On Friday, January 29 I had a customer experience from Hell with Umarex USA. I was hesistant to post this because just thinking about it made my blood boil for a good week or so and I'm not exactly a hot-headed person. I'm really displeased with how I was treated and feel like I should give others a heads up.
So in December of 2020, I purchased a Walther Dominator 1250 from Umarex USA. The gun was on clearance for $120 flat (free shipping, no taxes). Heck of a deal for what turned out to be one of my favorite rifles. From December 2020 through October 2020, the gun was rock solid.
Sometime in October or early November I began having cycling issues. The gun became hard to cycle and eventually would not cycle at all. I opened the receiver and discovered the issue was with a spring around the bolt assembly. So I gave Umarex a call and mentioned what I discovered once I went inside the gun. Since it came with a 3 year warranty, they e-mailed me prepaid packaging and the gun was in the mail to them the next day.
Fast forward to a week later and I receive a call from Umarex. They told me the root of the problem was an issue was that very spring I mentioned, but since I went inside of the gun, I voided the warranty. Cost of repair : approximately $80. I was pretty shocked to hear that considering I mentioned over the phone that I opened the gun up prior to sending it to them. Yet, they mentioned nothing about the warranty being voided during that initial call. To be completely honest, I also opened the gun up months prior to do away with the automatic safety. So I'm not sure if they figured the issues were caused by that modification or if they were saying the warranty was voided because I actually admitted to opening the gun up. Either way I felt pretty blind-sided by the $80 repair fee,but ultimtaely, I'm not an ureasonable person. So after thinking about it for a few days, I called them back and agreed to pay them the $80. If their policy (which I should probably look up for confirmation) is to,indeed, void warranties when a customer opens a gun up, then okay. Lesson learned, I'll take that on the chin and learn from it.
So on Christmas Eve this year, I was pretty shocked to see a FedEx driver in my yard with a big brown box, considering I didn't receive any kind of shipping notification from Umarex. Anyway, I open the box up and get an invoice for their repair work which stated the repair job came with a 30 day warranty. I didn't shoot the gun for a couple of days. Once I did, I discovered an issue with the gun that didn't exist prior. The gun would function fine for the first 5 shots out of the 8 round rotary magazine, and then spin away from the action. Which means on the 6th shot, no pellet would be inserted into the barrel since the magazine is spinning in the opposite direction. This occurred with two different magazines. Weird issue and I could only find one other instance of this occuring online, which the poster seemingly never got to the bottom of. So back the gun went to Umarex.
No calls from Umarex this time around but I did receive a shipping notice about two days prior to delivery. So I receive the gun, open the box and was pretty shocked to see a rifle with fiber optics sights and a threaded muzzle. On my original gun, the sights were removed and the barrel was not threaded. On the invoice they noted the original receiver was damaged and since the 1250 was no longer being produced they had to use the receiver of an 850 M2. However, it wasn't just an 850 M2 receiver, it was a complete barreled action. I immediately had mixed feelings about that. The new barrel was threaded, which was nice and they even threw in a new M2 mag which is made from aluminum opposed to the original plastic magazines. On the other hand, my original barrel was lights out accurate after a pretty long break in period. Particularly accurate with inexpensive readily available pellets, which is important to me. So my main concern was will I be able to get this barrel to shoot like my original one, especially with inexpensive ammo.
While the new barrel is slowing breaking in and showing promise, I had yet another issue. The stocks on the 1250 are two-piece. The two parts snap together and the forend ties into a detent on the bottom of the barrel. Since this is a new barrel and action, tolereances are different and the forend no longer locks firmly in place. When you grip the gun, the forend bounces around and clings against the steel air cylinder. It almost feels like the two parts of the stock are going to disconnect when you pick the gun up. This clinging sound is going to be problematic if I choose to take the gun squirrel hunting and I can imagaine the movement of the stock is going to effect accuracy of the bench as well.
So this is when things really go left. I call up Umarex and the call begins like this :
{Long Lazy Yawn from Umarex Employee}
Good morning, this is Andrew from Umarex USA, how may I help you?
Good morning, Andrew. How are you?
Silence. No response at all. Okay, whatever...I give him my case number. He then pulls it up and tells me..
"Yeah, our gunsmith signed off on that, so yeah...that gun is good to go."
Really? It's like he was being completely dismissive of what I had to say before even listening. So anyway, I proceed to tell him the issue I'm having. He then relays this to the gunsmith and comes back.
"He said your last gun was like that as well."
