Ring up maelstrom, ask them to just cancel and refund that book.

Quote that bbc link I posted. Aka the 'distance selling regulations'

2.5 months are longer than 30 days. From what I can tell, they're required to give you your money back (don't accept credit or anything like that) immediately.

Gotta say, predicted this quite a while back. I have been shouting from the Crows Nest "ICEBERG" for a bloody longtime. I take no pride in this, but it's sad that alot of people seem to be out of pocket / having to jump through hoops to get their own money back.

 Compel wrote:
Ring up maelstrom, ask them to just cancel and refund that book.

Quote that bbc link I posted. Aka the 'distance selling regulations'

2.5 months are longer than 30 days. From what I can tell, they're required to give you your money back (don't accept credit or anything like that) immediately.

trying to phone them is pointless currently. Been trying for 3 days now and they just let it ring (not even an awnserphone)

Well, they do not have anything that i want anymore so it time to move on !

redeyed wrote:

trying to phone them is pointless currently. Been trying for 3 days now and they just let it ring (not even an awnserphone)

Don't waste your time trying to contact them at this point. Contact PayP{al if it was within 45 days and open a dispute. If not, go to your VISA provider.

VISA Cards have a chargeback option against Maelstrom's bank, so you should be fine. But it CAN take many weeks.

I have have a number of large orders with Maelstrom atm, lets just say I got greedy with the latest sale and put through 3 orders on the same day through VISA and asked for a refund of a previously outstanding order with them that has 4 items that were out of stock and thus were held up (that was done via PayPal)

Have not heard a peep from them, sent 3 emails, tried to call both their online service and physical store numbers a dozen times and it just rings through.

I'll give them another 24 hours on the Paypal order and then I'm pulling that plug. I'll give them 30 days for the VISA ones and then its chargeback time.

I'd really rather see my toys tho and they've been great in the past.

Just wished I had kept up to date with their situation and read the entire email they sent and also this thread earlier!!

To be fair, orders from Maelstrom (and many other online retailers for that matter - I waited months for an order from Dark Sphere) have often resulted in a significant delay if the item is out of stock. Although as Grimtuff pointed out earlier in the thread, this might not always be the customers fault as sometimes the stock levels listed on the site might not be correct.

I've just had a 'dispatched' email sent from an item ordered last week, which is entirely reasonable.

So I don't think we are dealing here with a company that is trying to take people's money and run, as is almost being implied by a couple of posts above - they are no doubt being inundated with orders at the moment so things are taking more time to be posted, but if you order something that has enough of a stock level then to be honest you should be perfectly safe. Let's not get hysterical here!

If you want to assume the best, that's your perogative. Looking at the situation through the experiences in this post as well as my own experiences with them over the last couple of months, I'll go with "Assume the worst, hope for the best."

I'll also reiterate that I got my orders of over 400UKP refunded about 2 weeks ago now, and I'm bloody glad I did, given that the stuff was outstanding for between 4-6 weeks, was not in stock, and has shown no sign of being restocked. That includes the prduct that was listed as "in stock" when I ordered it.

Anyone ordering from them now is being a little foolish or hopeful (you choose) and perhaps a little blinded by some awesome discounts. Awesome they may be, but it's quite the gamble as to whether you'll get any of your crap.

 scipio.au wrote:
Anyone ordering from them now is being a little foolish or hopeful (you choose) and perhaps a little blinded by some awesome discounts. Awesome they may be, but it's quite the gamble as to whether you'll get any of your crap.

Eh, through a combination of the voucher and the MoneyBack I had, I was able to order a Scibor Dwarf, some Matt varnish and a LE Kingdom Death model for £7. I'm fairly happy to risk that.

 scipio.au wrote:

I'll also reiterate that I got my orders of over 400UKP refunded about 2 weeks ago now, and I'm bloody glad I did, given that the stuff was outstanding for between 4-6 weeks, was not in stock, and has shown no sign of being restocked. That includes the prduct that was listed as "in stock" when I ordered it.

I think if you've made an order that has a mix of stock levels (both in stock and out of stock) usually they wait some time before splitting your order. At least, that's the experience I've had in the past.

I'm pretty sure that stuff that is in stock should go out immediately. Order I made yesterday has already gone to 'packing' (rather than 'processing') so fingers crossed I guess..

But yes I am perhaps being foolish and blinded by the discounts.. but I saw that dwarf riding a bear for £15, and it was like I had no control over my finger clicking the mouse button

Just recieved my copy of future war commander that i ordered on tuesday (last copy) if it says in stock now,i think you will get it for the moment but there is not much left. Ok if you want to get some paint at 90p a pot

 Pacific wrote:

I think if you've made an order that has a mix of stock levels (both in stock and out of stock) usually they wait some time before splitting your order. At least, that's the experience I've had in the past.

You are correct there. However, I had about 4 orders placed at different times all outstanding - hence my comment about "4-6 weeks". if you'll recall, we were getting a new sale email about once per week for a period.

I placed a separate "entirely in-stock" order once they sent out one of the "30% off in-stock-items only!", which was ordered independently and later than the other stuff. It went to "processing" and within a week I got an automated email telling me that some of those items were not in stock.

Hi CUSTOMERNAME,

We have split your order : #########.

The details of this split are included below:

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Original Order Reference: ########

Split Order Reference: #########

Reason For Split: Some items are not in stock

Two weeks later and they hadn't sent out the stuff that was still apparently (supposedly) in stock, and it took repeated phone calls to them to get a bunch of "later this week"/"next week"/"this friday" answers, all of which dates came and went without anything being sent out. When I checked the website over the weeks I was patiently waiting some of the items would go from "processing" to "packing" and back to "processing", so who knows WTF was going on?

I'm pretty sure that stuff that is in stock should go out immediately. Order I made yesterday has already gone to 'packing' (rather than 'processing') so fingers crossed I guess..
But yes I am perhaps being foolish and blinded by the discounts.. but I saw that dwarf riding a bear for £15, and it was like I had no control over my finger clicking the mouse button

I don't blame you - I just hope you get your stuff. Seriously.

Been trying to phone to cancel my order, anybody else getting "user busy" constantly?

EDIT: scratch that, now it's just calling out.....

There are plenty of Good FLGS out there, you've just got to get the priorities right. Customer Service and rapid order/ dispatch and stock throughput, decent cash flow to buy new systems that are being launched (X-wing etc), or more succinctly "Good Basic Business Acumen".

It's great trying to provide things like Gaming facilities, Bar's, Venues etc, but all that needs to be under-pinned by good business and good service. There is zero point offering earth shattering discounts if you have no idea when the item is turning up, or even if it is going to turn up.

This is the fundamental problem with FLGS, is that they are predominantly run by Gamers. You need to be business minded, and professional, taking a rational and objective view, mixing business and pleasure is a dangerous game. Many people I have known who have owned Game Stores filled the store with things they wanted / products they wanted to push and it became more of some kind of pseudo-political especially when personalities clash, rather than a sustainable profit driven business.

Over-reach and over expansion is another curse of the FLGS. Keep it small, profitable and controllable, as soon as you start having Million Pound plus turnover (as per Maelstrom a few years back) things get exponentially more complicated.

I put in an order a couple weeks ago and other than being bombarded with deal offers every couple days I haven't heard a thing from them. Wish I'd seen this thread beforehand, I'd have foregone the discount and picked up some of the stuff at my GW.

Well, let it never be said that I was unfair...

On Tuesday when the 'Last Gasp' sale was announced, I ordered 3 of their scibor dudes.

They arrived this morning in the mail with no problems whatsoever.

Another thing Maelstrom has been a bit notorious for some time being is that they sometimes don't care to update the order status on their website which kinda creates even more fuss. So the order is already packed and dispatched, but You are still seeing it as being "processed"...

OK, so an order I placed with Maelstrom on the 5th October was showing as packing a couple of days later, then got changed back to processing.

I looked on my order status again today, and it is again showing as packing.

Hopefully this time it might show up.

To all those people having trouble getting through, when I was up there on thurs there was a problem with the chip and pin machine for the debit cards and it was simply not connecting (had to go to a nearby cash machine eventually). At the risk of putting 2 and 2 together and getting 5, maybe there is an issue with their phone connectivity. Just like Pacific said, Maelstrom don't strike me as a company that's gonna try and run off with your money.

2 of my current 3 orders just went packing this morning... will keep you all informed (But hoping my 100% record from them isn't tarnished!)

I just want my refund on the first big order and for my 2nd big order to be packed and sent...

When did you place those orders Makaleth?

I put them in on the 10th (Still Processing and Packing)

Okay guys,

I am going through paypal resolution centre in order to get my money back. Maelstrom have obviously saw I am doing this: they canceled my order within a few hours after I filed the dispute. But they did not refund me immediately, and still haven't. Am I wrong in feeling pretty peed off right now?

Just hoping they don't drag it out until the limits of waiting for a reply/refund.

I'm another person not happy with Maelstrom games.
Having ordered Super Dungeon Explore (show as immediate shipping) and a Cryx Kraken (preorder) I had to ask them why the SDE had not shipped 10 days later. I was told there was a delay at their supplier. A couple of weeks later I got an email stating they had combined my orders . two weeks after that a shipping notice. (notice how we are well past paypal claim time). 5 weeks later and no parcel . My opinion is that it never shipped. I now have to try to claim the money back through my credit card company.
Maelstrom do not reply to any emails regarding non delivery.

my advice...stay well away.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
oh and watch out. I've recently had my email address sent on to a mass spam mailer. Spam comes from random names @mindspring.com and @earthlink.net. Of course, I don't know who did this but if it happens to any of you guys it may establish a pattern.

There's the lesson, unfortunately. When an order placed by me to ANYONE gets to 40 days, I email them and tell them I'll be opening a dispute within the next 48 hours if they haven't gotten back to me. I then follow through and do so.

