S R.

I am not an unreasonable person. I am sympathetic that the pandemic has had an unprecedented impact on small businesses. With that in mind, to say that trying to do business with SaberForge was a "bitter disappointment" is simply not enough. This unmitigated dumpster fire of a company provided an unacceptably frustrating experience. I have no idea how these incompetent knuckle-draggers run a business while being so blatantly apathetic and deliberately inaccessible to their customers. But if my attempt is any indication (and based on the "F" on their BBB report, it is), I know that they ought to have been shuttered a long time ago.

The detailed account is below, but the upshot is that, if you're in the market for a custom-made flashlight laser sword…GO SOMEWHERE ELSE!

The SaberForge website had a lead time quoted of 12-15 weeks. I noted at the time that these were pre-COVID numbers. Nevertheless, twelve weeks came and went…no lightsaber. Fifteen weeks came and went…again, no lightsaber. So I looked up how to contact SaberForge directly, and found SaberForge doesn't have a phone number listed. The only way to get in touch with them is either through email or a help ticket portion of their website. So I wrote a pleasant enough request for a situation report. I waited a few days; no response. I wrote again to follow up; no response. A few days later, I wrote again, but this time I mentioned canceling my order. And lo and behold! I heard back from them! Their reply was, after fifteen weeks without even so much as a courtesy delay email, my order was still in queue. By their own lead time quote, they should have been done with the order by now, and they HADN'T EVEN STARTED IT YET.

By now, we're in late September, and I decide it's time to get a new estimate on when to expect my order. So I write again, admittedly more pointed than before. As week after week goes by, and I continue to hear crickets back from them, I realize that I need to dig a little deeper on them. Come to find out, the internet is BRIMMING with negative SaberForge reviews with experiences just like mine. Apparently, the company is quite accustomed to taking people's money and ghosting on them, to the point that they enjoy an "F" rating on the Better Business Bureau website for just that behavior. I didn't think to check BBB when I placed my order. Now, it's late October; twenty weeks (again, not 12-15 as quoted! TWENTY.) from when this whole god-awful mess began. I have been as patient as I know how to be. I have sent repeated inquiries for an updated delivery estimate that have gone unanswered. I even tracked down a SaberForge phone number, and rang it off the hook to no avail. Could have been the number to an empty storeroom for all they seem to care. Maybe because mine isn't the first order they've bollocks-ed up, and they've been bothered so much by all these nagging "customers" and their incessant need to have their "orders" that they've paid for with all their "money" met with some kind of "product". LOL! 1!

They might have another word for this, but I call it ***cowardice***. Whatever it is, I'd had enough, and proceeded to request cancellation.

After more weeks of silence, I resort to something I've never done in my life. I set up a RECURRING EMAIL that sent my cancelation request automatically to the appropriate inboxes each and every day until it was met. Now it's early November. It takes six cycles for them to realize I'm not going away, and at long last, someone favors me with a reply. Their opener was (get this) that I shouldn't keep writing them because repeated inquiries take me to the bottom of their inbox queue. How utterly laughable because I only got replies when I sent MORE emails once all attempts to comply with their contact policies were ignored. They proceeded to try and big-league me about all the correspondence they receive, and all the ways they were growing in COVID times, and how gosh dang hard it is to be such an important and busy company. THEN came any attempt to address my problem. My lightsaber was finished (no doubt a rushed job to placate me) and they offered me a pittance as consolation for the delay. It was an insult, after their abhorrent negligence of my case, and I'd read more than one review in the meantime recounting their shoddy workmanship when they're rushed. So I rejected the offer and demanded cancellation again. And then…FINALLY…they honored my request.

156 days. That's how long this misery took. And all I have to show for it is the relief that I never have to interact with these crooks again. I'm not this person. All I wanted was a custom product in the time I was quoted. But doing business with SaberForge made a worse person out of me. And I doubt they care the slightest bit about it. But maybe someone does. And for keeping a few hundred bucks out of this pitiful excuse for a company's coffers, writing all of this out will have been worth it.