I’m new to Fireball. Within a short duration of time, I’ve had 2 out of 4 orders screwed up, shipping damages, and two product failures.
I love the concept, but this has been a challenge. I sincerely hope this is just me, but feedback would be great.
I’ve created another order but a bit gunshy now. I can’t even get replacement orders corrected.
No, it’s not just you. Shipping has been hit or miss, with the additional complication of Alaska for me. That said, I have not had any product failures. On the plus side they are very responsive to emails and I have eventually gotten everything I was supposed to. Part of the problems I had were due to the freight forwarder that FB uses, and not FB themselves. Freight forwarders are a cancer of the shipping industry.
Thank you for the response. I felt like I was going crazy.
Customer Service at FB (the person I was dealing with) is not working. It took a week and a half to resolve something that should not have taken one business day. She explained that everything goes to management… That certainly makes me doubt “Management”.
My final email to her was to recap the items not received the first time. I received a rather sharp email back that referenced her past email. Her email screenshot was wrong, and I knew it. That’s why I politely asked to recap the list. Sure enough, her list was wrong, and the warehouse pulled one wrong item for a quantity of 2.
Spending countless hours to fix problems isn’t my game. I just want to order and receive. Converting my 5/8 systems out in the field may not be a good idea.
Well, another data point to share. I have placed many orders with Fireball and really haven’t had any troubles worth mentioning. I think there was one minor screwup that was resolved quickly. Customer service has been good. I don’t doubt your frustration and hope that things get sorted out soon!
--Larry
I’ve ordered maybe 15 times over the last few years and shipping or damage was never an issue that I’ve experienced, in fact, I’d say the opposite, things were packaged better than i expected.
Recently, I made a big boy order and everything made it here in perfect condition, was well packaged, and ideal upon opening.
i’m wondering if you are the victim of shitty shipping, which is out of fireballs control.
Just read you’re in Alaska… Good luck on that bro, i could mail you a postcard and it would show up as confetti.
I have family in a remote place and everything shows up at their place looking like it was involved in a gang fight.
I’m in Texas, and the other gentleman is in Alaska.
Yes, UPS was the culprit, but customer service tried to correct the issue and failed. The warehouse contributed to the problems as well; they pulled the wrong parts. I found out today that my vise didn’t come with pins, so 3 out of 4 orders are not right.
Not receiving what you order is like tying my hands behind my back.
Thank you for providing hope if I decide to continue with the 3/4 conversion.
I’m the guy in Anchorage, Alaska. I have sometimes had packages get damaged, but none of my Fireball stuff has been. One thing I can say for sure is that the way they pack their shipments has been first rate. I am posting this for clarity, not because I am upset with Fireball in any major way.
Getting the Pro table plate up here was a bit of a fiasco. I was initially quoted $1200 or so to ship a fixture table plate with a purchase price of somewhere over $700 on sale. I spent less than that getting a 20 foot, 2000+ pound pallet of aluminum shipped up a couple years ago. I arranged my own barge shipment and got that down to around $325 total, including the barge leg that I arranged, and FB’s shipment to the terminal in WA. At one point somebody at FB tried to add WA state sales tax to the order since it was going from them to an address in WA, even though that was just a terminal for transhipment, but they fixed it quickly when I pointed out that I am in Alaska and didn’t owe WA tax for items going to AK. So that was good.
And even then, the freight forwarder that FB uses tried to queer the shipment (they were after all, being cut out of the majority of what they’d originally quoted to FB)… I got a message from them demanding I arrange a delivery appointment through their automated system before they would deliver to the terminal, as though it were a residence address. Looking for an excuse to return the plate to FB, basically. I tried unsuccessfully to find a way to contact the forwarder directly, and Fireball was no help in communicating with them either. Basically washed their hands of it and said I was on my own. I ended up giving the forwarder a time that was during the business hours of the terminal, and the driver apparently figured it out.
