Tyler T-Grips and the Oklahoma Attorney General

[MelvinWalker]

Yes they would functionally suit my needs. But when I want to put an adaptor on a $2000 Pre 27 or a Pre 14 I want it to be an original.

That's why, (like you), Ebay would be my go-to on antique firearm accessories like this...

I doubt you would want to put a new version of a Tyler adapter on a Pre-27 anyway.

 

[MelvinWalker]

Customers have been putting up with this company's practices for many years. The business is certainly aware that no matter how many complaints surface, they're still able to easily sell all the adapters they make and they could create a lengthy waiting list if they chose to do so.

Many T-Grip disciples come back for more regardless, and then complain; hard to imagine. The company makes a product that generally has greater cosmetic value than true usefulness. From one perspective, It appears the owner is in an enviable position....

Until somebody in China figures out how to make an exact aged copy of these and they sell them on Wish.com for $15

 

[Jäger1]

People haven't filed complaints because it is nothing out of the ordinary when dealing with Tyler T-Grips.

Hmmmm... "Tyler's always abusive of their customers, refuse to acknowledge and respond to requests for a refund after waiting over a year; it's a common complaint that they're that way. So think of it as normal business practices and normal - you should accept that, rather than going on a wild crusade".

There's nothing normal or acceptable about a business with so much contempt for a customer that asks for a refund after waiting almost a year and half, that they can't find five minutes to pick up the phone or pen a brief email.

Or better yet: provide the refund to the customer they kept waiting for over a year and a half while they had that customer's money for their own use.

Hardly "a crusade" to expect basic common human decency for a business that has had their paws on your money for almost a year and a half and ignores your communications to them.

Bottom line is they are a small operation with little profit to be made more than likely and not able to compete with the have to have it now folks that permeate our society.

I find it a little bit weird that after somebody finally makes a formal complaint after waiting almost a year and a half for what they ordered - and the company they ordered from refuses to respond to the customers inquiries - that apparently identifies them to some as being one of the "have to have it now folks". That describes the lineup at a McDonald's drive-though.

This is the arrogance and contempt of a business that knows they can treat customers poorly because nobody else offers exactly what they do. Many won't be back as a result - but enough will purchase due to being unaware they're sleazy, or because they can't find the product somewhere else.

As long as there's enough that send them money and a complaint doesn't result in the feds giving them an expensive tune-up - as long as they make a buck in the end... that's the way they'll continue doing business.

I've waited well over a year for a pair of Craig Spegal grips; almost the same amount of time for a custom carry holder. Even longer for some custom gunsmithing by Don Williams on a favorite handgun.

And not a single one of the individuals owning those businesses ever refused to promptly respond to any inquiry I made by phone, email, or snail mail. Not always that very day - but no longer than a day or two at most before a response was sent.

This is remarkably like Jonathan Ceiner and the contempt he treated his customers with. In Ceiner's case, a similar complaint to authorities had an impressive effect on his customer service and the time his customers waited for the products they'd already paid for. That was the USPS that tuned Ceiner up, if my memory is correct.

The complaint certainly didn't put him out of business - it just made him start treating customers as customers, as though he were a businessman.

 

[Beju]

Until somebody in China figures out how to make an exact aged copy of these and they sell them on Wish.com for $15

Now that you mention it, it would make a lot of sense for one of the Thai grip makers to contract with a Chinese company to make some.

 

[ImDrRich]

Hi friends,

I ordered some T-Grips back in Feb 2024. No response from the company to my inquiries and no refund after asking for a refund.

As a result, I recently filed a complaint with the Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office about Tyler T-Grips. My complaint is pending and we are waiting for a response from Tyler T-Grips.

The Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office indicated to me that they have not received a sufficient number of consumer complaints to conclude that there is a “pattern” of bad conduct, and they indicated that the only way to establish a pattern of bad conduct is for the Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office to receive multiple complaints.

So, if you have been waiting a long time, or have asked for a refund with no response, etc. I suggest you fill out the simple form linked below and mail it to the address at the bottom of the second page of the complaint form. The more people that complain the more likely the Oklahoma Attorney General will do something.

Here is a link to the form, which takes a few minutes to fill out. The OK AG’s office responded to my complaint in less than 2 weeks, so they are pretty efficient.

You do not have to suffer in silence or lose your money. There is no charge to file a complaint.

https://oklahoma.gov/content/dam/ok/en/oag/complaints/2021_consumer_complaint_form.pdf

This is worth doing, in my opinion.

 

[Borderboss]

People haven't filed complaints because it is nothing out of the ordinary when dealing with Tyler T-Grips.

