Is there any worse feeling...

modessitt

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...than receiving a $200 parts order from Bob Roberts and finding no lagniappe inside? :(
 
...than receiving a $200 parts order from Bob Roberts and finding no lagniappe inside? :(

simple answer: no, almost nothing is worse.

I always felt weird telling him what I wanted for the lawnyawp, then when it doesn't show it always stings.
 
Funny.. the last 3 orders from Bob I had a shortage.

Ordered 100 .093 sockets...received a bag of 50. Didn't say anything about it. Ordered 100 more .093 sockets...a couple weeks later...same thing. Only 50

Ordered 2 4900 cap kits...received one (He actually caught this before I got the package)

Tis ok though...he always makes good. Just glad it wasn't 'that' part I needed for the project I was working on
 
I was disappointed when I have been ordering for over 2 years and never got any moon pies. But the last time I ordered, I did receive a couple Moon Pie minis, so all good now :)
 
...than receiving a $200 parts order from Bob Roberts and finding no lagniappe inside? :(

Yes, receiving a box stuffed with Moon Pies that are nasty, 30 cap kits that were all assembled wrong and a response of " we video tape every kit we make to ensure accuracy" which translated into tough shit and the end of my transactions with Bob.
 
a response of " we video tape every kit we make to ensure accuracy" which translated into tough shit and the end of my transactions with Bob.

I have never received this response, but I have heard about it from several honest folks who have been shorted a cap.

I find the whole idea that he would set up a video camera in the cap kit assembly area strange. Does each cap kit have a serial number on it? Was my cap kit made up 'fresh' for me, any my name with cap kit cross reference is used as a filename for an mpeg video he can call up at any time? Is the camera zoomed in close enough so you can read the cap values on the screen?

It really does sound like a stock answer that he (or whoever is manning the email that day) just tells his customers.

I buy a lot from Bob, and find his offerings quite convenient. That said, he can be pretty stalwart in saying that he is right when it is not so. (This happened to me once when he shipped my items to the wrong address, and swore up and down that he didn't. My lost package randomly got forwarded to me several weeks later, and he had in fact labelled it with the wrong address.)
 
...than receiving a $200 parts order from Bob Roberts and finding no lagniappe inside? :(

Did it give you the nagging feeling that you had ended up on the shitlist one level below the one on his site?

FWIW, all my orders have been fine, except for one kit that had some incorrect caps substituted. I emailed him and he apologized and mailed me the correct caps.
 
Bob said he was going to retire back in 2001 or so. He sold almost all his inventory back then in bulk. He is an elderly man who is trying to make an honest living after his official retirement by selling to us the parts he can and wants to sell. When he slips he attempts to correct. He has no emotional partiality to any one of us. You get what you get and you don't throw a fit. I get the impression that some of us think Bob is 35, with an ever expanding warehouse of hard to find parts. He is not.

He's hanging on like all of us and one day he's going to hang up his hat and stop cold turkey and not one of us has any right to deny him that privilege. Bob has always been a boon to this hobby and never has regarded hobbyists with disdain like so many operators and suppliers.

Bob lives and works not 50 miles away from me yet I have never seen him in person because he likes it that way and I respect that. Lay off him.

Sorry - in retrospect this looks like it might be aimed at certain people but it was not meant to be. Just seems to be a lot of anti Bob here lately. If you never bought from him before the sit tight and if you have, try to remember the rescues you got from him - not the bad deliveries.
 
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I rarely got laginappe but you know what.. i dont care. Yeah its nice.. BUT..


Who else frickin cross ships anymore?????? That fellows, is laginappe enough for me.
 
Bob Roberts never shorts anyone. He has cameras that monitor everything so he knows no order is ever incomplete, no caps are ever missing from cap kits, and no items are ever broken before he ships them. Ever. Because he videotapes it all.
 
I rarely got laginappe but you know what.. i dont care. Yeah its nice.. BUT..


Who else frickin cross ships anymore?????? That fellows, is laginappe enough for me.

I always get my parts the same day I mail my check. I am geographically close, but still.
 
I didn't get any freebies from Bob for a couple years once, but it was because (I think) he had given me about 80 bucks worth of freebies in an order before that. I ordered some stuff, and he sent some other stuff he thought I would appreciate that literally added up to about 80 bucks. Then for a couple years, no freebies, LOL. I think he literally keeps track.

I never ask him for anything specific, just doesn't seem in the spirit of what Laginappe is supposed to be about.
 
I recently got a couple100K 2W resistor from him that was was supposed to be 1K 2W resistors. I emailed him and asked him about it and suggested that the 100K might have gotten mixed in the wrong drawer. Sure enough, he emailed me back and let me know that yes, they were placed in the wrong drawer, but unfortunately, he was out of 1K 2W resistors. Was it a mild inconvenience...Yes. Did I have to go out of town to a parts store to find them....Yes. Am I going to stop using Bob any time before he heads to that great parts warehouse in the sky........Hell no! I had a similar experience with some 470 ohm that arrived 470K ohm. I think I've had a couple caps kits that were missing a couple caps....That or I had to borrow one for something else which occasionally happens. Point is, I'm a hobbyist and shit happens. Bob is one of the best things about this hobby. He locates, sources, purchases, and stores, popular arcades parts in bulk. Not to mention, he's a wealth of knowledge. He's one of the cornerstones of the hobby and probably the number 1 reason why 60% of my games are working. Could I source the parts myself. Maybe. But he's also purchased parts over the years that are now no longer available. So the stocks may have been depleted if he hadn't bought them up for us long ago.
But hey. If you don't want to use Bob, don't use Bob. He is an older person. He does make some mistakes. Whether those two facts are related or not, I doubt I would make less mistakes keeping up/selling/shipping 5000 or so types of parts. I only know that my collection has been better off for what he's sold me, and I try to remember to thank him every time I send an order off because I am very appreciative of his efforts.

Lagnappe or not.
 
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