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Sequoia Mills

Started by LumberDan, May 12, 2015, 01:44:02 PM

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LumberDan

Anyone know the people at Sequoia Mills in Wa.? I'm having difficulty  getting  a call back. I commissioned a mill to be built. Sent them more than 50% to start and after it was done, they have wrote me off? Don't  know  what  to  do  can anyone  give me a clue as to what to do?

beenthere

If they owe you money, see your lawyer.
If you are paid up, and have your mill, then don't understand the "wrote me off" point.

Welcome to the Forestry Forum, but we can't settle disagreements between you and a business.
south central Wisconsin
It may be that my sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others

LumberDan

I know you can't  settle anything just am upset over this and was wondering if anyone had a similar  problem with Sequoia Mills? I don't have the mill, they won't  send me an invoice or answer my calls. But they have $1100 of my money, I owe them another $950. They just built the basic carrige with nothing on it. Thanks for the response though. My guess is they sold it to someone  else  and made more money than with me and now they are ignoring  me. It's like a girl breaking up with you and you can't get a call back. Lol

redbeard

Sorry for your delima, I was in email contact for awhile with Neil and I had more questions than he was willing to answer but I guess he was busy they have a lot of CL ads and trader ads thought they were doing well. I was interested in the big special mill he built that had a 54" wide cut. He built two of them but he would never let me contact the owners to get a first hand Sawmiller chat. My fever simmered quickly. Although there is a lot of good press on the other mills he built. There a small fab shop, could be he is busy, keep trying. Its a 1000 mile  round trip from my place, if they were closer I'd go shake his tree for you. Hope this works out for you lumberdan
Whidbey Woodworks and Custom Milling  2019 Cooks AC 3662T High production band mill and a Hud-son 60 Diesel wide cut bandmill  JD 2240 50hp Tractor with 145 loader IR 1044 all terrain fork lift  Cooks sharp

BradMarks

Lumberdan: I checked out their webpage.  How long has it been since you sent the deposit?  Was it by check or credit card?  If check, has it cleared?  And how long have you been trying to contact them?  You have recourse for either payment method, provided the company hasn't gone bankrupt.

LumberDan

He hasn't  called me back in nearly 6 weeks. I sent the first deposit via ground (FedX) in the former of a cashiers check, 7 weeks ago! The balance is going through PayPal  that i recently set  up. We had some contact through texting but that stopped 2 weeks ago. I'm running out of patience. Lol. Thanks for the advice, and thanks Redbeard for the heads up, we will see... lol

Ox

I wish you good luck in all this.  It's not happening to me and I get that knot in my stomach because it brings back not-so-fond memories.
K.I.S.S. - Keep It Simple Stupid
Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without
1989 GMC 3500 4x4 diesel dump and plow truck, 1964 Oliver 1600 Industrial with Parsons loader and backhoe, 1986 Zetor 5211, Cat's Claw sharpener, single tooth setter, homemade Linn Lumber 1900 style mill, old tools

LumberDan

Thanks Ox, not a pleasant  not feeling is it?

KiwiBro

Being in the middle of an unpleasant sawmill experience too, I can relate to how you are feeling. Surely someone on here close enough can go pay them a visit on your behalf. Hopefully someone will volunteer. Good luck.
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BradMarks

Failure to respond is not a good sign. How long after accepting your deposit was the machine supposed to ship? If the time hasn't expired, they have not done anything wrong except ignore you. If that time has expired, send an email requesting a refund, followed by a certified letter doing the same. Get serious with them, suggest you will file a lien after winning in small claims court if not refunded. May not do any good if they're on their way south, but it will make you feel better!  And without being slanderous you could use social media to their detrement, I see they are on Facebook and others.  But in the end, it's about character - let's hope they find some.

KiwiBro

First up, I'm not trying to blow smoke up anyone's skirt. I just know how frustrating and costly it can be when a sawmill purchase goes bad, and I wouldn't wish this on anyone.

So, I emailed Sequoia Mills, not because I'm a drama queen or have ADD, but because if they are genuine and somethign has just gone wrong in this case, they have a right to know so they can put it right and hopefully, with that put right, LumberDan can be much closer to getting his mill or money back and eventually into milling wood with any agro long buried in the past.

