I can see how they can’t respond to individual inquiries, but having said everything was OK and then having said that 95% is OK, and then dodging further inquiries, is collosally bad customer relations. The fact that the landlord has demanded that they entirely empty their space suggests this is more than a minor problem and begs for an explanation to customers.
If the landlord has demanded that they move all the wine above ground, they must have access to the facility. It would be easy to say, for example, “Some water penetrated the cellar and some wines on lower shelves in parts of the facility may have been damaged. Because our efforts are directed now toward moving the wine and our computer records still must be restored from backups, we have not yet been able to fully assess the damage or identify which customers’ cases were affected. Please bear with us.”
Some friends and I were negotiating with them 10 years ago for a private locker, which they didn’t offer at the time. They seemed very professional, but I’m sure glad we didn’t opt for them.
Agree with John Morris above… huge customer relations/communication fail. The way I read the messages is that the entire cellar was flooded and they are determining how to go forward before admiting that facts. Carboard boxes could disintegrate and bottles just end up in a jumble.
I hope that is not it but saying nothing means they might be hiding a lot
Eric, in posts #28 and #31, they were quoted saying:
“We at WineCare Storage have been spared most of the disaster. However, we have no Electricity, no FIOS for Internet, telephones and faxes, no Fresh Water, No Toilets, no Elevators, no Heat and some serious damage to our offices and computers. Our employees are having a difficult and long time getting to work.”
“Our inventory is based on a computerized system which is completely backed-up. Until that system and its hardware are functional, it is impossible for WineCare to locate any client’s wines. While the identity and contents of each and every case is known to us, WineCare will not be able to locate a specific case until the wine is relocated back into our cellars.”
The offices are on the seme level as the cellar… Maybe the cellar door was stout or just that the electric is out so the computers are out… cloud based services are nice but I am more interested in a dry collection with intact labels in intact boxes and don’t care if the records were on index cards… I have records on this website called CellarTracker, perhaps you’ve heard of it.
Michael, best of luck. FWIW, it is very likely that wine was shelved and stacked very high and that only the floor level stuff might have gotten wet. So i can understand how they might say 95% is OK.
I agree, bad customer relations. They may feel they’ve addressed the issue, while creating more questions (and not being able to provide answers). The thing that is a little strange is that I’ve now looked at their web site, and it appears that it’s general (open) storage on commercial shelving. If the water was limited to only the low level boxes, why can’t the stuff up high just stay where it is, while cleanup of the floor, etc. proceeds with the wine in place?
Chuck, if there is full-on mitigation required, they need to gut the entire space, tear out drywall, dry and disinfect all studs etc. That probably requires moving absolutely everything out of there to get proper airflow etc.
The question all customers have is, how deep was the water…
The cellar is in the umm cellar… it could have filled up. There were parking garages nearby that filled up and cars were ruined… as discussed upthread, there is no drive down ramp to the cellar… but there could be other ways for water to rush in. I guess we’ll know when we know and I’ve been thinking about going on the wagon anyway… strange thing… I feel better in the morning when I drink less
two more days of radio silence from them… not comforting. WTF is wrong down there. Huge communication fail… just venting… very pissed off at this point that no one is telling us anything because they are claiming they don’t have specifics… tell us how much water got uin and a true % of stored items that were damaged…
I may on Friday. It is a trek to go and find the doors locked… and based on their mails they will tell us they cannot peel away from the cleanup to give any info
I’ve been away from this thread for a few days thinking things where as they were and I had a 95% chance of my wine making it through. Now who knows! I wish they would be more forthcoming with exact details on what happened. I don’t think anyone expects updates on their individual bottles at this point anyway. But to know how much water, where the doors sealed, what precautions were taken, etc would be nice.
As for not getting to my wine, we are in delivery season. I may have to open some of the '10 Antica Terra Pinot I just got today to tide me over.
I made a visit to Winecare’s location last Thursday, It was about 6PM and no one was there from Winecare (or they didn’t answer the bell). I spoke to a guy whose office was in the building, he related that there had been 9 feet of saltwater in the basement of the building for about a week. I was able to access the basement where workers were pulling down drywall and going through clean up. The area I accessed, which was the flooded area did not look like my memory of the wine storage area I had seen many years before. I could not tell what condition the wine cellars were in or what may have happenned there but I was not comforted by the facts I saw. I really wish the staff at Winecare would be more forthcoming with info. I mailed them on Thursday evening to discuss what I saw and gave them 2 full business days to respond before posting this. Just radio silence from them for over a week since the last claim that 95% of the wines were fine. They do not answer the phone and do not respond to mails… if they hope to have any chance of resurrecting a business after this is done they should tell us what has happenned and better yet, produce the wines
Michael,
I don’t know if it is any help to you, but I believe that Winecare shares an address with Chelsea Mini Storage, which is reporting the return of power and access, and also reporting no damage to storage units on “upper” floors. I should make clear that I don’t believe the two business have anything to do with one another. I’m just pointing out that they appear to have the same address so perhaps they can give information concerning the status of the building. Here is their home page.
Winecare and Chelsea Mini Storage are next door to each other. The mini storage place says damage was limited to lower floors. All of Winecare is on lower floors, but may have been protected if the cellars wwere in an old refrigerated/deep freeze area that could have had stout walls. The building itself is an old warehouse in where meat and foods were stored so it is possible…
I also have been mislead by Winecare. They cant go offline, not respond to phone calls, claim that their systems are broken and simultaneously have sufficient bandwidth to debit my credit card. I see nothing in their communication that indicate that things are fine. It’s been 24 days now. Enough is enough !