I've tried contacting Maelstroem by e-mail several time now and also by phone.

They do no respond at all.

I'm opening a dispute to get my money back.

If you have an order and your ordered items are out of stock, I strongly suggest that you try to get your money back asap!

Just received an email saying that my first order (that I wish refunded) has been split as items were out of stock.

So yes, they have time to process that but NOT respond to any of the 6 emails that I've sent them so far to cancel and refund that order but go through with 455GBP of OTHER orders instead?

Paypal claim lodged.

There is of course a second element to all of this, if Maelstrom does cease trading (a likely prospect) what of the other parts of the Business they are seeking to seperate or have seperated in the last 12 months?

Specifically BANE LEGIONS now owned by Mierce Miniatures (Another Company by the Same owner/ Managing Director of Maelstrom), will all this bad PR and customer service reflect of any further or derivative business? It is difficult to repair damage done through bad customer service or from a Business collapse leaving customers high and dry.

Read this:-

http://thefrontlinegamer.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/industry-talk-rob-lane-mierce-miniatures.html

So he is Managing Director of both? Does he expect to Shaft the Community with poor service at Maelstrom one minute, and then an all Sin's Forgiven policy towards BANE LEGIONS two minutes later? I think it will be interesting to see what happens in the next 12 months.

Yep, we had that discussion several pages ago. The ownership info was posted much earlier in this thread, and I essentially reposted it in the Mierce Miniatures thread in N&R (started by Mierce) as well.

Also, looky what I just got:

Hi there,

This is just a reminder that our stock clearance sale here at Maelstrom Games (www.maelstromgames.co.uk) ends tonight at midnight (GMT) - but we've still a fair bit of stock left on certain ranges so if you want a bargain, grab one now!


YOUR STOCK CLEARANCE SALE VOUCHER
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The ranges we're still clearing at 50% off UK RRP are Gamezone Miniatures, Micro Art Studio, Coat d'Arms paints, Fantasy Flight Games, Dark Age, Forged in Battle, Kabuki Models, Kingdom Death, Magic: the Gathering and Scibor Miniatures. As mentioned previously, Templar's Forge products are now being sold at 75% off as they are now deleted.

We're still selling our remaining stock of Flames of War products at 25% off UK RRP (please note, however - we have just performed a stock check and so even if you have already bought some Flames of War, check back to see if there's more), and clearing Perry Miniatures, Victrix, Plastic Soldier Company, Artizan Designs, Gripping Beast and Great War Miniatures at 30% off UK RRP until tonight on Monday, 15th of October 2012 at midnight (GMT). Everything else is at 40% off UK RRP, which is still a fantastic deal - we have many Malifaux, Privateer Press and Games Workshop products left in stock!

These kind of sales do not occur very often and we would hope that you take advantage - and remember, our stock will be sold on a first come, first served basis so you will have to decide what you want very quickly as we suspect it will sell very quickly!

The voucher will work on all the items in our webstore that are IN STOCK ONLY, but it will NOT work on any out of stock items or pre-orders, nor anything within our eBay store.

Your voucher code is: WAREHOUSE-MOVES

To use this voucher simply register on the webstore, www.maelstromgames.co.uk (if you haven't already), copy and paste the code into the Voucher field in your basket when you have selected the items you want, press 'REDEEM', and the webstore will do the rest. You are not limited to one purchase and, indeed, we would ask you to recommend us to your friends with this voucher!

Remember though that this voucher is intended for the webstore only - it does not apply to any of our auctions or Fixed Price items on eBay.

Happy Ordering!

I just tried calling them to cancel a pre-order and there's no answer.

Graf, try call the number with out the leading zero, that should do the trick. Try the numbers below:

For online customer service, telephone: (+44) 1623 238 919
For the physical store, telephone: (+44) 1623 629 425

And please post if you have any luck in getting hold of them!

Headshock wrote:
Graf, try call the number with out the leading zero, that should do the trick. Try the numbers below:

For online customer service, telephone: (+44) 1623 238 919
For the physical store, telephone: (+44) 1623 629 425

And please post if you have any luck in getting hold of them!

I don't think ANYONE's had any luck getting a hold of them!

Whoops, misread the post from Graf.

Sry my bad, read the post as if "number was non existent".

My experience with Maelstrom has always been poor, they never seem to have anything I want in stock, and when I've chased up orders(whether it's been 3, 4 or more weeks) they've given the same response 'it's been ordered and will be in stock by the end of the week', which in other words means 'we didn't place our order till you chased us about it, so we've now done what we should have done in the first place and ordered it'.

They gave me a bunch of excuses, including 'it's the suppliers fault, they're very slow to send out orders', so passing the buck onto others, and damaging their reputations. And my order is still 'processing' two months on...

@scipio.au damn, I missed your Mierce Thread,( I do have problems with the Forum Search function as it only returns the 1st page of results, as soon as you click anyother page it displays an error, it's annoying because we are breaking the Forum rules alot on checking for previous posts). But your point is noted, mea Culpa.

Well anyway that e-mail is interesting eh? How many times and to how many different places has the Warehouse moved? Must be like the Tardis and keep warping about hence the lack of an up-to-date stock inventory.

It's not hard is it, stuff comes in, update your stock inventory/ Database / Matrix / Excel spreadsheet etc, Then place on the shelves! yes it's a dull-as-sh*t job but it doesn't mean it's not important. If you don't know where all your stock is, and at what level how can you know your position, exposure and keep accurate books? Lack of professionalism and Business acumen.

 mwnciboo wrote:


It's not hard is it, stuff comes in, update your stock inventory/ Database / Matrix / Excel spreadsheet etc, Then place on the shelves! yes it's a dull-as-sh*t job but it doesn't mean it's not important. If you don't know where all your stock is, and at what level how can you know your position, exposure and keep accurate books? Lack of professionalism and Business acumen.

No, it isn't hard.

But, look at it this way. If your customers are happy to wait and accept bone idleness what would you do? maelstrom have always been slow, with a reputation for it, and yet customers keep/kept flocking back.
I still nearly fall off my chair when I read that buyers have waited x amount of MONTHS[b] for an order to be fulfilled.

obviously a company which cares will spend on better CS, but Maelstrom either don't care or don't want to stump up the cash (which apparently they don't have).

Looking at what has gone on recently Maelstrom are clearing the decks and will either comeback in a different format or will die completely with EOTS being their main front.

Headshock wrote:
Whoops, misread the post from Graf.

Sry my bad, read the post as if "number was non existent".

No, you read it right. I edited it as I realised my error just after I posted!

My missus and I are going into the bank tomorrow to see about getting the money back that way as we used her Visa via Paypal (and there Paypal dispute thing is very specific in its options).

 Mr. Burning wrote:

But, look at it this way. If your customers are happy to wait and accept bone idleness what would you do? maelstrom have always been slow, with a reputation for it, and yet customers keep/kept flocking back.

My Maelstrom orders have always been faster than my Wayland orders.

Maelstrom Games was my online store of choice, its sad to see it in such straights.

 Mr. Burning wrote:


No, it isn't hard.

But, look at it this way. If your customers are happy to wait and accept bone idleness what would you do? maelstrom have always been slow, with a reputation for it, and yet customers keep/kept flocking back.
I still nearly fall off my chair when I read that buyers have waited x amount of MONTHS[b] for an order to be fulfilled.

obviously a company which cares will spend on better CS, but Maelstrom either don't care or don't want to stump up the cash (which apparently they don't have).

Looking at what has gone on recently Maelstrom are clearing the decks and will either comeback in a different format or will die completely with EOTS being their main front.

QFT I don't accept bad customer Service, I think me and you are very similar in this regard.... Moving on from this slightly, HMRC are always interested in this kind of thing especially when a company shifts assets around or tries to kill off bad debt and save any/ squirrel away/ any valuable assets in a new company. You know the old, sell the good stuff to yourself for 1p in a new company, leave all the debt with the old company type approach. It's all good, till the Tax man clicks you haven't paid Capitol Gains Tax on these Assets or doesn't get the payment for Corporation TAX , VAT or things like Bonded Warehouses etc are compromised. The TAXMAN, quite rightly, gets pretty nasty when he is expecting Income...

Update on my own situation, which hopefully should give heart to anyone still waiting. Order I made last Friday (about £50 worth of Gamezone and Scibor dwarves, bought at 50% discount) have now been posted to me.

Glad I took the gamble now as I got a bloody good deal, although in light of the posts above I wouldn't recommend using the special offer price for anything that is out of stock.

I'll just chip in as well.

Ordered Thursday and everything came on Saturday (found the package in my utility room today!)

To keep with the negatives, the box they came in is overly large, that's where their money is going!

But, no, they delivered, my gamble paid off. And it's my first punt on Scibor. I'm pretty impressed.

Scibor models do seem to be the real winner out of this.

 The Plastic Surgeon wrote:
I just want my refund on the first big order and for my 2nd big order to be packed and sent...

When did you place those orders Makaleth?

In addition to this, the 2 packing are now posted. 1 more to go!
And yes, I would order again if the sale is back up.

Update.

They've split my orders left right and center due to out of stock items.... items that were LISTED as IN STOCK!

*facepalm*

I've now got half of the order that I have requested 6 times to be cancelled and also have an outstanding Paypal Claim against listed as dispatched and half of the 3 orders that I DO want listed as dispatched.

This is going to be an absolute MESS to clear up.

I'm just going to sit tight, see what comes in the mail, hopefully I still get my Paypal Claim through AND the rest of my orders that I used VISA for.

If I get my claim, I'd offer to send the stuff from the first order back at THEIR cost.

This is atrocious

Has anyone else started to notice a correlation here between people ordering from RoW territories (NZ & Aus) and those not receiving their goods?