I have bought several and I patiently wait for them to arrive. A little research before ordering will show you that this has been the common practice and common complaint for a long time.

Bottom line is they are a small operation with little profit to be made more than likely and not able to compete with the have to have it now folks that permeate our society. If they were easy to make then there would be oodles of them out there on the market for us to chose from that fit the handgun and are metal.

As stated above I have waited for extended periods of time but never been ripped off.

After your crusade is over maybe we will be lucky and not have the original metal grip adapter to buy any longer. That should drive up the prices of the ones I waited patiently for whenever I go to sell.

Tyler T-Grips continues to be a bad company in business ripping people off because there are too many apologists out there. If you purport to make a product and you take money for that product, then you d*mn well better produce that product!!! There is absolutely no excuse.

Tyler should have been out of business years ago and the owner in jail for fraud. As long as people continue to enjoy being defrauded, Tyler will continue to exist to dupe the next knucklehead.

 

[Law-dog]

I am still shocked that we see these same complaints year after year after year. Anybody awake?

Pay for it with a credit card and then file a complaint with your credit card company, simple deal, anyone over 18 knows how to do it.


I knew Melvin Tyler personally. He made a custom holster for me as a gift to my buddy who was graduating medical school. I was living in Oklahoma City and made a habit of visiting with him and Art Mashburn, the famous wildcatter and custom gun maker. Enjoyed many days visiting with the old masters. I bought lots of products from Melvin's little shop on Brittan Road, stopped there a 100 times at least. It was out of my way, but I made it on my way, as a matter of course.

Melvin died and the company closed. The a relative moved it to a location maybe 15 miles away from north OKC to SE OKC. Then, I think they moved the small operation to a farm or rural location SE of OKC. For years, the company was just basically a part-time operation, making as many as they could on a part time or limited basis.

As far as the Attorney General complaint. Really? Why would an Attorney General get involved in a petty $30 item? No one on the planet would expect a government agency like that to spend the money involved to investigate poor business practices. You can file a 100 complaints and it changes nothing, please do not waste your time. There are multi-million dollar fraud cases these state attorney generals need to be working.

And just look at it logically. If you file a complaint that says some company is engaging in a fraudulent scheme, designed to rip off the American public, then you have to prove it. So, the first thing they do is look at your contract---the one on the order form and the advertising. It says there will be long delays, you agree to that. You do not agree to 5-6 month delays, you agree to extended delays which will be at least 5-6 months, you knew that when you put up money in escrow, or paid in advance. So, no AG is going to get excited about some $30 item that you do not get for a year. It is not theft, it is bad business practices. Or is it. Most custom gun companies take years to produce or just modify your gun. Even sending a gun in for repairs can take months.

We choose with our money. When a company does not comply, do not buy there any more. Let the buyer beware.

Complaints. Nobody has a right to force a company to do something by filing complaints. That said, the ONLY one that helps much is the Better Business Bureau complaints. They will investigate, try to get a response out of the company and let you know. Then they post results for the world to see. Then anybody who is so foolish as to buy from a company that has a bad BBB record, is just a fool.

I say this because I have sued companies for not complying with contracts for products and service, I have been a practicing attorney as well as a prosecutor in Oklahoma nearly 50 years. I collect Smith and Wesson wheel guns for much longer than that 50 years and have Melvin's grips on a few.

Just buy those cheap copies and get on with your life. As a practical matter, there is not much demand for the T grip, only one company that I know of makes a copy. That said, so few people want them, there is not enough interest for companies to tool up and market them. Just a bunch of older guys who think they help grip the gun. And think about it. If there truly was a grip design that worked better for the masses, the gun companies and grip companies would be all over them. But there is not. Just a bunch of us old guys that liked a product from history.

File that complaint with your credit card company and try and get your money back. Please don't waste time filing Attorney General complaints, they have important cases to work and you are tying up their staff. If it is really that important, go buy the other brand, there is not much to them, quality does not matter. Melvin was a great old guy, he grinned a lot, probably grinning now.

And if the Attorney General was to file charges, would you really come to Oklahoma to testify in a jury trial at your expense? And what would you tell the jury? That the old guy making those T grips on a limited or part time basis had cheated you out of some small amount of money? Better still why not just file your own Small Claims lawsuit, you can do that yourself and get your money back, court fees, and up to $600 in attorney fees. This is the way the Constitution is set up and the way the law works. In the real world. Whining on an internet forum, is just whining on an internet forum, nothing will happen, nothing.

