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| - Wow. Probably one of the worst experiences I have ever had with local retail. For those of you just looking for a quick review, the owner was condescending and deliberately tried to mislead me. I brought in 3 pipes to be reamed and sterilized. and when I got them back the insides were still flithy. When I confronted him, he tried to convince me that you can't clean the insides. It ended with me telling him he lost a customer. For the full story read below.
I'm new to pipe smoking and have been frequenting several of Phoenix's local tobacco shops looking for a new pipe and place I can call my own. When I first went to Ye olde pipe things were pleasant enough, it was just before closing and a young cigar smoking kid approached my wife and I with a big smile and offered to let us see any of the pipes we wanted. I was ready to impulse buy and he suggested I take my time and come in later and talk to a regular customer of theirs who knew everything there was to know about pipes. I was pretty excited about how cool the store seemed and that they were really invested in developing regular customers. I found a few estate pipes at an antique store and went back to ye olde pipe to buy some cleaning supplies. The kid was there with another man and they suggested I just have the shop clean them for me and that it would be about $5 a pipe. I came in the next day and the owner was at the counter. I showed him my pipes and he said it would be $10 a pipe. More than what I was quoted, but 10 bucks seemed reasonable. I asked what the cleaning entailed and he said they reamed the bowl, cleaned and sterilized the shank and polished the outside. I gave him my pipes and came back a few days later. The shanks looked a lot better and the bowls seemed a bit cleaner, but when I separated the shank from the bowl, the insides were still full of gunk. I showed it to him and he grumbled something about it just being cleaning supply residue and he put a pipe cleaner through it and said it was fine. I double checked to make sure the whole thing was sterilized as I had no idea where the pipe was before. He said yes, I bought some tobacco and a pouch and dropped him 50 bucks when I checked out.
When I got home and examined the pipes under light I realized the shanks were just as filthy as when I brought them in. When I ran a pipe cleaner with a bit of alcohol on it though the pipe it came out brown with a single pass.
I took the pipes back and asked him if they passed as clean to him? He shrugged me aside and said yes, they looked fine, what was my problem? Since he refused to acknowledge the visible gunk in the shaft I gave him a pipe cleaner with alcohol to pass through it. When it came out brown he began to defend himself by saying you can never get everything out. As he put more cleaners through it and they came out browner and browner he began to concede a little that maybe it could use another pass, but that I only paid $10 bucks a pipe so what did I expect? A full restoration would cost $40-50. All of this was explained to me with a condescending air as if I was too young and stupid to know anything about a clean pipe.I told him I expected a clean and sterile pipe and that he never mentioned that I would need to spend $40.00 to have it actually cleaned. I then asked if he really believed the pipes were clean to his standards, he said yes. I then told him that he could give me my pipe back (which he was still pulling brown pipe cleaners out of) and that I didn't appreciate his condescending attitude. I then told him he lost a customer. He responded with 'get out, and don't ever come back.' I don't intend to.
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