WHITEHEAD PERFORMANCE

[Ironhead]

It's horrible on both ends.  

 

A customer gets screwed unjustifiably, and a once honorable and valued company (Whitehead was good to me) is irreparably damaged at best, about to go under at worst.

 

Whether it's Paypal or a straight credit card purchase, I keep a close eye on the dispute deadlines.  If they are approaching, I always file a dispute/claim, regardless of what the merchant claims or excuses they have.  Unless it's a trivial sum of money that I am willing to risk.

 

Long range, often international transactions, would be completely undoable without some sort of claim/dispute process.  Shady merchants could rip off customers with impunity.  I've disputed many, many charges over the years, and sadly many of these problems have been in the course of purchasing Datsun items.

Edited May 16, 2021 by Ironhead

[JMortensen]

18 hours ago, NewZed said:

Edited - the credit card charge challenging process requires oversight.  I don't think that it's a given that the consumer always gets their money back.  It's a process.

 

If it was a U.S. business you could sue them in small claims court, report them to the attorney general in the state they are registered in, and also report them to the Better Business Bureau.  Those are all remedies/actions for the consumer to take against companies that do not fulfill their obligations.  Which is what Whitehead is doing here.  But they're in Canada and the US Attorney General's office has a lot of other things going on right now.

To be clear, I'm not defending Whitehead at all here, but the credit card companies DO take the money from the merchant and give it back to the customer FIRST. At that point the merchant has to prove that they shipped a product, that it was the right product, that it was shipped to the right address, etc. Almost all of my chargebacks (I get about 10 a year now) are for unauthorized purchase. Somebody steals a credit card and places an order. I do my job and deliver to the address given. I never talk to the people or interact in any other way, but the cc companies say it's my fault for taking a fraudulent order. Some people seem to believe that the credit card company eats this fraud. No. Merchants do.

I say this as a guy with literally decades of experience: one of my first jobs was working for Ronco (the "It slices, it dices" and "Set it and forget it" company - Ron Popeil is the father of the infomercial) and my job there for the last year or so was answering chargebacks. It was a 40hr/week job, which says something about the quality of the food dehydrator he was hawking at the time. Then I went to a merchant services company called Cardservice International, where I monitored chargebacks coming in to merchant accounts and withheld money from them until we could verify. They were a startup at the time and their business was centered around providing merchant accounts to people who big banks wouldn't deal with. Small businesses and business owners with bad credit scores. I saw lots of fraud from the merchant side at that job. With the click of a mouse button I held $250K from a merchant's bank account, in 1995. Turned out I was right, they were scammers. Also caught a dentist's receptionist scamming her boss. How? I saw a refund. Who gets a REFUND from their dentist? Then I searched the card number and found a second one. The receptionist had taken her bf's cc to work, swiped it and issued a refund for $1276.39 or some nondescript amount like that. LOL.

Since then I had a couple jobs turning wrenches, but for the last 20 years it's been all mail order, where this chargeback thing is just part of life. Doesn't matter how scrupulous you are; there are identity thieves out there, and they won't hesitate to screw over a guy like me, who is just trying to make an honest living. Lately I've had quite a few scammers order the most expensive pet door that we sell, enter the correct billing and shipping address and then ship to some random person's house. The banks' theory is that they then just follow the tracking and stake out the house, and they go swipe the doggy door after UPS drops it at the porch. Sadly, I went about 10 years with maybe 1 or 2 chargebacks in the whole year, but in the last 5 years or so it's REALLY ramped up a lot, lost about $4K in Jan 2020 to fraud.

The right thing to do with Whitehead (assuming all the claims made here are true) is small claims if that works internationally, but even if you win, good luck collecting. Social media pressure is also a good tactic.

Edited May 16, 2021 by JMortensen

[JMortensen]

.

Edited May 16, 2021 by JMortensen

[AydinZ71]

@JMortensen OK, I know the point of your post was not the infomercial guy, but I found that super entertaining. Thanks for sharing! I remember watching those as a kid. Must have been a tough job dealing with those chargebacks.