BS. That gun never was like that before, a complete lie. So I tell him as much in a polite manner and that the issue was likely due to the differing tolerances between the two actions. I asked if it was possible to receive my original barrel back, hoping that could help mitigate some of the play in the stock connection. He then proceeds to tell me that I received my original barrel back already and they only used an 850 M2 receiver.
BS. My original barrel was not threaded and had the sights removed. The new barrel is threaded with iron sights and came full of factory gunk.
I think he became agitated when I told the him the obvious differences between the two barrels because it showed he was either blatantly lying or didn't know what the hell he was talking about. He then proceeds to tell me...
"All of these barrels are exactly the same. So it doesn't matter, anyway"
and then....
"Well, your barrel is probably in the garbage somwhere"
Wow. Really?
"Sir...we're not going to keep stuff lying around that's damaged."
I then make mention of how it would seem odd for Umarex to not strip down that particular gun for parts if the parts are no longer being made, particularly the barrel. He then tells me the barrel is part of the receiver and cannot be removed. Really? Didn't you you just tell me that my original barrel was removed and placed into an 850 M2 Receiver? I then informed him the barrels could be removed by punching out a single pin after removing the action from the stock.
This guy was contradicting himself left and right and at this point I realized he was unreasonable and I become agitated myself. I can't really recall what was said at this point. But basically, this guy was as arrogant as they come and made it seem like I was inconveniencing him for customer service when his job is customer service, all the while implying I was creating issues that didn't exist or trying to get over somehow. He didn't realize I was even willing to ship the M2 barrel back to them for the original barrel or hell I was even willing to pay for it, if necessary. That's something I was never able to mention because the guy was not hearing me out.
Our convo ended after I became fed up with his false claims and smug attitude. I pretty much told him he didn't know what the hell he was talking about and if he was in front of my face speaking to me the way he was on the phone, thing probably would have went a different way. He promptly hang the phone up on me.
This all was really unncessary. Had the Umarex employee told me...
"Hey, we did the best we could with what we had because those parts are no longer produced or "Sir, we cannot send those parts back to you due company policy," then fine. I would have accepted that, no problem. But don't try to imply I'm a liar or trying to get over somehow.
In the past year, I've recommended an Umarex Origin to my uncle and a Umarex Air Saber to another relative. Don't think I'll be doing that anymore, nor can I see myself buying another Umarex product in the future. Planned on buying an Umarex Notos when they were released, but I don't think I will.
So in December of 2020, I purchased a Walther Dominator 1250 from Umarex USA. The gun was on clearance for $120 flat (free shipping, no taxes). Heck of a deal for what turned out to be one of my favorite rifles. From December 2020 through October 2020, the gun was rock solid.
Sometime in October or early November I began having cycling issues. The gun became hard to cycle and eventually would not cycle at all. I opened the receiver and discovered the issue was with a spring around the bolt assembly. So I gave Umarex a call and mentioned what I discovered once I went inside the gun. Since it came with a 3 year warranty, they e-mailed me prepaid packaging and the gun was in the mail to them the next day.
Fast forward to a week later and I receive a call from Umarex. They told me the root of the problem was an issue was that very spring I mentioned, but since I went inside of the gun, I voided the warranty. Cost of repair : approximately $80. I was pretty shocked to hear that considering I mentioned over the phone that I opened the gun up prior to sending it to them. Yet, they mentioned nothing about the warranty being voided during that initial call. To be completely honest, I also opened the gun up months prior to do away with the automatic safety. So I'm not sure if they figured the issues were caused by that modification or if they were saying the warranty was voided because I actually admitted to opening the gun up. Either way I felt pretty blind-sided by the $80 repair fee,but ultimtaely, I'm not an ureasonable person. So after thinking about it for a few days, I called them back and agreed to pay them the $80. If their policy (which I should probably look up for confirmation) is to,indeed, void warranties when a customer opens a gun up, then okay. Lesson learned, I'll take that on the chin and learn from it.
So on Christmas Eve this year, I was pretty shocked to see a FedEx driver in my yard with a big brown box, considering I didn't receive any kind of shipping notification from Umarex. Anyway, I open the box up and get an invoice for their repair work which stated the repair job came with a 30 day warranty. I didn't shoot the gun for a couple of days. Once I did, I discovered an issue with the gun that didn't exist prior. The gun would function fine for the first 5 shots out of the 8 round rotary magazine, and then spin away from the action. Which means on the 6th shot, no pellet would be inserted into the barrel since the magazine is spinning in the opposite direction. This occurred with two different magazines. Weird issue and I could only find one other instance of this occuring online, which the poster seemingly never got to the bottom of. So back the gun went to Umarex.
