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Johnson Bimini Top


89SN2001

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After searching through many gallery photos and past posts, and talking to local bimini makers, we decided to order from across the country from Johnson Bimini Tops. The first call went very well and they sent us samples of colors that we were interested in. I was not expecting that, so I was pleasantly surprised with the service.

When it came time to order, we told them we needed it by June 1 and they said OK. I asked how wide the top was for a SLXi and that is where trouble began. She could not tell me that dimension and I wanted to decide how wide we wanted the 3 center stripes to be based on how wide the rest of it would be. She said she would let us know. So we told her the main color was to be sunflower with a center white and black stripe to each side of the white. She said they call those "Tracers" and they are about 5 in wide, but you can do whatever size you want. I told her we would decide when we knew how wide it was. We said we wanted it 66 inches long and she told us it had to be 60 or 72 inches.

We also asked to get a price for a zipper on the front edge to allow us to have made locally a rain shield to snap to windshield.

The next day she still could not tell us the width exactly but gave us an approximation so we gave her our widths of 8 in black and 15 in center white with extended pylon zipper. She told us $100 for the front edge zipper and we said no. After some crew members helped with opinions we told her 5 ft for the length.

The UPS truck came last Thursday -- one week early. I could not believe it was here already! We opened it up immediately and found a zipper on the front edge, stripes of the wrong width and then we measured the length and it was 6 feet. The colors were all the right ones in the right order and that was it.

I had even called back to make sure everything that she needed was taken care of because my husband had called them to give the credit card number separately. I guess I should have had her repeat the order back to me like at a fast food restaurant.

We called the next day and Mitch, the owner answered the phone (we did not know he was the owner at that time). We told him everything and he said they would start a recall tag. He took all the right dimensions and said the lady who answers phone was on vacation, but he would check with her and it would only take a day to sew and they should be able to overnight it and get it her by Thursday so we could leave on Friday. We called when they opened on Tuesday and she was rude, saying there are no returns on custom orders. She would not let us talk to Mitch either. later, she said they would send us the return slip, but they would not remake it. She said, "There are some people you just can't please" I have never heard such talk from someone you are buying something from that is completely wrong.

We have contacted are credit card company and they said to try to resolve it with them a bit before doing the dispute for a chargeback.

Anyone had any issues with them?? Sorry so long winded, but this has been brewing all week with trying to contact Mitch again and she won't let us. (by the way, it is his Mom answering the phone so we are not sure how that confuses the matter.

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Uhg. I got shafted on my first bimini as well. Some of it was my fault for not getting really picky with the details before the order, but it was still way outside my expectations. I didn't even get a call back when I tried to get in touch the mfg. I just through up my hands, sliced the sunbrella to ribbons for other projects, and used the fittings to help fix the towerbimini.com that came a little wrong several months later. Net effect.... $1400 bimini solution :( that should have been $700.

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It's a real bummer that the credit card company is trying to get out of doing it's job, which should be to work for their customer rather then telling you to try to work it out yourself.

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Just dispute it through your CC company and make the best history of dates and conversations you can. The more info, the better. I'll bet they don't even do their part on the dispute and you will be credited back the charge and end up keeping the bimini.

If you don't get the service out of your CC you need, cancel it and start using another card.

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Sounds like what happen to us a couple of years ago. We put a stop payment on the credit card and talked with the owner the next day, with the bimini in are hand and no money in his things got taken care of fast. The lady we had problems with was the owners wife, sounds like the son has taken over the company. Good luck.

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My top came from Johnson. It was exactly what I ordered. I have 3 friends with Johnson also with no problems. All 4 of these had special colors and stripes.

Sorry that you are having trouble.

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I too have a Johnson top, actually my second boat with a Johnson top, and not the least complaint from either top. Perfect fit and never had a problem.

Bob

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Sounds like what happen to us a couple of years ago. We put a stop payment on the credit card and talked with the owner the next day, with the bimini in are hand and no money in his things got taken care of fast. The lady we had problems with was the owners wife, sounds like the son has taken over the company. Good luck.

Unfortunately, the payment had already been made to them, so it would have to be disputed. The Mom/order taker finally talked to me. (still would not allow me to speak to son, the owner) Told us we had two options-- Keep it or send it back and they will refund the money. The entire time she huffed and puffed at me. She finally calmed down enough to offer a suggestion of cutting off some of the main bow, but that would only bring the height down about an inch and a half. And I don't think I like the idea of paying $800 and then having to operate on it at home to get it to be somewhat of what we ordered.

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Sounds like what happen to us a couple of years ago. We put a stop payment on the credit card and talked with the owner the next day, with the bimini in are hand and no money in his things got taken care of fast. The lady we had problems with was the owners wife, sounds like the son has taken over the company. Good luck.