The value of this thread is that it has warned anybody who may not have known that Tyler T grips have not been available on a full time basis for the last 20 years or more. Then they know they will likely never get them or if so, it will be after their next birthday. Then it begs the question. Are you a fool if you order something you know up front that you may never get?

 

[CH4]

Took me 14 months, but I finally received them. Worth the wait. There's definitely a lot of romm for improvement with their communications.

 

[Paul01223]

I bought one about 8 years ago for my S&W Thunder Ranch M22. I waited so long with zero response to my inquiries that I wrote it off. Then one day, about 10 months later it arrived. I had forgotten all about it. I was very pleased with the quality and fit. I just wish they were more responsive and modern in the way the conduct their business.

 

[Revelation]

It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in man.....

 

[pantannojack]

I called in a phone order some thirty years ago. A parcel of noisy kids in the background. I received my order reasonably soon afterward, happy with it. I will not risk ordering again until change of owner/management.

 

[Law-dog]

People haven't filed complaints because it is nothing out of the ordinary when dealing with Tyler T-Grips.

I have bought several and I patiently wait for them to arrive. A little research before ordering will show you that this has been the common practice and common complaint for a long time.

Bottom line is they are a small operation with little profit to be made more than likely and not able to compete with the have to have it now folks that permeate our society. If they were easy to make then there would be oodles of them out there on the market for us to chose from that fit the handgun and are metal.

As stated above I have waited for extended periods of time but never been ripped off.

After your crusade is over maybe we will be lucky and not have the original metal grip adapter to buy any longer. That should drive up the prices of the ones I waited patiently for whenever I go to sell.

Well, said, last I heard it was a one man outfit, just trying to part time the old family operation. With more complaints, he will finally give up. If he was a smart man, he would just raise his price to say $100 or $150 each and he would be able to keep up and make the same amount of money.

But with more complaints, you can drive him out of business completely. So, go for it, Keep filing complaints and shut him down. Then the complaints will go away.

Complaints to government agencies are an abuse of process, it takes them off of working criminal cases and they spend their time on these trivial matters. But at least the old complainers can feel good about themselves, beating an old man out of business. That will teach him.

If I sound unimpressed, I am. Sounds like a bunch of old ladies whining because their favorite needle point colors are not in stock. I cannot believe real men engage in this piddly stuff. But then again, I am just an old country boy, retired military and law enforcement and lawyer as a third career.

 

[roundels]

I didn't know they were even still around.

 

[Revelation]

Well, said, last I heard it was a one man outfit, just trying to part time the old family operation. With more complaints, he will finally give up. If he was a smart man, he would just raise his price to say $100 or $150 each and he would be able to keep up and make the same amount of money.

But with more complaints, you can drive him out of business completely. So, go for it, Keep filing complaints and shut him down. Then the complaints will go away.

Complaints to government agencies are an abuse of process, it takes them off of working criminal cases and they spend their time on these trivial matters. But at least the old complainers can feel good about themselves, beating an old man out of business. That will teach him.

If I sound unimpressed, I am. Sounds like a bunch of old ladies whining because their favorite needle point colors are not in stock. I cannot believe real men engage in this piddly stuff. But then again, I am just an old country boy, retired military and law enforcement and lawyer as a third career.

“And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.” Thank you!

 

[Law-dog]

Hmmmm... "Tyler's always abusive of their customers, refuse to acknowledge and respond to requests for a refund after waiting over a year; it's a common complaint that they're that way. So think of it as normal business practices and normal - you should accept that, rather than going on a wild crusade".

There's nothing normal or acceptable about a business with so much contempt for a customer that asks for a refund after waiting almost a year and half, that they can't find five minutes to pick up the phone or pen a brief email.

Or better yet: provide the refund to the customer they kept waiting for over a year and a half while they had that customer's money for their own use.

Hardly "a crusade" to expect basic common human decency for a business that has had their paws on your money for almost a year and a half and ignores your communications to them.



I find it a little bit weird that after somebody finally makes a formal complaint after waiting almost a year and a half for what they ordered - and the company they ordered from refuses to respond to the customers inquiries - that apparently identifies them to some as being one of the "have to have it now folks". That describes the lineup at a McDonald's drive-though.

This is the arrogance and contempt of a business that knows they can treat customers poorly because nobody else offers exactly what they do. Many won't be back as a result - but enough will purchase due to being unaware they're sleazy, or because they can't find the product somewhere else.

As long as there's enough that send them money and a complaint doesn't result in the feds giving them an expensive tune-up - as long as they make a buck in the end... that's the way they'll continue doing business.