I have also PM'ed LumberDan suggesting he might want to give them a call in case emails are going AWOL in cyberspace.

Sequoia suggested they tried to log in to FF but could not. I offered to C&P any reply from them, here's what they wanted to write, copied verbatim.

-----------
If you would do that it would be great.

On March 27th, 2015, we received this customers deposit of $1100. We had almost daily contact with him until a few weeks ago when I tried to call him but his line was busy. We sent him pictures of the mill almost completed. We let him know we wanted to ship it within the next few days and we needed final payment and we heard nothing back from him. I gave it a while and text him telling him that we had hoped to have shipped the mill by now. He said he hadn't heard from us and practically called us a liar. I then sent him a screen shot of the text and his attitude changed. He said he hadn't gotten the final invoice, I resent it. Again I heard nothing. He says he doesn't receive my texts and emails. Finally he called on Monday, he asked if there is a problem. We let him know that we have tried to contact him several times, several ways, apparently there is a communication issue. I offered to send him his money back, he said he didn't want his money, he wants the mill. He asked me to send him the invoice again. I sent it three times. I have texted him his pictures, he claims he never got it. We are ready to give him a refund. It seems that we can not seem to make this work and we don't have time to defend ourselves, we have many other orders to fill. We work hard to produce a well built product, we don't need to be slandered. We will be issuing a refund for this customer.
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There would appear to me a very good chance of a great outcome for LumberDan if they give them a call to work through any communication issues.

Best of luck to both parties. I hope LumberDan can be making sawdust real soon.
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LumberDan

First of all this is truly a great site, I had never joined anything like this and I am surprised how you guys are willing to help one out.:) Apparently there are many of you that are interested in this dilemma I'm in with Sequoia Mills. Here is the latest, about the lost invoices. I found them, they were in a spam folder on my computer. I rarely use that dinosaur since the smart phone. I thought I would fire up that thing and see if yahoo mail was different on there than on my phone, it was. my phone shows 55 messages on "bulk" and doesn't even have the option for "spam". The computer had 127 "bulk" and 436 "spam". I found their emails of the invoice. I am a man of reason and can say I'm wrong if I am, and I was wrong, I didn't dig far enough. The first invoice email came to my phone back in March, so I had no reason to believe the other one wouldn't? Lesson learned. I sent him the balance of $950 though his PayPal this morning. If he is a man of integrity as he claims, I should be knee deep in saw dust in a week or so? I will keep you posted. But... that doesn't explain other issues of him not getting back with me. I checked my phone records and counted 55 times I have called him and left voice messages since March 20th, he called me back 2 times, the latter was on March 23rd. Busy or not, at some point you need to put the ol truck in park and call your customer. I'm sure that he builds a great product, hence my willingness to stay the course, but he needs to be more intuned with his customers. I am not the only one with customer service issues with him, there was a guy that posted a comment on "Martythemiller" thread that had the same problem claiming he bought a mill and was having no luck with a return call too. Well, I will say this, Neil and Lisa might be great people, Neil was very nice and willing to do what I requested in the build, I believed every word. Perhaps he is overwhelmed and stressed out to the max and just can't put his hand on every aspect of his business. Maybe he will come away from this as a lesson learned as well. I'm putting this to rest now and hoping i will receive my mill soon and I can start asking questions like how to mill straight?! lol Thank everyone on here for your concern and involvement, not sure I could have gotten the attention otherwise.    8)

beenthere

Looks to be all your fault LumberDan. Time to eat a lot of crow. IMO
south central Wisconsin
It may be that my sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others

KiwiBro

Good onya LumberDan. Here's hoping it is plain sailing from here on.
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LumberDan

Well "beenthere", I take the crow on the invoice but it could have been avoided. Lol thanks again Kiwi I I think smooth plaining!