 

I lived in Jamaica for a year, working on an energy import project (LNG). I made a lot of local friends, and the “scammers” as they were referred to, were legends. Like gangs, really. They fought over turf and power, too. Turned out Jamaica (after India) was one of the largest exporters of  internet and phone scams in the world. 

Edited May 16, 2021 by AydinZ71

[JMortensen]

I was in one of the informercials for the Popeil Pasta Maker for about 5 seconds. I believe my quote was: "It makes the best mac and cheese you've EVER had!" BTW those are shot in his house. They roll bleachers into his living room and point them at his kitchen. No shit. Big house. Beverly Hills. Crowd at the time was people who owned other Popeil products. They had some spaces in the bleachers and didn't have people to fill, so they called our office and I think about 10 or 15 of us went down to fill in the holes.

[AydinZ71]

12 hours ago, JMortensen said:

I was in one of the informercials for the Popeil Pasta Maker for about 5 seconds. I believe my quote was: "It makes the best mac and cheese you've EVER had!" BTW those are shot in his house. They roll bleachers into his living room and point them at his kitchen. No shit. Big house. Beverly Hills. Crowd at the time was people who owned other Popeil products. They had some spaces in the bleachers and didn't have people to fill, so they called our office and I think about 10 or 15 of us went down to fill in the holes.

Now that is a fantastic story! I still own one of those cheesy plastic grater thingie a they sold on infomercials. It worked like, twice before the handle broke off the veggie holder. Of course you have to push down hard, the plastic flexed 😂

[JMortensen]

Ah, the Dial-O-Matic! Twist the knob to set how much fingertip to remove! 

[rxx2rxx2]

I thought about small claims but seemed like a lot of fees and I imagine low likelihood of collecting.

I'm not on a smear campaign. 3K hurts but I've written it off. The thing that really sux is the delay in time to get LSD in my Z. Just got an MFactory installed in my 3.54 diff last week. Now to go rip!

[260DET]

In my country there is a procedure to go through which involves the supplier before any CC money is refunded but I guess that there has to be a time limit, that makes sense. There are also small claims facilities but these are only viable if it's worthwhile which it's not for,say, under $1000. This has happened to me where I worked out that my $650 claim was not worth the cost and effort. All this is why I like using Paypal, I buy lots of stuff and have found that the Paypal dispute system works well.

 

[Ironhead]

On 5/18/2021 at 9:09 AM, rxx2rxx2 said:

 

I'm not on a smear campaign. 3K hurts but I've written it off.

 

I find it funny how people tend to put a negative slant on sharing poor experiences they have had with a particular company, like they should feel guilty doing so.  You essentially had $3K stolen from you.  If there is a company out there doing this sort of thing, other potential customers need to know about it, before it happens to them.  IMHO the victims of these rip-offs have almost a duty to share it publicly.  That's one of the great things about the internet.

 

It's not a "smear".....just sort of a "buyer beware".

Edited May 20, 2021 by Ironhead

[NewZed]

On 4/11/2021 at 3:43 PM, grannyknot said:

I  reached out to Mike just to give him a heads up and received this reply, I'm sure you will hear from him very shortly.  I didn't know about the single parent thing, that must be quite recent and explains a few things. Hope this helps.

Whitehead Performance

5:51 PM (44 minutes ago)

 

to me

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for the heads up. yup that one slipped by me both putting the diff together and now the refund.

So far behind on things - everytime the kids get sent home i have to be home with them at least 50% of the time (single parent).  Just can't keep up with everything like this.  Not complaining just being straight on what my situation is. 

But everyone here is okay and i hope the same for you on your end.

 

Thanks,
 

Mike Hansen
Manager, Whitehead Performance
416-665-2220

 

Maybe he needs another reach out.  It's been almost 6 weeks.

[grannyknot]

22 hours ago, NewZed said:

 

Maybe he needs another reach out.  It's been almost 6 weeks.

I did, -sigh-

[Troy]

I was pointed to this thread after starting my own. Placed an order May 11, no shipping notification, no parts, no contact. Phone goes to voicemail but it's a message saying the box is full.

