For information purposes and to be totally transparent, we feel it necessary to inform our customers of the business practices of Reata Pass Auctions in Humboldt, Arizona.
We decided to share our most recent letter to Gigi, the owner of Reata Pass, showing our attempt to rectify and inform them of events that transpired on Saturday, December 11, 2021 at our Arizona store.
See below email:
December 13, 2021
Good afternoon Gigi,
What follows is my attempt to recap the events leading up to and including Saturday, December 11, 2021, when IRUNGUNS refused delivery of 27 rifles from Reata Pass Auctions. I first want to point out that in the time we have been involved in business together, IRUNGUNS has taken delivery of firearm shipments directly from Reata Pass representatives on several occasions. These shipments were always scheduled by appointment only and most often conducted outside of normal business hours as a professional courtesy.
Several of your staff spend personal time here in Lake Havasu City, and these shipments would usually coincide with trips that were not entirely work-related. We only recently started opening on Saturdays, with reduced hours and staff and a focus on retail sale activities. We do not accept deliveries from any other couriers on these days, as is standard for most businesses of our size within the firearms industry. It is concerning that there was no communication regarding the delivery of these firearms, as shipments of that size generally require IRUNGUNS management to be on site.
Another concern I have is the lack of professionalism and courtesy shown by one of your employees, Don. I was unable to ascertain Don's title or role at Reata Pass, but he was my sole point of contact at Reata Pass's offices on Saturday. Upon learning of the attempted delivery, I instructed the two IRUNGUNS associates working that day to refuse delivery as the items were unfit for shipping.
Your delivery crew must have alerted Don, who then called the store and proceeded to tell one of our female associates that our decision was “bull####” and telling another associate that he would instruct his crew to drop the firearms on our doorstep and leave. This is not conduct we would expect from a company we have worked with for several years. Offensive language aside, and I'm sure I don't have to educate you on this, but leaving firearms unattended after delivery is explicitly denied is not only reckless and unprofessional, but also highly illegal.
The first time I spoke with Don on the phone after arriving at our shop, his demeanor was generally cordial, up until I explained what would be required for us to accept delivery of this most recent shipment. I informed Don we would need to collect a packaging/processing fee for each firearm to cover the cost of labor and materials required to get those firearms to a state where they were able to be safely shipped internationally. Don said we should reach out to our customer ********, and collect the fees from him. I challenge you to find a company doing business today that handles their shipping operations in this manner. When IRUNGUNS sells magazines or holsters or ammunition, we do not take the items to the local FedEx office
and instruct them to package those items and reach out to the customer to collect any fees associated with shipping.
The last time firearms were delivered in this manner, I expressed to you that we would require future deliveries to include the packaging materials necessary for international shipping. Had we been informed of Saturday's shipment prior to its arrival, that requirement would have been communicated again.
After informing Don that we would not be contacting the customer to collect fees on Reata Pass's behalf, he agreed to reach out to our customer ***** himself, presumably to inform him of the situation and to collect payment to cover these fees. I ended that phone conversation with the understanding that Don would reach back out to me once everything had been sorted out. Not long after ending my phone conversation with Don, another gentleman arrived back at our shop and we spoke outside about the events that had transpired thus far. I did not get his name and I am unsure if he was an actual employee of Reata Pass, or just someone who was traveling with an employee as he mentioned being with someone's mother-in-law and coming to Havasu to winterize a boat.
I asked this same gentleman about Don and what his title or role at the company was, to which he responded, “Don who?” I explained Don had been my point of contact at Reata Pass that day, and he responded that Gigi had “a guy Don that she worked with sometimes”. Again, I am unsure if this person I spoke with at our shop was an employee of Reata Pass or not, so I can't make any assumptions as to how he would not know the person who seemed to be directly responsible for the shipment he was transporting. After several minutes of back and forth, the gentleman explained that you had told him we were now “ready to accept the guns”, which could not have been further from the truth.
At that point in time, I was still waiting to hear back from Don about his conversation with Mr. *****. I explained that we had not agreed to accept delivery unless we were able to collect the $50 fee to properly package per firearm prior to anything being unloaded. He verbally confirmed the amount of $50 per firearm with me and said he would reach out to Gigi again for guidance. He returned to his vehicle and I returned to our shop.
After roughly 30 minutes elapsed, I walked to the front entrance of our store and saw that the truck used to transport the firearms had left. At that time, I decided to call Don again as we would be closing for the day in less than an hour. Don was decidedly less pleasant on this phone call. After asking for a status update on the shipment, Don said he had been informed we were requiring $100 per gun to accept shipment and that “that's not happening”. He went on to say that Reata Pass will no longer be doing business with IRUNGUNS and that they would also not allow their customers to conduct business with IRUNGUNS either. Before I could offer Don the actual amount we quoted of $50 per firearm, he hung up on me.
To summarize:
• A large shipment of firearms arrives at our location with no prior communication or arrangements for delivery.
• All firearms were missing adequate shipping materials, despite this requirement being communicated during the last delivery.
• Don, an employee of Reata Pass, used vulgar language with one of our female employees and threatened to unload guns on our doorstep without our consent.
• Several instances of confusion regarding IRUNGUNS policy for accepting future shipments, our willingness to accept the shipment after I spoke with Don, and the amount of our required fee to accept the most recent shipment.
Further to that
This is, at best, negligent miscommunication on Reata Pass's part or, at worst, intentional alteration of the truth.
While I understand the appeal of finding innovative ways to save money regarding business operations, IRUNGUNS should not have to incur additional costs for providing Reata Pass a professional courtesy.
The condition of the firearms that Reata Pass attempted to deliver on Saturday was unacceptable.
For IRUNGUNS to get those items to a point where they could be safely shipped would have required dozens of hours of labor and several hundred dollars’ worth of packaging materials. We have past communications from Reata Pass that contain quotes for fees described as “packaging” and “shipping” which would indicate customers are paying for their items to be packaged and shipped in a manner that protects them from being damaged.
Considering the prices our customer ***** paid for these firearms alone, I'm not sure he would be especially pleased to learn his investments are transported in the bed of a pickup truck, stacked one on top of the other with only a thin nylon rifle sleeve protecting them.
With all of that being said, IRUNGUNS has made every effort to accommodate Reata Pass in the past and any changes to shipping protocols were communicated to you well in advance of Saturday’s shipment. Should you choose to continue working with us in the future, our requirements are the same: items need to be individually packaged in a manner that protects them from damage prior to them being delivered to our location. If you cannot agree to these basic terms, you are welcome to shop around for an alternate importer/exporter.
Respectfully,
Brandon Kendrick
IRUNGUNS Store Manager
Summary:
1. 27 firearms were transported via a very rough stretch of highway namely the (I40) and were delivered loose and stacked on top of one another in the box of a truck to IRUNGUNS. IRUNGUNS refused shipment.
2. Reata Pass returns home with said firearms and reships them to IRUNGUNS boxed. They charge the customer an additional $3500.00 to ship them from 4 hours away.
3. Reta Pass purposely wrapped and shipped one firearm that had previously suffered a broken stock given the condition of the box it arrived in. Other firearms also showed recent damage I.E. dents and dings.
To everyone that is selling their collections or purchasing in the United States we highly recommend the following:
Gunbroker
Rock Island Auctions
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Originally Posted by Stereo Joe
