Shirestone Becoming Known for Problems

[Deborah Jecker]

Dear Administrator:

We have been dismayed at your one-sided administration of the Solid Surface Alliance Forum as it pertains to our product, Shirestone.

Anyone reading the postings will quickly reach the conclusion that if someone says something good about Shirestone, they are likely to be ridiculed or challenged immediately by you, the administrator. Sometimes they don’t even get to say it – for instance, when someone recently posted in response to Jeremy Prosser’s diatribe, you instantly took down the posting. We have not seen it, but we conclude that it must have been favorable to Shirestone, for you removed it immediately.

This is but one example of the heavy-handed use of your powers as editor and administrator. We have a great many dealers who are installing a quality product and have very satisfied customers. There are always some dealers who will not take the time or trouble to properly install, and those dealers usually give up their business after a time and turn to other tasks. The ones who will install in accordance with directions end up with successful businesses. They go as far as their drive and initiative will take them.

My line is always open to those interested in the true story of Shirestone and our product. I can give interested callers the names of many dealers who have been very successful with our product.

In closing, I caution those who read your forum to take into account your evident bias and hostility, and discount your postings accordingly. It will be interesting to see if you can distort this message by cutting and pasting, or perhaps even refusing to post it at all. We will be sending you a certified copy of this communication so that there will be an accurate record of what we actually sent.

We now close the book on our relationship with your forum. Those who wish accurate information about Shirestone may call me at:

Deborah Jecker, Vice President
Counterfit Systems, Inc.
417.725.0909 Ext. 204
djecker@counterfitsystems.com

Sincerely,
Deborah Jecker

[admin]

Deborah,

First off kudos for having the guts to join in the conversation. You however are slanting your story far beyond what is reasonable. Do you not understand that you are confirming what the former dealers have been saying about you and your company?

Postings that contain out right lies, unsubstantiated allegations, or are more about shilling Shirestone are edited or removed. All one has to do is read the thread from the beginning to see examples of your dealers or your employees abusing posting privileges on other sites. There is also the problem of these dealers and former dealers, driven out of business by your product, having far different experiences with the product than the shills that post glowing comments on Shirestone.

Yes, there was a post removed after hearing credible reports that you and your husband were applying pressure to the poor guy, a former employee of yours, threatening to contest his unemployment. And the guy is recovering from a work related injury? You want to take the bread from his children's mouths just to tamp down the complaints a few more weeks? And you want to question my ethics????? You bet, any post where someone is being forced to post in order to feed his family will be removed.

Ah, blaming the dealers for all the problems, rightttttttt... How is that working out for you so far? Any product that is so temperamental that the product has such a high failure rate is not a successful product. At the same time, if the problems are because dealers are not following fabrication rules or cutting corners, why is your company not standing behind the failures and pressuring these alleged poor fabricators to clear up the problems? That is how the solid surface industry does it, I myself have recommended removing a license or two after inspecting poor quality work as a Warranty Service Agent.

Deborah, I think readers can see the picture painted at the other forums, where your employees admitted posting shill messages, where posts were removed after former dealers were threatened, and they can see with their own eyes how you yourself blame the fabricators for your poor quality product. I suppose you don't want to admit that your company trained those alleged problem fabricators. Bottom line, a successful product has enough redundancy to overcome ordinary variances in production, your product apparently does not. It is a concrete based counter top, and is as shoddy as the other concrete based counter tops. Is there a place for them in this world, sure, but not when the manufacturer of the material blatantly misleads consumers and fabricators.

And Deborah, why don't you just go ahead and let that ex employee file for his unemployment benefits. Is it really worth seeing the guy's family and small kids suffer? Holding his benefits hostage will buy you a few weeks at most, might well cause you some real headaches with the state or the Feds once the story comes out, and if you are as sure of your product as you seem to be, what harm is there from allowing a former employee to speak?.

[gary]

Re: shirestone sealer is it Food Safe? To be determined...Fwd: Contact-Us: DPC-Imron(R) Polyu http://www.DuPont.com/corp/email_disclaimer.html


Reply
Gary Anderson
to jeff
show details Dec 29 (2 days ago)

from Gary Anderson <gwa915@gmail.com>
to jeff Moll <jeffrmoll@gmail.com>
date Tue, Dec 29, 2009 at 8:37 PM
subject Re: shirestone sealer is it Food Safe? To be determined...Fwd: Contact-Us: DPC-Imron(R) Polyurethane Enamel-12/24/2009
mailed-by gmail.com

hide details Dec 29 (2 days ago)

Great send them to me or put them up on the forum, we never got them!!
Show quoted text

On Tue, Dec 29, 2009 at 5:50 PM, jeff Moll <jeffrmoll@gmail.com> wrote:

Why do you continue this farce Gary. I have the food safty data for all aspects or Shirestone, So does your son. Shame on you.