I've waited well over a year for a pair of Craig Spegal grips; almost the same amount of time for a custom carry holder. Even longer for some custom gunsmithing by Don Williams on a favorite handgun.

And not a single one of the individuals owning those businesses ever refused to promptly respond to any inquiry I made by phone, email, or snail mail. Not always that very day - but no longer than a day or two at most before a response was sent.

This is remarkably like Jonathan Ceiner and the contempt he treated his customers with. In Ceiner's case, a similar complaint to authorities had an impressive effect on his customer service and the time his customers waited for the products they'd already paid for. That was the USPS that tuned Ceiner up, if my memory is correct.

The complaint certainly didn't put him out of business - it just made him start treating customers as customers, as though he were a businessman.

As long as there's enough that send them money and a complaint doesn't result in the feds giving them an expensive tune-up - as long as they make a buck in the end... that's the way they'll continue doing business.

Tell us what federal crime is involved here. This is a simple on man operation selling stuff out of his home. Kind of like garage sale with a shop out back.

What are you expecting The ATF and FBI or maybe Elizabeth Warren consumer police to raid him and seize all $400 in his business account?

Tell me the federal crime involved, there is none. File your complaint with your credit card company, get your money back, and get over it. Of just go on line and pay $100 for an old used one, simple deal. Not enough demand for them or 14 companies in China would sell them on ebay for $14.00.

There is no crime to be a bad business, that is made up in your mind. Every custom gun maker in the country has a one year or more waiting list, it is common in the industry.

 

[glenwolde]

I don't know why they don't quit selling via mail order and just post them all on eBay as they make them. I've waited them out a couple of times.

 

[Mercury]

There are alternatives. Robertson Trading Post has them in aluminum, no black and they ship within a day or two. I had to dress the inside edges with some fine sandpaper but other than that, I think that they are a great alternative until Tyler gets its act together.
They also sell the same for K-L Frames.

Robertson Trading Post – Revolver Grip Adapter for S&W J Round Smith & Wesson 36 60 T-Grip Style

robertsontradingpost.com

 

[Law-dog]

Hi friends,

I ordered some T-Grips back in Feb 2024. No response from the company to my inquiries and no refund after asking for a refund.

As a result, I recently filed a complaint with the Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office about Tyler T-Grips. My complaint is pending and we are waiting for a response from Tyler T-Grips.

The Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office indicated to me that they have not received a sufficient number of consumer complaints to conclude that there is a “pattern” of bad conduct, and they indicated that the only way to establish a pattern of bad conduct is for the Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office to receive multiple complaints.

So, if you have been waiting a long time, or have asked for a refund with no response, etc. I suggest you fill out the simple form linked below and mail it to the address at the bottom of the second page of the complaint form. The more people that complain the more likely the Oklahoma Attorney General will do something.

Here is a link to the form, which takes a few minutes to fill out. The OK AG’s office responded to my complaint in less than 2 weeks, so they are pretty efficient.

You do not have to suffer in silence or lose your money. There is no charge to file a complaint.

https://oklahoma.gov/content/dam/ok/en/oag/complaints/2021_consumer_complaint_form.pdf

Did you fill out the refund request as per the contract you agreed to when you ordered? The Attorney General will not do anything in a civil matter until you have complied with everything in the basic contract to purchase that you made, simple law. The AG has no authority to do anything if you have not complied with the terms of the contract and I assure you, they will not. They will talk to you nicely and all of that, the current AG is running for governor so they will be nice, but they cannot take action. And if you do not vote in Oklahoma, they have even less interest, just saying.

The Attorney General Consumer Division has no authority whatsoever to take any action unless you have fully complied with what you agreed to do, which is listed below. The AG only has authority to deal with fraud, deceptive trade practices or illegal acts. Being slow is not an illegal act. And note, you have agreed to pay $8.75 cancellation fee if you choose to not wait, just like you do when you intentionally cancel a hotel reservation. Simple deal, it is a contract, you order, you agree. Just saying.

And, they request you communicate through text messaging which is great. Print a copy of every one you send or they send, those prove your case or not.

 

[Ameshawki]

I was a big fan of Tyler's back in the 70's and 80's. Even then, supplies could be spotty. If I'm not mistaken the son is running the outfit and I think it's pretty much a one man show.

 

[boykinlp]

Took me 14 months, but I finally received them. Worth the wait. There's definitely a lot of romm for improvement with their communications.View attachment 764727

CH4, I have a few Tyler T grips. I never bought a bronze one back when you could get them without having to wait too long, but wish I had picked up a couple……….just because!
Larry