Mr Burning and Compel what Scibor stuff did you get? I was in a similar boat of being tempted by them for some time, but being put off by the price tag..

I picked up 3 Scibor "Roman Legionaires" for 20 quid. Seemed a fair price for what are basically character models.

The fact I can use them for basically a custodes squad is just a happy coincidence.

I had bought a model and painted it up recently, it's pretty neat.

Just received my first order from the recent sales, yesterday I received the shipping notification for my second order (placed 2 working days before).

May have been lucky that everything remained in stock, however I did specify in my order to refund to "my moneyback" any items not in stock rather than delaying the order.

Maelstrom have been great for Aussies, I intend to keep supporting them. I hope (for their sake) that they don't go under.

I agree Yonan... my annoyance here is the feeling that the GW embargo was part of this issue.

Well, Sweden is supposedly unaffected by the embargo, and I'm still waiting. Halfway through my second month I believe. Ho hum.

 The CF wrote:
Well, Sweden is supposedly unaffected by the embargo, and I'm still waiting. Halfway through my second month I believe. Ho hum.

More precisely, the loss of cashflow from such a large chunk of business being removed meaning that they couldn't restock at the same pace (and started chasing sales).

I wrote them an email three days ago to cancel my outstanding items, as

a. the wait of 10+ weeks for a common item is ridiculous

b. I don't appreciate being lied to ("we'll get the item end of the week and will ship it, honest...") - that was 4 weeks ago, btw.

So far, no reaction from them, which means I will file a grievance with VISA to try to get my money back.

What bums me out the most is that they obviously and self-admittedly are having problems with their cash flow, but still promote sale after sale, for which they obviously have no stock.

 IK-Painter wrote:
What bums me out the most is that they obviously and self-admittedly are having problems with their cash flow, but still promote sale after sale, for which they obviously have no stock.

They're not accepting orders for things not in stock.

 Pacific wrote:
Has anyone else started to notice a correlation here between people ordering from RoW territories (NZ & Aus) and those not receiving their goods?

Mr Burning and Compel what Scibor stuff did you get? I was in a similar boat of being tempted by them for some time, but being put off by the price tag..

Celtic marines for me, pacific, very nice and crisp, should be a joy to paint up. The bases are pretty cool too.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Makaleth wrote:
I agree Yonan... my annoyance here is the feeling that the GW embargo was part of this issue.

Maelstrom have been caught up in a deception of their own making, thinking the sun would never set on their GW RoW sales. Relying on this as a primary revenue stream whilst ramping up other projects such as a 'new warehouse', gaming space and a range of miniatures drained their cash so the rest of their business suffers.

Its a downward spiral.

 Yonan wrote:

 IK-Painter wrote:
What bums me out the most is that they obviously and self-admittedly are having problems with their cash flow, but still promote sale after sale, for which they obviously have no stock.

They're not accepting orders for things not in stock.

Then they should really stop listing them. Even if I felt inclined to risk my money, it's not much fun sifting through page after page of out of stock everything, hoping for a solitary line of green.

OK, one of the orders I placed on the 5th October got changed to packing a couple of days later, then went back to processing. A week later it went back to packing, and I have received the dispatch e-mail on the 15 October - so assuming it turns up, I'll be happy.

My other order placed at the same time is still showing as processing, and I really don't know about this one. It was for Army Painter paints, that were in stock when I ordered, but most are now showing as limited availability. I'll carry on waiting as I was just using up a small amount of cash back I had, and I'm not desperate for them anyway.

The order, which was placed on 09/10/12, went into packing mode this morning. All items were "in stock" when the order was made.

 Yonan wrote:

 IK-Painter wrote:
What bums me out the most is that they obviously and self-admittedly are having problems with their cash flow, but still promote sale after sale, for which they obviously have no stock.

They're not accepting orders for things not in stock.

Well they obviously are as they've split my orders of items that were listed as IN STOCK.

Not happy with lack of communications (ignored), not happy that I'm being lied to (regarding stock)

Tried calling them again today. First time I called the number was busy and now there's no answer. It's likely that the busy line was another person trying to get through, too, rather than a phone convo, but hey ho.

 Graf Hagin wrote:
Tried calling them again today. First time I called the number was busy and now there's no answer. It's likely that the busy line was another person trying to get through, too, rather than a phone convo, but hey ho.

nah sadly man they have not been picking up the phone for over a week.

It is pretty disgraceful!


My order is still on processing despite being promised almost a week and a half ago now it would be sent "the next day" so like many others I was basically lied to


Tried to phone so many times/email etc but nothing, it is just left to ring






going to claim it back via the bank/VISA

I am sorf of optimistic in this regard and my feeling is that the service will be as usual - they will send the stuff with really overstretched delay (as usual), but eventually they will send it. We all have got used to Maelstrom issues and came back again and again because of their huge sales discounts, being pretty much aware that stuff listed as "in stock" is not always in there and we would have to wait a couple of weeks at its best. The longest delay ever I've had with them concerned pre-orded of first Finecast products and it took a couple of months for them to ship it. I am almost sure that although my first order went into packing, most probably it wont be shipping for week now until they get another bulk of parcels, and my biggest concern is if they will screw the contents again, who is going to remedy this situation. But I hope they wont send me items that I did not order just because that the packing guy was in a hurry....

for me the major issue is the lack of communication on their part

also the fact now you cant even cancel or get in touch with them. That part is just disgusting.

They cancelled my order after I opened a paypal dispute, but now they're taking their time to actually refund me!

Haven't been refunded yet, and all the answers my e-mails got were, at best, platitudes.

Appalling costumer service so far.

With regard to refunds, I managed to get £30 back into my bank account this afternoon via a Paypal transfer. Having gotten through to Maelstrom staff on the phone to the cancel a pre-order this time last week, I was watching the refund process unfold on Paypal in the last week or so. I queried with Paypal on the weekend to ask what the Paypal Temporary Hold was about and what they were reviewing. I was advised that funds were in transit between my bank and Paypal and that until that process resolved itself, Paypal couldn't refund me.

As I understand it, Paypal extended itself to pay for my original pre-order in the full expectation that funds from my bank would be following up shortly to meet costs they had paid in the meantime. Having requested a refund in the midst of that process, it seems like they had to wait for the bank funds to reach them, get processed and then become eligible for refund. Firstly, I had a credit to my Paypal balance. And now, I've transferred it back to my bank.

Glad to say that this worked out for me, but then it seems I was lucky to get through on the phone without too much hassle last week. Wanted to give some feedback in case anyone else was awaiting a Paypal Temporary Hold to end.

Good luck to others awaiting orders etc.,

Cheers.

Look what the cat just dragged in...

"Hi there,

Once more here at Maelstrom Games (www.maelstromgames.co.uk) we have decided to clear as much of our hard-earned stock as we possibly can over the next few days and to that end, all our remaining stock will now be sold at 50% off UK RRP except for Battlefront Miniatures, which will be sold at 30% off UK RRP and Templar's Forge at 75% off. We still hold good stocks of Battlefront (we have just had our last order delivered so there may well be some stock you didn't realise we had - so it's worth checking!), Gamezone Miniatures, Dark Age, Micro Art Studio, Cool Mini or Not and Scibor Miniatures, and there's a few bits of Games Workshop, Privateer Press and Malifaux left too. These sales don't come along very often - so take advantage of it, as this is our FINAL stock sale and it WILL end on Monday the 22nd of October! Grab a bargain now!"

Are you serious? Another sale - and even if it's only for items they have in stock (yeah, right...), they should try to clear their old orders, before accepting new ones.

Just my two cents...

After all the public mud slinging with Battlefront, it looks like they aren't take any chances and pissing off Battlefront again.

Makes you wonder about their position in the last 18months, it doesn't suddenly happen, this is gradual decline. Unless of course they had no idea what their Cash situation was....

JamieisOOP wrote:
They cancelled my order after I opened a paypal dispute, but now they're taking their time to actually refund me!

Have you escalated it to a claim yet? It's Paypal that decides on a refund, and it shouldn't take too long after it's escalated(up to 14 days, but in my case it was just 2) to get your money back...

Well, I've succumbed.

They don't seem to mention it in the emails, but all the Mierce/Banelegion is half price too.

Krull, their awesome not Bloodthirster for half off? Couldn't resist.

 IK-Painter wrote:
Look what the cat just dragged in...

"Hi there,

Once more here at Maelstrom Games (www.maelstromgames.co.uk) we have decided to clear as much of our hard-earned stock as we possibly can over the next few days and to that end, all our remaining stock will now be sold at 50% off UK RRP except for Battlefront Miniatures, which will be sold at 30% off UK RRP and Templar's Forge at 75% off. We still hold good stocks of Battlefront (we have just had our last order delivered so there may well be some stock you didn't realise we had - so it's worth checking!), Gamezone Miniatures, Dark Age, Micro Art Studio, Cool Mini or Not and Scibor Miniatures, and there's a few bits of Games Workshop, Privateer Press and Malifaux left too. These sales don't come along very often - so take advantage of it, as this is our FINAL stock sale and it WILL end on Monday the 22nd of October! Grab a bargain now!"

Are you serious? Another sale - and even if it's only for items they have in stock (yeah, right...), they should try to clear their old orders, before accepting new ones.

Just my two cents...

The point of these sales is they can't afford to buy in the items people have previously ordered, thus, by clearing stock they currently have in hand, they'll raise the money to pay for them...

 IK-Painter wrote:
"we have just had our last order delivered "

I think this shows this is a final clearance sale...

12thRonin wrote:

 IK-Painter wrote:
"we have just had our last order delivered "

I think this shows this is a final clearance sale...

Or it is the last order they placed before they move to the new warehouse?

 SilverMK2 wrote:

12thRonin wrote:

 IK-Painter wrote:
"we have just had our last order delivered "

I think this shows this is a final clearance sale...

