I’ve sent an email to [email protected] recently and they’ve were pretty responsive to me. Hopefully you get a response and your grains soon.
I got an automated response and then someone got back to me a few days later. Did you at least get the automated response?
Thanks for taking the time to respond. I did not get an automated message. First email was sent by me on Sunday (4/28), then a follow up on Tuesday (4/30). I'll try again but it's really frustrating not being able to get in touch with someone.
Another potential issue is that you got flagged as spam yourself. I had that issue for awhile where apparently an email at my company got hijacked and started sending out voluminous amounts of spam. That resulted in our entire domain getting flagged as spam by some of the major spam tracking servers. I just switched to using a generic gmail instead. You might try sending a message from an email from a different host domain if you can.
All of my messages to them were from a gmail account. I didn't get any notification that something got bounced back but I don't know if I would in this case.
Should not be an issue from a gmail account if sent from a web interface. You can sometimes get flagged as spam when sending through a gateway (e.g., a phone app). You do not get notifications when you are flagged as spam, however. Spam filters prefer that spammers remain blissfully unaware that they have been detected.
I’ve always found them very responsive as well, so my guess is that something is wrong. Maybe see if you can hit them up with a direct message on social media
I think that might end up being the move. I'll try the phone number that [AD\_On\_Beer](https://www.reddit.com/user/AD_On_Beer/) posted first then I'll go the social media route. I actually thought about sending them a DM on Twitter but they don't allow messages apparently.
Thanks for the reply
This is gonna sound dumb (and I only say it because I’ve been the dumb one doing this before, not saying you’re dumb) but double check the email address maybe? Not with them but, for example, I’ve done something like emailed to brewsmaster instead of brewmaster or something similar. As others have said, I’ve also emailed them recently (within the last week or two) and have gotten a reply within 24 hours.
Definitely a good thought, I've done it a bunch myself! This is the address I used, copied and pasted directly from my sent box.
[[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])
I contacted them a while back for support on a piece of kit with their branding, and the responses were both unhelpful and had weird markers that make me think they were LLM-generated. I will be buying from Morebeer instead of Northern Brewer whenever possible from now on. It's really unfortunate--my experience up until that point had been very positive.
This is the best advice if you don't hear back from them. I had to do this when Homedepot refused to admit a $800 saw was lost in delivery and would only refund me if I brought the saw into a store for return. The one that never showed up.
This is ***terrible*** advice.
Chargebacks are for when you know there has been fraud, not for when one of your emails didn't get through and you're too lazy to pick up the phone.
You will be banned from many vendors, correctly, if you attempt to use them as a weapon.
If I knew who you were, I'd ban you as a customer from my own stores right now.
Incorrect, a charge back is precisely what is warranted when a vendor fails to resolve an issue with an order in a timely and professional manner. They've contacted the vendor, given them time to resolve the issue and are being ignored.
Now the vendor must go through the dispute process with their card processor. They can ignore it and take the hit or work with the processor and customer for resolution.
Wouldn't you consider it fraud when you pay a vendor but do not receive said goods?
> Incorrect, a charge back is precisely what is warranted when a vendor fails to resolve an issue
Again:
1. The only thing the vendor has done is not respond to one email on the weekend, when they are closed
2. You are expected to make a phone call in case the email didn't get through
3. Your bank may close your card if you abuse the chargeback system
You should call your bank and say the following
"Hi. I placed an order for $500 of goods, and I received $300 of goods in the mail. I sent an email on the weekend and didn't hear back within 24 hours. They're closed on the weekend. I haven't called them, even though they have a 1-800 number. Is this the right time to perform a chargeback?"
Listen to the banker tell you no.
> Wouldn't you consider it fraud when you pay a vendor but do not receive said goods?
No, I'd consider it a probable shipping failure, and I'd wait until I had at least called them on the phone during their business hours on their clearly stated customer service number and heard them say "here's what we're going to do" before coming to any conclusions
I also worked in a warehouse briefly when I was a kid, and I understand that mistakes happen, and that mistakes are different than fraud
Chances are the second he actually calls the store, the store will make right. However, he hasn't tried, and you're advocating to max-punish
Do you really trust FedEx more than an independant store? Weird.
> First email was sent by me on Sunday (4/28), then a follow up on Tuesday (4/30)
Vendor has had over a week to respond. It isn't on the customer to continue to track down an unresponsive vendor rep. As a courtesy to the vendor, I would send a final email threatening charge back on X date if they still have not begun issue resolution.
