Wow - this guy really shot himself in the foot didn't he???

I too had been at the receiving end of Hughes engines gruff phone personality. I just chalked it up to someone having a bad day.

Until it happened again the next time I called with questions....at that point I decided not to be a customer of theirs. A purely personal decision.

I never really followed the EM thing while lurking either, partly because it had little to do with my area of interest & partly because I really do not care for PHR magazine. But yeah - it seems some of his comments are uncalled for.

However, I can't understand why so many of you take issue with this:

[ Please note, if you have purchased parts from Summit, PAW, Jegs, etc. and have questions or problems with them, call them, not us. They owe you the information, they took your money, not us. We will be happy to help you with parts you purchased from us. We realize that they cannot help you, but you made the decision to buy from them, so you must live with the problems. ]

I am in a specialised industry as well & we keep a policy similar to the one above. Too many times, we get calls/emails from customers who access our knowledge base & then take it to purchase the products from the discounters. IMO, if you have no intention of buying the item from me, you have no right to my knowledge of said product. Sad truth is - it's easier to be cheaper when your staff is made up of minimum - wage flunkies with no first-hand knowledge.

Any way - I am waaaaayyyy off topic here, so to put things back on the rails - I will state that I shall never purchase a Hughes product either. But I had already made that decision a few years ago.