Avoid House of Staunton!

A few weeks ago, I bought a new board that had the typical new vinyl chemical smell to it. Not overpowering but noticeable enough to be annoying. I left it laying flat on table and flipped it over every now and again. After a couple days of airing out, the board was fine.

Yea but this is MUCH different. I kind of like the old style almost new car smell most vinyl products have. I thought this was benzene or something. I thought something had been spilled on the box in shipping. The entire contents are permeated with the odor. My issue ends up being I had an allergic reaction that may be I am more sensitive to the smell as well. Never encountered this before.

I think my issue with HOS is just trying to convince them how bad it really is. HOS as some here may be imaging as I would just a slight weird plastic smell, as I said it is very strong and noxious. Perhaps I have developed an over sensitivity to vinyl that I understand is not uncommon and only another hyper sensitive would have a reaction as I did.

BTW I am sure this comes off as over reacting to some, but once again my vinyl allergy could only be appreciated by some one else who suffers. HOS is not ignoring the issue to their credit but still oddly avoiding the simple remedy of just sending a new one.

Is that unreasonable?

W

Wow!  Your chemical odor issue does sound really bad.  I do agree with you that they should provide you with a prepaid shipping label for returns or exchanges and not expect you to pay the shipping as doing so is pretty much standard business practice for Internet vendors.

Although limited in amount, my experiences with HOS (via their USCF Sales role) have been positive in the past.

Who owns HoS now ? Frank Cammaratta name is still mentioned on their 2014 catalogue..

The Chess Store has the best vinyl boards on the planet!

I use a TCS vinyl board with my HOS Marshal Plastic set.

http://www.bbb.org/northern-alabama/business-reviews/games-and-supplies/house-of-staunton-in-madison-al-900064436

Ok, did some Google searching........

Shawn Sullivan started his career as a computer games designer and chess happened to be one of the games. He joined House of Staunton at the invitation of the owner, Frank Camaratta. After a few years working and learning the business, Shawn was offered the opportunity to take over the business and is now the House of Staunton owner and CEO.

                 I knew it!   A prostitute!  He sold out!

I think Frank Camaratta just wanted to retire IMO. I am sure he is 65 or more years old by now. I bought a Mousepad board from another outfit & it still has a very stong rubber smell to it. I can't use it as the oder gives me a headache. This China made junk could be dangerous as God only knows what dangerous chemicals their using in these boards!

I don't see how a $14 shipping could be less expensive that a new order.

Unless you are purchasing the really crappy board/pieces. Where I live a decent chess set would go around $100.

Now I do think you are overcomplaining. The offer they made sounds reasonable to me. But I must say I never ordered a board, so I don't know the commercial habits of dealing with unhappy customers after shipping.

Hi,

Briefly, it appears the hang up with this issue was HOS inability to have a quick replacement policy in place; some way for customer service to just click a button and send a replacement. They were making offers that still ended up with me out of pocket but it appears they were working within the confines of their job.

Finally a customer service rep was able to break through the idiocy and just send a new board but it was a convoluted effort on their part, hence the delays and strange work arounds.

Perhaps this thread was unwarranted and should not have been started as I still suffered from the vinyl allergies. I have since learned this is typical of the current vinyl boards from china. If you're like me it's not so much about the money. I'd pay $20+ for a decent good quality board, I just want it to be usable for a a while.

So should one avoid HOS. Well I'll give them another shot one day due to their diligence in solving the matter while dealing with behind the scenes non-sense. I would strongly suggest avoiding the cheap vinyl borads from anywhere and hopefully the dealers can cut off the supply line and dump their toxic boards instead of pawning them off on us. I have bought these boards in the past and NEVER had an issue with one.

When will USA companies realize the false economy of importing junk from china. I avoid it like the plague and here is a perfect example of the corner cutting they do.

Now back to chess!

W

Did you consider a silicone board?  Same price range, lasts forever, no vinyl odor. 

Another advantage of a silicone board is that you can roll it or fold it tightly, or even just jam into a pocket, and it will lay flat afterwards without wrinkles or creases.

A possible disadvantage of silicone board is that it has a higher coefficient of friction than does a vinyl or mousepad board. It is very hard to slide pieces on a silicone board. If you are a slider rather than a picker-upper, this could be irksome.

I have not ordered any chess boards from HOS, but I will say I've picked up a few (3-4) older books from them recently (via ebay) and they have all been excellent and shipped very quickly.  

Best of luck resolving your issue.

- ZV

ZeroVektor wrote:

I will say I've picked up a few (3-4) older books from them recently (via ebay) and they have all been excellent and shipped very quickly.  

Best of luck resolving your issue.

- ZV

+ 1.

The topic of this thread is "avoid House of Staunton" when I think it should be titled "avoid chessbazaar on eBay"!!  lol. Inconsistent Indian sets with messed up weights and different colored pieces from that guy are fairly common!