Unfortunately, the payment had already been made to them, so it would have to be disputed. The Mom/order taker finally talked to me. (still would not allow me to speak to son, the owner) Told us we had two options-- Keep it or send it back and they will refund the money. The entire time she huffed and puffed at me. She finally calmed down enough to offer a suggestion of cutting off some of the main bow, but that would only bring the height down about an inch and a half. And I don't think I like the idea of paying $800 and then having to operate on it at home to get it to be somewhat of what we ordered.

that's just terrible...My johnson bimini (made at their shop) has held up great. I can't believe she's being that difficult and won't even let you talk to the owner/craftsman.

sounds like the best option is getting your money back, or call again at the same day/time you spoke directly to the son last time. One other suggestion - maybe her son reads the email directly. have you tried sending an email?

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My top came from Johnson. It was exactly what I ordered. I have 3 friends with Johnson also with no problems. All 4 of these had special colors and stripes.

Sorry that you are having trouble.

Bill

Yours was one of the tops we had seen helping us to choose Johnson. It looks nice.

What they sent looks good and is sewn well. If had been of the right length (5 not 6 feet) We would have lived with the mistakes in the stripe sizes and doing the zipper when we had decided to leave that to whoever we chose locally to fit the rain shield to the windshield.

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that's just terrible...My johnson bimini (made at their shop) has held up great. I can't believe she's being that difficult and won't even let you talk to the owner/craftsman.

sounds like the best option is getting your money back, or call again at the same day/time you spoke directly to the son last time. One other suggestion - maybe her son reads the email directly. have you tried sending an email?

Tried email--she got that too. We looked him up through information to try at home, but she responded to that too. I think Onamission got it right-- used to be Dad's company with the wife now it is Mom running the show with Son's name on the ticket. We also had suspicions that she was not telling him anything or making up her own story and did not want him to hear the real one.

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that's just terrible...My johnson bimini (made at their shop) has held up great. I can't believe she's being that difficult and won't even let you talk to the owner/craftsman.

sounds like the best option is getting your money back, or call again at the same day/time you spoke directly to the son last time. One other suggestion - maybe her son reads the email directly. have you tried sending an email?

Tried email--she got that too. We looked him up through information to try at home, but she responded to that too. I think Onamission got it right-- used to be Dad's company with the wife now it is Mom running the show with Son's name on the ticket. We also had suspicions that she was not telling him anything or making up her own story and did not want him to hear the real one.

this is disappointing. I'm going to send them an email w/ my views.

Kevin

Edited by Addictedto6
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that's just terrible...My johnson bimini (made at their shop) has held up great. I can't believe she's being that difficult and won't even let you talk to the owner/craftsman.

sounds like the best option is getting your money back, or call again at the same day/time you spoke directly to the son last time. One other suggestion - maybe her son reads the email directly. have you tried sending an email?

Tried email--she got that too. We looked him up through information to try at home, but she responded to that too. I think Onamission got it right-- used to be Dad's company with the wife now it is Mom running the show with Son's name on the ticket. We also had suspicions that she was not telling him anything or making up her own story and did not want him to hear the real one.

this is disappointing. I'm going to send them an email w/ my views.

Kevin

EDIT: just realized that sending the email might mess up your refund process. I will send the email as soon as you ok it. I'll wait until you either get your money back or give the go ahead.

Edited by Addictedto6
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After reading good press about them on this site I asked them for a quote on a bimini via their web site. They never responded so I ended up having one made locally and I couldn't be happier with the work they did.

Bummer for you, even if you get a refund you are topless for the summer. I doubt anyone is gonna turn around makeing one real fast.

We had a bad deal on custom shirt printing work once for a volleyball team. Paid in advance and when the shirts came the printing was really bad, cracking and comeing off. Called them and the woman says no way she did that herself it has to be good and brushed me off. The cc company said to send it back (180 miles away) so I did. It came back unopened, they refused to recieve it even tho the package was undamaged. Our postmaster documented that for us, CC company refunded, other company appealed stateing a bunch of BS, CC company re-charged us, I was in that area so I stoped in with the package, still unopened from the first attempt, the owner/manager again refused to look at the merchandise and got really rude. (don't think they liked the holstered handgun on my hip either) Called CC company again, they refunded, this was 2 years ago, we still have the money and the package.

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Kevin--

Will let you know when refund received. I took the top to 2 local guys that have never done a extended pylon zipper or multiple colors to get a quote. I looked at their work and it looked nice. My dad had used one of them for a few boat covers and they were good. So we decided it was worth the wait to get what we wanted. It is going to be about 4 weeks. I am going to email Johnson to tell them to send the recall UPS truck for their top. They said they will refund the money when returned in new condition.

We made our trip this weekend to Lake Cumberland with 4 little boys and wait until you see what we were reduced to for our lunch time shade. Will post a pic later, cuz you'll never believe it.

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Send her a link to this thread....Nobody likes bad press.

She did not care in the slightest about me posting on here or any other site. I guess they do not realize how many people read these boards. Nor did she care about a Better Business Bureau Report. (They are not members BTW) She told me to do what we felt we had to. I did find some kind of local marine site for CA that they advertise on where you can rate you experience with them. They sent a note with the top asking "if you are happy with your top, let WaterSki Magazine know" I guess we should let them know that we were not. I saw they have a link on WaterskiMag.com where there is also a link to email the editor on the same page.

