Status as a NAM vendor is not based upon member approval.

 

[quote=ImagoX;1659186]<sacracm> Really? Gosh! I had no idea! Honest! I figured it was some sort of wacky UK compliment - after all, Paulo Uber IS one of the worlds "last living geat fine artists". </sarcasm>




Apologies, I'm not too hot on wit

 

Re: yucca and Gnat

I'm fully aware that advertisement abilities are a paid for thing and that all companies are allowed to do so upon paying. And it's quite clear that member approval is not necessary. But as is true with magazines, newspapers, the advertisements on buses, etc...the company is allowed and often encouraged to take into consideration the companies they choose to display to the community. Newspapers will not allow a company with questionable moral actions or buisness practices to advertise in their paper.

Yes, it is up to buyers to determine where they buy from, but if a company proves that it can no longer offer quality products and continues to make false claims in their advertisements, it is up to the media company whether they continue to allow such advertisements. It does not require member approval, but it does require an analysis of the buisness's practices and the quality or failure of their parts.

A good example is sweat-shops and child labor. I'm not saying that is related to this situation....but there are companies that have refused to allow product companies to advertise in their newspapers or magazines because of their use of sweat shops and child labor.

NAM is a great place, I'm fully aware of that. It helps thousands of people a day. I just think it's important to consider the new-comers who have missed out on the PU-threads and did not find them in their search. Even Blackie, the OP, said that he/she had no idea of all of the problems until now. So now you have PU's flashy words and claims of absolute best quality right in clear view in the vendor announcements to catch the attention of new-comers and flashy PU banners, but they then must search and dig through tons of threads to find the negatives and learn that the claims are all lies. Having proven to be of such poor quality both in their products and in their customer service, NAM has the right to review PU's issues and question whether they should continue allowing such lies to be on the front page of their forums.

 

LOL... No problem. Guess I'm too "dry" for the internet.

Well said, Rally - I was typing my reply as you posted yours, so there's a bit of overlap...

As for popular approval - that's true. However, if it were MY web site, I'd fire... erm..."choose to not renew a contract for"... an advertiser that so many people were complaining about. Just in my opinion (whatever that's worth), I'd hate to be administering a web site that allowed questionable advertisers to diasplay banners. This is a COMMUNITY web site (or so the site owners remind us at every gathering - I know I heard it at least half a dozen times at MOTD), and so I'd think that any advertiser that's fleecing that community would eventually be removed.

I contrast this incident to the very nice write-up abult Aaron Cornaby and Outmotoring.com in the latest MC2 magazine... Everyone I've ever met had nothing but nice things to say about Aaron and his company, and he too "pays the bill" here on NAM. The difference is that I think Aaron's trying to make a profit AND better the community - not just separate as much money from them as he can and then make excuses for shoddy merchandise and then blame the customer when an item fails.

But hey - like I said - I've never ordered from PU and I know that some that have (not many, but a few) speak highly of his stuff. Seems to me though that if the usual ratio of happy:displeased customers for a NAM vendor is 100:1 and PU has a ratio that's the reverse of that then, well, I wonder why they're allowed to keep preying on the goodwill a community site tends to engender.

I guess you can say that it's easy for me to say that, seeing as how I don't have to keep the lights on here, but every time I see a PU thread like this come up I get more and more frustrated that I keeop seeing their adverts at the top of my screen...

 

I looked more closely at my new lugs that I have in hand... the insides are definitely not finished like the outside set. I'm guessing I'll have the same issue in the end. I'm expecting new wheels to show up in the next few days... I'll give these a week to show signs of corrosion if it's going to happen. It's wicked humid out here, and you can taste the salt on the air... so it'll happen quickly if it's going to happen.

 

Best of luck, man...

(( Counts minutes until the "lock" hammer comes down... ))

 

Perhaps NAM can have a vendor rating program, where each vendor can receive ratings from the NAM community. As one may guess, I am not a big PU fan, not only because of the numerous quality and stated claims issues, but because of PU's practice of failing to own and address problems. However, I wouldn't like to see them banned from NAM. Let the buyer beware; but let him choose.

 

You will be surprised!
https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...ad.php?t=96699

I was going to do buy some Palo Uber stuff until I started reading the forums. I am a big believer in customer reviews.

 

I just want to make this clear......in my posts i do not mean to say that NAM is in fact doing anything wrong at all. If it comes off that way I'm sorry. I simply mean to suggest that NAM should review the customer service and quality of products coming from PU.

 

^ +1.

 

NAM is a business, just like eBay. Using this logic, eBay should boot off all purveyors of '*****' As long as the vendor bills are paid, caveat emptor

 

I would think if they did that then they would have to do it for every other vendor, I don't think that is the business they are in.

