller that if they resell the knife, the next customer will probably cite the same issue I had and return it. I told them that it would be unsafe for them to resell it as well.
They even charged the 50.00 restock fee, so now I'm out shipping both ways and the 50 bucks.
If the seller wants to contact me to resolve, I'll be happy to update my review and share my honest experience with future buyers.