Wednesday, June 13, 2012
Dear Loyal Front Sight Member,
You are receiving this email because Front Sight still owes you one or more guns from your prior participation in our membership promotions. We truly appreciate your support of Front Sight and our mission.
I am sending you this personal e-mail because we haven't handled this gun promotion as well as I would have liked. In fact, it has been a mess. I relied on people I trusted and to be quite frank, they let me down. They in turn have let you down.
Please allow me apologize, give you all the sordid details, and then make it up to you with an Exchange in Abundance.
Here are all the sordid details:
Some time ago, I came up with the great idea of providing weapons to you as a bonus for membership participation and you took great advantage of it. We then proceeded to begin the fulfillment process of delivering the weapons as ordered.
Here is the sequence of events that occurred. Believe me, I never could have anticipated what happened...
We had a long-term, full-time employee I had trusted for years with good results who had his own FFL business. Front Sight paid this individual a significant amount of money to organize and create a program for ordering, logging, and shipping the delivery of these guns to our students. Each month he gave me a report that everything was going well, as I continued to write big checks to him to cover the cost of the ordering, logging and shipping guns to those who purchased memberships. We are talking about thousands of guns.
When I started getting inquiries from students as to why their gun was delayed, I too inquired with this employee and was told a number of stories that seemed reasonable at the time. After all, I trusted this individual and he had never lied to me in the past. As delays continued, I sent in a friendly "forensic" accountant to review the process and books. It was only then that I found out what an absolute mess the person I trusted had made of my effort to reward you with guns as a bonus for your participation in Front Sight's success. His record keeping was terrible, his integrity was suspect, and in the end, just before we fired him, it became evident that he was stealing from you and me. In numerous cases, we paid him for guns that he either did not order or did not ship. His FFL books were incomplete and erroneous.
He was fired but the damage was done, leaving me holding the bag. It took us months to finally get all the records from him and once he finally gave them to us, under the threat of filing criminal charges against him, the "records" were so incomplete and scattered we had a very difficult time determining who was owed which gun and where we were to ship the gun. His actions were so blatantly dishonest, Front Sight had no choice but to turn over the records of the situation to BATF and to Clark County Sheriff's Department for their review and action.
Front Sight now had to move our FFLs from this fired employee's location off site to the Front Sight property. This process took another 6 months with BATF. During this time we shipped all the guns that Front Sight was able to determine could be shipped from the inventory we had already paid for, and seized from our former employee, but we were advised to refrain from purchasing additional guns until the BATF had completed their transfer requirements for a location change and responsible party change on our FFLs.
Front Sight went looking for a large gun distributor who would be able to fulfill the orders and ship them from their facilities. It took us many months to locate the correct distributor. We then had to work out the logistics of how a large wholesale distributor can send one or two guns to your local FFL using Front Sight as the FFL sender. This was a new process for any wholesale distributor and was just recently allowed by BATF. Several of them turned us down because of the large amount of work involved.
When this was completed late last fall, we then ran into the problems of gun availability and the speed with which the distributor could ship these individual weapons. As you probably know, the major gun manufacturers are more interested in selling to the military or law enforcement under large contracts. Distributors are also more interested in selling one or two of an item to a local sporting goods store (at more profit) than fulfilling large orders for guns that Front Sight requested at the wholesale pricing expected by such large orders. We restarted the shipping process but we could not and still cannot get sufficient numbers of all of the guns necessary to fulfill our backorders. We are currently at the mercy of gun manufacturers shipping to their distributors and then getting a distributor to sell and ship to us in large quantities. Therefore, we can only send out guns as we can get them. As an example, we were notified that Ruger is back ordered more than one million guns and doesn't know when they will be caught up. Other manufacturers have similar backlogs. Front Sight, and our wholesale distributor, can't ship what we can't get.
You may say this is an interesting story but it is not your problem. I fully agree with you. You may think that you ordered sufficient numbers of memberships and you are due the gun or guns as promised. You are correct. However, I could not have predicted the treachery and dishonesty that lead to this string of events. I am worthy of trust, so I tend to trust people at their word, maybe more than I should. Although we did nothing wrong, we have egg on our face from this poor performance and I hate it.
Front Sight has a great reputation providing more value for our courses and lifetime memberships than the amount we charge. For the last sixteen years Front Sight has given our members a better value and satisfaction than they anticipated. We call it Exchange in Abundance. We live by it. In this particular case, we have been "Screwed in Abundance."
This gun delivery issue has been keeping me up at nights. I felt that I should not only explain the situation and apologize but also offer a solution. Since the delivery of guns from most manufacturers is something that Front Sight cannot control, I have created another Exchange in Abundance solution where we can make it right for you immediately.
For each gun that Front Sight owes you, I have authorized Front Sight to provide you TWO Diamond memberships that you can sell or transfer. These are lifetime memberships that will be placed in your name as "To Be Determined" so you can sell or transfer them to anyone who is not yet a member. These Diamond memberships allow the member to attend ANY and ALL courses at Front Sight for the rest of their lives, plus receive a 40% savings in the Pro Shop. TWO Diamonds memberships FAR EXCEED the value of any gun owed. This is a huge Exchange in Abundance and is my way of immediately resolving the problems that a dishonest employee caused you and apologizing for the delays that have occurred as a result. If you would like to exchange each gun you have coming for TWO Diamond Memberships, simply send an email to Front Sight using ONLY the following email address,
programguns@frontsight.com. In the subject line please put only "Two Diamond Membership for Each Gun Exchange". In the text of the email we only need your name, address, email, telephone, Front Sight membership number and the gun(s) outstanding. The TWO Diamond Memberships for each gun exchanged will be sent to you quickly.
Or, if you have your heart set on getting the Ruger LCR or other guns we offered in our promotion, you have my word that you will get it, it is just going to take some time. We will do our best to get as many guns shipped from our wholesale distributor as possible each month and get these orders completed as quickly as the available supply allows. If you elect this option, please send an email to Front Sight using ONLY the following email address,
programguns@frontsight.com. In the subject line please put only "Prefer to Wait For Gun Delivery." In the text of the email we only need your name, address, email, telephone, Front Sight membership number and the list of the gun(s) outstanding. We will keep you updated monthly on the gun availability.
Either way, whatever choice you wish to take, please e-mail us at the e-mail addresses indicated above, so we can act appropriately on your behalf.
The reputation of Front Sight and your satisfaction is very important to me and to all the staff. We want to make it right for you and I request that you take advantage of TWO Lifetime Diamond Memberships for each gun as it is a much greater lifetime value for you and I am pleased to provide it because it is in our immediate control to deliver to you.
Thank you for your patience and understanding and we hope to see you training at Front Sight soon.
Sincerely,
Dr. Ignatius Piazza
Founder and Director
Front Sight Firearms Training Institute
7975 Cameron Drive, #900
Windsor, CA 95492