Or it is the last order they placed before they move to the new warehouse?

Er......NO. When you move Warehouse you don't run your Cash Flow down to Zero, that will net you a lovely empty Warehouse and no stock..... Bad Business move. A Business move should be well planned and swiftly executed to minimise disruption to cash flow and maintain business continuity, not a drawn out protracted lingering death knell whilst telling the World "It's okay were moving....." no one believes them anymore (if they ever did to start with). They have hit the Iceberg, the Life rafts have gone and the ship is beyond saving and the Icy water is upto their waists and they are saying "Water what Water?".

The new warehouse is a smoke screen, or at best a new Business will appear out of the ashes, flap around for bit in a feckless manner then the HMRC and Creditors will move in to reclaim assets from the Maelstrom, either from securities and other business from the Owner. The business once in Administration or Closing up, will restart it's financial year and have 12 months to sort everything out with the HMRC or else be placed in Receivership. It is a messy affair and rarely do businesses that fall out of the these do well, even when toxic assets are disposed of. Becoming a Director with a bad track record is no easy thing.

 mwnciboo wrote:
Er......NO.

I'm not saying it was a good idea, simply that it could be a case of running down the stock so it does not need to be transported from the old warehouse to the new one. Hell, they may already have stock waiting to be ordered for shipment direct to their new place for all we know*.




*Yeah, I don't thin that MG is actually doing this, just pointing out the possibility.

Fair enough.

Thing is, it's all just speculation on our part - but the whole thing seems kind of fishy to me - a fact that could be easily remedied by MG, if they would just be forthcoming with some information.

Ignoring your phone and emails just doesn't seem like that smart a move, when the only thing you have left is the trust of your customers.

I do believe, that a lot of people wouldn't try to scramble to get their orders cancelled and refunded if they got some better information than "SALESALESALE" every two days - this wave of cancellations can not be good if they try to generate some cashflow.

 IK-Painter wrote:
Thing is, it's all just speculation on our part - but the whole thing seems kind of fishy to me - a fact that could be easily remedied by MG, if they would just be forthcoming with some information.

Ignoring your phone and emails just doesn't seem like that smart a move, when the only thing you have left is the trust of your customers.

I do believe, that a lot of people wouldn't try to scramble to get their orders cancelled and refunded if they got some better information than "SALESALESALE" every two days - this wave of cancellations can not be good if they try to generate some cashflow.

A salutory lesson for other retailers. Communication is the key.

 IK-Painter wrote:
Thing is, it's all just speculation on our part - but the whole thing seems kind of fishy to me - a fact that could be easily remedied by MG, if they would just be forthcoming with some information.

Ignoring your phone and emails just doesn't seem like that smart a move, when the only thing you have left is the trust of your customers.

I do believe, that a lot of people wouldn't try to scramble to get their orders cancelled and refunded if they got some better information than "SALESALESALE" every two days - this wave of cancellations can not be good if they try to generate some cashflow.

I couldn't agree with this more! the lack of communication is what is really making things seem so much worse and making life difficult!

It seems to be the blocking all communication is a stalling tactic so some people wont cancel. Those who have not paid via paypal have to wait before they can lodge claims. They are also probably hoping people will just hold off!

redeyed wrote:

 IK-Painter wrote:
Thing is, it's all just speculation on our part - but the whole thing seems kind of fishy to me - a fact that could be easily remedied by MG, if they would just be forthcoming with some information.

Ignoring your phone and emails just doesn't seem like that smart a move, when the only thing you have left is the trust of your customers.

I do believe, that a lot of people wouldn't try to scramble to get their orders cancelled and refunded if they got some better information than "SALESALESALE" every two days - this wave of cancellations can not be good if they try to generate some cashflow.

I couldn't agree with this more! the lack of communication is what is really making things seem so much worse and making life difficult!

It seems to be the blocking all communication is a stalling tactic so some people wont cancel. Those who have not paid via paypal have to wait before they can lodge claims. They are also probably hoping people will just hold off!

True, they could put an end to all this speculation, and there is a lot of it, with a little bit of communication.
Its a bit of a kick in the teeth for these people that cant get in contact with them, to keep receiving emails about sales !

ted1138 wrote:

JamieisOOP wrote:
They cancelled my order after I opened a paypal dispute, but now they're taking their time to actually refund me!

Have you escalated it to a claim yet? It's Paypal that decides on a refund, and it shouldn't take too long after it's escalated(up to 14 days, but in my case it was just 2) to get your money back...

Hey ya, it is a claim I escalated immediately as I had spent 3 days phoning every few hours as well as sending emails (some up to 10 days old,) with no replies. It say's it is giving them 12 (I think it was 12) days to reply to my claim, call me cynical but I think they are deliberately dragging this out.

Wish I had not pre-ordered £70 worth of X-wing in August

http://www.oft.gov.uk/shared_oft/distance-selling-downloads/for-customers/DSforcustomers_rightsbuying1.pdf

Just because they're ignoring you doesn't mean you're screwed. Send a letter (requiring signed for delivery and get proof of postage) saying you want to cancel the order.

Guys we are not completely sure here that they are going into receivership, or anything else, let's not jump to conclusions. Lots of companies run deep into the red, owe money to creditors and everything else. I would say that companies run in this manner are probably more frequent than those that have everything swimming in the black.

As we've heard from multiple FLGS owners on this very website, it can be dangerous to have too much stock sitting on the shelves for any length of time. If they are conducting a warehouse move (again - we've heard from several people who have visited the store that they are doing this) it makes much more sense to get rid of some of that ballast they are carrying. 30%-50% reduction means that they are basically selling for the net price that they got the items in for, so in that sense if they have had a lot of old stock sat gathering dust for several years it pays to try and get rid of it rather than pay for it all to be moved, inventoried and everything else at the new location. This is especially true of older lines, some of which it looks like they have discontinued which would seem to support this.

Regarding the lack of correspondence, again look at what some posters above have commented on. Lots of large cages packed with parcels waiting to go out in the post each day. Bear in mind that this (despite it's size in the wargaming industry) isn't a big business, but it's a handful of guys running it. No doubt with the warehouse move, the influx of orders because of the sale and everything else, some le-way has to be given.

I'm not excusing all of Maelstrom's foibles - not having some kind of note to purchasers that there may be a delay is inexcusable, as is the massive delay with no refund for items that are out of stock that some of the posters on Dakka have noted. But, I think it makes more sense to look at the larger picture (as reported by people who have been into the shop - not just speculation), and think perhaps that there is the possibility that the sky is not falling.

Yeah, everything seems fine. Business as usual. Just disregard most of the 13 pages in this thread.

On a "business as usual" note, I got this overnight:

Hi there,

Once more here at Maelstrom Games (www.maelstromgames.co.uk) we have decided to clear as much of our hard-earned stock as we possibly can over the next few days and to that end, all our remaining stock will now be sold at 50% off UK RRP except for Battlefront Miniatures, which will be sold at 30% off UK RRP and Templar's Forge at 75% off. We still hold good stocks of Battlefront (we have just had our last order delivered so there may well be some stock you didn't realise we had - so it's worth checking!), Gamezone Miniatures, Dark Age, Micro Art Studio, Cool Mini or Not and Scibor Miniatures, and there's a few bits of Games Workshop, Privateer Press and Malifaux left too. These sales don't come along very often - so take advantage of it, as this is our FINAL stock sale and it WILL end on Monday the 22nd of October! Grab a bargain now!


YOUR STOCK CLEARANCE SALE VOUCHER
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The voucher will work on all the items in our webstore that are IN STOCK ONLY, but it will NOT work on any out of stock items or pre-orders, nor anything within our eBay store.

Your voucher code is: FINAL-STOCK-SALE

To use this voucher simply register on the webstore, www.maelstromgames.co.uk (if you haven't already), copy and paste the code into the Voucher field in your basket when you have selected the items you want, press 'REDEEM', and the webstore will do the rest. You are not limited to one purchase and, indeed, we would ask you to recommend us to your friends with this voucher!

Remember though that this voucher is intended for the webstore only - it does not apply to any of our auctions or Fixed Price items on eBay.

Happy Ordering!

Yep, everything here seems legit.

I resent the fact that people call this speculation.

I have researched this alot, including their Financial position in the last 12 months. You don't make a prediction like they will go under, based on gut feeling...

https://www.duedil.com/company/04724863/maelstrom-games-limited/financials

You should all do your research, I work in the Financial sector and specifically the Financial Fraud Sector since leaving the Military. The statements I have made are based on facts, from Returns and HMRC returns all open source information. I am lucky in that I have access to other subscription based services but this is open to anyone who subscribes to these services for investments (such as Shares, stocks and Bonds).

This is not speculation, it is mathematics, business acumen and an understanding of business practices. It has nothing whatsoever to do with Pseudo-theories about how you move a warehouse (which is a none issue).

Not commenting on the financial stability of the company I will say that the last orders I made over the last few weeks have been showing up like clockwork.

As long as the items are in stock (which they have to be now when you make an order), it does seem like the orders get shipped in a timely fashion....

 mwnciboo wrote:
I resent the fact that people call this speculation.

I have researched this alot, including their Financial position in the last 12 months. You don't make a prediction like they will go under, based on gut feeling...

https://www.duedil.com/company/04724863/maelstrom-games-limited/financials

You should all do your research, I work in the Financial sector and specifically the Financial Fraud Sector since leaving the Military. The statements I have made are based on facts, from Returns and HMRC returns all open source information. I am lucky in that I have access to other subscription based services but this is open to anyone who subscribes to these services for investments (such as Shares, stocks and Bonds).

This is not speculation, it is mathematics, business acumen and an understanding of business practices. It has nothing whatsoever to do with Pseudo-theories about how you move a warehouse (which is a none issue).

