Federal Premium

Ordered a lot of ammo in an order from Federal and (2) boxes were incorrect. May have been my fault putting the wrong product code in. HOWEVER, took 7 phone calls and 3 emails for someone to call me back and then would not help at all with trying to get the ammo exchanged

I had bought a few cases of Federal target load during the ammo shortage and then as I had finally shot enough to get to them, I had at least a couple boxes of Federal target load not fire during Dove season. I would pull up and click nothing would happen. I was pulling the shells out and throwing them. I decided to keep a few and email Federal about my experience. I was expecting nothing. They asked me to send in my shells for testing. After testing they ask how many boxes I had left, I told them 17, they said mail them back and we'll replace them, I did. I only expected 17 boxes back but they sent 20! The customer service was amazing.

COMPLETE FAILURES AND INCOMPETENT are understatements for the smallest amounts of words to describe Federal Premium since the company refuses to train their representatives or learn from their endless and repeated mistakes on the handing of rebates, but instead believes that making additional mistakes and not responding to all my emails are satisfactory. OVERALL, IF YOU PLAN ON TRYING TO ATTAIN A REBATE FROM FEDERAL PREMIUM THEN I WOULD THINK TWICE AND NOT EVEN WASTE YOUR TIME BECAUSE OF THE FOLLOWING: (1st rebate): I had to call Federal Premium because my rebate was rejected, and the Federal Premium representative said the failure in this scenario it was because the Federal Premium processor misread the details which required double or more the processing time. (2nd, 3rd, and 4th rebate): I had to call several more times again because of the same problems within the first rebate. In addition to the 1st rebate problems the customer service within Federal Premium didn’t want to nor properly follow-up with the problems they created which required me to speak to a supervisor who also all failed to understand the details of the Federal Centerfire Rifle Rebate – R10063 on all of my Federal Tactical TRU 223 Remington Ammo purchases even though I requested the previous representative to take detail notes on my 2nd phone call in order to prevent repeated mistakes and to log all the problems for future phone calls. What made the phone calls worse and worse was as I continued with future phone calls the representatives seem to have less knowledge and less confidence which leads me to believe that they have many of the representatives who did not want to listen to much of anything that I had to say and instead only wanted to spent most of the time telling me how they continued to make mistakes without any signs of a solution since they provided little to no assistance in fixing the problem. As of today, I also sent two emails to Federal Premium which I only received a response from one and was again informed with misleading information which also did not also indicate any corrective actions on a positive out. PLEASE DON’T TRUST FEDERAL PREMIUM WITH ANY REBATES IF YOU VALUE your time. I wish I never submitted the rebates or called FEDERAL PREMIUM since my phone records shows that I wasted about two hours on the phone in a attempt to resolve problems that they created.

Just want to let people know that leaving reviews here or reviews left on the BBB site has no effect on the company's BBB rating. To have any impact on a BBB rating you would need to file a "complaint" with the BBB. I'm not sure what if any impact l filing a complaint has but, it might get more attention than this site gets. I'm still trying to resolve my issue before filing a BBB complaint but not far from it because I am pretty fed up with the run-a-round I'm getting. Plus no call backs seems to be consistent with what other customers have experienced. So far I've received what seems to be the typical response..."someone will call you back" but they don't. However, this morning I did actually get transferred to Alesa in customer service. After explaining my issue with not receiving a promised refund she said. "I'll need to transfer your call to my supervisor Joline to handle." but, she dropped my call doing the transfer. I've been calling Federal premium ammunition because a $65 refund I was told I would receive on my initial call in late Oct or early Nov never arrived. I was extremely pleased after my first interaction with the Federal technical support team offering me a refund because the 3' 20 ga bismuth shells were .080 in (more than 1/16th inch) longer than federal fast steel. Federal lead and browning lead 3 in 20 ga shells. ( see pic below). They said there was only a spec on the unfired shell length and no spec on the loaded shell. But, their bismuth 3" shells clearly jams in my Benelli montrefeltro gun if used for either a 2nd or 3rd shot. But, the refund promised never arrived. So, I'm trying to get the check replaced or find out if someone else cash it. Leaving voice mails and messages with a receptionist in January and again yesterday with no call backs and again this morning with my dropped call when transferring to a supervisor and the inability for the receptionist to get me to the supervisor Joline after customer service dropped my call, seems to be a long way from providing a "world class customer service" Federal's answering system claims they provide. In attached pic the Longer bismuth shell is on the left. Comparison with Federal fast steel. Federal lead and browning lead 3" 20 ga shells that all function properly in my shotgun. Only the Federal bismuth shell has a problem to feed into the chamber with both manual feeding and semi-auto feeding. Because of the longer length the Federal bismuth shell requires manually pushing up on the shell lifting mechanism for the shell to lift up for the bolt to come forward to feed it into the chamber. My gun has Heckler & Koch Inc brand on the receiver so it might be an earlier version than the current montrefeltro guns sold.

Federal ammo blew up my gun! I shot one slug out of my shotgun, and it was overcharged! The primer was pushed out, and my gun was ruined. Federal has not done anything about it, and customer service hangs up on me as soon as I get transfered! I will never buy a Federal product again! In the photos you will see the over pressured slug, a sheared off piece of steel, and the place we're the steel was sheared off from. And on top of this the cartridge ruined my bolt assembly. Update: Federal got back to me and had me ship the shells to them, but it has been over two months since they've received the shells, and they haven't contacted me again. They said it would take roughly 4-6 weeks, not two months!