Jeff Moll
[/size]
On Tue, Dec 29, 2009 at 3:11 PM, Gary Anderson <gwa915@gmail.com> wrote:

Dealers:

Keep focused, shirestones email of last week, debbie refer to the sealer being developed in connection to O'Reilly. What are the facts?

Last month when we were discovering, what we all had gotten into, one of the things we found was sealer, O'Reillys upper manager Neal Wheat did try to stop all info from coming out. I did ask Neal about sealer, is it food safe, he has not responded, so last week I went to Dupont. Dupont email below.

We talked with the co-president of O'Reillys today, Mr.Ted Wise, his response was he had not heard of this matter, ask if we could email info on what shirestone has been saying about O'Reillys involvement. Mr.Wise also indicated, that O'Reillys buy and resell only, they do not develop product. His name is Ted Wise Co-President of O'Reilly Auto Parts twise@oreillyauto.com.


Shirestone employees have reported that shirestone is frantically, trying to find a replacement. Remember get testing with any new product, they offer to you.


Gary

shirestone becoming a problem forum

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=163&p=1085&hilit=shirestone#p1085

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Auto Ref Webmail <Auto-Ref.Webmail@usa.dupont.com>
Date: Mon, Dec 28, 2009 at 10:59 AM
Subject: Re: Contact-Us: DPC-Imron® Polyurethane Enamel-12/24/2009
To: gwa915@gmail.com




Thank you for your inquiry.

You cannot prep food over those products.



Mario Pena Jr
Technical Services Coordinator / DuPont Performance Coatings
LIONVILLE, PA USA

IN AN EFFORT TO BE GOOD PRODUCT STEWARDS, WE ENCOURAGE YOUR PROPER USE AND
DISPOSAL OF OUR FINISHING PRODUCTS IN A MANNER THAT SUPPORTS SAFETY, HEALTH
AND ENVIRONMENTAL RESPONSIBILITY. THE PRODUCTS MANUFACTURED BY DUPONT
PERFORMANCE COATINGS ARE INTENDED FOR INDUSTRIAL USE ONLY BY PROFESSIONAL,
TRAINED PAINTERS. NOT FOR SALE TO OR USE BY THE GENERAL PUBLIC. BEFORE
USING, READ AND FOLLOW ALL LABEL AND MSDS PRECAUTIONS. IF MIXED WITH OTHER
COMPONENTS, MIXTURE WILL HAVE HAZARDS OF ALL COMPONENTS. DISPOSE OF WASTE
MATERIAL IN ACCORDANCE WITH FEDERAL, STATE, PROVINCIAL, AND LOCAL
REQUIREMENTS.



FIND
INFO@DuPont_Appl
To
12/24/2009 12:45 Auto Ref
PM Webmail/Mail-in/DuPont@DuPont
cc

Subject
Contact-Us: DPC-Imron® Polyurethane
Enamel-12/24/2009










This is a lead generated by dupont.com for handling by your business.

Please reply directly to: gary anderson, [not provided]
at inquirer's email address:

If this lead/request is not handled by your business or you would like to
suggest additional contacts, please reply to:
FIND.INFO@usa.dupont.com or FIND INFO/Mail-in/DuPont

Solution-Date: Imron® Polyurethane Enamel - 12/24/2009 1:44 PM
-
-

Created By: Linda Gray
Created Date: 12/24/2009
Origin Channel Type: Website
Owning Org: DPC

Lead Name: gary anderson
Lead Company: [not provided]
Lead Address: null
null, UT 84094
Lead Country: United States
Lead Phone: (801) 502-5848
Lead Mobile:
Lead Email: gwa915@gmail.com

Account Type: Prospect
Main Role: Quality
Industry: Automotive

Type: Product Information
Product Comments:
Description: are these products safe, to prep food on?
gloss Imron 3.5 hg-c (old#611p),
flat Imrom 2.8 ft-c (old #613p),
vgy611 catalyst,
and a reducer,

Response Type: Referred to Business

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http://www.dupont.com/
800-441-7515
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jeff is not available to chat

[admin]

Are you kidding me? These idiots are buying sealer from an auto parts company? Of all the irresponible, tightwad, the hell with safety of the consumer acts I have ever seen, this takes the cake. My God, all they do is pass the costs on to their dealers, buying a decent, food safe sealer is not rocket science. I suppose they don't make as much markup on the food safe sealer was the draw of the deal.