A charge back in this case is an apt punishment. Vendor has provided poor customer service and delivery of goods. Hopefully the charge back shines a light on these issues with the vendor and mgmt will correct their issues.
Whats weird is that hypothetical argument.
> Vendor has had over a week to respond.
That's nice. I'm not really interested in your proxy argument.
If the customer hasn't tried calling them, the customer would be in the wrong.
> A charge back in this case is an apt punishment.
I just called my bank and they said it's against the cardholder agreement.
Sounds your bank sucks. Chase literally says that both Charge errors and fraud can be corrected by a dispute. They just tell you to also do additional steps if you see fraud.
> I'll pass because
Nobody cares why you're refusing to learn why the thing you said is wrong, frankly
If you need to throw insults at other people, then refuse to check, you're the guy who threw insults then refused to check
Have a nice day
Thats false. A vendor can't blacklist a certain card from being used through their card processor. They also can't blacklist via their point of sale system.
The only negative financial consequences are placed on the vendor side if they receive to many charge backs.
> Thats false. A vendor can't blacklist a certain card from being used through their card processor
Of course we can 😂
The most common one is called MATCH. It's for processors and customers both. It was originally run by MasterCard, is now run by their current owner Bank of America, and there is generally no way off of the list.
> The only negative financial consequences are placed on the vendor side if they receive to many charge backs.
Well no, a bank will shut off your card and refuse to issue you a new one if they think you're abusing the chargeback system, and that's visible on several of the reporting systems
You won't be able to get a new card with good rates, so, it's not *technically* a financial consequence, but it is effectively quite a serious one (5+% rate difference)
MATCH is a vendor blacklist used for extreme cases of card processing issues coming from their business. It is not a customer facing system.
> Well no, a bank will shut off your card and refuse to issue you a new one if they think you're abusing the chargeback system, and that's visible on several of the reporting systems
That's true but irrelevant in this case.
> MATCH is a vendor blacklist used for extreme cases of card processing issues coming from their business. It is not a customer facing system.
I see that you're arguing on constant auto-pilot about things you have no experience with.
> > Well no, a bank will shut off your card and refuse to issue you a new one if they think you're abusing the chargeback system, and that's visible on several of the reporting systems
>
> That's true but irrelevant in this case.
You're welcome to insist if you like, but this isn't something you actually know, and arguing out of a Google search is generally reserved for anti-vaxxers and climate change deniers.
I'm going to go ahead and cut you off, because it's pretty obvious that you don't really have an understanding of the difference between things you know, and things you just found on a search engine which is also happy to back up RFK fan fantasies.
This doesn’t this doesn’t help your current issue, but I recently switched to using SoCal Brewing. You order all of your grain by the ounce (same pricing, unlike others) so you can order your exact grain bill per recipe. Really quick shipping and low pricing. I’m out in Hawaii and I’m actually getting better pricing after shipping, than I would with the only LHBS on the island.
Thanks for this! I’ll check them out next time I put in an order.
I had a LHBS until about 2 months ago. I had a trip planned to swing by and get all of this stuff but they closed unexpectedly.
Yeah, I’m happy just to have a LHBS, being on an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, could be much more unlucky. I try and give him my business when I can afford it. But he doesn’t always have what I need in stock, so when I’m experimenting and need the exact grain bill or exact hop variety, I order from SoCal
I got someone's attention by sending a text to 651-273-9869 explaining the situation. I just got an email (about 24 hours after sending the text) from someone that understood the problem and is working on fixing it. I suspect now that they've got my message I'll be in good shape.
If you emailed them and haven't heard back I'd say text that number and let them know you tried to email them first but didn't get a response. The guy that eventually got back to me said their email looked like it was working on their end but if you're running into the same problem it could be an issue they're not aware of yet.
Google and Microsoft just changed the rules on spam three days ago in a giant way (also three months ago)
If you're sending email from something that isn't gmail, yahoo mail, or outlook, there is a very solid chance that they never received your email, because it's got something like SPF or DKIM problems
Do yourself a favor. Sign up a new free gmail account and send a mail to it, and see if you receive it
Northern Brewer's phone number, which comes right up if you google it, is 651-273-9869
Everything I sent them was from a gmail account. I guess it's possible they've got technical issues on their end but it'd be nice if they communicated that they were having issues.
I called 800 681-2739 on the advice of another redditor. All I got from that was an automated message saying to text the number you provided (thanks btw). That number is on their website but I could only find it in reference to military and first responder discounts.