Resent what you like, its speculation until we know otherwise and know it alls like yourself repeatedly making your doom and gloom bs hypotheses public are doing them no favours

blingman wrote:

 mwnciboo wrote:
I resent the fact that people call this speculation.

I have researched this alot, including their Financial position in the last 12 months. You don't make a prediction like they will go under, based on gut feeling...

https://www.duedil.com/company/04724863/maelstrom-games-limited/financials

You should all do your research, I work in the Financial sector and specifically the Financial Fraud Sector since leaving the Military. The statements I have made are based on facts, from Returns and HMRC returns all open source information. I am lucky in that I have access to other subscription based services but this is open to anyone who subscribes to these services for investments (such as Shares, stocks and Bonds).

This is not speculation, it is mathematics, business acumen and an understanding of business practices. It has nothing whatsoever to do with Pseudo-theories about how you move a warehouse (which is a none issue).

Resent what you like, its speculation until we know otherwise and know it alls like yourself repeatedly making your doom and gloom bs hypotheses public are doing them no favours

Over -18000% change on Networth in a Year? A BS Hypothesis? Well we shall see who is proved right shall we.....

Whether or not it's speculation I'm sure will all come out in the wash...

What is perhaps interesting is that if it is deemed that the directors have been trading either wrongfully or insolvently then any transactions made in the last couple of years in order to hide any toxicity can be reversed.

The simple test is this, if the company were liquidated right now, could it meet its liabilities in full, including the cost of collection and liquidation? The financials suggest not and they were submitted in May and it's not got much rosier since.

Unless the directors have truly had pants on their heads and pencils up their nose for the last 18 months they either knew or should have realised that it was going tits up. Trading out of the position is one thing, letting it slide until the 11th hour and then frantically treading on women and children to get in the lifeboat, entirely another.

Debts past due, frantic asset shifting and outright admissions that they don't have the money to fulfill customer orders. Well, alarm bells should be ringing really and it's looking like too little, too late.

On the subject of new warehouses though, any one seen it? Been given an address? When they took on The Mill they were very proud of it, strange that hasn't happened this time. You know, unless it doesn't exist and it has been, for want of a better word, one massive confidence scam. That is speculation though.

The question is, where's the money actually gone?

Vowels for Darklands figures perhaps.

Intruiging.

Edgar.

 mwnciboo wrote:
I resent the fact that people call this speculation.

I have researched this alot, including their Financial position in the last 12 months. You don't make a prediction like they will go under, based on gut feeling...

https://www.duedil.com/company/04724863/maelstrom-games-limited/financials

You should all do your research, I work in the Financial sector and specifically the Financial Fraud Sector since leaving the Military. The statements I have made are based on facts, from Returns and HMRC returns all open source information. I am lucky in that I have access to other subscription based services but this is open to anyone who subscribes to these services for investments (such as Shares, stocks and Bonds).

This is not speculation, it is mathematics, business acumen and an understanding of business practices. It has nothing whatsoever to do with Pseudo-theories about how you move a warehouse (which is a none issue).

OK mate fair enough, and thanks for the constructive answer!

Guess much of my opinion is one based on belief and hope, not the firmest of foundations in anything to do with finance I guess..

 The Plastic Surgeon wrote:

 Yonan wrote:

 IK-Painter wrote:
What bums me out the most is that they obviously and self-admittedly are having problems with their cash flow, but still promote sale after sale, for which they obviously have no stock.

They're not accepting orders for things not in stock.

Well they obviously are as they've split my orders of items that were listed as IN STOCK.

Not happy with lack of communications (ignored), not happy that I'm being lied to (regarding stock)

Separate issues to what I was replying to. I won't deny that it sounds like 1. their communication is poor lately - high order volume and probably understaffed due to financial difficulties imo. Its important to distinguish this from incompetene or malice/dodginess. 2. Their stock tracking has some problems, this does not result in a loss to the buyer, just a minor annoyance that they dont receive something straight away - which can be cancelled.

As far as I can tell, no one is out of pocket due to Maelstrom?

 BrookM wrote:
They are usually slow to ship, regardless of stock levels. It usually takes them a month to ship things to me. I switched to US based Miniature Market, which might not have free shipping, but does feature fast shipping and great prices.

I can vouche for Miniature Market, it is local and I have never had a problem with them.

Also, in my type of retail business if a customer ordered something and I didn't have it and didn't know when I would get it in for sure I would go the extra mile and get it from another store, local or online and provide it to the customer to go the extra mile for them. It may cost you a little more but in the end that customer will likely be very loyal to your business.

 Yonan wrote:


As far as I can tell, no one is out of pocket due to Maelstrom?

You could legitimately argue that anyone who has been trying to secure a refund but has been unable to have their communications acknowledged is out of pocket. If they go under without fulfilling or refunding their outstanding orders, a lot of people are likely to be out of pocket.

Actually, I'm slightly out of pocket - I had to cancel my Vallejo Model Air order when after a month and several BS phone calls stalling me it became obvious that they weren't going to get my order in. I was lucky enough to be able to cancel it and when I reordered the same items from another retailer, it cost me more. Not to mention a month of my time, a number of international phone calls and the general stress of dealing with their BS. (The Airbrush setup was a gift to me for my birthday for my wife - finally got it all in hand over a month after my birthday. Yeah, yeah, first world problems, but as a birthday gift from her it holds more meaning to me than another boxed set of figures.) - Going from the last couple of pages in this thread, I'm hardly the worst off either.


Then there's the little factor of their creditors. We've seen how much of a difference even US$10,000 can make to an existing business in this industry through some of the Kickstarter campaigns. That's only £6,200. According to https://www.duedil.com/company/04724863/maelstrom-games-limited

Maelstrom Games Limited was registered on 07 Apr 2003 with its registered office in Nottinghamshire. The business has a status of active. They were founded by Robert Lane, and Andrew Chesney. There are 2 shareholders of Maelstrom Games Limited. They have no known group companies. The company has assets totalling £375,518 plus liabilities totalling £567,481. They owe £567,388 to creditors and are due £130,137 from trade debtors. Their net worth is £-132,432, and the value of their shareholders' interest is £4,523.

That's an awful lot of money to owe people, even allowing for 60 or 90-day payment terms. It has the potential to really hurt a lot of the small businesses in our hobby. Places like Tre Manor's Red Box Games that Maelstrom started stocking earlier this year and and now clearancing. Did Tre get paid? Hopefully, but who knows? And so on for close on half a million pounds.

 mwnciboo wrote:
There is of course a second element to all of this, if Maelstrom does cease trading (a likely prospect) what of the other parts of the Business they are seeking to seperate or have seperated in the last 12 months?

Specifically BANE LEGIONS now owned by Mierce Miniatures (Another Company by the Same owner/ Managing Director of Maelstrom), will all this bad PR and customer service reflect of any further or derivative business? It is difficult to repair damage done through bad customer service or from a Business collapse leaving customers high and dry.

Read this:-

http://thefrontlinegamer.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/industry-talk-rob-lane-mierce-miniatures.html

So he is Managing Director of both? Does he expect to Shaft the Community with poor service at Maelstrom one minute, and then an all Sin's Forgiven policy towards BANE LEGIONS two minutes later?

Why not? It's what David Doust did after New Wave ripped off thousands of gamers worldwide (ironically I was not among them; I received everything I paid for in my one order from them, though it did take around 14 months). He was involved in Dark Age Games during New Wave's collapse and now heads up CMON.

Everyone loves CMON, right?

How many of you remember New Wave?

With those kind of debts, and the lack of assets, I can't really see them surviving as a business. We know from their own website and from duedit that they have almost no assets to bring money in, and it's pretty clear they won't be able to get further credit from their suppliers. There doesn't even seem to be all that much value attached to the name any more -- their customer goodwill seems to be at an all-time low!

It's a shame -- they had a great venue in Eye of the Storm, and good prices for many years, even if their speed of delivery was always a bit questionable.

It's a shame that a company that was set up to support the wargames hobby has had such problems with the biggest wargames manufacturers(GW&BF). A friend of mine asked me a couple of years ago how Maelstrom could afford to carry so many different makes of product, I told him they must be doing most of their trade in the big few brands, and it was great that they still supported the smaller ones too. Good luck to them anyway, and I hope they manage to pull through this and carry on trading in some form...

Dingleson wrote:
Wish I had not pre-ordered £70 worth of X-wing in August

I pre-ordered it in 2011 when Maelstrom first put it up on their shop. I thought about cancelling the order when FFG delayed it for a year but I figured I could wait. I wish I had cancelled it... I have now bought it from Spirit Games instead.

It seems that MG never even got it in stock at all.

 laffe wrote:

Dingleson wrote:
Wish I had not pre-ordered £70 worth of X-wing in August

I pre-ordered it in 2011 when Maelstrom first put it up on their shop. I thought about cancelling the order when FFG delayed it for a year but I figured I could wait. I wish I had cancelled it... I have now bought it from Spirit Games instead.

It seems that MG never even got it in stock at all.

This also happened to me sadly :(, brought from Wayland and Firestorm both where excellent with their communication and speed of delivery, not the case with Maelstrom sadly.

angryboy2k wrote:

 mwnciboo wrote:
There is of course a second element to all of this, if Maelstrom does cease trading (a likely prospect) what of the other parts of the Business they are seeking to seperate or have seperated in the last 12 months?

Specifically BANE LEGIONS now owned by Mierce Miniatures (Another Company by the Same owner/ Managing Director of Maelstrom), will all this bad PR and customer service reflect of any further or derivative business? It is difficult to repair damage done through bad customer service or from a Business collapse leaving customers high and dry.

