GAMES WORKSHOP
MAIL ORDER MIXED REVIEWS
Warning About GWUS Mail Order's Trollboss Bob's Bargain Basement
I have had the worst experience ever with that Trollboss Bob's Bargain Basement specials. Over a month ago I, like many others, ordered the 40K crates on special along with a few bits for a friend On-Line.
Concerned about only getting my friend's lead bitz ($6 worth) and paying full shipping (figured for including the $35 worth of crates, the sole reason I placed the order) I became concerned over the orders status.
While waiting for a definite answer I later ordered the castle bitz the Friday it was posted and this I called for conformation it was in stock.
This order showed up without the Towers although I was fully billed for everything. After this I was told I did have the Towers on back order (the puller was the one who did this as other orders were filled before mine for some reason). I was also told all the special offers would be honored except for the plastic StormTroopers (which was discontinued, obviously).
Now since this time, my Towers did indeed show up but my 40K Crates never did. I called 4 days after I was finally billed for them and was told by unhelpful Troll Patrick that it was shipped and quickly ended the call before I could ask for UPS' Tracking number. Last Monday I called again (this time talking to a helpful Troll Mathew) and he did check the on the status and told me it UPS lost it and he would send another and to call Monday (today) if I haven't seen it. So today I did call and got that unhelpful Troll Patrick again who told me in short, I wouldn't get the order because it was lost and couldn't be filled because they were for a limited quantity and it was just too bad that I was foolish enough to order those few bits for my friend with my order so I'm stuck dishing out the shipping for his few bitz.
This has really got me mad because there is nothing in their system to show the limited quantity. Nothing On-Line tells you the order is out (they don't even pull the special when they know they're out of it) and neither can ordering over the phone (so I was lucky I saw my Towers at all). Somehow with all this lack of information it was told to me like it was my fault for trusting them to deliver me what they offered.
So what I want you to do now is really think about what you are ordering when you order from Trollboss Bob's Bargain Basement and the fact that you might only see some or none of it. I know I place my order amounts to take advantage of shipping breaks so that figures in greatly on how I place my orders (I definitely wouldn't have ordered the few bitz I did otherwise). I know I will never even consider ordering from those specials again. I'm unsure of GWUS' Mail Order in general after all my recent troubles. Just heed my warning, as you won't get one from Mail Order.
Jon Wooley
>I wouldn't get the order because it was lost
<snippy>
Something not unlike this happened to me once, except the stuff I was ordering was not OOP. I placed an order for some Blood Angels stuff, and with my 'get free stuff' from WD it ended up being about $100. I was all pumped because my codex had just been released and I was going to get my Death Company and blah blah....
Well, two weeks later I called to tell them that my order hadn't arrived. They said they'd check on it and I should call them back. I did, and they realized it had been misplaced or some baloney. In any case, my order hadn't even been processed. When I recieved it (finally) two weeks later, I promptly called Customer Service (again) and had them fill the OTHER half of my order that somehow got missed, which amounted to something like two blisters and a bunch of bitz out of the boxes. It was only a few days before the rest got there.
Then, about a month later.... my order arrived. My entire first order, T-Shirt and all, showed up. Correct bitz and all. I held on to it for a few months until I was sure GW wouldn't call me and want it back, then proceeded to assemble and paint everything.
Of course, that was over two years ago, so don't bother looking me up, Mr. Custserv person. =) Not that it would show up under Nite_Moogle, but hey...
Moogs, who has had parts missing from three of the first four boxes he has ever bought from GW. [Predator was missing a track, Death Company were missing five shoulder pads, and the Marine Dread had a Chaos Marine Dread instead.]
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The Page-O-40K Junk
http://www.geocities.com/nite_moogle/
Hi Jon:
I've ordered from the specials a couple times now and use the web site regularly for bits. To date I've only had one order shipped wrong and GWUS fixed it by shipping me the missing bits ASAP. I'd give the head troll (Bob) a call and let him know about your experience. I bet you'd find that your order will be corrected. GW want's you to keep buying stuff and should try and keep you happy. Otherwise they've just lost a customer.
What ever happens, good luck...
Mike
Every time I have ever had problems with GW, I have called them and explained the problem, and they have made good. Like NiteMoogle, it usually ends up with some free bitz on my end.
My best experience:
I ordered 6 Nobz bodies in heavy armor, they sent me the regular armor bodies. I called to explain, offered to send the others back, and they told me to just keep them! With the leftover bitz from a regular plastic boyz box, that meant six free Nobz. Pretty good!
I don't know how you rate that as far as customer service. Yes, they screw up a lot of my orders. On the other hand, they always make good. Personally I call it great service-- they've never called on me to "prove" the error (although I always offer to send stuff back and would never take advantage of their trust and generosity). In the case of an upcoming tournament where you desperately needed the right bitz at the right time, you could have a serious problem, but otherwise I would just call until they got it right. Ultimately I've never been disappointed.
Anyway, it sounds to me like the simple answer to your problems is to get someone besides Patrick on the phone.
benjamin
While GW has made good on their errors with me as well, I'm a little bemused by the sheer number of errors they have committed lately. In the last six months, all three of my GW Mail Orders have been screwed up, sometimes significantly. Furthermore, in that same time period, three GW kits that I bought were missing parts.
While I appreciate GW's willingness to right their wrongs, I would prefer if they didn't mess up in the first place.
Has anyone else noticed a lapse in GW's attention to detail? Is this due to structural change within GWUS, personnel turnover, or is it just my bad luck?
Other Dave
PRAISE About GWUS Mail Order's Trollboss Bob's Bargain Basement
Bear Johnson
I have to say something in defense of GW Mail Order - and the Bargain Basement!
