HGR24 — Attraction in Euclid

Working with HGR Industrial Surplus was the worst customer service experience I've had in 26 years as a business owner. When our regular suppliers were sold out due to the steel shortage, an old friend recommended HGR. When I called HGR, I was told to visit. When I visited, six staff did not know what pallet racking is and told me that HGR doesn't sell it. Yet I persisted. After walking miles in circles, I was introduced to a salesperson. I took his card, emailed him the exact list of parts I needed, and in response he only sent me a link to their website. Their website is not intuitive or organized. Length and width measurements are not consistently implemented, quantities are not listed in the same fields, and sometimes there is just a pile of something with no measurements or quantities. It’s as if they don’t know what it is or what it’s worth. Nevertheless, I input an order. My order was canceled the next day without explanation. I did not receive any responses to emails and upon calling, I was told to enter the order again. I asked what I could do to prevent my order from being canceled. I was told that it was canceled to make the items available for other customers. I asked how to purchase items and the employee hung up on me. I selected a different salesperson, who told me to order on their website. I sucked it up and added everything to my cart again, making a phone call to my salesperson immediately afterward, who seemed rather annoyed. So I picked a third salesperson, who was responsive, friendly, and even helpful. She secured our parts, scheduled a pickup, and we rented a truck. We were on time and were instructed to pull into a loading bay. Over an hour later someone came to inspect the bill of lading, looking back and forth between the paper and the empty truck, over and over. He then loudly asked his coworkers if anyone had picked up our load yet. After driving around some more, he returned to admit that he couldn't find it and that it would take him at least another hour to locate our parts. Having been there for hours at this point, we agreed that it would be cheaper for them to find and freight our load the five miles to us than to sit there all day. I relayed this experience to our salesperson, who expressed that the problem was that we had brought the wrong truck. We didn't hear from HGR for another week. They still could not find the parts that we had paid for weeks prior. Reluctantly, they admitted that they likely didn't have the stuff that they sold us. Later that day, I learned that HGR was named after the Van Halen song "Hit the Ground Running," which suddenly seemed painfully ironic. Trying to make the best of a bad situation, I asked HGR to find some comparable parts to ship to us. Another week later, they had found some, but then discovered that they had measured the new parts incorrectly and thus, they were not actually compatible with each other. We invested over twenty staff hours and one truck rental into HGR. I leveled with the manager to ask for them to compensate for this, and he said there was nothing that they could offer. Our salesperson suggested that we pay a specialist to locate what we need. I spent three excruciating months of my life trying to exchange money for stuff with HGR. It seems that HGR might be a good fit for people who want to put industrial equipment in their garage for hobby purposes. Instead, I went back to our regular supplier. One hour after I sent a single email, our regular supplier unloaded the parts inside our warehouse. Oddest of all, even during the steel shortage, their new parts were 20% cheaper than used parts from HGR. Our regular supplier asked who we were trying to work with. When he told him, he didn’t even consider them a competitor. He exclaimed, “HGR? I’ve never even heard of them!” Apparently one of these companies knows how to hit the ground running. Update: HGR responded to say that they would make this right and to expect a call soon. I received...

Customer service since Frischkorn became their "Chief Sales Officer" and the company began a revolving door of employee turnover(not just turnover, literally churn). The people in sales no longer know anything about machinery, you basically have a boiler room. The attitude is they would rather scrap a machine and take a tax deduction than sell it at what the market will bear(believe me still more than scrap). Their policies from "return the damaged freight on your dollar" to "you must use our carriers and rates" because they use freight brokers and the now terrible sales experience since Frischkorn began his rise means I will never spend a nickel at this place. It doesn't matter if you spend $10k per year, $100k per year, or $1million+ - you're treated equally with disdain. I closed my shop and went into consulting and discovered I wasn't the only one treated like a porta-potty. Because they shift people around who don't know how to properly do the job(sales guy to shipping)- you get skids terribly skidded- literally spoke to a corporate officer and a trucker at a large LTL line and they said openly that it was easier to avoid HGR than to deal with the attitude, incompetence, and complete disregard for the customer. Spoke to a sales rep who left who said that when HGR sold that the mandate became to force out long term employees by whatever means necessary, focus on squeezing every last penny on a sale with the attitude that repeat sales were uncertain, but sale in progress was more certain so do anything to ring that last penny out and if that customer and the hatchetman constant job-scared employees is the corporate culture. I did the consulting on a startup in E TN and a buyer suggested HGR, I related my experiences, he said he would take the chance. Result? Bought a six figure machining center, got a six figure boat anchor fit for a naval destroyer. Too bad they were not in the...

CUSTOMERS BEWARE!!!! PLEASE READ So somehow hgr is managing to have negative reviews removed. I bought about $13000 worth of goods and equipment from hgr trying to furnish a shop and they were very easy to contact right up until the moment I paid. The salesperson I dealt with entire time "ASSURED" me that if something did not work or was damaged they were very good about helping fix the issue. I was very adamant about finding this out as I live in north carolina and it cost .e $2500 to get shipped here well upon arrival two machines had wires ripped out of the servo motors obviously by a forklift the truck driver pointed this out to me before we ever unloaded when I called hgr and sent pictures I was referred to a manager who never answered his phone or returned my calls I then called another manager who did the same thing and human resources who did the same thing I finally received a text and this is what it said....Anthony it's Mike from hgr. I'm sending this in a text so we have written dialog. As far as the damages go, you are more than welcome to return those pieces. I will extend the return date to whatever you need. We will not refund any money for the damages unless you return the pieces. If you return the pieces we will refund you the full amount for the machine(s) but that is it That's a copy and paste I told them before I ever paid for this stuff that I didn't want to buy if returning was only option because of cost of shipping that would be crazy and they assured me they would assist with repairs or another resolution and not to worry. Well now they have banned me from using there company because I tried to get the repairs they told me was there policy's do NOT BUY FROM THEM UNLESS YOU CAN AFFORD TO FIX THINGS YOURSELF THAT THEY DAMAGED BECAUSE THIS DAMAGE WAS NOT IN ORIGINAL ...