Read this:-

http://thefrontlinegamer.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/industry-talk-rob-lane-mierce-miniatures.html

So he is Managing Director of both? Does he expect to Shaft the Community with poor service at Maelstrom one minute, and then an all Sin's Forgiven policy towards BANE LEGIONS two minutes later?

Why not? It's what David Doust did after New Wave ripped off thousands of gamers worldwide (ironically I was not among them; I received everything I paid for in my one order from them, though it did take around 14 months). He was involved in Dark Age Games during New Wave's collapse and now heads up CMON.

Everyone loves CMON, right?

How many of you remember New Wave?

Ah yes, the company that would (from what I heard) pack their orders with the shredded remains of other customers order forms (with all their card details on them etc.) instead of bubble wrap.

I noticed this morning that Eye of the Storm now appears on the Games workshop website store finder.

Bit of an update.

An order I received dispatch notification for on 15/10/12 arrived this morning. Everything was present, no errors - but it was only a small order (2 X FOW blisters & 2 Vallejo paints).

Strangely though, it arrived in a (very well) padded envelope instead of the usual box - not complaining though - much less packaging to deal with.

All in all, call me a happy bunny - just another small order to go and all will be well.

 laffe wrote:

Dingleson wrote:
Wish I had not pre-ordered £70 worth of X-wing in August

I pre-ordered it in 2011 when Maelstrom first put it up on their shop. I thought about cancelling the order when FFG delayed it for a year but I figured I could wait. I wish I had cancelled it... I have now bought it from Spirit Games instead.

It seems that MG never even got it in stock at all.

I don't understand..? Have you not got your money back from Maelstrom for it?

the guy who said are people actually out of pocket, very silly


As for being able to cancel Maelstrom are making sure it is as difficult as possible to do so.

Cant cancel by emailing them : Ignored

Cant cancel by phoning them: Ignored

Possibly can cancel via post: will be ignored unless recorded/signed for and will take time/leave one out of pocket.


this whole situation is just massively annoying for a great many people, myself included.

Well no more updates from my end.

No updates from Paypal regarding the claim lodged.

Half my stuff has been dispatched (mostly the order I wanted to cancel...sigh)

The other (all 'in stock' items) are stuck in processing...

another small update here:

01623 629 425 - the store number is now being ignored also.

Seems they dont want to talk to anyone instore or online!

Yes.
I am sure that is what they are doing. Ignoring everything completely.

Mmh some of my orders were packing yesterday. Today, still packing. Now i receive an email saying 'order split", because some of the items are not in stock. The thing is, they had already split my orders to put all the items with stock allocated to them together. So stock was allocated, but now it has been removed. I guess the next step will be that it will move back from packing to processing.

The surprising thing is that the items removed because not in stock are labelled as in stock(10) on their website (stuff from mierce miniatures, which is basically their brand). This is getting pretty confusing.

 Eiríkr wrote:
Yes.
I am sure that is what they are doing. Ignoring everything completely.

Of course.

To repeat what I said earlier in the thread, which appears to have been ironically enough, ignored...

 Grimtuff wrote:
To all those people having trouble getting through, when I was up there on thurs there was a problem with the chip and pin machine for the debit cards and it was simply not connecting (had to go to a nearby cash machine eventually). At the risk of putting 2 and 2 together and getting 5, maybe there is an issue with their phone connectivity. Just like Pacific said, Maelstrom don't strike me as a company that's gonna try and run off with your money.

Anyone know if they're still having trouble? If one cannot make card payments there's no surprise you cannot get through on the phone.

captain tanuki wrote:
Mmh some of my orders were packing yesterday. Today, still packing. Now i receive an email saying 'order split", because some of the items are not in stock. The thing is, they had already split my orders to put all the items with stock allocated to them together. So stock was allocated, but now it has been removed. I guess the next step will be that it will move back from packing to processing.

The surprising thing is that the items removed because not in stock are labelled as in stock(10) on their website (stuff from mierce miniatures, which is basically their brand). This is getting pretty confusing.

Same story - yesterday was packing, today it was split. Funny thing is that items "in stock" turned out to be those which I regarded as most likely to be in low stock or out of stock - appears that they still have some Flames of War stuff left. Whereas the item, which made the biggest part of my order - Forged In Battle platoon - turned out to be out of stock, although I was kinda 100% sure that they are supposed to have it physically - they had that platoon box listed for months but nobody wanted it...

 Grimtuff wrote:

 Eiríkr wrote:
Yes.
I am sure that is what they are doing. Ignoring everything completely.

Of course.

To repeat what I said earlier in the thread, which appears to have been ironically enough, ignored...

 Grimtuff wrote:
To all those people having trouble getting through, when I was up there on thurs there was a problem with the chip and pin machine for the debit cards and it was simply not connecting (had to go to a nearby cash machine eventually). At the risk of putting 2 and 2 together and getting 5, maybe there is an issue with their phone connectivity. Just like Pacific said, Maelstrom don't strike me as a company that's gonna try and run off with your money.

Anyone know if they're still having trouble? If one cannot make card payments there's no surprise you cannot get through on the phone.

Yup. I suspected that most people have glossed over your post.

they are still taking fresh orders so somewhat bizzare that they are having trouble with card payments.


Also regarding the phone, if there was a problem there it wouldnt be ringing at all. It wouldnt be left to ring off to infinity on both their landlines.

redeyed wrote:
they are still taking fresh orders so somewhat bizzare that they are having trouble with card payments.

I'm referring to buying things physically instore, not over the Internet. The shop's chip and pin machine was not connecting at all, which would indicate a fault with the line. Hence no phone calls able to get through.

But that's just my wild mass guessing there.

 Grimtuff wrote:

redeyed wrote:
they are still taking fresh orders so somewhat bizzare that they are having trouble with card payments.

I'm referring to buying things physically instore, not over the Internet. The shop's chip and pin machine was not connecting at all, which would indicate a fault with the line. Hence no phone calls able to get through.

But that's just my wild mass guessing there.

The phone actually rings, so I seriously doubt there is an issue with the phone line. I even got the engaged tone to begin with, indicating that their phone line was in use, so the two can't be connected.

I suppose I'll chime in and say that I just received emails telling me my orders have been dispatched.
It's worth noting that these were both just Scibor and Gamezone stuff I ordered during these sales, and that I'd picked items that were showing multiples still in stock, but it might be useful information for anyone interested in getting some of those that they still might have left.

According to their e-mail, the part with got splitted has been dispatched today. Which leaves me with two other orders still pending...

Their phone line is fine. It either rings and rings because they're ignoring us, or gives the busy tone because someone else is trying to ring. It's not a technical problem, they've just shut off all lines of communication to stop us getting our money back.

 GCMandrake wrote:
Their phone line is fine. It either rings and rings because they're ignoring us, or gives the busy tone because someone else is trying to ring. It's not a technical problem, they've just shut off all lines of communication to stop us getting our money back.

Yes, that's exactly why they're doing it.

 GCMandrake wrote:
Their phone line is fine. It either rings and rings because they're ignoring us, or gives the busy tone because someone else is trying to ring. It's not a technical problem, they've just shut off all lines of communication to stop us getting our money back.

You're sounding pretty confident there dude.

What if I told you I had the exact same fault twice in twelve months at my shop where the caller would hear a ringing tone but there would be absolutely no indication at my end that someone was trying to get through? Happened to my parents once in the same period too.

So this exact fault can occur on BT exchanges.

Do I think this is the issue?

Probably not.

FWIW The order I placed late last night has shipped today, so some things are still business as usual.

"Yes, that's exactly why they're doing it. :facepalm " as constructive as the rumour mongering there.


Sarcasm aside that is the most likely thing "facepalm". Just because you have not been directly affected by this does not mean others do not have a valid issue/complaint.


If there was a major problem with their ability to take cards OR their phoneline, AND it was something that would seriously affect customers. Wouldnt you think they would send an email round or put a notice up? (I dont know any business that would keep their active phoneline down for over 2 weeks)

If they werent trying to screen their customers dont you think SOMEONE would have got through by now or said otherwise other than putting facepalm emoticons?

Added to this someone would have actually got a reply to their query via email by now instead of being blanked.

AND obviously there are people who want to cancel, most companies would still allow/creative a facility to do this.


They are clearly still operating
They are clearly still sending out orders
They clearly still have the facility to send/recieve emails (even if magically their phoneline is down).

So it is not too much to expect a reply or some information from them.

For the third time in this thread. UK Customers I suggest

Watchdog

There's nothing quite like Anne Robinson glaring at them through a tv screen to get a company's rear end in gear.

Unfortunately, I very much doubt Watchdog will be interested in researching and filming a piece about a few nerds getting ripped off- it's not very compelling TV and in the scheme of things, very small beans.

I just received my order today, about £50 of Gamezone/scibor miniatures (well actually £100, but with 50% discount).

I think it's probably a bit of a lotto in terms of what you can buy (most of the good stuff is out of stock!), but it's quite nice with that 30% discount.

They always do that round up at the end of the show about small companies that are being jerks. It'd fit quite happily in there. And it would also match the BBC's recent article about online companies being dodgy about orders.

And the fact that we're still getting the "OMG SALES!!111!1!!" e-mails while not getting any serious reply to our refund requests is... sketchy at best.

redeyed wrote:
"Yes, that's exactly why they're doing it. :facepalm " as constructive as the rumour mongering there.


Sarcasm aside that is the most likely thing "facepalm". Just because you have not been directly affected by this does not mean others do not have a valid issue/complaint.


If there was a major problem with their ability to take cards OR their phoneline, AND it was something that would seriously affect customers. Wouldnt you think they would send an email round or put a notice up? (I dont know any business that would keep their active phoneline down for over 2 weeks)

If they werent trying to screen their customers dont you think SOMEONE would have got through by now or said otherwise other than putting facepalm emoticons?

Added to this someone would have actually got a reply to their query via email by now instead of being blanked.