Five days ago I placed a VERY small order on-line. It arrived today - in tact.
Kudo's GW Trolls!!!!
Bear
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I had a similar experience with this service. I put in my order for just over 30 blisters of various Skavenslaves to use as Chaos Cultists along with a lot of other bits to make more modular vehicles. Well, I got all of the bits I ordered except for a missile launcher cover for a Dread and a power fist for a Dread. The Skavenslaves, though? I got one blister of Skavenslave command. I called to ask about this and was told that they had run out of Skavenslaves and that they would send me more when they had some (but they would still honor the bargain price of $2 for 3 Skavenslaves). I got some more Skavenslaves later (along with the powerfist and missile launcher) but I never got anywhere close to the correct number. Fortunately, I was charged the correct amount for the minis that I did get and I did not have to pay shipping on the second shipment (as I certainly should not have).
I am suprised that GW allows things like this to happen. Second shipments and incorrect "extras" like when they send you wrong bits and then have to ship you the correct ones later must put a major dent in the Mail Order profits. I don't think I have ever had a Mail Order experience that went correctly on the first try. Now I'm not too unhappy about that because I am very patient about most things and I usually end up with extra stuff because the Trolls do fix their mistakes, but it is certainly annoying.
Pope Jubal
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That's also why I have no interest in the Skullz program. Although I would probably end up
with $2000 worth of stuff if I tried to order $1500 worth of bits from GW Mail Order. Just
from the incorrect packaging of things that Ididn't order.
Update:
I called Tim "The Huckelbery" directly today and got far, far better treatment. He is looking into all my problems with my current order. I feel much better now and will risk tacking some bitz onto my Landraider preorder and see what happens. Thanks Tim!
Hmm...with all the times I've used UK mail order, I've only
had a problem once...and then they made good by letting me keep the wrong mini and sending
the correct one for free...
If they make mistakes they're more than happy to rectify it...it's just a pity they have
to make those mistakes in the first place...
Mind you...an old friend of mine has had some nasty experiences with them...but he spends considerably more than most people on GW mail order anyways... ;^D (his bank statement often looks like a GW financial report... ;^D ) One of the trolls must have been suffering from PMS or something <g>... because my friend was sworn at, and had the phone put down on him... But thankfully, when he complained to the troll's superior (what d'ya call 'em anyways? ;^D ), it was quickly dealt with and he recieved a full apology!
Daniel Blakemore - daniel@blakemore81.freeserve.co.uk
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Interestingly, I have never had a Mail Order order be wrong. I don't order a lot, but enough to make me think either things have changed or I'm the exception to the rule.
Two times things have been wrong: when I first bought the v2 boxed set, it came with German-language books. And ages and ages ago when I first subscribed to WD, I got a couple of miniatures, one of which had the wrong arms from what I wanted. In both cases, Tyranid Tim fixed it right away. GW has even fixed things that weren't truly their fault. When I opened my box of Necromunda, the edges of the books were all mangled from the plastic sprues; really mangled. I'm a bit, shall we say, finicky about stuff like that, but GW exchanged them out for me. And when I bought Dark Millennium and found a few cards missing, they sent me new ones. I later discovered it had been previously opened and then re-wrapped on the shelf.
So in all, except for their prices, which is verboten here, I like GW. But I guess they have to charge those prices to pay for all the free shipping they do to fix their own mistakes. <g>
Kelly
Fluff addict.
Fluffanatic.
Lover of fluff.
Oh, and Chapter Master, Emperor's Light Space Marines.
I've done a *lot* of mail order, a whole lot. I've had my share of problems also, missing bits or parts of models missing and replaced with duplicates of another part of the model. However, in each and every case the problem has worked out in my favor. I've called GW, sometimes multiple times, and they have solved it. Currently I am working on a piece of terrain that includes a wrecked Chimera. I have the Chimera pieces because I got two left track sprues and no right sprues, GW Customer Service sent me the right piece and told me to keep the duplicates. All it cost me was a bit of time.
Erick
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'There is a fine line between saying things that make sense.'
-Too Much Coffee Man.
I too have had a number of screw ups. Actually, it started right about...oh...1/1/2000. I was one of the people to be double billed on New Years eve due to a Y2K glitch. THey corrected this immediately, and credited my card within the same billing cycle. Still, since that time, I've had a number of mistakes with GWUS, all of which were promptly corrected, but still, mistakes none-the-less. Sloppy mistakes:
-A one year subscription to Inferno! was turned into a 2
issue subscription some how (imagine how pissed I was when I figured it out!)
- I ordered a pre-metal logan Grimnar recently, and now when you do premetal you have to
buy an equal amount of other product as well. So I did. Only when my order arrived, guess
who wasn't in the box? It was a total packing error, and it was fixed immediately.
-I recently bought a Basilisk that was missing the gun
sprue....
As I said, all of this was corrected, but GW could've saved some money if the correction
never had to have been made in the first place. Having said all that, My most recent order
though, went flawless, and arrived within a few days.
Joel P
I know that many people have had problems with GWmail order missing bitz and such. Personally, I find that a full 100% of UK orders I make have mistakes(no matter how large or small), and about 50% of US orders have mistakes that are aparant right away ( some have to do with sealed kits missing/broken).
However, I have always been able to get some sense of satisfaction out of GWUS mailorder, they have never failed to fix an order for me. The UK has let me (and others) down a few times, but generally do okay.
I think you should get ahold of customer service, explain your case, and they will fix it for you. GW is pretty well known for gettting things right when orders are problematic.
Trevor