These Jecker people are too stupid to run a company. They must be great salesmen though to have taken advantage of so many.

Sad deal all around and getting worse.

Thanks for the info.

[paddling2]

We bought into the Shirstone dealership about 3 months ago. Mattflew to Hawaii personally and stayed for a week to train our crew. We also took video of the whole process in case we had to review the installation. We have installed 2 countertops in our display kitchens and also our boss and one employee have installed hirestone in their kitchens. No problems yet.I have read alot of the complaints and have to admit maybe we have'nt done this long enough to have all these problems but we will have to see. We use the kitchens daily and have no cracks. During construction of our showroom we had a couple or chips from drills and other tools but we fixed them easily. We have tried to call Matt and not always gotten ahold of him but how often can you call a company and get the president on the phone? Not likely. So we will keep on doing research and hopefully will not have these problems.

[admin]

Good post paddling2.

If new dealers like you can learn of these issues, they will be prepared to deal with any problems down the road.

I look at this product like I do granite. When I price granite, I know that there will be a certain percentage of breakage and customer complaints, it is beyond my control, but I can allow for contingencies in my pricing formula. I can make a certain percentage of problems right without stripping all my profit from the product line. As long as I can predict my losses, I can cover them in advance.

Now Shirestone dealers know to mark up the jobs a bit more to cover problems. Nothing wrong with that.

Good luck on your busines. Remember that not overselling a product is the key to referals.

[gary]

I am a former Shirestone dealer from the Chicago area and share many of the experiences written in this forum concerning the frailties of the Shirestone product. One can only hope that an individual researching the product for potential investment as a dealer will read the contributions to this website prior to investing. If I had it to do over again, I would stay away, far, far, away.

There is nothing about Matt and Debbie Jecker, (Shirestone owners) that you wouldn’t like upon meeting them, and I don’t believe that they entered into this venture with the intent to take investor’s money without delivering a marketable product. Unfortunately, in the end I believe that is what they have done with many dealers. They offer what appears to be a beautiful, innovative product that is hyped as being incredibly durable and the next best thing beyond granite. It is beautiful - until durability becomes an issue and you discover that either because of price or reputation, it is a difficult product to sell.

The problem? It appears as though the product has been rolled out far in advance of it being perfected in the backroom. Yet the Jecker’s have taken dealers’ money in, year after year, serving to finance their continued R&D costs, product tweaking and repackaging. The result? A disproportionate amount of dealer failures – not because the dealer wasn’t properly trained, or attempted shortcuts, or other reasons the Jecker’s would lead you to believe – but because the product wasn’t consistently manufactured, such that you were playing Russian Roulette with every bag you opened and installed. Two years after I bought into a dealership with 150 bags of product I saw a Technical Data Sheet which stated the product had a shelf life of six months. Six months! It was never stated as such in the dealer contract, nor on the bagged product. No one at Shirestone had verbally told me of the shelf life or that the product has diminished effectiveness over time! Further problematic is that the bags had no expiration date noted, nor was there any coding to determine when manufacturing occurred. I was advised to order new product for an upcoming high-profile installation instead of using the $8,000 worth of older stock that I had on hand. This seems to explain why some dealer installation jobs worked well while other didn’t. It likely has less to do with the trained dealers, and more to do with the quality and/or age of the bagged product being used. Even a former employee of Counterfit Systems/Shirestone has stated that the set up for the bagged product was different virtually every time he opened one. Quality control has seemingly been nonexistent. Shame on Shirestone for laying blame for product failures at the feet of former dealers, accusing them of poor installation techniques, cutting corners, using other than Shirestone sanctioned products, etc. Now they are going so far as to say that they are just product suppliers, yet another means by which to distance themselves from the installation aspect of the product. If they hadn’t had so many complaints by dealer and customers about the frailties of the product, they wouldn’t have the need to do this. And if the Jecker’s are merely product suppliers, why don’t they clearly indicate the expiration date or “use by” date on the products used for installation? Because they couldn’t then sell “expired” product?