 

Troy

 

[rxx2rxx2]

After my experience with Whitehead and Bank of America, I would email Whitehead and ask for the money back and start a claim with your credit card company.

[Ironhead]

There comes a point....and I think Whitehead is there....where this sort of behavior becomes criminal...literally.  Knowingly taking money without returning agreed upon goods/services, which at this point could be proven is being done with intent and pre-meditation, is prosecutable criminally.

 

I don't know exactly how all this works in Canada, but it might be time for a call to the state prosecutor/district attorney/whomever in the area out of which Whitehead operates.

 

I know most people would rather write off the loss and move on....which I understand....but think about the people who have been screwed who haven't posted to hybridz.....

 

 

[Mayolives]

I've been waiting for an ignition part from the manufacturer here in the States (Fuel, Air, Spark) for several weeks and I'm told it could be a few more weeks wait.  My research shows there are no other retailers who have what I need in stock.  The part is listed on Whitehead's site but with no one answering thier phone and after reading all the above negative comments about them, I've decided not to risk deal with them.  Perhaps all the comments should sound the "buyer beware alarm" to this community until Whitehead can prove to be a worthy supplier again.  I'm not part of the cancel culture and I don't like the word "boycott" but if a duck walks like a duck and quacks, it's most likely a duck!

[calZ]

Anyone ever hear back? Someone on Facebook was asking if they were responding again. 

[notforyoujdm]

I created an account just for this post. I wish I saw this before I ordered myself... I would have never done it. My car has been up for 2 months now waiting on this, a short time compared to some others that got got in the same way.

 

I contacted Whitehead Performance about getting a r200 differential. They stated build time would be 3-4 weeks and it would be shipped out at that point. I inquired about a Quaife LSD not knowing they were having issues sourcing them. They told me that was a great choice and they could help me with that. At no time did they say this would cause it to take longer or that they were struggling to get these in. I even specifically asked them if this would cause the timeline to be longer than the 3-4 weeks and they said no. They KNEW they were having issues but they wanted my money instead of telling me the truth.

 

Funny thing is they were incredibly responsive the entire time right up until I paid. They would sometimes email me back same day to answer my questions. After I paid responses took much longer. Then I emailed them 20 days later about the status of the diff, no response. In the next 2 weeks or so I emailed a few times and finally got a response at the end. I was also calling nearly every day during that time and not getting any answer. Had a friend call a few times too, nothing. Cannot leave a message because their voicemail is full. I just wanted to speak to someone about my purchase and there was nobody there.

 

When they did finally respond to me they stated they had everything ready to go except the Quaife unit. They said it would be a few weeks until that came in and then roughly a week to build the diff. I am at the end of that timeline now so honestly if I don't have an email in the next week or 2 about it being shipped I'm just going to refund it. It's so hard to find a place to do this work but I don't feel good giving Whitehead my money after the way they are handling this. Mostly that they didn't inform me about the wait for the Quaife initially or that they had issues sourcing them.

 

You can also see their Google reviews the last 6 months have tanked because of, you guessed it, Quaife issues. One review even stated they purchased their own LSD from Quaife and got it in a few weeks. That makes me question if Quaife is really the issue here or not... It's entirely possible Whiteheads distributer is having issues getting the Quaife at the right price point or something but whatever the problem is it is wreaking havoc with their reputation imo.

 

I will 100% post an update if I receive my diff or whatever happens though. At least I will do my best to remember.

Edited August 4, 2022 by notforyoujdm

[jhm]

That’s unfortunate.  Sorry you’re having such a problem with them; but your update is much appreciated.  Several good vendors have run into business difficulties (for a multitude of reasons), and many of them just never recover.  Thx for keeping the community updated, and good luck whichever way it turns out for you.

[G-Tech]

This sucks to hear because they offer good parts and services but nothing has changed atleast in the 5yrs since my purchase of stub axles. I had a huge delay on stub axles i ordered from them . 9 months i waited for them when they said 6 weeks when i ordered. Ofcoarse they blamed it on their supplier then also. Good luck getting money back from them. Most places like that won't give you anything back, and they are in Canada so i dont know how that works if they dont give money back upon requesting it.