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Cooltrade K-logo emblems and Karbon Koncepts

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#1 ·
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Cooltrade K- Logo emblems
To whom it may concern, this is (Cooltrade-product supply agreement) from Cooltrade in S. Korea. We are the manufacturer and distributor of the official 3.0 K-logo emblems made in S.Korea.

We are writing this letter because some members & customers recently have contacted us & made complaints to us about how the emblems were being distributed and handled by Karbon Koncepts in North America. We also came onto the forum and saw several statements about how there was a lost package with a very high dollar amount either lost in shipment or seized by customs in the US or Korea.

We wanted to come forth to set this matter straight. Cooltrade has been shipping out the K-logo emblems worldwide for more than 5 years. We’ve never had lost packages sent to our distributor in the US, nor were any packages seized by customs. The information that was provided to customers is not true. Although production delays can happen at times, the only reason we would not ship the goods to a distributor is due to nonpayment, such as what happened in this situation.

With the information that we have seen posted, and the abundance of complaints that have been filed with us, we feel the distribution of our products through Karbon Koncepts is no longer the best or viable option for the customer. Therefore effective immediately, we are no longer working with Karbon Koncepts as the North American Distributor of our K-logos.

Effective as of today, October 9[SUP]th[/SUP] 2014, North American distribution of our K-logos will be exclusively through the K5 Optima Store. We are confident they will represent us and the products we sell with high regards and good customer service.

Over the last 6-8 months, we did have a manufacturing issue with a large amount of the 3.0 K-logo emblems. We have corrected the issue and want to reassure the public that we are no longer having problems with the emblems as we did in the past, and will always stand behind our product 100%.

Sincerely,

1093Bunji 2F Dunsan-dong Rivera Sweetville 202-1 ho Seo-gu Dae-joen 302-120
Korea, South
Cooltrade

SUPPLIER President. Jeong se mi
Fax. 0505-361-9573
mail. cooltrade11@gmail.com
Tel. 82 10 7531 3667
 
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#2 ·
ummm..WHUT? :shocked:
 
#30 ·
Moral of the story is: customer service rules over ALL.

and pay your bills.
Thank you for this post. :iagree:

K5OS has learned this the hard way meistro, and has been doing a commendable job since.
Thank you for this statement.

Basically this, however the way the warranty claims are set up...you will still have to go though KK considering they are the ones that you paid the money forward to. I just went ahead and purchased another set through K5OS and David was totally up front with me regarding the whole situation.
This is exactly correct. Thank you for stating this and for your business. Your emblem order has been shipped.

Crystal that may be the case, but he has been completely transparent with me when I am dealing with him. I have nothing but praise for David and K5OS.
Thanks Meistro, I appreciate you stating this and for your support.
 
#9 ·
I think until they both want to disclose all the facts that neither seem to want to disclose they should be dropped from the forum. If they don't want to be honest with this why let them continue to operate and take money. Yes, they may act like they want to be your friend and help. And to many I am sure this is true. But they are also here to make money from the members of this forum.
 
#13 ·
#emblemgate has been fun to watch, but when I saw this I was like WTF...

"1093Bunji 2F Dunsan-dong Rivera Sweetville 202-1 ho Seo-gu Dae-joen 302-120" <-- WTH is that!
 
#16 · (Edited)
K5OS has learned this the hard way meistro, and has been doing a commendable job since. He wasn't banned temporarily for no reason. I want to know EXACTLY what happened before passing final judgement... which is also what I am guessing AutoGuide is doing. That said, I do think KK should have some sort of punitive action taken as a result of how they have conducted themselves during this whole thing.
 
#24 ·
No problem. We need these questions answered for ourselves. Unfortunately, Cooltrade has not answered us privately, so now they're going to be held accountable publicly.

Is this the way we want to do business!? **** no, especially with a company we've worked with for so long through two different owners. But unfortunately, we were kept out of the loop and Cooltrade has never shared anything with us directly about this matter. We only received an email as of last night with their discontent for what was said on the forums. Again, never answering the questions that were posed to them, where the rest of our order was and so on.
 