The answer is if PU is so bad then nobody will buy from them, and it will not pay to put the ads on the board, but they must be making money with the ads ... there still here.

 

eBay is an interesting one....because a lot of times, it's about selling goofy ***** that surprisingly, people want. But it's actually not true that as long as bills are paid on eBay they can continue selling. Anyone who is caught selling something that isn't what their ad says it was, is dealt with by eBay admin. A perfect case was when people were saying they were selling playstations when it was actually just an empty box. They all faced punishment from eBay and i assume their selling rights were revoked. (yes, i know there were a few people who tricked others by never saying it was more than just a box.....in which case, they did "no wrong.") There were people who promised to be selling playstations and yet were only shipping out empty boxes....these people were dealt with because eBay did not want to be seen as a place where con artists were tolerated.

eBay doesn't let con artists on their site who are selling things that don't live up to what they say they are selling......PU is trying to do the same thing. So i think the eBay example is yet another good example.

 

but PU isn't selling empty boxes. They are selling 'uber-l33t' products just like the 'Recaro style JDM racing seats' for $99 on eBay. They take a different marketing approach and supersize the price making buyers think quality is inherently good. PU isn't a con artist....only a creative marketing outfit <snicker>

"There is a sucker born every minute"
-PT Barnum

 

I disagree with the eBay analogy... eBay is NOT a "commuity" web site - it's "caveat emptor" marketing at its most pure form. One must EXPECT crap on eBay, or one will be robbed blind.

NAM does not have "vendor feedback" either... We can gripe in the forums, and we do, until the thread gets locked, but, as the OP showed, it's easy to miss the complain threads unless you're looking.

No... I stand by what I said: I believe that PU is preying on the goodwill that a "community" site like this fosters. I hate to say that - anyone that knows me knows that I tried for months to be the voice calling for a measured and fair examination of people's claims that PU was a substandard merchant. As the stories have piled up though, that's gotten harder and harder for me to do.

 

I always enjoy these topic's on Palo Uber. And feel that due to the fact I have had nothing but good luck with there products the need to post.

Everything I have purchased from the has been a great quality. I have the light bar, the rear wing and the carbon fiber hood scoop.

And I am not blind to the fact that Palo Uber products have issues sometimes, I just stay clear from those too! :impatient

 

Why would that mean they had to do it to every vendor? I'm not following.

I never said that NAM should have reviewed them in the past. I said that now that multiple threads have emerged discussing multiple cases of faulty products and now that it has been a few months since PU talked of improving their ways without any actualy sign of change, it has become time for a review of their buisness actions. I see no reason why that would require a review of all vendors. If another vendor started to have the large number of failing products that PU has right now....yes, they should certainly be reviewed. But i don't see why you would suggest that companies be reviewed when the complaints are few and far between. Look at Alta for example....every once in a while someone has a problem installing a part or something, but there are thousands of happy customers as well. Why would NAM have to review Alta?

I don't follow this either. As is shown in this thread.....people are buying from them becuase they don't know how bad PU is. They were unable to read the right threads and discover the downsides of buying from PU. All they saw was the PU ads saying "best product on the market" and "of the highest quality". They are still making money because they are still tricking people into believing the big words they use which turn out to be lies. They are making money because it is hard for the negatives to be heard when they are buried amongst thousands of threads while the positive claims are flashing at the top of your screen in a banner or their advertisements are hosted in the vendor announcements on the front page of this forum daily (where users are unable to voice their issues in reply to their advertisements. no replys allowed)

Yes, they are making money....you would be too if you were buying cheap faulty products in bulk and then selling them for super high prices with claims that the superior quality was worth that money. But a lot of that comes from the fact that their positive portrayal of their products is right in the public eye, whereas the list of problems and faults is continually pushed to the back of the room to make way for the thousands of new threads.

 

or private member feedback for the Marketplace for that matter, something easily added to the vBulletin software (it's called iTrader and works just like eBay feedback). I've posted about this in Site Feedback but have gotten no clear answer. Just about every forum I frequent uses it....except NAM.

 

Except for 1 very lucky or dillusional customer.

 

From your posts a few months back, I thought you had bought (or were about to buy) their titanium supercharger pulley. Did you come to your senses at the last minute?

 

I'll bet the vendors don't want vendor feedback, people are much more willing to leave feedback when they are pissed off than when they are happy. Ebay works because the buyer is also looking for feedback to keep there rating high.

 

I bought some more wheels instead !

 

I'd be OK with that...

 

I'm a vendor on another forum and I can say that I'm happy to have the feedback because it reinforces my credibility. Besides, moderators can manage the system to prevent abuses...it's very, very rare for someone to get negative feedback.

 

#1 Just proves no matter how you paint it, coat it, package it, cook it, or write about it. ***** is *****......