Ordered the rest of my stuff regular shipment because I didn’t want to complicate the barge order any more than absolutely necessary, and I wanted to make sure that the plate got onto the barge before ordering more stuff to go with it. The first of those orders included the hardware kit for my fixture plate (straps, bolts, setscrews). I definitely ordered the correct kit, but apparently at some point they changed the design of the 54x30 pro plate, and added another cross member with more mounting and set screw locations. They appeared not to have updated the hardware kit to match, so while I had everything I had ordered per the item description on the website, I didn’t have enough hardware to finish my table. They did get me the stuff I needed, and didn’t charge me extra, but it was a delay of another week or two to finish the table. I would have paid extra for the additional hardware (since I had received the exact quantity of what was stated in the description, even if the kit was wrong) had they asked, but I appreciate that they covered it.
Another kind of interesting thing about ordering small parts from the website, is I can only order small quantities of stuff at a time without getting raped on the shipping. I’m pretty sure the site knows the ship weight of each item and calculates it based on this, since the dollar amount where this happens varies depending on what is ordered… Up to a certain small number of parts, shipping is $8 Fedex flat rate, which is not a bad deal at all. Add ONE MORE TINY thing, even just a washer or piece of hardware, and it jumps to 40 or 50 bucks, and keeps rapidly increasing thereafter with each additional item added. So I have had to structure my purchases to stay below the weight for flat rate shipping, This has not been a huge inconvenience for me since I have been ordering fixtures as funds become available.
My second to last order, there was a tooth block backordered although the website hadn’t shown it as being out of stock. The accessories for said tooth block (tooth washer, hadware) were in the package, and maybe a week or two later with no word, I emailed asking when it was expected to ship. They said they were getting new stock in and it would be shipping shortly. Another week or two later I asked again and same answer… I did need another tooth block and some other items, so I placed the order for that stuff even though the prior tooth block order was still not shipped; lo and behold when the last order arrived everything was there, but no word on the tooth block from the prior order. Another email asking where it was garnered the same response, but it must have shaken something loose, since it shipped quickly after that. I am traveling now but got word that the package arrived. Curious to see when I get home and open it, if they sent just the tooth block I was missing, or an additional kit of accessories. 
Thought about not mentioning the need to structure my orders to stay under the limit for flat rate, lest the website somehow get adversely changed as a result. But at this point I have all the fixtures that I expect to be buying in the near future, and have completed the two immediate projects that I really needed the table for (though I am very glad I will have it going forward). So, if the flat rate option to Alaska gets changed or eliminated, whatever.
Personally I think Fireball needs to have an option for USPS flat rate on their site. 70 pounds, if it fits, it ships. Yeah, I know as much as anyone how bad USPS sucks, and the stuff would probably need to be double boxed since USPS can destroy anything (one day for revenge, I am probably going to mail a 70 pound flat rate box of steel BBs in the hopes that they break it and it gets into their sorting machine). But for heavy stuff that will fit into one of the boxes, USPS flat rate tends to be the best thing going for shipment to Alaska.
This is a separate post for shipping misadventures from this year that are NOT FIREBALL RELATED but I thought some might find amusing. Ordered a water cooler to go with my welder, it arrived all smashed up. The supplier got me a new one shipped right away, packed much better this time. Said to keep the original one for parts, not worth shipping back.
Separate package (USPS of course) for the water cooled TIG torch. Package arrived all kinds of torn open. Nothing at all was missing. IN FACT, they stuffed some other poor schlub’s new Milwaukee 12v cordless sawzall into the package, because they apparently didn’t know what box it was from, or what else to do with it. No paperwork or any other indication of where it was supposed to have gone. Gave it to a friend since my cordless stuff is all Dewalt and Bosch and I didn’t want to buy the batteries and charger.
Sometime after that, I had an Amazon order of welding clamps… What arrived, was the portion of the box with the shipping label on it, neatly cut out into a rectangle, and placed in a ziploc baggie with the USPS logo, and the words “WE CARE” printed upon it. Took a bit of effort to get that one sorted out, since Amazon’s tracking technically showed a delivery. They force you into an AI chat and even when I finally was able to contact a human it took a while to make them understand what had happened. But eventually the stuff all arrived. I wondered if the guy missing his sawzall received a similar cutout in a baggie, and if he ever got a replacement.