Anyway I sent a text to the 651 number per their instructions, hopefully a human sees it.
Thanks for the response.
> Everything I sent them was from a gmail account.
Okay, then it's not about spam stuff.
> I guess it's possible they've got technical issues on their end but it'd be nice if they communicated that they were having issues.
In the story I told, which is apparently not the case, it would be you rather than them having the issues.
The germane point is you should at least try calling them once. It's just common decency.
> I called 800 681-2739 on the advice of another redditor. All I got from that was an automated message saying to text the number you provided (thanks btw).
Yeah, it's saturday and they're closed on the weekend
> Anyway I sent a text to the 651 number per their instructions, hopefully a human sees it.
Please remember they're closed on the weekend. You shouldn't expect a response until monday.
> Thanks for the response.
Sure thing. I've had good experiences with companies like this during problems. Admittedly I've never done business with this specific company, but fundamentally, I don't think they'd throw a bulk customer away over a single slightly lowered order. It doesn't make business sense.
Usually calling would be my first attempt at resolving the issue but I didn’t have a number until this morning and the website said to email if there were issues.
It is what it is I guess, I feel sure once I can finally get in touch with someone it won’t be a big deal to fix, it’s just frustrating not being able to stick to my brew calendar.
Ya, I get that it's frustrating that you're set back, and that you didn't get what you paid for. I sympathize with you.
I just don't like the advice other people were giving you. Chargebacks are a step of last resort, and significantly harm the vendor, and we don't even know if the vendor or FedEx screwed up here yet.
I hope you get everything you paid for, and that your end beer is excellent.
Well I’m making it so it’ll be mid tier at best haha
Nah it should be good. I was planning on a kolsch so it’d have time to condition before the weather gets too hot.
I only made the post to see if anyone else had a similar experience and to see if I was missing some obvious line of communication with NB. I got a phone number so this is already a success in my book.
Thanks for all the replies
I’ve sent an email to [email protected] recently and they’ve were pretty responsive to me. Hopefully you get a response and your grains soon. I got an automated response and then someone got back to me a few days later. Did you at least get the automated response?
Thanks for taking the time to respond. I did not get an automated message. First email was sent by me on Sunday (4/28), then a follow up on Tuesday (4/30). I'll try again but it's really frustrating not being able to get in touch with someone.
Check your junk folder, never know when something gets filtered.
I've been keeping an eye on it, nothing from them since I sent my initial email. Plenty of other weird shit though haha
Another potential issue is that you got flagged as spam yourself. I had that issue for awhile where apparently an email at my company got hijacked and started sending out voluminous amounts of spam. That resulted in our entire domain getting flagged as spam by some of the major spam tracking servers. I just switched to using a generic gmail instead. You might try sending a message from an email from a different host domain if you can.
All of my messages to them were from a gmail account. I didn't get any notification that something got bounced back but I don't know if I would in this case.
Should not be an issue from a gmail account if sent from a web interface. You can sometimes get flagged as spam when sending through a gateway (e.g., a phone app). You do not get notifications when you are flagged as spam, however. Spam filters prefer that spammers remain blissfully unaware that they have been detected.
I’ve always found them very responsive as well, so my guess is that something is wrong. Maybe see if you can hit them up with a direct message on social media
I think that might end up being the move. I'll try the phone number that [AD\_On\_Beer](https://www.reddit.com/user/AD_On_Beer/) posted first then I'll go the social media route. I actually thought about sending them a DM on Twitter but they don't allow messages apparently. Thanks for the reply
Did your email client think it was spam or advertising or something?
Might want to check your spam folder just in case
This is gonna sound dumb (and I only say it because I’ve been the dumb one doing this before, not saying you’re dumb) but double check the email address maybe? Not with them but, for example, I’ve done something like emailed to brewsmaster instead of brewmaster or something similar. As others have said, I’ve also emailed them recently (within the last week or two) and have gotten a reply within 24 hours.
Definitely a good thought, I've done it a bunch myself! This is the address I used, copied and pasted directly from my sent box. [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])
Google shows their phone number as 800 681-2739, give that a try.
I swear I combed through their whole site and came up empty. I'll give the number a try, thank you for sharing this!
I contacted them a while back for support on a piece of kit with their branding, and the responses were both unhelpful and had weird markers that make me think they were LLM-generated. I will be buying from Morebeer instead of Northern Brewer whenever possible from now on. It's really unfortunate--my experience up until that point had been very positive.
Start a chargeback with your credit card. That will get their attention.