The above just speaks to the inconsistent effectiveness of the bagged product. There are also issues with a lack of communication to dealers on changing the product and/or packaging. When we installed the fresh product we were advised to order for that high-profile job, we fought a very rapid set up time, unlike that we had ever installed previously. A call to Shirestone revealed that a formulation change in the bagged product now required the use of a flow agent, which we were never told existed or received instructions for its use. Shouldn’t dealers be advised of changes to installation products and procedures? A fellow Shirestone dealer ordered bagged product that same month. When I mentioned the new flow agent, he was confused. He received the same previously used bagged product that didn’t require the use of a flow agent. Was it because he was not an active dealer at the time? And all the while the folks at Shirestone denied that chipping and cracking was a frequent occurrence with their product, they arranged for the development of three different repair kits: colored “crayons”, “markers” and touch up paints mixed with sealer in a 5 pack color kit. Why would such repairs products be developed if there wasn’t a growing demand? During our two plus years in this business, Shirestone changed the packaging of the sealer, going from what was a paint-can like container to a narrow screwed-top cylinder. When asked, we were told that prolonged exposure to air diminished the sealer’s effectiveness. Were other dealers told that this could happen? Why did some low gloss sealers have hardened dulling agent at the bottom of the full cans? When asked, Shirestone replied that such sealer may need to be mixed for up to 30 minutes – a much longer period than the instructions we were given. Was it old, was it still effective? Newer batches of sealer came packaged differently and didn’t have the same type of hard settlement in the cans. Did the Jecker’s ever backpedal and advise dealers that the packaging or the age of the product may have contributed to the failures they experienced with cracking or chipped sealer? Not at all. It seems as though they just continued to cover up possible product causes for the complaints coming in and continually changed things up, without notification to the dealers. Matt chooses to call the early dealers the “pioneers” of Shirestone; I believe “guinea pigs” is more appropriate.

Here is the advise I wish I had been given prior to buying into a Shirestone dealership:

1.Ask the Jecker’s for 8-10 dealers that have been in business for at least 4 or 5 years. This would only represent maybe 5% of their dealer base and shouldn’t be difficult, as they claim to have over 200 dealers across the country. I was discouraged from contacting other dealers when I was considering becoming one. “Some of our dealers didn’t have what it takes to run a dealership and we wouldn’t want you to happen upon one of those. We can give you all the information you need.” Red flag. I was so hyped on getting in on the ground floor of this product I ignored my gut.

2.Be realistic when you review the income potential. The revenue numbers we were shown (no, not promised) suggested 2 installations a week at a profit margin that would be attainable only with rock bottom labor costs, as the product costs are high. Normal labor costs (even paying yourself) would skinny up the margins fast. This product is time consuming and labor-intensive. Realistically you need to charge square foot prices in excess of granite prices – and notwithstanding the uniqueness of Shirestone, not everyone is enamored enough with the product to pay over granite prices. Don’t be afraid to ask a dealer what they grossed in revenue in their best year. If they were really doing well, they would be happy to report on their success. If they tip toe around the question, they are likely still trying to make a go of it.

3.Know what you are buying with the dealership. Do they now mark the bags in such a way that you can be sure you are purchasing fresh product? The folks at Shirestone recently told me that the product is good for 12 months – not the 6 months on the Technical Data Sheet – but I say 12 months from when? My bags, both original 150 bags and later bags purchased, have no date or codes to indicate freshness date. Without it, I wouldn’t touch the product. Particularly in this economy with slower sales, I would bet there are bags of product just aging away on their shelves, waiting for unsuspecting dealers to take off their hands. Been there, done that.

4.Ask Shirestone what they will do for you and get it into writing. I spent countless hours marketing this virtually unknown product while Shirestone marketed selling dealerships. I even went so far as to meet countertop reps at the corporate headquarters of a national home design supply retailer. I put together a sales package for the retailer, and sent it to Matt for input/assistance. I actually had samples in the hands of the retailer, who liked the looks of the product and wanted more information. Matt never responded to me, although he had said he would, and the retailer later backed out when they discovered the sample wasn’t as durable as they liked when put to the test.

