Joe at JPI not a man of his word

[rmorris]

We all like to share information on these type of boards, both good and bad. I thought I would share an experience I had with the founder of JPI (he is the JP in JPI).

Joe offered me an upgrade a few years back, right after I had invested in his EDM-760 for my Skymaster. He said I should be using the new (at that time) 960. He offered me an incredible upgrade price, but said I had to wait until after it was certified. To make sure we were on the same page, I put it all in writing (yes I DO have a paer trail of this story) and sent it via email.

At each SNF and OSH I attended (almost every one of both) since that time, i stopped by his booth to check on the progress. There were always excuses and a 'bump' in what the price to upgrade would cost. This past weekend I stopped by for my semi-annual brush off, and he once again had a handful of excuses. I pushed and said he really needed to keep his word. He said to come back the next day and he would have a price (again, note that he had given me a price originally and then kept creeping it up). I think he was hoping I would not show the next day, so he could again delay things. When I showed, he gave me a price that was approx 10 times the original number. He literally had a bunch of bogus reasons, and threw them at me one at a time to justify his positon. As I shot down each one as invalid, he just stared blankly at me. Finally I very bluntly asked - "so you are not going to keep your word?", to which he replied "correct". To make sure we were all clear on things, I repeated it one more time, and he repeated his answer.

He clearly understands he is not keeping his word, which maybe in hindsight he should never have given, but I found the odyssey very frustrating. Bottom line - I think their products are pretty good, but if the man at the top will openly admit that he is not going to keep his committments to folks, how much business do you want to do with this company?