Well folks, Liz and I had a wonderful vacation over the Christmas Holiday. We spent slightly longer than two weeks with Lizs' family in Granville Beach, Nova Scotia. As you know we had a very busy Summer and Fall, and made great use of our time to relax.
We returned home to Cumberland Bay this past Sunday and dove right into work. I've been working with the books to try and bring everything up to date, I think I am just about done catching up, a few more minor details tomorrow and I'll be able to move ahead with
the books on a week to week basis.
Kevin and I traveled to Sussex on Tuesday and met with Arbing Equipment to finally put to rest our tractor woes. We received some financial assistance from NCEM headquarters and paid the bill. It was an unfortunate situation, and has left us a little wiser. (if you don't know the story, you can read my post in December) The tractor was delivered yesterday, Kevin & Ron Cole put on the snow blower today and we are in business.
I will be getting at the website in the next few days as well. Arrowhead, and the NCEM Eastern Field will be having a fully interactive website developed and put into operation prior to April (Lord willing) I will share some more details with you about the functionality of the website in another post, suffice it to say that we are hoping it will not only be a wonderful ministry tool, but will allow us to reduce some of our postal and printed form expenses.
If you are wondering just where our prayer letter is for January, I am hoping to get that to the post next week. We will be publishing the 'Just Mind The Gap' Prayer Letter just four times a year from now on. We initially were sending it every two months, but have decided that it might be more prudent to send quarterly. If you aren't receiving the prayer letter in the mail and would like to, we'd be more than happy to add you to the mailing, just let us know!
I will be working on producing the next edition of 'the Quiver' to be sent out in March. This little magazine is Arrowhead's own prayer letter and will be sent out quarterly as well. We are working on some printed collateral for Arrowhead (a camp brochure, and flyers for this summer's upcoming camps), these will be available once the details of this summers camps are neailed down. Kevin and Marcia are working hard at organizing the programs, speakers and staff for this coming Summer Camp season.
As a bit of an extra side project, I am working with Conrad Flett on a short series of videos geared to First Nations youth. The videos will focus on some very real issues for Native young people in Canada. Each will feature a short message from Howard Jollie, a native pastor in Winnipeg, as well as some testimony and music. It is Conrad's vision that these will be a valuable tool to reach out to youth by addressing, in an engaging way, some things that are important to them. I'm excited to have been asked to work on the project and hope to complete it prior to travelling out west to P.A.T.H. training this April.
We are beginning to think a little more about our travel out to P.A.T.H. in April. We have our book list from last year, and will each have to read five books from the list and write reports on them, due upon arrival in April. I have already read a couple of them and written brief reports for you, I will do the same with the remaining titles as I go.
In thinking about our upcoming training, I will be posting some details about our upcoming 'Penny Rolling Party' in conjunction with the fundraiser we are running... 'A Plethora of pennies'. We have been receiving some great support from churches, friends and family, we're excited to have you all share with us in this acute financial need.
Well, I think that catches us up for now, I do apologize for my absentee Blogging over the Christmas break. I hope to check in two or three times a week to keep you up to date on our shenanigans!
God Bless and Happy New Year!
Showing posts with label Arbing Equipment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Arbing Equipment. Show all posts
Friday, January 8, 2010
Monday, December 7, 2009
Tractor Tales
We have indeed had something of an adventure with the Arrowhead Tractor. It has been difficult and required some careful stepping, but I believe we have come to a bit of a resolution, although not ideal it is the best we can do.
Late in September, Kevin called Arbing Equipment Ltd. a Case tractor dealer in Sussex. We had some work that needed to be done on the tractor and were looking at having as much done as possible. Kevin gave them a list of what to look at and possibly repair if needed (alternator, brakes, windshield wipers, lights, hoses, tires and chains). They were given this list with the stipulation that we wanted to spend no more than $2,000. Unfortunately this is where the story breaks down. Although Kevin called repeatedly in the subsequent weeks and asked for a quote or any information regarding the cost of the work, he was told that it was impossible to give quotes on this sort of work. The one piece of information that we did have was that new chains would cost $1,300 plus tax. So we expected that we may not have all of the work done from the list, but we never could find any information out from the dealer.
After six weeks of calling looking for information, the dealer told Kevin that it was ready and that the bill came in at $5,512.61. At that point Kevin asked me to find out what I could about what we could do in the situation. We had clearly asked not to spend over $2,000 and they had clearly taken advantage of us.
I spent a day on the phone. I talked to the Better Business Bureau, to Consumer Affairs at the Dept. of Justice, the office of the Ombudsman for NB. In the Province of Ontario there is legislation to protect consumers from this sort of treatment by service shops. The Consumer Protection Act demands written quotes and a deviation of no more than 10% from the expectation of the consumer without a new quote or verbal permission. Unfortunately for us Maritimers we are on our own. Each office I spoke to was VERY sympathetic, but could suggest nothing that was helpful to us. I did call Case® International as well, and they opened an incident report, but again I am still waiting on them.
I spoke to three different individuals at Arbing Equipment. Initially when I called, the service manager was out of province so I spoke to the parts manager. While I was talking to him I was aware that someone else had picked up and was listening in, which was fine really, but certainly put away any trust that might have been lurking in my mind. The parts manager informed me that the number Kevin had been given was actually incorrect as it did not include the cost of the chains, $1,469.00 after tax. He also informed me that there was a $390 trucking fee for the chains, information which had been omitted when Kevin initially inquired of the cost of chains for the tractor.
The actual total of the bill was $6981.81. We were somewhat mortified, not only that they would breech our $2,000 mandate so grossly, but that they wouldn't so much as call and talk to us about it. My suggestion to the parts manager was that, even though they had made the error, if they removed the chains and brought the labour down to a total bill of $3,500 we would do our best to work with that. He laughed in my ear.
