Just like with the people who got scammed by Rick Ward you mean?

If the shop is smart and want to stay in business for the following decades, they will give him and others in similar situations a new knife. That is called standing behind your product, even if the knife
is not 100 % treated the way it should. But he wasn't trying to lift a car with it or something similar. If you give him a new knife you have a customer who will spread the word, that Randall stands behind their products!

The world is changing (especially with the gigantic recession that is awaiting us) we have young people at the moment who buy new knives (also expensive ones) and many of them have never heard of Randall Made Knives. Let's hope they learn about Randall by reading great stories about the knives and the way the company does business.
Otherwise I see the popularity of Randall and along with that the prices, coming down big time in the future. Not good for us collectors!

The internet is an unforgiving place as some of you may know.
You don't want to many of these negative stories popping up when somebody uses a search engine on Google or on one of the other forums.

Even if the knife was misused in the eyes of most experienced knife people and Randall staff, it wasn't a destruction test. Randalls have a reputation of being the best and that they are using the best materials.

It even says so on the Randall site. That could also be a reason that people think, that a knife with such a reputation can take (in their eyes) a relative normal task for some knife types of chopping of a tree limb. Not everything is done with bad intentions.

Give the guy a new knife and you have a happy customer. Refuse him and you will probably have many more of these topics started by a frustrated customer, who probably will bring the subject of Randall quality and customer service up a lot more in the future. By not doing so, Randall is in my opinion Penny wise and pound foolish.