Here’s one from last year that is again, NOT FIREBALL RELATED. It’s funny to look at the tracking now, but it was not funny to me at the time.
Je demeure au Québec et les prix pour la livraison sont vraiment trop dispendieux. Pour une commande de 403$ la livraison la moins dispendieuse est de 166$. Vraiment hors de prix. Je regarde souvent pour commander mais souvent je renonce car trop dispendieux. J’aimerais savoir comment procéder?
Back to the Texas issue.
More emails back and forth. This is a Royal Disaster.
God bless Jason. He is in the trenches making things happen for us, but behind the scenes, it’s undermining his efforts.
Bonjour claudei,
Merci pour votre message, et désolé pour la réponse tardive. Vous avez raison : expédier depuis la Californie vers le Québec coûte cher, surtout pour les articles lourds.
Pour les clients canadiens, nous avons un entrepôt au Canada et des distributeurs canadiens, ce qui réduit souvent les frais de livraison et évite les surprises à la douane. Envoyez-nous votre liste d’articles et votre code postal à support@fireballtool.com (en français, sans problème) et nous vous trouverons l’option la moins chère, que ce soit chez nous ou chez un distributeur près de chez vous.
Hi claudei,
Thanks for raising this, and sorry for the slow reply. You’re right that shipping from California to Quebec gets expensive, especially on heavy items.
For Canadian customers, we have a Canadian warehouse and Canadian distributors, which often cuts the shipping cost and avoids surprises at customs. Send your item list and postal code to support@fireballtool.com (French is fine) and we’ll find you the cheapest option, whether that’s through us or a distributor near you.
Victor
Fireball Tool
Bill, I’m sorry this has dragged on as long as it has. That’s on us, and it isn’t the experience we want anyone to have with Fireball.
I’ve personally gone through your orders today. Your replacement parts are on their way, and the last of what you need ships tomorrow. Stephanie will send you tracking for both as soon as it’s out, and we’ll be calling you to make sure everything is right once it arrives.
If anything is still off after that, message me directly and I’ll handle it myself.
Victor
Fireball Tool Works
Thanks for laying all this out, and for being fair about it.
A few of these are on us. When the forwarder got difficult on your plate delivery, we should have stayed on it with you instead of leaving you to sort it out, and I’m sorry about that. The 54x30 Pro hardware kit coming up short after the plate design changed is something I’m checking on now, so the next person doesn’t hit the same wall. And a tooth block showing in stock when it wasn’t, with two follow-ups before it moved, isn’t good enough.
On the tooth block shipment: if you open it and find a second set of accessories, keep them.
I’m passing the USPS flat rate idea to our shipping team. No promises, but it’s a fair ask for Alaska.
Victor
Fireball Tool
All’s well that ends well. The last package was just the tooth block I was missing, no redundant accessory kit. One thing that stinks is that USPS used to have a “board game” flat rate box that was extra long, and would hold a lot of stuff (bar clamps, etc) but they discontinued it a couple of years ago. One thing I have done in the past that can help a lot, is to stuff one FRB inside another for double thickness.
UPDATE:
My apologies for not posting earlier on this topic. We had a tragic loss in our family.
Fireball Tool called last week and spent some time explaining some growing pains. As unfortunate as it was for my order, it’s nice to see the company that supports so many flourishing. The great thing is that Victor listens. I’m confident that he will look into all aspects and correct where necessary. Confident enough that my order has been placed.
I own a part in the feasco also. Like many, I wait and wait on placing orders to maximize shipping rates. I cut it too close, and then problems compounded.
Thank you, Victor, for the time and explanation.
The replies point to a mix of shipping, fulfillment, and product issues rather than one clear pattern. For the next order, keep the packing and item labels until everything is checked, then send one concise list of missing or failed parts with photos so support can verify it against the shipment.