AND obviously there are people who want to cancel, most companies would still allow/creative a facility to do this.


They are clearly still operating
They are clearly still sending out orders
They clearly still have the facility to send/recieve emails (even if magically their phoneline is down).

So it is not too much to expect a reply or some information from them.

Not sure if this is directed at me, as it doesn't read too well tbh.

But assuming it does.

1) People were stating that it was impossible that this was a phone fault. I was stating it quite possibly can be.
2) It is more than possible for a fault to affect a voice line and not the internet connection.
3) I wasn't disparaging other people's issues just because I was unaffected. I merely wished to illustrate that there is a lot of conclusion jumping and assumption making in this thread.

Fact is they are obviously under a lot of pressure and the amount of incoming contact is probably overwhelming. Their approach is t what I would do, but I don't have their issues!

You mean you'd do this?


Just remember to sing REALLY loud!

 azreal13 wrote:

But assuming it does.

1) People were stating that it was impossible that this was a phone fault. I was stating it quite possibly can be.
2) It is more than possible for a fault to affect a voice line and not the internet connection.
3) I wasn't disparaging other people's issues just because I was unaffected. I merely wished to illustrate that there is a lot of conclusion jumping and assumption making in this thread.

Fact is they are obviously under a lot of pressure and the amount of incoming contact is probably overwhelming. Their approach is t what I would do, but I don't have their issues!

Pretty much this.

Too many people are assuming Maelstrom have run off with their money to start a new life in the Cayman Islands or something. Since when have they ever acted like this? They have built up a lot of trust over the years and are the genuine article, unlike say Three Stage Studios and the like. From what I've seen in the past, such as with the end of the GW embargo last year, where they were literally up to their armpits in boxes and couldn't keep up, coupled with more GW shenanigans turning people to Warmahordes, of which their stock levels have never truly recovered.

They're victims of their own success and need more backstock. A good place to put this would be, I dunno, a new warehouse perhaps?

 Grimtuff wrote:
They have built up a lot of trust over the years and are the genuine article

Just to be a bit more balanced, a good history or track record can easily be derailed. It is all meaningless it's your current actions that define you. You don't get let off from a Legal offence because you were good in your past, it may mitigate the punishment slightly but you don't get let off.

The same with goes in all walks of life, integrity once gone cannot easily be replaced. The argument of they were good in past doesn't translate as they will be good now or in the future.

So I'm sorry I don't buy it, MG have been good the last 3 years or so, in the last 2-3 months there has been an exponential rise in the number of complaints and problems.

They're victims of their own success and need more backstock. A good place to put this would be, I dunno, a new warehouse perhaps?

A business with zero Cashflow is not successful. A Business that cannot buy in new lines like X-wing because of lack of Cash flow, that then decides to liquidate it's stock for less than it's value with 50% off (considering that 35% is the average retail profit margin) at a loss to generate cash flow so it can then buy the Lines it should have had the Cashflow for in the 1st place is bad management. By the time the money comes in, the "Feel good period" of the launch is gone, those who pre-ordered are annoyed and cancel / ask for a refund. This is a one way spiral.

 Yojiro wrote:
You mean you'd do this?


Just remember to sing REALLY loud!

Ha!

No, that's pretty much the opposite. I'd like to think I'd deal with it better than they appear to be, but I don't have any idea of the scale of their issues.

Besides, how many calls are answered each day?

We have no idea because nobody comes on an internet forum and says "hey, I called someone today and had no trouble at all"

There's a problem, that's obvious, but I'd hate a problem to turn into a Northern Rock when with a little understanding and cooperation between Maelstrom and their customers things could work out.

That said I DO understand the frustration of not being able to contact a company when you really need to, and those that are in that boat have my sympathies.

 azreal13 wrote:


Ha!

No, that's pretty much the opposite. I'd like to think I'd deal with it better than they appear to be, but I don't have any idea of the scale of their issues.

Besides, how many calls are answered each day?

We have no idea because nobody comes on an internet forum and says "hey, I called someone today and had no trouble at all"

There's a problem, that's obvious, but I'd hate a problem to turn into a Northern Rock when with a little understanding and cooperation between Maelstrom and their customers things could work out.

That said I DO understand the frustration of not being able to contact a company when you really need to, and those that are in that boat have my sympathies.

Touché for the empathy, my friend.

Regardless, what is truly ticking me off is just the appalling costumer service.

That alone is what swaying so many people against them. Even if we are blowing this out of proportion, their silence isn't really helping.

I pre-ordered the DV LE for the damned Chaplain. It took them 2 weeks to tell me "hey sorry we kinda... don't have enough of those LE's unlike we promised.. but HEY we'll give you the normal box and you'll keep the rest as shop credit"
... that was 3 weeks ago.

A company's semblance of integrity (or lack thereof) is everything, and it's double so when they deal so much in foreign trade.

But heh... Back to the ostrich!

 azreal13 wrote:
but I'd hate a problem to turn into a Northern Rock when with a little understanding and cooperation between Maelstrom and their customers things could work out.

By this are you infering the UK Government is going to bail out Maelstrom Games and then sell it after a period?

Northern Rock was best known for becoming the first bank in 150 years to suffer a bank run after having had to approach the Bank of England for a loan facility, to replace money market funding, during the credit crisis in 2007.[2] Having failed to find a commercial buyer for the business, it was taken into public ownership in 2008, and was then bought by Virgin Money in 2012.

Because it had nothing to do with the Northern Rock Customers, it had to do with the banks lack of Liquidity which essentially meant it didn't hae enough cash/assets held back and had over leant/ exposed it's position based on cheap credit available on the markets. Suddenly that easy cheap credit disappeared and they didn't have enough withheld to cover their liabilities when called on it, they suffered a run couldn't get a cheap loan or any loan and it spiralled.

My recollection is that a rumour that the bank was in difficulty resulted in investors queuing around the block in order to withdraw their money, which then turned a rumour into a stone cold fact.

Yes, it did but the Bank was over exposed, it should be easily able to meet it's customers requirements with a minimum 5% with holding of 4M and and a liability exposure of less than 40% - 50%. Especially as they held alot of Mortgages, Instead because they had used 95% of its investors Money on Speculative Investment banking across the globe.

When the Credit Crunch came the 95% of money it had leant for gain was invested in toxic / bad debt, resulting in £27 Billion of debt that could not/ would not ever be reclaimed due to the Sub-prime collapse in the US. It is like giving me £1000 and I only give you £250 back. 3/4 Of your investment is gone, they were then over exposed as they had to find the 75% somewhere, they couldn't because all banks were exposed and so lacked the liquidity to meet it's liabilities, resulting in everyone rushing to grab their savings. The Mortgages etc (e.g Good Assets) were sold to Virgin, the bad toxic debt £400million (still owned by the UK government BTW ) is underwritten by the UK , so that equals £5.70 for every man woman and child in the country which will never be written off, we all have to pay it off ourselves - NORTHERN ROCK were bunch of ****ing cowboys and we are paying for it.

The Over Exposure was the Cause - The Run on the bank was the effect.

I presume that from now on EOTS stock has nothing to do with Maelstrom, as both are now separate limited companies.


As for the poor cs I will again reiterate points made earlier. If the phone lines are down and IF they are having trouble processing payments and IF they have a backlog of orders going out and IF they cannot find stock to make up orders then there should be a system in place to contact their customers to notify them of delays.

They can get a sales email out to their customer list pdq, 3 over the same amount of days almost. they can send to all a notification of delay.

People who have paid for their orders can get recourse for reimbursement, Maelstrom not answering their phones is not the end of the world. Contact Paypal and your card providers IF you have not received your goods.

If you are truly panicked by what seems to be happening then claim a refund anyway, again, from your card service provider or paypal.

Ok, so my point that it may be beneficial for both parties if customers held off panic cancelling still stands?

Once again, I must state I completely understand those that are getting jumpy, but just consider if you are chasing them for a refund that your actions and those of others that are doing likewise may be the very thing that actually causes them to fold and you to lose your cash. If (and I DO realise it's a big if!) you can hold your nerve you may get your goods and allow Maelstrom to keep going.

Not saying anyone should, just trying to add to the discussion.

 Grimtuff wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:

But assuming it does.

1) People were stating that it was impossible that this was a phone fault. I was stating it quite possibly can be.
2) It is more than possible for a fault to affect a voice line and not the internet connection.
3) I wasn't disparaging other people's issues just because I was unaffected. I merely wished to illustrate that there is a lot of conclusion jumping and assumption making in this thread.

Fact is they are obviously under a lot of pressure and the amount of incoming contact is probably overwhelming. Their approach is t what I would do, but I don't have their issues!

Pretty much this.

Too many people are assuming Maelstrom have run off with their money to start a new life in the Cayman Islands or something. Since when have they ever acted like this? They have built up a lot of trust over the years and are the genuine article, unlike say Three Stage Studios and the like. From what I've seen in the past, such as with the end of the GW embargo last year, where they were literally up to their armpits in boxes and couldn't keep up, coupled with more GW shenanigans turning people to Warmahordes, of which their stock levels have never truly recovered.

They're victims of their own success and need more backstock. A good place to put this would be, I dunno, a new warehouse perhaps?

Grim' They cannot buy backstock if they are liqudating old stock at a massive discount. If they have a new warehouse for Maelstrom (EOTS wouldn't need it btw) they do not have enough cash to fill it.

 Ravenblade666 wrote:

 laffe wrote:

Dingleson wrote:
Wish I had not pre-ordered £70 worth of X-wing in August

I pre-ordered it in 2011 when Maelstrom first put it up on their shop. I thought about cancelling the order when FFG delayed it for a year but I figured I could wait. I wish I had cancelled it... I have now bought it from Spirit Games instead.

It seems that MG never even got it in stock at all.

