Worst Experience From An Online Retailer

[Vigilante]

Right. First I'll get my rant out of the way. I ordered some items off Forbidden Planet (UK). It was a couple of Ultimate Spidermans, Marvel Zombies Minimates, and the hardcover for The Ultimates 2. I ordered it early December, and had it confirmed to arrive before Christmas.

And It's stilll not here.

I called them early January to ask them what had happened to it, and they said it had been dispatched a couple of days ago, and that it should be here a few days later. Nothing. I call 10 days later to have a go at them, to find that it had not been dispatched when I called earlier, but was DEFINATELY going to be dispatched later that day, and would be mine within a week. Still nothing. I got it shipped to my Dads work so that it wouldn't go straight to the post office. They deliver it WITHOUT any names at all, so it gets sent back, so I'll probably have to go through this whole ordeal again.

And it doesn't help that whhen I ordered something off them on September 8th, it arrieved on December 17th.

I am furious at them for such bad service, and am not likely to ever order anything from them ever again.

But thats my rant, time for yours! Can you beat mine?

Vig

[Mattallica]

now im not a mod here or whatever but id think they wouldnt apprieciate you airing dirty laundry like this as it could put them in a bad spot with forbiden planet. yes sounds like you are/have got a raw deal from them and Definately shouldnt order from them again(wondering why you ordered the second time as they messed up on the earlier sept. order but whatever) hope it all works out for you -Matt

[winkerbean]

man i used to hear stories like this all the time when i worked in my lcs a few years ago

they put stuff up for order they don't have, charge your card then send it out months after you ordered it

i've even been into a few of there high street stores (in one of them there were 4 staff all stood around eating mcdonalds!!) they have loads of cool stuff but no customer service

they just care about making money

i always say small independant lcs are the best

[drgnrbrn316]

I went through a similar ordeal with Silver Bullet Comics for a few books last year. Apparently they were going through some major changes in location and format and sat on a ton of orders for a couple months. The books finally showed up though, and though I'd never shop through that venue again, I respect them honoring the orders.

I do have to agree that airing any grievances over an e-tailer is a pretty tight rope to follow. MMMV management holds the right to snuff this topic from existence if they feel that the conversation is counterproductive to the Multiverse's future.

[Rad]

I went through a similar ordeal with Silver Bullet Comics for a few books last year. Apparently they were going through some major changes in location and format and sat on a ton of orders for a couple months. The books finally showed up though, and though I'd never shop through that venue again, I respect them honoring the orders.

I do have to agree that airing any grievances over an e-tailer is a pretty tight rope to follow. MMMV management holds the right to snuff this topic from existence if they feel that the conversation is counterproductive to the Multiverse's future.

It's a major bone of contention. We had a similar thread running where a member complained about the service they were getting from their LCS. All fair enough until allegations concerning the LCS owner's sexual predilections started to appear. Then we had to edit the thread for the reasons listed above. It's very easy to drift into libellous waters, and that leaves the site owner and the members making the allegations in a very difficult situation. Another example would be the AFX shipping thread which veered incredibly close to the wind at times.

I'm closing the thread for now. Not because anyone's in the wrong or has said anything wrong. Just to keep the site on an even keel. Cheers. (me hearties)

[Rad]

This thread has been re-opened. We feel it's important that shabby treatment get reported and good customer service gets rewarded. As stated above my only concern was the site's well being.

So, for the good of the site please keep all 'rants' focused on the problem and only state facts. Any slanderous/libellous comments will cause a world of hurt to the people that make them. Cheers.

[karamazov80]

Well, since I have a story to tell, and this is a forum for it, I guess I'll tell it. Last summer I placed an order with Titan Toys, they charged my credit card, and I waited. . .come one month later, I was due to leave town, and the items had not yet been received, so, before I left, I sent an e-mail to them, telling them to either cancel my order and refund my money, or hold shipping until I got back into town. My main concern was that I knew they might use UPS. I needed them to hold that package, and if they had shipped USPS it would have been no big deal, since they will hold my mail, and typically make sure that someone is home before they drop off packages. UPS, however, won't hold mail unless the person shipping the item contacts them, and they just drop packages off even if no one is home--I don't particularly care for them, despite the free tracking.

Well, wouldn't you know, a few days after I left town (with no access to the internet), I was sent an e-mail that my order was on the way (of course, I didn't find out until I got back home). Through UPS, of course. My earlier e-mail (which was sent through their site, since they didn't list a contact e-mail) was completely ignored. Not only that, but they cancelled two of my items. I ordered 4 items, I believe, and two of them were cancelled, thus making the shipping costs pretty high for the two, relatively undesirable items shipped. They didn't wait to see if I was OK with them shipping only the two items, they just shipped them, in blatant disregard to my suggestion that they either hold my order or cancel it.

I was furious when I got back home, so I sent them an e-mail both through their website again, and to the address listed in the e-mail confirming that my order had shipped. No response for a week, so I tried again. No response. So, I tried to do the only thing that I felt like I could do at that point--go to Bizrate and leave them negative feedback.

Well, they are listed on that website, so I went through the process of leaving feedback. Nothing. I tried a few days later--nothing appeared when I was finished. Then I read that Bizrate reads all feedback before allowing it to be posted, so I thought they may have construed something I had written as untrue or libelous in some way (it wasn't--it was the bare facts that I've laid out here), so I contacted Bizrate to ask what was going on, and why my comments hadn't been posted--nothing. I tried again, thinking I may have made some mistake--no response. So, I don't like Titan Toys, I don't trust Bizrate (I have no idea why they wouldn't let me post feedback, but its really fishy), and I will never use either of their websites for anything again.

Beware and be forewarned!

On the other side, I heartily endorse the following sites:

-digital-toys.com (the only place I've ordered and received a pre-order so far, and they were great about it, even by-passing their usual UPS shipping method to send my order USPS with confirmation--big time props)

-smalljoes.com

-scifigenre.com

-tfaw.com

-hasbrotoyshop.com (though some items might get dinged up in shipping)

-amazon.com (used them probably 20-30 times, and they have been 100% reliable)

The only other place I've had issue with was Toys R Us--they cancel pre-orders for no apparent reason, only to relist those items after cancelling an order, and when they did ship something to me, it was beat to hell. . .

[Reideen1313]

Slightly off topic, but somewhat on...

Websites that use customer ratings/feedback look at the ratings/feedback before posting them. They approve/delete the feedback that's given. At my former employer who shall remain nameless at this time - it was one of my assistant's daily duties to go in, read the feedback that was left and delete what we felt was harmful/too negative for the site/product it was about. There's a certain percentage of positive and negative feedback sites are looking for. More than that percentage (either way + or -) and the theory is that the review(s) lose credibility for the consumer. There's some sort of formula behind determining the actual % of each +/- used.

[karamazov80]

Just to quickly follow up:

Regarding the ratio of positive to negative feedback, Bizrate has no feedback for Titan Toys at this point (which I guess should be a warning sign in itself):

http://www.bizrate.com/ratings_guide/cust_...id--127644.html

As I noted above, I personally tried to post a review, and even tried to get customer service there to explain why my review was ignored, but to no avail.

If someone here knows of really great feedback sites (like a c/net or consumer reports for toy stores), that might also be something worth sharing in this thread.