Here's my experience with John from 2011.
It's funny how John will return a call for new business. I've refrained from telling my experience with John, but tonight was his last chance to redeem himself.
So sometime in the middle of April I decided to order a custom sump from John because of all great reviews here on RC. So I called him and left a message on his VM. About 10 minutes later I got a call back. To myself I’m thinking, cool, this guy is living up to his reputation. So couple emails go back and forth with sketches and I was getting super fast responses. At this point I’m thinking, WOW this guy is great. So I ended up picking up my custom sump May 8th. I go to his shop and check out the product. All looks perfect. The build quality is top notch. So on my way home back to Torrance I’m nothing but smiles because I got my brand new custom sump from AA. So I get home and continue to inspect and the main baffle that controls the water height of the skimmer area is 2” too tall. It’s 10” instead of 8” as depicted in the sketch. So I give him a call and he answers the phone right away. I tell him my problem and we came to the conclusion that a 2” skimmer stand would be best. He tells me “I’ll send that out tomorrow (Monday)”. I know when shipping stuff UPS or FedEx it usually comes next day since we’re both local. So I figured the latest it would come is Thursday or Friday. Saturday came and nothing. So I posted a thread here on RC “has anyone talked to John” and got lots of replies of how great he is and a couple of unhappy post as well. After more phone calls, more voicemails, more texts, and more emails, I got no response until this past Monday (5/17). I texted him and he calls me back and we talk and he says that “he’ll send it out tomorrow”. So Thursday comes (yesterday) and still nothing on my door step. So I figured I’d make it easy for him and tell him I’d pick it up at his shop to save him from shipping it. He says tells me to come today (Friday) at 7pm to pick it up. So I go out there this evening with my 4 year old (so that I can get in the carpool lane), fight the Friday night traffic and get to his shop and I knock on his door and NOTHING…… He wasn’t there. I called him and got no answer, I texted him and got no answer. So I wasted mine and my sons time today driving in Friday night traffic for empty promises.
It’s a good thing that this guy builds top quality stuff because his customer service is the worst. In my case, nothing but empty promises unless it’s new business.
