On Feb 3,2023, I ordered 12 sets of Victorinox Serrated wood handled steak knife sets for a customer. Apparently, what looked like the serrated ones were straight edge. Katom shipped 3 of the 12 sets, and when I received them, I called and asked what was going on with the order. I told the person on the phone that I needed the backordered ones checked and to cancel them if they were not serrated. She checked and assured me they were serrated.
When the rest of the order arrived, they were all straight edged. I contacted returns, and was asked for photos of the knives. I sent the photos on 3/15/23. Mikaela G responded with the info that the part number ordered was the straight edge spear point knives. I was given a return authorization and was informed there would be a 25% restocking fee.
I called sales and talked to Sarah H on 3/15. She sent a sales quote for the 12 sets of serrated knives to me and I discussed the return and 25% fee with her. I told her I would not return the knives while losing 25%, and would sell them on eBay, and buy the serrated knives elsewhere. We agreed to have me buy the serrated knives from Katom, and that I would be charged a 10% restocking fee after placing the order and return of original knives was received by Katom.
I placed the order on the same day, and shipped the return in 2 shipments to Katom on 3/16/2023. The return(s) were received by Katom on 3/21/2023 at 8:39AM.
I received a refund of $319.97 on 3/21. I called about the rest of the refund and was told it was processing. I received the final refund of $959.92 on 4/10/2023. Total refunded was $1279.89. The sale was for $1687.44. The 10% restocking charge would have been $168.70. The restocking fee charged was $407.55, the 25%.
I called many times, and was told that the difference ($238.81) would be refunded. It never was. I talked to Mikaela a few times during this process, and she verified the sales dept agreed to 10% restocking charge to get the last sale. I have never received the money owed me. ($238.81)
My experience with Katom and their customer service is one of, if not the, worst I have had with any Vendor in my life. I feel I was misled and ignored or put off through the whole process. At this point I would tell anyone to avoid dealing with them for any reason. Use another vendor or do without the product.
Patrick O
PnD Knives and Sharpening Services
La Grande, OR

Customer Ser is HORRIBLE! Wished I'd read the reviews before ordering - they run this company like 3rd World!

If you about purchase something from this company STOP and take your money somewhere else. I order 40K plus appliances from them for my store and they were very good on helping to get my order through (because they want your $$$ fast) but here are my issue with this company. My items arrived 2 to 3 months later than the lead time they gave me in multiple shipments and one of my item which is a sink come in damaged, I took a picture and sent to them right the way, the next day Kathy email me saying we need more picture and file the claim to the freight company within 5 business day so I got off work early and took care of what she needed and sent to her. No response then after a week I called and another girl not even want me to talk to Kathy and said Kathy will email me some information. I then got an email asking for the same information again so I reply to her email that I already sent what she need and please let me know what else, again no response, a few weeks pass by I call again and this time they put me on hold for a few minutes then sent me to their voice mail which will never get a call back. Couple weeks pass by I call again and another girl named Lyndsey said Kathy is no longer work there (I hope it true) and she will take over the case and said she will call me back the next day to let me know but guess what, NO call either. I called Lyndsy two days after and she said let her check on the case and put me on hold for 15 mins (So what was she doing the days before then?) then she get back to me and said I have to file a claim with the freight company. So I'm like WTF I was told to act fast and file the claim within 5 days of receiving and now you told me to file a claim with the company myself 3 months later? My experience with this company is a nightmare, several times they will put your on hold for 15 mins or more just so you gave up and hangup and if you stay on the line it will just waste you time because there is no solution. An empty promised to call or email back. I cannot believe that such customer service is exist in the 21st century. After 40+K order through them and you still not a value customer to them. If you about to purchase from them then cross your finger and hope your item arrive in good condition otherwise you're FKED. 7 months after made the purchase and 4 months after contact them for the damaged item and I still here with no solution or what so ever. Project delay for months and Katom customer care simply DON'T CARE.

STAY AWAY! First time ordering, what a nightmare, I ordered a charbroiler because they had the best price and I wasn't in a hurry, here's how it played out.

Ordered March 16th, I was told it was coming from the manufacturer and if it's in stock they will ship it out in 2-4 days, so far fine.

March 16th received an email saying their anticipated ship date will probably be March 26th, now I'm nervous as I personally called Cecil to be sure item was in stock, still not panicked.

March 30th I get a call at 11am saying they're 30 minutes away, I said I requested delivery after 3pm as we open at 4pm, he said he would call back and let me know when it would be delivered.