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I guess I don't follow what you're so upset about. If they weren't offering a full refund, that would be one thing, but it sounds like they are, so why all the bashing? Its a deal that went bad on both sides, but they are the ones stuck eating a custom bimini they made and will have difficulty selling to anyone else, and you have all your money back. I apologize if I missed something....

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I guess I don't follow what you're so upset about. If they weren't offering a full refund, that would be one thing, but it sounds like they are, so why all the bashing? Its a deal that went bad on both sides, but they are the ones stuck eating a custom bimini they made and will have difficulty selling to anyone else, and you have all your money back. I apologize if I missed something....

I am upset because I had a choice to get our top in time for our trip last weekend to protect my 3 children and a guest from all day sun exposure. I chose them because they seemed to know more about making them for a ski boat and an extended pylon. When we talked to the owner, Mitch, after it came made wrong, he said he would start the recall tag and he could sew a new one in a day and would be able to overnight it to us in time for our trip. His Mom wouldn't let him and then would not let him speak to us again to tell us why. They did not have to eat the entire cost, they could have either tried to fix what they sent us. We told them we took it to people in town that would alter it for about $200. We told them that we would live with the wrong width strips, but not the extra length. All they had to do was offer a partial refund for their mistakes so we could have it fixed here. They may have lost profit, but at least they would not have been out a whole top materials costs.

I just want anyone else who decides to order from them to get what they order in writing back from them before they make it, because she was clueless and can't remember what she was told, and was very rude.

The top was sewn well and looked nice. The 2 local guys I took it to did say that they use a heavier grade of aluminum than Johnson used, but they also said it looked nice. So now we are topless for a month with 4, 6 and 8 year olds.

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I'm kinda with jcbatt on this. Issues happen all the time when ordering custom made stuff, just they way it goes. I'm a firm believer in planning ahead to prevent getting into a bind. You had your boat in early April so there was time to order it before the season. Dontknow.gif

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I'm kinda with jcbatt on this. Issues happen all the time when ordering custom made stuff, just they way it goes. I'm a firm believer in planning ahead to prevent getting into a bind. You had your boat in early April so there was time to order it before the season. Dontknow.gif

I am not sure what when we got our boat has to do with poor customer service, however, we did get it in early April and the Postmark on my samples and quote from Johnson is March 27--before we even picked it up. We tend to spend considerable time evaluating before making a purchase. So I would say we planned pretty far ahead.

Now that I have seen others have had similar issues communicating with them (her), I would just like the same not to happen to anyone else. Advice is to fax your order and then have them send you confirmation of what will be sewn before they start. (A copy of their Bimini order worksheet and invoice) They should probably do that anyhow and have you sign off on it to cover their own behinds.

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Note to self.... When having "custom work" done on my boat, have boat in customizer's shop to avoid problems like this.

I don't think I'd ever order a tower bimini without the boat being in the shop for fit/dimensioning. Seems like a no brainer to me. I bought a standard bimini that way and it was OK

I had a bimmini and a cover made at Johnson (Palo Alto upholstry) and could not be happier.

...You're right though, she's not the cheeriest person in the world...

Pat

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I'm kinda with jcbatt on this. Issues happen all the time when ordering custom made stuff, just they way it goes. I'm a firm believer in planning ahead to prevent getting into a bind. You had your boat in early April so there was time to order it before the season. Dontknow.gif

I am not sure what when we got our boat has to do with poor customer service, however, we did get it in early April and the Postmark on my samples and quote from Johnson is March 27--before we even picked it up. We tend to spend considerable time evaluating before making a purchase. So I would say we planned pretty far ahead.

Now that I have seen others have had similar issues communicating with them (her), I would just like the same not to happen to anyone else. Advice is to fax your order and then have them send you confirmation of what will be sewn before they start. (A copy of their Bimini order worksheet and invoice) They should probably do that anyhow and have you sign off on it to cover their own behinds.

The issue here to me is not that the cover was made wrong. I agree with edwin that that is going to happen. The reason why 89SN2001 is upset is because of the way they were treated. This could have been taken care of so that both sides were reasonably happy but because the business owner's mom wouldn't let them talk to him (pretty lame IMO), both sides lose out. Whatever happened to the customer is always right? My wife used to go to a doctor she really liked but had to find another because she couldn't stand dealing with the rude office manager. This guy's mom should know that when she is rude to people when there is a problem, she is just chasing away present and future business.

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We just wished we would have known Mitch was the owner when he answered the phone the first day we called after we got it. He was so nice, and we would have discussed it further with him, but we though he was just someone who worked for them. The sad part is that we think either she has been feeding him a lot of misconceptions about what happened or he has no idea that we have even called back.

On a lighter note---Here is the ridicuous way we hade shade while anchored--and it was only a $20 temporary solution :lol:

post-1386-1149693207_thumb.jpg

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