#20 ·
Hopefully this will all soon come to an end and all parties involved explain how the title of North American Distributor passes from one individual business to another business. Myself, I would worry about buying ANY product from this company. They don't seem to worry about anything but their business and realize not much can be done legally being from Korea. To the new North American Distributor I don't think I would turn your back on this company. I guess the true humor of this is for pieces of plastic that probably costs pennies for the little Korean sweat shops to produce that people will pay big dollars here to hide that fact they drive a KIA.
 
#21 ·
I gotta say this entire fiasco and the comments I hear from some folks on this site and at home about my badges looking too close to Lexus. That I have considered just putting my originals back on.

I have no shame driving a Kia and I can tell looking at others puzzled sometimes when they walk past my car or catch me near it asking what kind of car it is. Maybe its time we wear the stock badges proudly!. :)

Honestly I never thought when I swapped badges that I was trying to keep people from knowing it' was a Kia or trying to imitate a Lexus. I just thought it was like how the Genesis Coupes would sometimes switch their badges over to the Wings and the fact the the 3.0 badges just looked awesome with the carbon fiber.
 
#23 ·
Look guys... anyone who mistakes the K emblem for a Lexus emblem is either a) not into cars at all... or b) only knows one particular brand of car. I can recognize 99% of vehicles out there with no badging on a car, and I'm sure most of the members on here can do the same. There is no reason to feel bad for changing an emblem because you like the look of another better. Just like there is no reason to feel bad for rocking the Kia logo if you want to rep the brand or think it looks better. The sooner people stop sh*tting on one or the other the better. That bothers me more than this whole #emblemgate issue.

Chuck... no one is paying "big dollars." We are talking about $30 badges here... they probably cost a buck or two for Cooltrade and maybe $10 for KK or something. Just guessing on the figures... but I'm sure there is a healthy markup. That's part of business... you have to pay for paypal fees, shipping, customs, etc in the cost of the product.

The real problem here is not the $$$ people are out... it's the inconvenience and deception. At least that's my take on it. $30 is not going to break anyone here... and anyone who wanted to get their badges in a hurry would just buy another set off Ebay or K5OS so they aren't rocking damaged emblems.
 
#32 ·
Hello, every customers.

This is Cooltrade again.
First of all, we are very sorry about slow replying on the forum because we are not too much familiar with this.
So, whatever "Karbon Koncepts" said about Cooltrade is extremely unbelievable comments. There is no any reason to prove their comments. As you see our thread, we tried to offer more to buyers even if we make some loss of profit.
whatever "Karbon Koncepts" saying about our K-logo emblems is very untrue, and he is trying to bother us by inappropriate reasons that are not even proved.

To readers whoever read this reply, you are very welcome to ask us any question if you have any question about this inappropriate issue. (cooltrade11@gmail.com) We offer more quick response on email.

Best regards,
Cooltrade
 
#39 · (Edited)
Cooltrade,

This is not how we like to conduct business. But, since you have been unwilling to communicate with us through email, we are having to publicly call you out here on the forums. You even hung up on me the two times I called your office as of two nights ago after your former employee recommended I call you directly.

First of all, I DO NOT WANT TO post order information publicly. However, you are forcing me to do so in order to prove that you have not fulfilled our order.

YOU HAVE NOT FULFILLED OUR ORDER and have EXACTLY 500 units oustanding with us. If I need to reference back to the exact messages that I've been sent, I will do so and post them here for all to see.

Lastly, you originally committed to warranty replacements. Are you going to honor that commitment or not? Let's be responsible about this issue as it's not just our brand that's taking a loss here. Cooltrade more so than us because you're the ones with the defective products.

Here's what I would like for you to post publicly. All tracking numbers associated with our shipments. I have attached a screenshot of the order that is currently still open and would satisfy ALL OF THE REMAINING OPEN ORDERS on our end. Although I can understand why you might not want to fulfill that with us at this time.

Here are tracking numbers for the two orders you have sent us:

(1) EG136814628KR
(2) EG137089180KR (sent to the wrong address mind you)
(3) Never Shipped




Can we the customers file a warrantee claim through you for our defected badges or any other of your distributors. In all honesty I've waiting months and don't care who warrantees this product as long as I get a replacement. I just want new badges and to wipe my hands clean if this whole thing.
Twotoned, we'd still prefer to do this ourselves and I guarantee that we will do so in time, but at this point, we're at the Mercy of Cooltrade to not only fulfill our order, but provide us with warranty replacements as well. We've already replaced over 250 emblems out of our pockets that have not been reimbursed by Cooltrade via replacement of new inventory.

