Just wondering, what do you guys think of their forums and their friendliness?
Haven't used their forums. They invited me to their first anniversary party Thursday, so I can't exactly call them unfriendly...
A couple weeks ago, I got 3 of their decks, one of each crown deck v2. My green one was damaged. I contacted them telling them about this, and they didn't reply.
I was contacting them about a defective Red Crown v1. After they invited me to the party, they asked for my order number. I replied that I didn't have one, but they haven't replied yet.
The biggest problem they're having with their customer service is that they're a small operation. I believe that the "headquarters/office" is Alex Pandrea's private apartment, and it was probably their "warehouse" until they got a decent facility in New Jersey. They mean well, and they're very kind when you can reach them, but they're a little overwhelmed.
Have you tried calling the telephone number at the bottom of their web pages? I could be wrong, but I think it's Alex's cellphone. The area code the number is in is reserved for New York City cellphones and mobile devices.
Phone calls in New York are a pain - there's at least five area codes, most of which are overlapping, and every call you make, even to someone in your area code, requires that you dial the full number, with a "1" at the beginning if you're using a landline. For us, EVERYBODY'S got a ten-digit phone number!
Correction: as of April 6th last year, we're up to SIX area codes! There's 212, 718, 917, 646, 347 and 929, listed in chronological order of when they were created. Interestingly enough, my cellphone's area code, 646, somehow got "zoned" as a number exclusive to Manhattan, despite never having lived there - the decent housing is expensive, the cheap housing isn't decent. But yeah, area codes are a mess here. When I was a kid, it was all 212, that was it, nothing more. I think we now have the most area codes of any single city in the country. LA has six also, but it's "the Greater LA area" so it includes the 'burbs as well, while the six NYC codes are all within the borders of NYC alone.