First, I'm as guilty as others for adding my 2 cents to the ragging debate over StonGate (I want credit for coining that term). If anything is to come out of this lively discourse it should be an awareness on the part of S2K owners (or others) and the companies that make their living by providing products and services to them. The message is simple- the quality of your product and the manner in which you treat your customers will either make you or break you. It's no secret. We share a community of interests and we all stand to gain from the experiences of others like ourselves. That's what forums like this are for. What has happened here is nothing more than a text book example of the power of internet communications. Word of mouth now, more than ever, has a public arena. This is no 'phone call to a friend who calls a friend and so on' (like that old shampoo commercial)this is the bigtime. Word spreads far and wide, maybe even links to other car forums...I would love to know how many people have gotten word by now. True StonGard is not the world's largest company, but now we're all talking about them, and this incident will be associated with their name, ouch! I'd imagine that their advertising budget is almost nil. Time to hire a good PR firm. Forget the 'slander' threat it's empty, a customer voiced his true account of how he was treated. Had StonGard taken proper care of this one little claim they probably would have received a positive mention in this forum and prospective users would have taken comfort in the manner in which the company respects its customers. Now the costs of damage control are sky rocketing with every day that passes and every lame attempt to sweep it under the carpet. At this point it is probably a little too late to win back those how have since decided against opting for StonGard on their car. And forget about referral business.

Just as we all slow to see the gruesome details of an accident, or tune in to stay abreast of a politcal scandal, people love too see others in peril. That's what sell circus tickets, that's what fuels NASCAR, that's what sells The Enquirer. So with this current mess many of us have gotten involved, from arm-chair engineers to would-be attorneys, or just as 'decent 'mericans'. Face it, it's fun to see how this soap opera plays out. Will the mean cold-hearted president swallow his pride....will a neutral forensics team be formed to reconstruct the causal chain of events....will Honda get into the loop...we we all get discount coupons and StonGard t-shirts in an attempt to buy our forgiveness? Whatever...Companies like StonGard are put on notice that they will be held accountable for their actions in the public forums. Do they really want to stick to the fine print letter of their warranty...fine, but think first...is it worth it?

I applaud the participants who have joined in on this debate, I am a wiser consumer for all of your collective input. Its reassuring to know that there are others who will come to the aid of others in matters that concern us as consumers. So be warned Mr._________if you treat your consumers like dirt. But on the other side, take comfort if you offer responsive customer service and/or a quality product. We're here, the rest is up to you. It's not a threat, just the reality that there are forums and this internet reaches a hell of a lot of people.

 

We've used the power of the Internet before, especially with unruly dealers. Once a fellow in San Diego left his car at a dealer over a weekend and the car was vandalized and had the wheels stolen while on the dealer's lot! The dealer refused to cover it at first. After we all bombarded him with phone calls and E-mails, and plastered the story all over the S2K forums he came to his senses. The Internet and forums like this allow grass roots campaigns to have an impact. It would be wise for businesses to understand that.

 

Agree with Vaper 100%. Watching the Stonegard CEO handle this problem has been like watching a train wreck. There are a few other ramifications to this incident.

1. Bieg's warnings about some sponsors offering less than quality products has been borne out.

2. Bieg's warnings that some high profile members have a conflict of interest with respect to those sponsors (such that in a moment of truth the conflicted member will side with the offending sponsor against a fellow member or make light of a real problem) have been borne out.

3. Stonegard's sales to S2000 owners should drop to close to zero, not because anyone has demonstrated with any certainty that SG's product caused the problem, but because of the horrendous manner in which Stonegard's CEO handled the problem.

4. Members should be a bit more cautious in accepting endorsements of products from fellow member-promoters on our site.

5. Knowledge is power.

2x6spds

 

oh, and the other message is that sex outsells a business scandal 2:1, comparing Jennifer Love Hewitt photo hits to StonGard's response.

 

Vaper, AMEN, AMEN!!!!!
Well put!!! You said it all.......Kerry

 

S2000 Online is not a democracy. It's a private enterprise. We don't get to vote on how it's run or on what appears here. I believe the administrator is very interested in what we all think and has been very generous in providing bandwidth for a wide variety of topics and opinions. However, in the end, someone has to decide what (and who) gets posted and what (and who) does not.

As contributors, we have to decide if what we want to post is fair

 

Spa2K, I couldn't have said it better myself. Kudos...

And nice observation, Vaper. I agree. People and company's reputation can live or die by the power of the Internet. A very powerful force, indeed...but most importantly, it must be used with discretion and accuracy or such reputations could be destroyed undeservingly. I advocate getting all the facts then making a judgment. I know it's a crazy way to handle things, but somehow I manage to reserve judgment untill ALL of the facts are in. It's working for me with great success...more people should try it...

 

As Greg and Spa2K said, one should always reserve judgement till all facts are know. This is true in life and should also hold true on the Internet. But somehow that's certainly not the case on the Internet. It is so easy for one person to say "xyz product is POS" and the next thing you know, you have all these folks that agree and jump to conclusion without knowing the full story...

But anyways, I'll just go back to work now.

-Shing

 

I just wanted to comment, I was the person whose wheels and tires were stolen off of my car while it was on a dealers lot for service here in San Diego. If it hadn't been for an Internet forum (we were still on honda-acura.net at the time), and a lot of generosity of people's time to make a phone call or send an e-mail, I would have been forced to pay for the dealers lack of security, and the resulting damage to my car. 50+ phone calls from people here, and countless e-mails were still not quite enough to get the dealer to budge. I ended up writing a letter that outlined my intentions to picket their dealership (many of the people on the discussion group had volunteered to join me), details of my legal right to do so, and the contact info of the 5 news stations that I had called with my story. An hour after I faxed them that letter the owner of the dealership called me and told me he would pay my insurance deductible.

As it was, I still had to claim it on my OWN insurance, the dealer only agreed to pay my deductible. At the end of my insurance policy, my insurance company doubled my premium, so I had to switch insurance companies.

During that same incident two other cars were vandalized. Both of them belonged to customers, both of which I called and spoke to (their contact info was in the police report). The dealership owner refused to help both of them as well, and even went so far as to make allogations that the thief was one of the customers children (a teenage son). I offered to help both of them, but they didn't want to take the time or expend the effort required. They let the dealer get away with it.

My point is that even though there is power in Internet, many businesses don't care. They are happy to continue to do business the same way they always have and assume that people just won't bother to call them on it. I will never frequent that dealership again because of that incident, and neither will many of the people who I have told (and will tell in the future), but it just doesn't hurt them that much.

-Also, thanks again to all those that helped me out in that situation!

 

Spa2K, you are right about this site not being a democracy but it might as well be. If our majority get annoyed at how the site operates we'll take our bandwidth elsewhere. In that sense this site HAS to be democratic to survive. It is analogous to our choice in ISP's (none are democracies but they better listen).