I was wronged today.
I have been shopping around for the 2020/21 K2 Poachers in size 177 for about a month and a half. I didn't get a chance to pick up these skis last season, and I was finally able to find a vendor who had 177's for sale in the Netherlands. I placed my order with Outdoor XL and paid the $70 to ship these puppies over here to the states, it was their last pair and I have been SO stoked.
I live in Irvine, CA and there isn't a shop here I've bonded with yet. Most people snowboard around here and I wanted to get them mounted before we went to Mammoth so I could ride them asap. All that said I went to my Local REI.
When I dropped them off I filled out the form. You know the deal, height, weight, boot type, skier type and requested mounting point. I am mounting up Pivot 14's, which don't have (much) adjustability and I'm also looking at new boots so I already know that I will *probably* have to re-drill these skis when I get new boots. With that in mind I wanted to be EXTREMELY careful as to communicate the correct mounting point.
The skis only have one mark on them for mounting and thats the recommended line. I wanted the skis to be mounted 3.25 cm in front of the recommended line. I even asked the guy working the back (the one supposedly mounting them) to tell me how he wanted the form completed. We decided 3.25 cm in front of recommended line was clear enough. I also opted to do the phantom treatment just as a bonus because hey why not I plan on keeping these baddies.
Fast forward to about an hour ago, when I went to pick them up. I walk in there and see the skis in the rack, I'm excited, I see the same guy who did the intake and I'm like "what up dude!" you know I stayed and BSd with him for 20 minutes last time and he recognized me, awesome just adding to the hype.
He brings them over and I knew IMMEDIATLEY something was wrong. The line in the middle of the ski had a binding over it. He's rummaging through his paperwork and quickly split the skis and flip one over to compare tip to tail. My calculations should have put me 2cm back from mathematical center (whatever the technical term is, length of the ski divided by 2). The TOE PEICE OF THE SKI IS ALMOST PAST THE DILDO PART OF THE REAR BINDING, THE TAIL OF THE SKI IS EASILY A HAND LENGTH LONGER THEN THE TIP!
****At this point I was in shock. I have been in a car accident, I have seen people get in accidents. I might as well have been hit by a car, I was in shock****
I quietly let him know we were going to need the manager.
Note: I am not one to "explode" on people, I have worked customer service, my approach to life is objective and I am a natural optimist. BUT, I cannot.... CANNOT understand how the tech mounted these skis 9 CM FORWARD FROM DEAD CENTER!!!!
As a manager, this would be instant drug test. If you fail the drug test, that's even worse because how in the fuck did you look at this ski and say "yep, looks right". You would have had to been high as a kite to not notice these things were fucked.
My phone number is on the form. If someone asks for a ski 9 CM in front of center you bet your ass imma call them. I would have LOVED to get a call from REI, that is one of the FEW people I would have been excited to get a call from.
Anyways, manager comes over. She's nice she's apologizing, she's telling me we can remount them. I'm explaining that I didn't bring them in to have holes put in them and that they aren't going to be able to find these planks. Shes going to call K2 tomorrow but again, I doubt shes gonna find em cause I had to order them from the freaking Netherlands.
I'm going to ask her to reimburse me for the price of the ski, the phantom wax, and to remount them for free.... And to never let the guy who mounted them mount skis again. On the one hand I feel like that's asking a lot, on the other hand this whole situation points to some pretty massive gaping holes in their process and REI is a big company, I feel like they need to feel the hurt that I'm feeling.
Anyone have experience with this situation? Anyone else dealt with REI or similar? Am I being crazy or is this out of control? Does anyone know where to get 2020/21 Poachers in 177? Lets hear your stories, and their resolutions.
Thanks for letting me blow off some steam
(photos show mount, back of yellow line on the ski is where I wanted mounted, front of yellow line on ski is almost center, red line on boot is boot midsole)
