Are You A Victim Of SilencerCentral? 

 

Did You Order An "IN STOCK" Item And Later Found It Was NOT In Stock? 

 

Did They Force You To 'Upgrade' Or Charge You A 25% Restocking Fee? 

 

Did They Get You To Buy Something And Then Radio Silence? 

 

READ ON!

My Experience With SilencerCentral.com

Dear SilencerCentral Victim,

We ’re here to call out unethical ecommerce businesses and serve notice to these companies who take advantage of us and bully us …and that starts with SilencerCentral.com .

Have you been a victim? Do you know someone who has? If so, join us and help us put an end to online scams and shady business practices.

Here ’s my story …

I was ready to replace the muzzle brake on my FN DMR II with a suppressor, so I started doing some research. That ’s when I found SilencerCentral. They seemed to make it so simple to get a suppressor, right? But wait until you find out the REAL story.

From all the TrustPilot reviews I read, I figured this would be a stand-up company, boy was I wrong. The only thing they make easy is giving them money . As you ’ll soon see, getting any form of satisfaction after that, is far from easy .

With new legislature being threatened, and the timeframe for approval from the ATF, I figured now is the time to get things rolling and with a little luck, I ’ll have my suppressor in time for hunting season, so I picked out a brand and model that was listed as ‘in stock ’, and placed my order.

Then I got to thinking about how easy it is to buy reviews these days, so I did a little more research and found the Silencer Central Better Business Bureau page — wow did that show a much different customer experience than the TrustPilot reviews.

Basically, you can ’t buy Better Business Bureau reviews, so those are much more accurate.

I found review after review of consumers stating that they never received their suppressor, or that there were unscruplous business tactics used AFTER the purchase was made …and that concerned me because I had just paid in full.

 So I went back to the Silencer Central website and opened a chat. That ’s when things took a turn for the worse …

Now, it had only been 2 minutes since I placed my order, yet somehow, when I opened chat and stated my concern about stock availability …another agent, Matthew, busted into the chat and requested an immediate phone call. Even though it had only been two minutes since my order, Matthew already knew what was about to happen.

When he got on the line he told me that the suppressor I ordered WASN ’T in stock and that the manufacturer was behind several months, and that the ATF application wait-time doesn ’t even begin until they get the physical suppressor in stock, and that could be 6 months or more.

Well, that didn ’t work for me so I said, “just cancel the order.”Then Matthew quickly moved to his sales pitch and attempted to “upgrade ”me to another brand that WAS in stock, for an additional $319. He twisted and rolled every way possible to get me to take this upsell, even offering extended payments. I paid in full, this wasn ’t a money issue, it was a lack of trust. The website said it was in stock, now you ’re saying it isn ’t and trying to upsell me — that ’s a sales tactic I ’m well acquanted with and given all the reviews I ’d just read about similar stock issues, I didn ’t want anything to do with this company. I refused the upsell and said to just forget it and cancel the order. Matthew then said he needed to talk to his manager …which was confusing to me because I ’ve ordered items in the past from online merchants, and there was a mistake and the item wasn ’t actually in stock so the vendor just cancelled the order with an apology for the error — these guys didn ’t do that. Instead of deescalating a bad situation, they knuckled down. Why would they do that if not to cover up their entire strategy?

When I got off the phone I immediately emailed customer service and repeated my situation. The item wasn ’t in stock, your site lists it as in stock, it ’s an error, just cancel it.

They replied with a cookie-cutter response, among which was a 25% restocking fee. Now wait a minute, first off, there ’s supposed to be a 100% satisfaction guaranteed, plus the site said it ’s in stock, I ordered and paid in full, yet it isn ’t in stock. You can ’t charge a restocking fee for something that isn ’t in stock because you never took it out of stock to fulfill the order! That just makes sense right? So I emailed them back and told them exactly that.

Hours later, still no response, so I went back to the website and opened another chat. This time, I got Andrew. Now, you ’ll see Andrew ’s name pop up in the bad reviews because he ’s rude and disrespectful. Like, imagine the absolute worst customer service agent who doesn ’t care one bit about helping you — Andrew is like the crust around that agent ’s runny nose.

Andrew wouldn ’t talk about the refund except to say “it ’s a process bud ”.

In fact, according to Andrew, the support chat on their website, isn ’t the place for support questions.

So by this time, I figure I ’ve been scammed and the clock is ticking. I call my bank, I reach out to the BBB — that ’s when I discover that these yahoos have changed their name so they could get a new BBB page, the old one had even worse reviews than the current one.

3 hours later, Matthew calls me back and has news for me — they “just got a delivery in the last hour and it has ONE of your suppressors on it ”he tells me. Let me get this straight, your sites says it ’s in stock, you call and say it won ’t be for months, I cancel the order, and now you get an unexpected shipment with just one of the suppressors I ordered?? It ’s a Christmas miracle! Only it ain ’t Christmas.

I repeat my request for cancellation and plainly tell Matthew that I don ’t trust his company one bit and want a full refund so that I can go local. Then the sales manager gets involved, Brad Anfinson. Here ’s the tricky part, this is what you ’ve got to watch out for — they try to get you on the phone so that there is no record of them admitting the whole thing is their fault, they do that because the stock issue is all part of the scam. They want you to order those suppressors knowing full well that they aren ’t in stock.

Brad posts replies to my BBB reviews stating that he has ‘tried reaching out to you ’. I sent another email to customer service stating that email is my preferred method of communication and that he can use email. [show screenshots of email]. I requested that the customer service agent forward my email to Brad. What I got back, was nothing more than an insulting email directly from their CEO, Brandon Maddox.

Now seriously, any reputable company that cared one bit about their reputation or their customers, would see this situation for what it is — they dropped the ball and should just try to make things right and back down, right? Not Brandon, instead, he chose to reply directly to me, insulting me, belittling me, and making the situation much worse. At first, I was shocked that someone representing a legitimate business would have such a terrible attitude towards a customer, and how could they be so bad at customer service that they got all those 5-star reviews?

That got me to thinking …why are they so adamant about pushing this, if they aren ’t trying to cover something up? So I started poking around and investigating their reviews and associations. Their TrustPilot reviews are the first thing that caught my eye. It seemed that literally every hour they were getting a 5-star review, almost like clockwork.

 

Now I work in ecommerce, I know that reviews can be bought. Fake reviews are illegal and the FTC is very interested in finding companies that lie about customer experiences. If you look at the BBB reviews and the 1-star TrustPilot reviews, it ’s obvious what is going on. They ’re buying fake TrustPilot reviews to cover up the real reviews. Short, 5-star reviews that seems to be placed only on weekdays. I wonder which one of these assholes is sitting at SilencerCentral HQ at their desk putting in tons of sham reviews all day?

Here ’s how you can help — if you, or someone you know, purchased a suppressor from Silencer Central, and experienced anything like this bait-n-switch scheme, I invite you to join us. Share your story, join us and together we can stop companies like SilencerCentral from ripping off people like you and me. You DO have recourse, if we band together.

A lot of people have been ripped off by this company, and those people should be reimbursed. For me, it ’s not about the money, it ’s about the prinicpal. Businesses who practice shady tactics have no place in our country, especially when they do so under the guise of supporting the 2nd Ammendment. You would expect behavior like this from some third world communist country, but not here. Together, we can let our voices be heard and we can accomplish great things. Tell me your story.