March 30th 6 hours later no call back, I reached out to KATOM customer service they advised me it's out of their hands and that I should call the shipper to check on why they never called back, I called the shipper as KATOM requested and the shipper said they too handed the delivery off to yet another 3rd party carrier and it was out of their hands as well.
Same day 7pm, the new carrier said they can't deliver until the following day (today) with a window of noon to 4pm, I agreed to come in early to receive my shipment from this unknown carrier.

Today, I was here at 10am to be sure to receive my delivery, no one showed dos I called KATOM at 4:58pm and she guy that shouldn't be in customer service told me it's not his problem and hung up.

Called back and talked to a woman who was nice enough to put me on hold and see why it wasn't delivered yet, 10 minutes later she said the carrier will reach out to re-schedule and she has no idea when they'd reach out.

At this point I requested to cancel the order, she said it wasn't possible to cancel as I already paid and it was shipped, I've given up on them and will gladly pay more at Webstaurantstore where I spend a ton anyways.

Bottom line, KATOM does not seem to be a well oiled machine, now I'll have to spend more valuable time getting a refund and starting from scratch to order my charbroiler.

Webstaurantstore was out of stock for 2 weeks, I should have just waited it out, live and learn, always wanted to try KATOM so glad it's out of my system, never again.

Even Restaurant Depot has better prices and service, do yourself a favor and don't buy from KATOM.

Beware!
First and last time ordering from this beyond horrible restaurant supply company. On August 31st I placed an online order for four cases of "Chief Choice" 4oz popcorn portion packs(popcorn, coconut oil, salt), 36 ct each, $116 total from Katom. I also ordered a case of popcorn bags, a popcorn scoop and jar of kettle cleaner. The shipping for the popcorn by itself was $46.82. Total shipping charge was $58.34. When the popcorn arrived, I discovered all four cases of product were expired, with a best buy date of 7/10/2020! Yes, ALL 144 individual popcorn portion packs were EXPIRED!
How does that even happen from a restaurant supply company!?!

I called Katom twice but was unable to reach anyone after waiting over 10 minutes on hold each time. I then emailed Katom on 9/9/2020, and included photos of the expired product. I requested a refund on the popcorn and shipping charge. I advised them to email me a postage label if they wanted their expired crap back. After 5 days of no response, I called Katom again on the 14th, this time early in the morning. After 15-20minutes on hold, I was finally able to get through to someone. I spoke with a Katie Whittaker, who stated she would need to escalate the issue to her supervisor. I was told she would contact me back by end of the day. She never did. After checking my bank account, I noticed they did however refund the $116 for just the popcorn that afternoon, but not the shipping charge. The next morning I called Katie's extension directly, expressing my frustration as to why the shipping charge for the popcorn was not refunded. Again she advised she needed to refer it to her supervisor, but that person was in a meeting. Later that evening I received an email from Katie stating her supervisor had left for the day, but that she left my information on their desk to be reviewed in the morning. The next morning no one contacted me. I emailed Katie at noon, advising her i was going to dispute the entire charge with my credit card company if the issue wasnt resolved. I have yet to receive any further response from anyone at Katom.

Oh, and btw, when the popcorn bags I ordered arrived, I discovered they were just thrown into the cardboard shipping box. They weren't in a plastic bag inside the box or anything. Not sanitary at all.

Moral of the story is this is one of the worst companies I have ever dealt with. Stay away if you value your health and money and that of your customers.

I have been ordering restaurant equipment from this company for the past few years. I've gotten good deals for reach in coolers and grills that are working perfectly fine. I have probably spent over $10,000 over the past few years. Most of my dealings with this company have been positive. However, my last experience was such a nightmare that I will never order from them again.

I had ordered another grill from them. It was a US range (this company is also going downhill). I have 3 of these units all ordered from KaTom. The price is good, but we have had several issues needing fixed. It was under manufacturer warranty, so it was done in a timely manner.

The grill I ordered from them in May was a 36 inch flat top. The website says it ships within a week (they recently updated right after my issue). I was expecting it within 2 weeks, as was my experience with ordering these grills from them. However, the 36 inch is a custom made unit and it would take an additional 4 - 6 weeks to complete. They never reached out to me to confirm if this was ok.

