I appreciate the clearly expressed information shown in this thread. I know there are 2 sides to every story, so being able to read the conversation myself and make up my own mind is helpful. Saves me the aggravation of having a similar experience.
I appreciate the clearly expressed information shown in this thread. I know there are 2 sides to every story, so being able to read the conversation myself and make up my own mind is helpful. Saves me the aggravation of having a similar experience.
Just giving this the ol' bumpty bump
Im sorry if this is against rules by posting in an old thread. I just had to give a big THANK YOU to everyone who has given their personal experiences with Andre and his customer service. I was literally about to buy one of his knives. Decided to research him for feedback and negative issues and found all these threads. I will not be spending close to $500 on a guy who treats people like this. no matter how awesome I feel his knives look. I love a community who looks out for one another. Thank you.
What sucks is I confuse the Andre's and associate another maker for this guy. It's my bad but I hope others are clearer on the distinction. I won't touch an Andre De Villiers knife on the secondary market or anywhere.
I had only one interaction with Andre, I was interested in a custom he had shown for sale. When he told me the price, I was pretty shocked and I guess that came across to him (having bought many high-end full customs, I thought what he was asking was pretty out of line with the market). I found him to be arrogant and pretty rude, crossed him off my list of custom makers to work with and never looked back. YMMV.
Would that be Andre Thorburn by chance?... I've made the same mistake before LOL, :foot:
Hmm...I've not interacted with Andre Thorburn and by no means wish to negatively impact him.
Is there a good way to make that point clear?
Just to confirm.......Andre Thorburn is a first rate bloke and a brilliant knifemaker. He is an ex-chairman of the Knifemakers Guild of South Africa and you could not deal with a better guy.
There are other first rate excellent makers in South Africa with the first name of Andre. Folks should be certain that they are not tarring these excellent makers with someone else's bad rep. Also you would hate for people to think that they are doing business with one of our "good" Andre's only to discover that they have actually transacted with someone else.
It can be confusing, please be aware of the differences.
Hmm...I've not interacted with Andre Thorburn and by no means wish to negatively impact him.
Is there a good way to make that point clear?
I think it was quoted accidentally. My mobile browser tends to cache the quote feature.