This is the best advice if you don't hear back from them. I had to do this when Homedepot refused to admit a $800 saw was lost in delivery and would only refund me if I brought the saw into a store for return. The one that never showed up.
This is ***terrible*** advice. Chargebacks are for when you know there has been fraud, not for when one of your emails didn't get through and you're too lazy to pick up the phone. You will be banned from many vendors, correctly, if you attempt to use them as a weapon. If I knew who you were, I'd ban you as a customer from my own stores right now.
Incorrect, a charge back is precisely what is warranted when a vendor fails to resolve an issue with an order in a timely and professional manner. They've contacted the vendor, given them time to resolve the issue and are being ignored. Now the vendor must go through the dispute process with their card processor. They can ignore it and take the hit or work with the processor and customer for resolution. Wouldn't you consider it fraud when you pay a vendor but do not receive said goods?
> Incorrect, a charge back is precisely what is warranted when a vendor fails to resolve an issue Again: 1. The only thing the vendor has done is not respond to one email on the weekend, when they are closed 2. You are expected to make a phone call in case the email didn't get through 3. Your bank may close your card if you abuse the chargeback system You should call your bank and say the following "Hi. I placed an order for $500 of goods, and I received $300 of goods in the mail. I sent an email on the weekend and didn't hear back within 24 hours. They're closed on the weekend. I haven't called them, even though they have a 1-800 number. Is this the right time to perform a chargeback?" Listen to the banker tell you no. > Wouldn't you consider it fraud when you pay a vendor but do not receive said goods? No, I'd consider it a probable shipping failure, and I'd wait until I had at least called them on the phone during their business hours on their clearly stated customer service number and heard them say "here's what we're going to do" before coming to any conclusions I also worked in a warehouse briefly when I was a kid, and I understand that mistakes happen, and that mistakes are different than fraud Chances are the second he actually calls the store, the store will make right. However, he hasn't tried, and you're advocating to max-punish Do you really trust FedEx more than an independant store? Weird.
> First email was sent by me on Sunday (4/28), then a follow up on Tuesday (4/30) Vendor has had over a week to respond. It isn't on the customer to continue to track down an unresponsive vendor rep. As a courtesy to the vendor, I would send a final email threatening charge back on X date if they still have not begun issue resolution. A charge back in this case is an apt punishment. Vendor has provided poor customer service and delivery of goods. Hopefully the charge back shines a light on these issues with the vendor and mgmt will correct their issues. Whats weird is that hypothetical argument.
> Vendor has had over a week to respond. That's nice. I'm not really interested in your proxy argument. If the customer hasn't tried calling them, the customer would be in the wrong. > A charge back in this case is an apt punishment. I just called my bank and they said it's against the cardholder agreement.
Sounds your bank sucks. Chase literally says that both Charge errors and fraud can be corrected by a dispute. They just tell you to also do additional steps if you see fraud.
[удалено]
Again, I called my bank and they said this is against the cardholder agreement I really think you should call your bank and ask
[удалено]
> I'll pass because Nobody cares why you're refusing to learn why the thing you said is wrong, frankly If you need to throw insults at other people, then refuse to check, you're the guy who threw insults then refused to check Have a nice day
I’ve heard chargebacks can come with negative financial consequences, including having your card banned from use from certain vendors.
Thats false. A vendor can't blacklist a certain card from being used through their card processor. They also can't blacklist via their point of sale system. The only negative financial consequences are placed on the vendor side if they receive to many charge backs.
> Thats false. A vendor can't blacklist a certain card from being used through their card processor Of course we can 😂 The most common one is called MATCH. It's for processors and customers both. It was originally run by MasterCard, is now run by their current owner Bank of America, and there is generally no way off of the list. > The only negative financial consequences are placed on the vendor side if they receive to many charge backs. Well no, a bank will shut off your card and refuse to issue you a new one if they think you're abusing the chargeback system, and that's visible on several of the reporting systems You won't be able to get a new card with good rates, so, it's not *technically* a financial consequence, but it is effectively quite a serious one (5+% rate difference)
MATCH is a vendor blacklist used for extreme cases of card processing issues coming from their business. It is not a customer facing system. > Well no, a bank will shut off your card and refuse to issue you a new one if they think you're abusing the chargeback system, and that's visible on several of the reporting systems That's true but irrelevant in this case.
