Just curious - has anyone else here at CNC Zone made the mistake of subscribing to Mfg Quote? I'm sure it worked out for some shops, at least thats what they claim. Fortunately when I subscribed a year ago it was the day before they increased the subscription fee by $1000, and I also opted out of their subdomain service which was about $600-$700 if I remember correctly. By the way they don't tell you that you can do that. After 10 months of busting our asses working on quotes we (my wife & I) finally won a job, worth $900. So now after its all over we are only out $1100. And to boot, I started getting spam from them in the form of phony public notifications (messages from buyers).
There threads about Mfq Quote over at MMSonline.com, so before you spend your hard earned money on this or some other subscription based rfq service, do your homework and ask around. Don't just bite into what these services tell you, as good as they sound.
(flame2)

Ouch!

Thanks for sharing.

'Rekd

I've not used them or any other machining job service but have used and worked for companies that used RFQ services in the IT industry and it has abaout the same effect.

Most RFQ Services like that start out with good intentions. But they get so bent up building their subscriber base (Read that as generating income to stay afloat). That they loose site of promoting the service to potential requestors. Which is the "value added service" that they are selling.

Personally my thought is that, if you are paying a company for a service of that type you should expect them to bust their ass getting you work. They can't just sit around and hope to be discovered and recieve RFQs all day. They've got to pound pavement and get them for you. That's their job. I've been in several bawling out sessions with service providers that don't produce.

In the future ask for several references that you can cold call and get an honest opinion of the service from before spending the dough. In the real world if a service can keep you busy for a $10,000 a year fee, that's awesome... That much cheaper than hiring a full time salesman. But if you can't get any value for that dough then that's pissin' money way. But then again I'm sure that there are services out there that can provide what you need, finding them.... well that's another story. There are a lot of working machinists here that can probably help your serch if you are still looking.

(I know you wer'nt looking for advice or opinion like this but I've been on the recieving end of being screwed by RFQ services as a IT consultant in the past.)

Ya, I was enthusiastic about it when I signed up, too. But it was all for naught. Just a waste of time and money, IMO, especially with a border to cross from my location.

When someone evaluates you only on the basis of cost, they are most likely not the type of customer you want anyway. Word of mouth ends up being what works best. If you have a specialty to offer, get it on the internet yourself.

Well put Hu!! We have the same problem down here in Africa. I sometimes lose out on work for being "too expensive" & sometimes ends up with that same work to "fix up" the blunders!

I'm going to change my name to Mr. Fix-it! LOL

Klox

Originally posted by Klox
..."fix up" the blunders!...

There was one buyer on Mfq who was constantly reposting the same work, 7 times for one group of parts at one count, due to "non delivery" and "out of tolerance". And these parts were not difficult parts to do. Go with the lowest quote and you tend to get the same work in return.

About the one job I did get, we received an email from a new rfq service that was an invitation to bid on some jobs, and the invitation came from the buyer/engineer that awarded us that one job. Turns out he and a couple guys decided to start their own rfq service and thought we might like to sign up. No thanks. One thing thats a bit troubling here - he still works at the company that gave us our one job and upon checking out his website, all the work posted on it (at the time) are jobs from his employer.