Mountain Equipment Company Reviews 194

Before they were "bought out", from a membership store, they were pretty decent, but now. Total garbage chinesium dealers. Half the stuff isn't even in stock, just a ghost of what used to be a store. the Pandemic killed Mec.ca, its zombie lives on.

Not impressed. Ordered a couple of items online, to be picked up in the store. About 12 hours later I receive an email from MEC saying an item was not in the store so I couldn't pick it up and they don't know when the item will arrive. I called to cancel that item and get a refund and they said no refund; not until the item eventually arrives in the store will they issue a refund. Don't buy from this company - not honest. Better to go to the Trail Shop or elsewhere in Canada.

Great outdoors gear with lots of great sales. I ordered a puffer jacket from their online store and got free shipping. The package arrived the next day.

Terrible experience ordering a Christmas gift. They wouldn't let me cancel the order immediately after it was placed. The item was $133.97 in my cart and ended up being $179.99 at checkout. Order hasn't been processed or shipped yet but they still refused to cancel it. Now I'll have to wait for it to be delivered, and then wait 5-6 weeks for them to process the refund after that. What a ridiculous process.

I went to the MEC store on 2nd Ave in Vancouver to buy some climbing gear. I am brand new to mountaineering and had no idea as to the equipment I needed. I asked the staff for some help and Parisa stepped forward. Was I a lucky customer. Parisa is an experienced climber and was so knowledgeable about all of the equipment that I needed. Here customer service was excellent and she made sure I purchased the right gear and that it fit properly. I would have been lost without her guidance. MEC is very lucky to have this person on their staff. Thanks Parisa!

I am giving this a good review because MEC stood by their warranty. Salomon Quest 4 boots bought more than 1 year ago started to separate at the rubber covered toe area after about 100km on the trail. MEC replaced them. The problem is really with Salomon's design.

My zipper broke on a very expensive MEC brand down jacket that was a few years old and in pretty much brand new shape. The old mountain equipment coop would have repaired or replaced the jacket in a heart beat. This new taken over MEC wouldn't do anything for me. I will never buy from them again. You will get much better backed gear from atmosphere or any other mountain store as they carry brands that will warranty and stand behind their products. Stay away from MEC!!!!

Buyer Beware!! Bought a pair of pants online, and wanted to return them due to poor quality. After working a 12 hour shift, and driving around Halifax for 20 minutes looking for a parking spot finally got into the store. Was promptly told they would only give me a gift card, not a cash refund. That "fact" was not made readily available when I ordered them. So much for the "Rock Solid" guarantee refund. What a joke, no wonder they are bankrupt. After 25 years of membership, that is the last nickel they will get out of me. At least Atmosphere has easy parking, and refunds, great sales, and is where I normally buy outdoor/sports related toys. And will be from now on. Would give 0 stars if possible...To top it off, some smiley manager guy who needed a shower badly kept calling me "sir". Was like a weird time warp back to the 1970's...so much for the whole pronoun thing....

I sent them an email three weeks ago regarding return and got no reply. I sent another email to follow-up with them a week ago and got no reply as well. The rock solid guarantee is just a scam. They will never let you return anything.

Rock solid no longer means anything - it means "we'll take it back if it's in resellable condition". Well that's fair enough if you sell the product under that premise. Bye bye, MEC.

Sad times - MEC (Halifax) has not only gone downhill but have fallen right off the cliff. A once trusted local brand I could buy from with pride, to a company I will not spend another dollar at.

I bought a Hillsound BTR Stool ~30 days ago and used it for the first time last weekend. I sat up and down a grand total of about 10 times before the metal leg stub sheared out of it's plastic casing and popped off. For context, I take care of my camping gear very well and am 170lbs. I thought oh well, it's MEC, they will def give me a refund for selling me such a garbage product.

Fast forward to today at Halifax MEC where I arrive at the desk and tell the cashier what happened. After his first sentence I could tell this was going to be a fun experience. He primed me for disappointment (his training no doubt) with: "I am going to bring it to the manager to see what we can and 'can't do". A far cry from the days of Co-op quality guarantee.

The manager took the broken chair and returned again shortly with it reassembled and said (paraphrasing): "Here you go I have repaired your product - it looks like it just slipped out of it's casing"...but here's the thing - I did the same thing when it broke and tried sitting on it but it broke immediately again. So I called bull**** and showed her how little force it took to break it once again.

After this she changed her strategy - now she changed the tone of the conversation and started to blame me for inflicting wear & tear on the product over a span of 6 hours of use. Lol. I once again call BS and her response: "Sorry there is no warranty on this product and we don't cover wear and tear". Furthermore they flirted with calling me a liar and pointed to technical details of how the product was damaged. Of course it was damaged, because 1) it deformed enough already to pop out of it's casing, and 2) I tried to repair it (the same way she did).

As a long-time MEC & Patagonia supporter I admit that I have been spoiled regarding product return policies - and if this had been 'reasonable wear and tear' I'd just buy another one. But 1 day of use is not exactly reasonable wear and tear...