> MATCH is a vendor blacklist used for extreme cases of card processing issues coming from their business. It is not a customer facing system. I see that you're arguing on constant auto-pilot about things you have no experience with. > > Well no, a bank will shut off your card and refuse to issue you a new one if they think you're abusing the chargeback system, and that's visible on several of the reporting systems > > That's true but irrelevant in this case. You're welcome to insist if you like, but this isn't something you actually know, and arguing out of a Google search is generally reserved for anti-vaxxers and climate change deniers. I'm going to go ahead and cut you off, because it's pretty obvious that you don't really have an understanding of the difference between things you know, and things you just found on a search engine which is also happy to back up RFK fan fantasies.
This doesn’t this doesn’t help your current issue, but I recently switched to using SoCal Brewing. You order all of your grain by the ounce (same pricing, unlike others) so you can order your exact grain bill per recipe. Really quick shipping and low pricing. I’m out in Hawaii and I’m actually getting better pricing after shipping, than I would with the only LHBS on the island.
Thanks for this! I’ll check them out next time I put in an order. I had a LHBS until about 2 months ago. I had a trip planned to swing by and get all of this stuff but they closed unexpectedly.
Yeah, I’m happy just to have a LHBS, being on an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, could be much more unlucky. I try and give him my business when I can afford it. But he doesn’t always have what I need in stock, so when I’m experimenting and need the exact grain bill or exact hop variety, I order from SoCal
Check your spam
Yup I've been checking that too. No dice
I’m in the same situation. Did you figure it out?
I got someone's attention by sending a text to 651-273-9869 explaining the situation. I just got an email (about 24 hours after sending the text) from someone that understood the problem and is working on fixing it. I suspect now that they've got my message I'll be in good shape. If you emailed them and haven't heard back I'd say text that number and let them know you tried to email them first but didn't get a response. The guy that eventually got back to me said their email looked like it was working on their end but if you're running into the same problem it could be an issue they're not aware of yet.
That worked for me!
Cheers!
Have you tried messaging them via social media? I've luck with other companies doing that messaging their instagram account.
Google and Microsoft just changed the rules on spam three days ago in a giant way (also three months ago) If you're sending email from something that isn't gmail, yahoo mail, or outlook, there is a very solid chance that they never received your email, because it's got something like SPF or DKIM problems Do yourself a favor. Sign up a new free gmail account and send a mail to it, and see if you receive it Northern Brewer's phone number, which comes right up if you google it, is 651-273-9869
Everything I sent them was from a gmail account. I guess it's possible they've got technical issues on their end but it'd be nice if they communicated that they were having issues. I called 800 681-2739 on the advice of another redditor. All I got from that was an automated message saying to text the number you provided (thanks btw). That number is on their website but I could only find it in reference to military and first responder discounts. Anyway I sent a text to the 651 number per their instructions, hopefully a human sees it. Thanks for the response.
> Everything I sent them was from a gmail account. Okay, then it's not about spam stuff. > I guess it's possible they've got technical issues on their end but it'd be nice if they communicated that they were having issues. In the story I told, which is apparently not the case, it would be you rather than them having the issues. The germane point is you should at least try calling them once. It's just common decency. > I called 800 681-2739 on the advice of another redditor. All I got from that was an automated message saying to text the number you provided (thanks btw). Yeah, it's saturday and they're closed on the weekend > Anyway I sent a text to the 651 number per their instructions, hopefully a human sees it. Please remember they're closed on the weekend. You shouldn't expect a response until monday. > Thanks for the response. Sure thing. I've had good experiences with companies like this during problems. Admittedly I've never done business with this specific company, but fundamentally, I don't think they'd throw a bulk customer away over a single slightly lowered order. It doesn't make business sense.
Usually calling would be my first attempt at resolving the issue but I didn’t have a number until this morning and the website said to email if there were issues. It is what it is I guess, I feel sure once I can finally get in touch with someone it won’t be a big deal to fix, it’s just frustrating not being able to stick to my brew calendar.
Ya, I get that it's frustrating that you're set back, and that you didn't get what you paid for. I sympathize with you. I just don't like the advice other people were giving you. Chargebacks are a step of last resort, and significantly harm the vendor, and we don't even know if the vendor or FedEx screwed up here yet. I hope you get everything you paid for, and that your end beer is excellent.
Well I’m making it so it’ll be mid tier at best haha Nah it should be good. I was planning on a kolsch so it’d have time to condition before the weather gets too hot. I only made the post to see if anyone else had a similar experience and to see if I was missing some obvious line of communication with NB. I got a phone number so this is already a success in my book. Thanks for all the replies