No calls from Umarex this time around but I did receive a shipping notice about two days prior to delivery. So I receive the gun, open the box and was pretty shocked to see a rifle with fiber optics sights and a threaded muzzle. On my original gun, the sights were removed and the barrel was not threaded. On the invoice they noted the original receiver was damaged and since the 1250 was no longer being produced they had to use the receiver of an 850 M2. However, it wasn't just an 850 M2 receiver, it was a complete barreled action. I immediately had mixed feelings about that. The new barrel was threaded, which was nice and they even threw in a new M2 mag which is made from aluminum opposed to the original plastic magazines. On the other hand, my original barrel was lights out accurate after a pretty long break in period. Particularly accurate with inexpensive readily available pellets, which is important to me. So my main concern was will I be able to get this barrel to shoot like my original one, especially with inexpensive ammo.
While the new barrel is slowing breaking in and showing promise, I had yet another issue. The stocks on the 1250 are two-piece. The two parts snap together and the forend ties into a detent on the bottom of the barrel. Since this is a new barrel and action, tolereances are different and the forend no longer locks firmly in place. When you grip the gun, the forend bounces around and clings against the steel air cylinder. It almost feels like the two parts of the stock are going to disconnect when you pick the gun up. This clinging sound is going to be problematic if I choose to take the gun squirrel hunting and I can imagaine the movement of the stock is going to effect accuracy of the bench as well.
So this is when things really go left. I call up Umarex and the call begins like this :
{Long Lazy Yawn from Umarex Employee}
Good morning, this is Andrew from Umarex USA, how may I help you?
Good morning, Andrew. How are you?
Silence. No response at all. Okay, whatever...I give him my case number. He then pulls it up and tells me..
"Yeah, our gunsmith signed off on that, so yeah...that gun is good to go."
Really? It's like he was being completely dismissive of what I had to say before even listening. So anyway, I proceed to tell him the issue I'm having. He then relays this to the gunsmith and comes back.
"He said your last gun was like that as well."
BS. That gun never was like that before, a complete lie. So I tell him as much in a polite manner and that the issue was likely due to the differing tolerances between the two actions. I asked if it was possible to receive my original barrel back, hoping that could help mitigate some of the play in the stock connection. He then proceeds to tell me that I received my original barrel back already and they only used an 850 M2 receiver.
BS. My original barrel was not threaded and had the sights removed. The new barrel is threaded with iron sights and came full of factory gunk.
I think he became agitated when I told the him the obvious differences between the two barrels because it showed he was either blatantly lying or didn't know what the hell he was talking about. He then proceeds to tell me...
"All of these barrels are exactly the same. So it doesn't matter, anyway"
and then....
"Well, your barrel is probably in the garbage somwhere"
Wow. Really?
"Sir...we're not going to keep stuff lying around that's damaged."
I then make mention of how it would seem odd for Umarex to not strip down that particular gun for parts if the parts are no longer being made, particularly the barrel. He then tells me the barrel is part of the receiver and cannot be removed. Really? Didn't you you just tell me that my original barrel was removed and placed into an 850 M2 Receiver? I then informed him the barrels could be removed by punching out a single pin after removing the action from the stock.
This guy was contradicting himself left and right and at this point I realized he was unreasonable and I become agitated myself. I can't really recall what was said at this point. But basically, this guy was as arrogant as they come and made it seem like I was inconveniencing him for customer service when his job is customer service, all the while implying I was creating issues that didn't exist or trying to get over somehow. He didn't realize I was even willing to ship the M2 barrel back to them for the original barrel or hell I was even willing to pay for it, if necessary. That's something I was never able to mention because the guy was not hearing me out.
Our convo ended after I became fed up with his false claims and smug attitude. I pretty much told him he didn't know what the hell he was talking about and if he was in front of my face speaking to me the way he was on the phone, thing probably would have went a different way. He promptly hang the phone up on me.
This all was really unncessary. Had the Umarex employee told me...
"Hey, we did the best we could with what we had because those parts are no longer produced or "Sir, we cannot send those parts back to you due company policy," then fine. I would have accepted that, no problem. But don't try to imply I'm a liar or trying to get over somehow.
In the past year, I've recommended an Umarex Origin to my uncle and a Umarex Air Saber to another relative. Don't think I'll be doing that anymore, nor can I see myself buying another Umarex product in the future. Planned on buying an Umarex Notos when they were released, but I don't think I will.