Hey Karbon Koncepts (Will),

We cannot understand you why you are trying to blame us on this. I wanna laugh about this debate because whatever you saying is not even true.
Whatever you ordered to us was already shipped, and I got a great news about you that you are losing your trust by customers.
You had received all orders and collected all money from customers. And, we do not have order from you.
Are you planning to do something crazy?
Let me hear about your plan. If you want to have something to talk about, email us whenever you want to make excuse.

Cooltrade.
It's quite simple. You haven't filled our order. Let's do business as usual privately and we won't resort to posting publicly.

You have not responded to the 7 emails we've sent since September 9th which had included a new order. You have not emailed us at all with the exception of telling us that you were going to post something on the forums.

You specifically have said this twice now, "If you have something to say, please tell me." and "If you want to have something to talk about, email us whenever you want to make excuse."

I replied immediately to your email and received no response.

I have requested information from you here and received no response.

Who is hiding what information at this point and who is lying to whom?

Se Mi. This is now in your hands. Act accordingly to get this resolved.

Hey cooltrade,
can you answer my question as to where I can return your product to recieve a replacement? Instead of attacking the other vendor can you produce and evidence to your claims? Have you actually been in contact with Karbon Koncepts? Did they recieve all the shipments? Will you send them badges to replace the warrantee claims for your defected products? He's not the only one losing trust in customers. You are too. The fact is you had problems with your product which is the real reason this whole problem occurred. Instead of attack each other lets start thinking about the customers? Cooltrade what are you going to do to correct the issue with the peeling badges for the customers? Please give some real answers for the customers. I don't think many of us care about who did what but more who will do what for us affected customers.
We have provided everything we can from our end. Tracking numbers, orders, and our story all aligns properly. They owe us exactly 500 units based on our inventory receiving as well as their own former employee who sent us the information in a text message (pictured above). There's absolutely nothing left that I can do to fix this from a business relationship standpoint.
 
#33 ·
Can we the customers file a warrantee claim through you for our defected badges or any other of your distributors. In all honesty I've waiting months and don't care who warrantees this product as long as I get a replacement. I just want new badges and to wipe my hands clean if this whole thing.
 
#34 ·
Hey Karbon Koncepts (Will),

We cannot understand you why you are trying to blame us on this. I wanna laugh about this debate because whatever you saying is not even true.
Whatever you ordered to us was already shipped, and I got a great news about you that you are losing your trust by customers.
You had received all orders and collected all money from customers. And, we do not have order from you.
Are you planning to do something crazy?
Let me hear about your plan. If you want to have something to talk about, email us whenever you want to make excuse.

Cooltrade.
 
#35 ·
Hey cooltrade,
can you answer my question as to where I can return your product to recieve a replacement? Instead of attacking the other vendor can you produce and evidence to your claims? Have you actually been in contact with Karbon Koncepts? Did they recieve all the shipments? Will you send them badges to replace the warrantee claims for your defected products? He's not the only one losing trust in customers. You are too. The fact is you had problems with your product which is the real reason this whole problem occurred. Instead of attack each other lets start thinking about the customers? Cooltrade what are you going to do to correct the issue with the peeling badges for the customers? Please give some real answers for the customers. I don't think many of us care about who did what but more who will do what for us affected customers.
 
#38 ·
Unfortunately it happens more frequently than you'd think. I have seen this happen a couple times on bimmerforums and e46fanatics if memory serves.

I was hoping Cooltrade would post some shipment labels or bills of lading showing that all product had shipped or something to that effect. They are just saying KK is lying... which is "he said, she said" and that never helps straighten anything out.
 
#40 ·
I received my emblems from K5OS and they answered all my questions quickly whenever I asked. I also just ordered another steering wheel emblem from them, because I messed up the install, and it arrived within two days. :thumbsup:

Also this whole #EmblemGate thing is pretty entertaining. :D
 
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