5.Talk to as many dealers as possible to find out what worked and what didn’t in starting the business. In retrospect, the initial training lacked direction in a big way when it came to rolling out the business. No sample business plan, no standard advertising promos, no nothing. They literally said “Go back home, practice installation on your kitchen and friend’s kitchen’s, and take it from there.” That’s it. Later home shows were encouraged, but there were never any specifics for building the business. No, you aren’t purchasing a franchise, but certainly there is a preferred approach to marketing, advertising, sample distribution, displays, coloring suggestions, pricing, warranties, and so on. Nothing, nada. Just “see you later, best of luck, it will all come to you, you’ll see”. I believe if you ask any dealer, current or former, they can give you a laundry list of suggested do’s and don’ts in the roll out of this business. Too bad Shirestone doesn’t desire the success of their dealers badly enough to want to compile and provide such information to new dealers. By Matt’s own admission he has a high failure rate among dealers – and he wonders why?

So why aren’t there more disgruntled dealers chiming in on their bad experiences with this product? I asked myself the same questions many times over and I believe I now know. By the time you finally give up and see this business for the farce that it is, you are done with it. That’s it – write off the money and time invested and walk away, hoping that no more customers call with complaints of chips or cracks. You don’t want to talk about it or deal with the business anymore. I am there now, and fully understand why former dealers just retreat and lick their wounds. Unfortunately, if more dealers had come out and stopped putting lipstick on this pig, fewer dealers would have been pulled into this business and kept it going. I stated in the beginning I don’t believe Matt and Debbie entered into this business with the intent to do anyone financial harm or scam dealers. I do believe, however, that as more and more product failure issues became known to them, they chose not to come clean with their knowledge and responsibility of the product’s performance, but instead led dealers to believe they were the only ones experiencing problems. They busied themselves changing things up going forward, never going back to dealers to admit what may have contributed or even totally caused their issues. New dealer money funded their product-in-process, and frustrated and fed up dealers just went away. And so it goes. A better business approach by the Jecker’s would have yielded far better results for dealers and from dealers. The dealers were never united to share ideas, installation tips, coloring advice, or marketing success stories. There is no general list of dealers on the website to direct interested consumers. You must instead call the MO office, so they can call a dealer in advance to confirm they are still installing the product before they refer a customer. Perhaps they should have spent more time focusing on making sure they were putting out a good product, and less time growing the dealerships.

Now I believe full blown deceit is in play with Shirestone. They know what they could have done differently over the years in rolling out this product, yet they continue to find fault with dealers for their failures. They have caused much heartache and financial ruin for so many dealers that have tried and tried to make this product a household name. Do not believe the Jecker’s when they defend themselves by accusing the dealer of sub-par work being the cause of their failed dealership, or the many other excuses and accusations they have used to deflect blame. We as dealers wanted this business to work, more so than the Jecker’s. Their only concern was selling the next dealership and covering up the frailties of their product. You will occasionally see dealers defending this product - in some Websites you’ll see Nanette or Bradley’s name come up. While we knew them as Nan and Brad, the up shot is that they are Debbie Jecker’s mom and dad who are dealers and delightful people, but I think it’s rather obvious why they are ardent product supporters.

Is Shirestone good to go now – worked through all their issues? Your guess is as good as mine. I’m not risking any more of my money, time or effort, as the trust is gone. If someone chooses to take a leap of faith, I’d advise doing your homework first. And if you have a little nagging feeling in your gut, trust it and walk away. I wish I had.

Susan Smerz

[gary]

Premier Surfaces - Mar 9The SouthEast's most trusted countertop provider, with showrooms accross Atlanta, GA and Huntsville, AL, specializing in granite, marble, Silestone, ...
www.premiersurfaces.com/

fromEric Tryon <eric@premiersurfaces.com>
toGary Anderson <gwa915@gmail.com>
dateTue, Mar 9, 2010 at 5:05 AM
subjectRE: Letter to Post
mailed-bypremiersurfaces.com
hide details Mar 9 (3 days ago)

Gary,

We had a very similar experience. We bought a territory in Atlanta and about a year ago stopped selling it to any of our customers. I have a much bigger countertop business that consists of other products. Way too many headaches with this product and I just wrote off the $100K+ I had invested and have moved on to growing my business with my core products.

Eric

[colbowman]

gary I would be interested in finding out more about the finish shirestone uses I have to repair the jobs i did and i cant afford there expensive crap I am a very disgruntled dealer and would like to know as much about them as i can thanks