In the end she disgruntledly gave me a store credit (I wanted my money back but had no fight left in me), and explained (tldr):

TLDR: IF SOMETHING YOU BUY BREAKS FROM MEC DON'T TRY TO FIX IT OR THEY WILL BLAME THEIR TRASH PRODUCT QUALITY ON YOU.

Just made my first order for a reactor 10 mattress showing in stock, 4 days days later they cancelled it saying on back order, I phoned customer service nice lady tracked 1 down for me said it will be sent express to arrive for my already delayed vacation because we needed this mat, 2 days later no tracking and they canceled it again saying it was out of stock, another phone call for 1 hour again to another less helpful agent that said nothing he can do about it, I asked for a rebate on another more expensive mattress to compensate for all the trouble, the answer was no, it said in the email they will try to help in replacing it with another mattress, he said nothing that he can do so can I help you with something else. This caused a delay in our vacation and having this item cancelled a total of 4 times is just terrible customer service, the worst I ever had to deal with and we buy a lot of stuff. It is so frustrating to be jerked around like this, wish I would have bought it at another store to begin with and not waste my time and energy, a small rebate would have changed nothing for them but would have a nice jester and very helpful for the trouble they caused us

When you become a member you are told about a rock solid guarantee return policy, but what they forget to leave out is when you order online if the product doesn't fit then you have to pay to have it shipped back. Most companies offer free shipping labels on returns, but not MEC. If you can order online from Amazon or somewhere that provides free shipping on returns, I recommend doing that over having to pay twice the shipping on something that doesn't fit.

Online ordering is seamless. While I don't order often when I do the product(s) arrive in good shape and with the time estimated.

On their website they do not mention about estimated date for pick up order .
Since I placed a pick up order, website gives you pick up locations but it doesn’t show or there is no information about estimated pick up date. So I thought it would be ready in a short time period like few days .if they do not have the items in their stock they have to let the customer knows about it.

Also when I received the confirmation email there wasn’t any pick up date and it was so general to saying that we will let you know when it’s ready????

I called help center two times to learn that how they proceed ,The first thing I learned it’s coming from BC warehouse .
The agent changed the warehouse to Ontario so I could receive it sooner. Again she did not mentioned the date takes more than I week even I asked .
The second time I learned that they are sending the item with their truck and it’s not on its way and now they say it could take 7-10 days .
This is the brand that gives you pick up option but actually this is not a pick up option this is delivery option.
They need to make it clear dates or /and how they proceed when the order is placed .

If I would of known that it takes 7-10 business days , I would not order since I do not want to deal with long delivery /missing items etc.

In 2020, now called "Mountain Equipment Company" announced that they would sell to a private investment firm in the US as they had debt issues. The thing is that it was, at the time, a COOP and the members, who absolutely loved that company for, obvious reasons at that time, created an initiative to pay for the debt in order to avoid the privatization of the COOP, which they simply ignored… 🤦‍♀️

For me, this is enough to blacklist that no longer "COOP", now "Company" forever… If I could give 0 star just for that single reason, I would do it.

Just talked to Dave in customer service and wow!
I ordered an e-gift card in February and I never received the email with it.
The whole conversation Dave kept re-phrasing my words so that there the whole thing was my fault, like there was something wrong with my email and that I had lost it. He even insinuated that I was trying to scam another gift card.
Way to be accountable and treat your customers like they are people.
After getting off the phone I realized that he hadn't even apologized for the error.
I realize that Dave isn't responsible for the screw up but really?!? Have some pride, accountability and respect. Last time I spend money at this store.

Since MEC sold to Kingswood capital, it pretty much sucks is all departments! Customer service is absolutely horrific, most employees are completely incompetent and can't answer questions in their own department. Their team is clearly not on the same page. One person told me I could absolutely return an item, I drove all the way to the store to hear from another person that this is not possible. They cancelled gear swap which was the best site ever. I am clearly upset with the obvious lack of quality from this company. It used to be one of my favorite stores. Now it's one of my least favourite.

I placed an order online yesterday (21 April 2022) MEC canceled the order within a few hours without explanation. I know it wasn't my credit card since I used it twice after that. I have contact MEC twice still no explanation as to the cancellation and they are EXTEMELY difficult to contact directly - I take this as MEC no longer wants online business - time to take my business elsewhere - very frustrating.

As with many other reviews here, I returned a jacket that I ordered online, as it was too small. I decided to pay the $11.00 return shipping fee rather than spend time and gas to drive into Victoria. Well, that was a mistake; I brought the jacket to the post office and the tracking number showed they received the jacket the very next day. A week later and no refund to my credit card (which was charged immediately after I made my online purchase); I called customer service to ask how long my refund would take and was told 4-5 weeks!! Apparently they are still processing refunds from Christmas (I call bs). If I would have known it would take that long I would have gone to the store in person.
Sorry MEC, you've lost my business.