Ox

Well, now you know about the email stuff between the phone and computer.  Too bad you learned this little gem during this sawmill purchase but now at least you know for future purposes.
I also think that a phone call that actually worked or went through to both you and him would have avoided lots of problems.  Sometimes this technology isn't all it's cracked up to be.
I hope it goes through as planned and everything happens smoother from here on out.
K.I.S.S. - Keep It Simple Stupid
Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without
1989 GMC 3500 4x4 diesel dump and plow truck, 1964 Oliver 1600 Industrial with Parsons loader and backhoe, 1986 Zetor 5211, Cat's Claw sharpener, single tooth setter, homemade Linn Lumber 1900 style mill, old tools

LumberDan

He "contacted" me today and He said  he  will ship no later  than next Thursday. Still no phone call but I have to take a leap of faith... will keep  you  all posted .

Ox

I admit it's a little strange to me that he seems to avoid phone calls.  But email contact is better than nothing, right?  As long as there's a steady contact stream available I would reckon everything is OK.  After all, he's still in business and apparently very busy so that's always a good sign.  I'm feeling confident this will work out just fine.
K.I.S.S. - Keep It Simple Stupid
Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without
1989 GMC 3500 4x4 diesel dump and plow truck, 1964 Oliver 1600 Industrial with Parsons loader and backhoe, 1986 Zetor 5211, Cat's Claw sharpener, single tooth setter, homemade Linn Lumber 1900 style mill, old tools

gww

I must be a wierdo cause I try to answer every call I get while it is ringging.  I see people all the time look at there phone and decide whether to answer or not.  I almost never leave a message and hate talking to computers that tell me push 1 for this and push 2 for that.  I can be rude enough that if it is someone I don't want to talk to I tell them but I never avoid the call. 

I feel my rant is in a fitting place and I remember when poeple and companys did answer their phone.  It isn't that long ago that they had no choice or maby it just seems like it wasn't that long ago.  I must be getting old.
gww

LumberDan

That has been my problem all along, not answering  or returning my calls. I had a typo earlier ,  it wasn't  55 times I called him it was 25 times. Lol enough said

LumberDan

My sawmill carriage is in Dayton, Ohio as of today Sunday, that's only 30 mins from me! 8) I'm excited to see it and to start building the rest of it. I will put up some pics of it when I get it. This experience with those people at Sequoia Mills has been the worst ever. Redbeard, good luck!

justallan1

Dan, I want to thank you for this entire thread. I work on a ranch, live alone and every now and then I get to missing working around people and occasionally dealing with customers. I'm sitting right now drinking coffee and thinking how awesome cows really are. I've never had one call me once, let alone 55 times ;D and when they make a mess of things and I'm trying to rebuild fences and get them some water I don't think they ever drug my name through the mud, although they have drug my sorry butt through it a few times. :D
I do hope for you (and especially Neil) that your new mill is everything that you wanted and everything is clear sailing for you from here on out.

Ox

Hopefully your new mill exceeds your expectations and makes all of this waiting worth it.
K.I.S.S. - Keep It Simple Stupid
Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without
1989 GMC 3500 4x4 diesel dump and plow truck, 1964 Oliver 1600 Industrial with Parsons loader and backhoe, 1986 Zetor 5211, Cat's Claw sharpener, single tooth setter, homemade Linn Lumber 1900 style mill, old tools

redbeard

Glad that your mill will soon be operational and the experience will subside with the joy of milling some lumber. Nothing wrong with being honest about your feelings and experience. And  there will still be some frustration getting your mill dialed in and cutting right. Hopefully Neil will work with you getting the bugs worked out. Its just a machine tool, every one on FF with band mills has the same thing, Two band wheels with a motor and a blade. They all will cut lumber.
Whidbey Woodworks and Custom Milling  2019 Cooks AC 3662T High production band mill and a Hud-son 60 Diesel wide cut bandmill  JD 2240 50hp Tractor with 145 loader IR 1044 all terrain fork lift  Cooks sharp

LumberDan

Justallan, I did mention it was a typo, was only 25 times. The reason so many was due to him not calling me back. I've  not spoke to him since March! He did some custom work on it for me and I had questions. On one of my texts to him not long ago I used these words ; "please, please I beg of you to call me..." nothing! I've  been a contractor for 20 years so I know about customer service, the cap he pulled with me was just unexceptable, sorry. He has only been in business 2 years, lots to learn in customer service. I'm moving on and am trying to get excited about  my first milling experience. Thanks Redbeard I wrote down your number and will be giving you a buzz sometime. I have a nice pile of ash logs that are screaming to be flooring in my barn! Lol

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