So after a few weeks of not receiving this grill, I started to panic because we were getting ready to open the restaurant and I just noticed we were still missing this grill. This is when they informed me that the grill is custom made and won't be shipped out for YET ANOTHER 6 weeks! So, I immediately cancelled the order and purchased a grill locally since we were getting ready to open in a few days. At this point, they said the order was cancelled and apologized (for the false advertising).

Next day, they called me back saying they were reneging the cancellation because it was a custom item and the manufacturer was already making the item. I told them I already got my grill yesterday and didn't need the grill anymore. This is when the back and forth started to happen, as the customer service operators didn't want to deal with this issue. It seemed like they were having lots of issues with the manufacturer.

I had to call in multiple times telling them I was not going to accept the grill and to process the refund. Finally, I rejected the grill when it showed up weeks later. And KaTom still wouldn't refund my credit card. I called in over 10 times talking to various people pulling my hair out at each point in time because there wasn't one single person in charge of taking care of this. They kept promising me a refund minus shipping and a 10% restocking fee. Months passed and each frustrating call was ended with yet another empty promise. I finally got to nail down a supervisor named Jamie Lee to take care of this personally. I called over and over again, sometimes just asking for a call back to get an update. I WOULDN'T EVEN GET A CALL BACK! I just wanted someone to tell me that they are still processing it, so I called over and over again and still NO CALL BACK!

Finally, I got a credit memo issued and emailed to me (minus shipping and restocking). That was 9 days ago, and I still haven't got ANY credit on my account. It doesn't take this long to process a credit. I have processed refunds for customers at my restaurant and it takes 3 - 5 business days AT THE MOST! I think they are just trying to wait out the months because you can't dispute charges past 6 months on your credit card.

I am giving up trying to work them on this. I emailed Jamie Lee a week ago and she never responded. I have filed a dispute on my credit card. I will never work with this company ever again. I will never order from them again. I will not save an extra $300 on an equipment because it is not worth the peace of mind. I also order equipment from Webstaurant and that is where I will be giving my business in the future.

I ordered new glasses for Thanksgiving this year. Before ordering, I spoke at length with a sales associate and specifically asked how they package glasses, since shipping companies are notoriously harsh on handling shipments. He assured me that not only are they packaged really well, but if anything goes wrong they will make it right.

Well, exactly what I feared would happen, happened. The glasses weren't packaged well, and they arrived broken into a million pieces, and upon opening the box, glass started spilling all over my floor (not too good with kids and dogs around). We immediately took photos, called the company, and that's where all the problems with this company began.

I spoke with Destanie, the supervisor of the entire "customer service" department and beyond being incredibly rude to us, told us that we would have to wait for UPS to come and inspect the packages before they would ship replacements. I explained that there was no way I was keeping a box full of broken glass in my home with kids and dogs around and she finally told me to take extensive photos (which I already had) and e-mail them to her. At that point, she instructed us to to dispose of the glasses. She still refused to ship any replacements, stating that she had to "abide by company policy", but would get on filing a claim with the shipper first thing in the morning and once that had been filed, she would issue our refund so we could go elsewhere.

I tried following up with Destanie via phone but she would never answer, and no one at the company could ever find her. I did send her a few e-mails and she finally responded when I threatened to file a chargeback with my credit card company. Unfortunately, her response was a warning to me about how my credit card would be closed if I filed a chargeback (completely untrue). After reading that, I called my card company, filed a dispute, and of course I am still waiting for that to be resolved.

It is now Dec 4th, and I just received an e-mail from someone named Amanda, who told us that UPS had tried "multiple times" to schedule an inspection with us but we did not respond. Let's be very clear. At no time did UPS ever try to schedule an inspection with us, and anytime there was any communication, we responded immediately. UPS did show up out of the blue one day with a call tag to pickup the shipment, but we explained that we were instructed to dispose of the broken glass and had submitted photos to the seller. They said no problem and left. That was our only communication with UPS.

To date, no refund, and only an e-mail stating that "our claim had been closed" due to our lack of response. I am out $172 and have nothing but wasted time and a bunch of broken glass I had to clean up to show for it.

On another note, we just looked up reviews on this company and it turns out we're not the only ones this has happened to. I can't understand how this company is still in business, or who is purchasing from them. RUN FAR AWAY FROM THESE PEOPLE. THEY ARE CROOKS AND LIARS.

Awful customer service. Ordered same product from another web site@ 1am Friday morning & recvd on the following MONDAY. KATOM IS A JOKE...

Charged a 25% restocking fee for no reason. Scam.