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I've been having a spate of bad experiences myself, with three different online retailers! One was finally resolved and the other two are still pending -

For two of the retailers, I bought only what was listed as In Stock. When they came back to say that they didn't actually have it - I let them know if was unacceptable and that I needed a refund.

This happens when the online store and the physical store database are not automatically connected or not updated in real time.

matjb2512 wrote:
On Wednesday morning I received the PayPal receipt, Thursday I received an email saying they were processing the order, and then Friday afternoon received a further email stating they didn't have the items in stock and would take anywhere up to a week to order them in as they're 'a small store and don't keep lots of stock in'.

Personally, I understand that things go in and out of stock and if they don't have a complicated stock tracking system they may not know until they go to pull your order. What I don't care for the practice of charging a customers credit card (or in this case, PayPal account) for items that they don't even have. I've run into situations where I had to wait months for an item to be delivered, after I paid for it. At the least, I would not do business with them again.

The only thing i find a but unreasonable is how '3 days' response time is "unacceptable" when its a weekend plus holiday . the response time is just fine to me, but they should refund express delivery charges.
And who the feth pays for express delivery and thinks thats just the time your goods spend in transit? It includes a fast packaging and posting of the goods, too. Idgaf why an express delivery is delayed.

I'm currently going through an issue in which the online retailer has not returned any message after ordering. I've ordered through them before and the response was snappy. Now, I've opened a ticket in hopes of trying to get something through.

It's best to be safe and seem to be a jerk as opposed to sitting quietly and losing money in the long term.

Bandua Wargames - Spain

You may know them from the Infinity terrain but they also offer a wide variety of miniatures and such. Found that they stocked several hard-to-find manufacturers at a nice discount and were showing them as in-stock. I bought six Lead Adventure Knights and a large amount of MOM Miniatures Halberdiers. Paid quite a bit in shipping + a Paypal fee; come out to over $200.

E-mail follow-up was good: sent an order confirmation w/order number. However, another e-mail said that one or more items were out of stock. Shoot - I'd chosen the ones that were specifically in stock to avoid this. Was able to contact them via Facebook, via which they respond quickly and in good English (just mentioning because it's a Spanish company). Was notified that they didn't have a big chunk of the MOM miniatures in stock (website was wrong) and had to order. This was Tuesday July 19th; they promised they would have them by the end of the week.

Next Monday rolls around and no miniatures. We go back and forth and it's not until August 1st that they claim it was shipped (two weeks after purchase). Held up by the shipping company on their end because they didn't claim the value on the paperwork. Finally goes out on August 3rd and I'm able to track its progress to Seattle.

Package arrives and things are a bit odd. The Lead Adventure Knights come in blister packs and they've been obviously opened and repacked - three knights in a blister meant for two and only lonely knight in a large blister. Pieces have fallen out and are loose in the box. I'm missing one shield but no biggie, there are others on sprue and enough to complete all six knights. The MOM miniatures are all packaged but I'm missing one - a larger 10-man bag. Crap!

Contact them again to let them know. Ask for a refund because I'm not wasting any more time with them. Send a request through Paypal too. Get some vague responses that they are "reviewing the order" and it's another week before they tell me that my money should have been refunded. Keep checking Paypal and nothing. Go back and forth with them and finally escalate my claim with Paypal to get someone there involved. It takes until Tuesday, Aug 22nd before my refund is actually back in my Paypal account and I can call the matter settled.

TLR Website "in-stock" status is inaccurate, slow to ship, missing items, slow to refund. Fast to reply on Facebook but I feel a lot of smoke was being blown up my butt most of the time. Proceed with caution

This was TripleHelix?

Yeah, sounds somewhat familiar. I haven't ever ordered, but did once send an email to confirm stock levels. To their credit they replied.

Some 8 or 9 weeks later.

Not found any pressing need to use them over any of the other excellent retailers who compete well on price and manage their comms much better.

matjb2512 wrote:

It seems they might just be ignoring my emails now though, TripleHelix is the retailer for the record.

Their website doesn't specify if items are in or out of stock and they do say that not everything is in stock.

Personally I dont buy from resellers unless they have live stock.