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Wednesday, November 21, 2012

I was banned from posting to the Lodge facebook page!

Yes, you read the title right.  I was banned from posting to the Lodge facebook page!  

And yes, I WILL tell you all about it, on my blog.  After all, they certainly cannot ban me from my own blog.

Many people post to the Lodge facebook page, with questions about their product; Since I use Lodge cast iron on a daily basis, I am very knowledgeable, and can answer many of the questions.

One lady posted that she tried to use the Lodge double burner griddle on her induction stove, and it would not work, because there was not enough contact between the element and the pan, to turn on the burner.  

She stated that she called the Lodge customer service department, who suggested that she "try heating it up very slowly, so it will heat evenly."  

Well obviously, that suggestion did not work, because the burner would not turn on in the first place, let alone heat evenly.

So I explained that they gave her the correct answer, to the wrong question.  

The stated solution was for using the double burner griddle on ELECTRIC stoves, not induction stoves; The employee had misunderstood her question.

Now, as you can see, that was a FACTUAL statement.  It was not in any way slanderous, nor derogatory in nature.

However, the company was offended by that comment, and as a result, permanently banned me from ever posting again.

What was most troubling, was that they didn't bother to tell me.  I figured it out 3 weeks later, when I found that all of my comments had been deleted, and I was no longer able to post.

So I emailed Lodge, to be told "Yes, you have been banned.  Our communications committee decided to ban you after a negative comment about our customer service department."

No apology whatsoever.  

They could have deleted the comment, if they didn't like it.  

Or at the very least, contacted me. 

Does this heinously unprofessional and disrespectful behavior toward a fiercely loyal customer, mean that I will boycott Lodge products?

Not that it would mean anything to them if I did, obviously.

I still have to admit, it is the highest quality cast iron cookware you can buy.

But, I can always buy it from a third party ebay seller.  That way, the company no longer benefits from my purchases.

I realize that the hundreds of dollars I've spent on their product is just a drop in the bucket to them.  

But if this is how they treat someone who has been a loyal customer for years, imagine how they regard someone who has never bought their product!






3 comments:

  1. Well, that was interesting. As you may know, I posted this link to a few other sites, including the Yahoo groups I belong to and the WAGS site. I got mixed responses: Some thought wow, that wasn't right; some thought wow, you're making a big deal out of nothing; and some even said "naughty girl, you spoke negatively about the cast iron mecca". But once word got back to Lodge, they backpedaled a bit, changed their tune, said that the ban was not permanent and they'd be happy to reinstate me. OK, I can accept that, but that was not the impression they initially gave me, and I'm not sure that would have necessarily been the case had I not spoken publicly about it. As of this writing, the ban is still in place. So to answer someone's question on another board, "Since you seem satisfied with their response, will you remove your blog posting?" I'm not sure. Usually I don't; This blog was never meant to be an "advertising" blog. I tell things exactly as they happen. But I did want to post this followup comment. Another question might be, if the ban will indeed be removed, will I continue to post? I'm also not sure right now.

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  2. That's really bad on the part of Lodge, as well as extremely petulent and unprofessional of their Communications Committee and Customer Service Dept. I'm able to see your posts on the Lodge FaceBook page so hope they have rescinded your ban. Too little too late really though, they owe you an apology.
    Steve

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  3. Ha, not only did they never apologize to me, they banned me again... for an equally stupid reason.

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