Ed S.

A great place for new and surplus electronic parts and hand tools with great prices. They also carry a small assortment of multimeters, tone test sets etc.

Their cable and wire prices are sometimes a bit high though. I'm happy to see that they started selling the Arduino kits. This is a real electronics parts store, so if you're looking for cell phones and stereos this isn't the place. They have a store located in Van Nuys, California too, and sometimes the store has items that aren't on the website.

I ordered a small, simple repair part for my car from J C Whitney & Co. At about 1/3 the cost of a comparable part from one of the local brick & mortar auto parts stores I thought I would save some money if I was willing to wait for the part to be shipped.

J C Whitney takes a L O N G time to do anything. I ordered the part on Thursday night July 26, and paid with a credit card. It took them until the following Monday night just to process the order.

They provided incorrect information in their email. J C Whitney sent an email with the shipping info, showing the part had been sent via Fedex. I repeatedly checked the Fedex website with the tracking number J C Whitney had provided, but it never showed any shipping status. I eventually determined that they had shipped the part via UPS. By the time I figured this out the part had arrived and had been waiting at my post office box for two days. I don't normally check my PO box every day. Some of the links in their emails for tracking an order only lead to a page that shows the info is expired.

They sent the wrong part, and it was a used part. The label on the box had been covered over with another label that had the part number I ordered, but the part in the box was the wrong part number and would not have fit my car. There were obvious signs the part had been installed and used on another engine, removed and returned. Between contacting customer service to arrange for a return authorization, packing up the part, and taking it to the post office I wasted at least a couple of hours.

I sent the wrong part back on August 4. J C Whitney didn't give credit until August 20, more than two weeks after I sent it back and almost a month after I ordered it.

Their customer service would not cross-ship a replacement part, insisting that they had to receive the wrong part back first. So I placed a new order and paid a second time so they could get it shipped ASAP, and I would get a credit on the first part later. This way I could get the car on the road.

J C Whitney again took a long time to process the second order. And THEY SENT THE WRONG PART AGAIN! Just like the first time, the part in the box was the wrong number and would not fit my car, and IT WAS A USED PART that had been installed in another engine, removed and returned. I spoke with customer service but they have no power to do anything other than take orders and accept returns. They were unwilling or unable to verify that the correct part was in the box before sending a third part, which is easy, the part number is stamped on it, just open the box and LOOK before sending it. I'm still waiting for credit on the second part I returned.

I can't believe that J C Whitney would take an electrical part back after it has obviously been used and put it on the shelf so it can be sold to someone else. Both parts I received had anti-seize grease on the threads, soot on the part where it goes into the exhaust and signs of dirt and grease on the electrical connectors. Since I could see all that, their employees need to be trained on how to spot a used part... or the company just doesn't care. I see that with over 100 complaints on file, the BBB still gives them an A+ rating.

Even if I get a full refund for these parts, I've wasted a huge amount of time dealing with customer service, a month later I still don't have the right part to fix the car, and J C Whitney started sending me email spam as soon as I ordered the first part although I opted out of receiving any of their ads when I ordered the part on their website.

I paid for and downloaded a legal form from Docstoc and it had several spelling errors. If they are going to charge for a document, they could at least do a spell check on it before selling it.
Also they are spammers. I only paid for the one document, and did not sign up for the premium service. They keep sending me emails nagging me to pay for their premium service. I un-subscribed, but they keep sending a string of spam email. Today I logged in and looked at my profile, and all the choices for them to send me email notices were turned on again!
If you sign up with Docstoc I suggest you use a throw away email address so you can cut them off.
Edited to clarify: the website is www.docstoc.com and for throw-away email address I would suggest a free service like www.mailexpire.com if your internet provider doesn't offer such a service, so you can cut off the unsolicited email advertising that will surely follow when you sign up with Docstoc.