A week passed, I spoke to the Service Manager after he returned from being away. He said he would do what he could. But none of the folks at Arbing Equipment remember anything about a $2,000 cap. Which is convenient since the majority of the bill is labour ($3,000 to be exact - which comes out to 46.153 hours... oddly specific). I asked for a detailed breakdown of the labour, what was done and how long each task took. They cannot provide information like that, all they can tell me is that between Sept. 29 and Nov. 12 we accrued $3,000 in labour.
A couple of days after I spoke to the service manager I received a call from a salesman at the office, I can only assume this is who was listening in when I called initially. I'm not really sure why they passed me off to a salesman, but that is indeed what happened. For the first time since we had delivered the tractor, I was faxed an invoice from Arbing Equipment. I spoke to the salesman a couple of times and we have come to a resolution. We at Arrowhead are not satisfied with this resolution, but I believe it is the only way we are going to get our tractor back without legislation in New Brunswick to protect us. The tractor shop is going to remove the chains at no extra cost for labour and "donate" $1,557.61 to Arrowhead, leaving our bill at $3,955.
The Canadian Consumer Handbook does talk about deceptive business practices, but basically it just says... be careful. It would be great if a local MP would champion some legislation along the lines of Ontario's Consumer Protection Act, to protect Maritimers from 'forgetful' service providers.
The tractor should be returned this week, without chains and in running condition. We are thankful that this has come to a conclusion, and that the Lord is in control. Sometime we don't understand why things must be difficult, but He knows what's happening. His grace is sufficient and his mercy is great, so we continue to trust in Him to provide for all of the needs at Arrowhead as He always has.
Late in September, Kevin called Arbing Equipment Ltd. a Case tractor dealer in Sussex. We had some work that needed to be done on the tractor and were looking at having as much done as possible. Kevin gave them a list of what to look at and possibly repair if needed (alternator, brakes, windshield wipers, lights, hoses, tires and chains). They were given this list with the stipulation that we wanted to spend no more than $2,000. Unfortunately this is where the story breaks down. Although Kevin called repeatedly in the subsequent weeks and asked for a quote or any information regarding the cost of the work, he was told that it was impossible to give quotes on this sort of work. The one piece of information that we did have was that new chains would cost $1,300 plus tax. So we expected that we may not have all of the work done from the list, but we never could find any information out from the dealer.
After six weeks of calling looking for information, the dealer told Kevin that it was ready and that the bill came in at $5,512.61. At that point Kevin asked me to find out what I could about what we could do in the situation. We had clearly asked not to spend over $2,000 and they had clearly taken advantage of us.
I spent a day on the phone. I talked to the Better Business Bureau, to Consumer Affairs at the Dept. of Justice, the office of the Ombudsman for NB. In the Province of Ontario there is legislation to protect consumers from this sort of treatment by service shops. The Consumer Protection Act demands written quotes and a deviation of no more than 10% from the expectation of the consumer without a new quote or verbal permission. Unfortunately for us Maritimers we are on our own. Each office I spoke to was VERY sympathetic, but could suggest nothing that was helpful to us. I did call Case® International as well, and they opened an incident report, but again I am still waiting on them.
I spoke to three different individuals at Arbing Equipment. Initially when I called, the service manager was out of province so I spoke to the parts manager. While I was talking to him I was aware that someone else had picked up and was listening in, which was fine really, but certainly put away any trust that might have been lurking in my mind. The parts manager informed me that the number Kevin had been given was actually incorrect as it did not include the cost of the chains, $1,469.00 after tax. He also informed me that there was a $390 trucking fee for the chains, information which had been omitted when Kevin initially inquired of the cost of chains for the tractor.
The actual total of the bill was $6981.81. We were somewhat mortified, not only that they would breech our $2,000 mandate so grossly, but that they wouldn't so much as call and talk to us about it. My suggestion to the parts manager was that, even though they had made the error, if they removed the chains and brought the labour down to a total bill of $3,500 we would do our best to work with that. He laughed in my ear.
A week passed, I spoke to the Service Manager after he returned from being away. He said he would do what he could. But none of the folks at Arbing Equipment remember anything about a $2,000 cap. Which is convenient since the majority of the bill is labour ($3,000 to be exact - which comes out to 46.153 hours... oddly specific). I asked for a detailed breakdown of the labour, what was done and how long each task took. They cannot provide information like that, all they can tell me is that between Sept. 29 and Nov. 12 we accrued $3,000 in labour.
A couple of days after I spoke to the service manager I received a call from a salesman at the office, I can only assume this is who was listening in when I called initially. I'm not really sure why they passed me off to a salesman, but that is indeed what happened. For the first time since we had delivered the tractor, I was faxed an invoice from Arbing Equipment. I spoke to the salesman a couple of times and we have come to a resolution. We at Arrowhead are not satisfied with this resolution, but I believe it is the only way we are going to get our tractor back without legislation in New Brunswick to protect us. The tractor shop is going to remove the chains at no extra cost for labour and "donate" $1,557.61 to Arrowhead, leaving our bill at $3,955.
The Canadian Consumer Handbook does talk about deceptive business practices, but basically it just says... be careful. It would be great if a local MP would champion some legislation along the lines of Ontario's Consumer Protection Act, to protect Maritimers from 'forgetful' service providers.
The tractor should be returned this week, without chains and in running condition. We are thankful that this has come to a conclusion, and that the Lord is in control. Sometime we don't understand why things must be difficult, but He knows what's happening. His grace is sufficient and his mercy is great, so we continue to trust in Him to provide for all of the needs at Arrowhead as He always has.
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