Alaska Tonewood J&S Timber Products *** The best tonewood you will never get *** Ketchikan, Alaska

I found the web site for this company at the beginning of February, 2011 while looking for a new source for tonewood to use on the tops of my guitars.  After exchanging several emails and a phone call to the company to verify their prices, determine how to place an order and determine that they had the tops I wanted available, I mailed an order along with a bank money order for the total amount.  They only accept checks, money orders, bank certified checks or bank wire transfers. 

The order was mailed Feb 10, 2011 and when I had not heard anything from them by Feb 24th, I contacted them by email to see if they had received my order and if so whether it had been shipped.  I received a reply that they had received it earlier that week and the money order had been deposited on Feb 23rd.  I was told that the bank would place a 5 day hold on it even though it was a bank money order.  They said once the funds were released, they would process and ship my order.

Three weeks later (Mar 19) I had not received the wood and had not been updated by the company, so once again I contacted them to inquire on the status of my order.  I received a reply from the owner stating he would check with his bookkeeper on Monday and get back to me.

Another week passed without a response from the owner so I emailed him again to see what he found out.  He responded that the sawyer who was assigned to cut my order did not do it and had been fired.  He also indicated he hoped to ship my order the next week.  I found it very interesting that a sawyer was even involved since I had ordered top grade book matched tops and been assured that they had them available to ship.  I don't know how he could say he had them if they had not even been cut and graded.

I had not received the wood  or had any update from the company by the end of the next week.  By that time it had been well over a month since they verified that they received my order.  All of the other tonewood vendors I deal with ship within a week, so I was getting tired of the whole process.  I sent an email at that point (Apr 1) asking them to send me the tracking information if my order had shipped.  I told them that if it had not shipped to just cancel the order and refund my money.

I received an unusual response from the owner.  He started off with a rambling comment indicating that my order may or may not have shipped and stating that they may not have received my payment which he had to know was not true.  He warned me not to get nasty and threatening and also commented that he understood that small buyers yell the loudest.  He also stated that they do not do refunds but deliveries.  All indications were that they don't do deliveries either!   Not exactly a standard approach to customer service.

I continued to send weekly inquiries without any further response from the company.  On Sunday Apr 10,1011 I faxed a formal cancellation letter to them and followed it up with an email that contained the text of the letter just in case they claimed the fax did not come through.  In the letter I told them I was cancelling because they had not shipped within the 30 day default period and had not offered any adjusted ship date for my consideration.  I told them I expected a full refund within 7 business days.

On Apr 20, 2011 I sent an email regarding the status of my refund since I had not received a check and they had not even acknowledged the cancellation.  I told them if the refund had been mailed to let me know the date it was mailed and I would wait an appropriate period before taking any action.  I told him that if he did not respond to my inquiry as he had failed to do for all correspondence since Apr 3rd, I would assume he had no intention of dealing with me in a professional manner and would take whatever action I deemed appropriate.

On Apr 25, 2011 I made two more attempts to contact them by phone and resolve the issue, but like all of the other calls I made after the initial pre-order call in February no one answered.  At that point I filed a complaint with the local Call For Action office to see if their volunteers could mediate a resolution to the problem.

May 3, 2011 I was contacted by a volunteer from Call For Action.  I gave her the details of the transaction and she said she would call John McCray (the owner) and try to mediate a solution.  She called back a short time later and told me she had talked to someone she could only assume was the owner.  When she asked for him, the man had asked if she was a bill collector.  She replied that she was not and told him she was with Call For Action.  She told me he went into an abusive tirade filled with curse words and she had to hang up because she could not get him to discuss the issue.  She apologized for not being able to help and suggested I file a complaint on this site.

Since she had managed to reach him, I decided to call and try to find out why he was so abusive and to inform him that my complaint had gone beyond a simple disputed order.  The phone rang for quite awhile and I was about to decide he was not going to answer when he finally picked up.  I verified that it was John and then identified myself.  I told him I had been informed that he was verbally abusive to the young lady who called on my behalf.  He admitted that he had and the went into a tirade about how we small buyers place an order and them immediately start complaining that we haven't received our wood.  I reminded him that I had sent my order on the 10th of February and he just continued the tirade without giving me a chance to engage him in a civil conversation.  Finally he said "I will return your money and f*** you."

I won't be holding my breath until that check arrives!

I am assuming he takes care of large orders since those customers would be more likely to take legal action against him.  Based on my experience and some of the comments he made along the way, he seems to think it is okay to take money from small buyers, stall them with various excuses for not shipping until they give up and then keep their money.  In my book that is not business, that is stealing.

I hope that this complaint will stop at least a few people from having the same experience.  Better yet, I hope it gets the attention of some of the larger buyers and they decide to look elsewhere.