Village Lighting

Hello, My name is Craig L [redacted] and I'm responding to a complaint against Village LightingFirst off this complaint was sent to an employee who hasn't worked for Village Lighting for years, so it was by luck my bookkeeper came upon it, my email for further correspondence is [redacted] First, the request that we refund her the tax she paid to usIf you go to the Department of Revenue, per the attached documents it says for out of sales to nonresidents only a few states are eligible tax exempt, and California is not one of the statesThey would need to provide documentation from one of the approved states sellers are not required to make tax-exempt sales, and if we did it would need to be a state where they have no sales tax exemption is only available at the time of purchase, which don't apply here Second, on the request for reduction is freight she states she confirmed w/Fed Ex the cost of the lights delivered to her by Hubbardton Forge (HF) was only $ We have provided the credit card company a copy of the freight charges to us by Hubbard Forge at $90.24, I have a copy in attachments again for your reviewThere's a lot that goes into the freight charges, and from my experience shipping boxes of Hubbardton Forge lighting across the US won't be a $ charge The shipping charges come from not only the weight but the dimensional shipping weight that takes the sizes of the boxes into considerationI don't know where the cost at $ came from, but the shipping as you can see is what HF charged us it's not $There was another box which was shipped from our store she is not accounting for, then you need to add WA State sales tax As far as not responding to her emails, again they were sent to an employee who hasn't worked here for years Thank you, Craig L***

Hello,
My name is Craig L[redacted] and I'm responding to a complaint against Village Lighting. First off this complaint was sent to an employee who hasn't worked for Village Lighting for years, so it was by luck my bookkeeper came upon it, my email for further correspondence is...

[redacted] 
First, the request that we refund her the tax she paid to us. If you go to the Department of Revenue, per the attached documents it says for out of sales to nonresidents.
1. only a few states are eligible tax exempt, and California is not one of the states. They would need to provide documentation from one of the approved states.
2. sellers are not required to make tax-exempt sales, and if we did it would need to be a state where they have no sales tax
3. exemption is only available at the time of purchase, which don't apply here.
 
Second, on the request for reduction is freight she states she confirmed w/Fed Ex the cost of the lights delivered to her by Hubbardton Forge (HF) was only $ 55.00. We have provided the credit card company  a copy of the freight charges to us by Hubbard Forge at $90.24, I have a copy in attachments again for your review. There's a lot that goes into the freight charges, and from my experience shipping 2 boxes of Hubbardton Forge lighting across the US won't be a $ 55.00 charge The shipping charges come from not only the weight but the dimensional shipping  weight  that takes the sizes of the boxes into consideration. I don't know where the cost at $ 55.00 came from, but the shipping as you can see is what HF charged us it's not $55.00. There was another box which was shipped from our store she is not accounting for, then you need to add WA State sales tax.
 
As far as not responding to her emails, again they were sent to an employee who hasn't worked here for years.
 
Thank you,
Craig L[redacted]

I’m responding to the complaint made by [redacted].   I have to say first, the complaint made by [redacted] and all the facts she is using is coming from a person who was never present at anytime during this transaction. However she was here the day they came to pick up the lights. The...

person we whom we dealt with was [redacted] in paragraph 1 of her summary of events “does not have budgetary authority”, but that who we dealt with.   I see the complaint she sent you is different than the one sent to the Attorney General. I will send a copy of that complaint as well which was closed by the them.   On paragraph one, Monday February 13th that [redacted] and [redacted] got together to PRIOR to coming to Village Lighting and established a cost of 10 per light and that these lighting would be all rewired for $ 130.00 total. This they did on their own with no understanding what rewiring a light cost, but them seem to be relying on that figures as if we told them that. There was never a mention at anytime about $10 per light or $100, that’s their dong.  The amount they purchased their lights doesn’t matter to us and we don’t do our lamp repairs based on the value of their lights.   We do our lamp repairs on a Minimum Labor Fee of $35.00 plus parts and we don’t do anything by the hour, never have. That doesn’t say we do our lamp repairs 35.00 but it’s our starting point. We have no idea how long a lamp repair takes and we charge more if it’s a more technical job. For them to think we would do a complete rewire on 13 fixtures including 65.00 in parts for $100.00 or less make no sense. On here summary of events, February 15th she claims we would do the work for around $35.00, which is what our minimum labor fee would be, but throws in “not $35 apiece”, no heard by anybody present at the time.  Our lamp repair policy is $35.00 minimum labler per lamp.   Now I have very seasoned employees who have been in the lighting business for 30+ years and deal with lamp repairs on a daily basis. We have never had anybody misunderstand what we charge for a repair. I’m enclosing a list of recent repair labor charges and all but 2 fall under $35 charge and a lot are more. These are for single lamp repairs, not 13 for $35.   Other than Cheryl and myself for her first visit, I have 2 other employee’s present during the talk about cost of lamp repairs and I have enclosed their written statements as to what they overheard. One of them was present at the second visit when the same was disculled.   She claims we quoted a week a complete rewire on 13 light fixtures that were previous rewired by somebody who did a very poor job where every fixture they did would have shorted out. They used a SP-2 heavy gauged wire which is hard to work with, SP-1 wire would be the correct choice. They stringed the wire every link for the first 3 feet which all had to be undone, they used poor ground wire so putting on a new ground wire meant taking everything apart to install new ground wire. Lastly we had to take apart their sockets carefully to preserve all the wire because of the chain length they had.   We tell our lamp repair customers 1-2 week turnaround and many take longer based on parts available. We didn’t have all the sockets and ground wire needed to complete their fixtures. There is no possible way to get 13 lights rewired in a 2 day period after receiving the parts, just not going to happen.   We got their lamps done at the minimum labor fee and they were completed in a timely manner. And everything was good with no complaints until we called to let them know they were done.   As far as the credit card issue, that was done because of the comment she said when I spoke with  her on the phone where she said “then I will come in and pay by credit card and I will dispute the charges.   During our conversation I did reply to all of her concerns and I was very calm and polite. I guess because she could bully me by her letter of demands and try to do the same on her call, I and Village Lighting has bad customer service, ignored their questions behaved unprofessionally about what we charged for our lamp repair. There was absolutely no honest mistake, outright fraud, it’s the minimum of charges. There is no alternative solution or compromise  I’m going to provide to [redacted] because she is just wrong about the facts,  wasn’t present at anytime.  I know what [redacted] was told the first day along with Cheryl and 2 other employees present.  I can’t take responsibility for what was said to [redacted] by [redacted].   This would be the first complaint about lamp repair that has been received by Village Lighting and we have done hundreds of them.   Thank you, Craig     Craig L[redacted] Owner Village Lighting 360-734-3780 office --6 attachments included