This also happened to me sadly :(, brought from Wayland and Firestorm both where excellent with their communication and speed of delivery, not the case with Maelstrom sadly.

The worst wasn't the money -- I'm out of 25 quid, I can live with that -- but the feeling of preordering a game, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting... and more waiting... and then when it's finally launched you realise it's starting to turn up in every shop from your FLGS to other internet retailers, but not the one you ordered from. And they don't even say a word about it!

it was not Azrael!
It was directed Grimtuff's facepalm post.

As for not reading too well. It was composed on my mobile. So I thought I did rather well considering I was on a moving train with many distractions etc!
(although I'm not sure the relevance of how well it reads is to the points being made)



I think many peoples problem is this:

If Maelstrom could be bothered to communicate and actually refute all the rumour mongering I think many people including myself would feel MUCH happier!

I would be less jumpy and with some information less likely to want to cancel my order.

The fact I was lied to just before this all begun did not help my opinion either.



EDIT:I have to add, those people chasing for refunds: most of us cannot get a refund or even chase for one because all lines of communications are closed. ( a breach of distance selling law, as we are perfectly entitled to do so whatever the reason)
It is the lack of communication and the lack of replies that is creating the problem.

 Baragash wrote:

 laffe wrote:

Dingleson wrote:
Wish I had not pre-ordered £70 worth of X-wing in August

I pre-ordered it in 2011 when Maelstrom first put it up on their shop. I thought about cancelling the order when FFG delayed it for a year but I figured I could wait. I wish I had cancelled it... I have now bought it from Spirit Games instead.

It seems that MG never even got it in stock at all.

I don't understand..? Have you not got your money back from Maelstrom for it?

Nope. And they don't answer emails and the phone. And it's too much hassle to open a dispute with the credit card company for a transaction that's over a year old, just for £25.

And don't get me wrong, I happily placed that order and several other orders during the year since, because MG has delivered everything so far. If they go under it's sad, but I do feel pissed off for them not telling that they wouldn't get the game. Or if they DID get a couple of boxes in, I feel pissed because they obviously didn't fill the oldest orders first.

redeyed wrote:
it was not Azrael!
It was directed Grimtuff's facepalm post.

So you think they've ran off with yours and everyone else's money to go driving around in brand new Porsches and have swimming pools for their gardens.

No.

Granted they *should* put up a notice on their website or something to put people's minds at ease, but to think they're just trying to up sticks and run off with people's money is just asinine.

If they were answering emails still, then it it would be possible that there is a genuine fault with the phone line (or, I suppose, their telephone handset), but the fact remains that they are not. That makes it more likely that they are screening customers and/or ignoring the phoneline entirely.

Note I said "more likely" and not "100% definite" as there is room for them to genuinely be as pressured as they imply in their sale emails. I don't think there's much room, though. They may have built a solid rep over the years, but they're crapping all over it now.

 Grimtuff wrote:

redeyed wrote:
it was not Azrael!
It was directed Grimtuff's facepalm post.

So you think they've ran off with yours and everyone else's money to go driving around in brand new Porsches and have swimming pools for their gardens.

No.

Granted they *should* put up a notice on their website or something to put people's minds at ease, but to think they're just trying to up sticks and run off with people's money is just asinine.

No I wouldnt go that far.

But what I do think they are doing, is making it as difficult for people to cancel and get in touch as possible.

I think its more likely a delaying tactic because they had so many people cancelling before due to problems/delays.

 Graf Hagin wrote:
If they were answering emails still, then it it would be possible that there is a genuine fault with the phone line (or, I suppose, their telephone handset), but the fact remains that they are not. That makes it more likely that they are screening customers and/or ignoring the phoneline entirely.

Note I said "more likely" and not "100% definite" as there is room for them to genuinely be as pressured as they imply in their sale emails. I don't think there's much room, though. They may have built a solid rep over the years, but they're crapping all over it now.

Of course they're screening emails. Do you really think they're going to dedicate a person's entire shift to simply answering the many hundreds of "WARRS ME TOY SOLDJARS!" emails. That's why most companies have the auto update things on your order (some even mention on their site to not contact them about your order, as it's usually covered by their FAQ). In the nicest possible way, you're just wasting their time and holding them up from picking and packing orders by asking the same question over and over again.

Don't get me wrong, I sympathise with people who haven't got their orders, but this fething witch hunt over them is just getting preposterous.

I sent e-mail last week and asked about my order's status and expressed my worries about their financial situation.

I received this e-mail (copy paste) in the same day:

"Hi

I'm very sorry for the delay you have are having with us, due to the discount voucher we are offering we are experiencing a large amount of orders and emails, we are working through this as quick as we can and will respond to every email we receive.

Thanks for your continued support

Cheers

Maelstrom Games"

*sanity prevails*

Not a major point, but I had the dispatch email for the small order I made to use up my MoneyBack. Will confirm when it arrives - or, at least, when Royal Mail put the usual red card through the door to say they failed to deliver it.

redeyed wrote:
EDIT:I have to add, those people chasing for refunds: most of us cannot get a refund or even chase for one because all lines of communications are closed. ( a breach of distance selling law, as we are perfectly entitled to do so whatever the reason)
It is the lack of communication and the lack of replies that is creating the problem.

I think you'd have trouble making that case given you could send them a letter + recorded delivery + get proof of postage, so all lines of communication aren't closed.

What I'd be interested in would be whether any pre-orders went up (eg the new CSM stuff which I don't believe has ever been in stock) when Maelstrom already knew they were blocked from getting it. Depending on the circumstances that could be fraud.

mmm this is true however it would definately have to be recorded or they could just deny they recieved it. (even with a proof of postage)
Also such a big inconvinience/cost when one should be able to do it online/via phone!

After popping into my local bank recently/getting some advice. The option I am going to take is a chargeback.


Ideally I would just like to know when I will be recieving my stuff.

(little history on my situation, ordered £100 worth of stuff a week and a half ago. I contacted them shortly after to confirm as I was concerned. They told me it would go out the next day/was all in stock. Obviously it was a lie as I am still waiting and they refuse all communications)

Zumppa wrote:
I sent e-mail last week and asked about my order's status and expressed my worries about their financial situation.

I received this e-mail (copy paste) in the same day:

"Hi

I'm very sorry for the delay you have are having with us, due to the discount voucher we are offering we are experiencing a large amount of orders and emails, we are working through this as quick as we can and will respond to every email we receive.

Thanks for your continued support

Cheers

Maelstrom Games"

Wow you're very lucky there! Been emailing them for over two weeks, to no reply. Phoning daily too, no reply!

OK I've logged mine through paypal

My reasons....

Communication - none
Sales - far too many, far too big and latest closure date of sale (22nd)
Faith - lacking

Also I get £50 a month hobby money - I work 160 hours a month - I am not allowing a months work to vanish

This makes me part of the problem, I know. BUT how can I place any trust in a company that is IMHO circleing the drain and about to pull the plug

The dropping of paypal is a bad sign and this last dicount....I would feel dirty cashing in my cashback at this point so I have some honour and I hope it comes back fighting strong but I'm not working a month for nothing

Zumppa wrote:
"Hi

I'm very sorry for the delay you have are having with us, due to the discount voucher we are offering we are experiencing a large amount of orders and emails, we are working through this as quick as we can and will respond to every email we receive.

Thanks for your continued support

Cheers

Maelstrom Games"

Haha, I got two mails from Wayland yesterday more or less citing the same reasons for having my order in limbo for seventeen days now.

 laffe wrote:

 Ravenblade666 wrote:

 laffe wrote:

Dingleson wrote:
Wish I had not pre-ordered £70 worth of X-wing in August

I pre-ordered it in 2011 when Maelstrom first put it up on their shop. I thought about cancelling the order when FFG delayed it for a year but I figured I could wait. I wish I had cancelled it... I have now bought it from Spirit Games instead.

It seems that MG never even got it in stock at all.

This also happened to me sadly :(, brought from Wayland and Firestorm both where excellent with their communication and speed of delivery, not the case with Maelstrom sadly.

The worst wasn't the money -- I'm out of 25 quid, I can live with that -- but the feeling of preordering a game, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting... and more waiting... and then when it's finally launched you realise it's starting to turn up in every shop from your FLGS to other internet retailers, but not the one you ordered from. And they don't even say a word about it!

That's just it. I'm seeing copies everywhere! Trying to resist picking up my order again but with them not answering the phone there is no chance of finding out from MG when/if they will get another delivery from Fantasy Flight Games.

 Grimtuff wrote:

 GCMandrake wrote:
Their phone line is fine. It either rings and rings because they're ignoring us, or gives the busy tone because someone else is trying to ring. It's not a technical problem, they've just shut off all lines of communication to stop us getting our money back.

Yes, that's exactly why they're doing it.

Since you appear to have all the answers and are pretty keen to defend them, can you also tell us why they don't reply to emails either? Maybe all their phone-based comms are down? That happened to me earlier this year - lost internet, phone and cable tv all at once from the same provider. Oh! But then how could they be sending new "sale" emails every second day along with "order split" and so forth?




Perhaps you could go in there and ask them directly if you're local. Bring a camera. I'm sure a lot of us would like to see what the place properly looks like (EOTS at least).


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 azreal13 wrote:
Ok, so my point that it may be beneficial for both parties if customers held off panic cancelling still stands?

Once again, I must state I completely understand those that are getting jumpy, but just consider if you are chasing them for a refund that your actions and those of others that are doing likewise may be the very thing that actually causes them to fold and you to lose your cash. If (and I DO realise it's a big if!) you can hold your nerve you may get your goods and allow Maelstrom to keep going.

Not saying anyone should, just trying to add to the discussion.

Even if we take this posit into account, there's the simple fact that they lied repeatedly to myself and many others about when our orders (paid for) were going to come into stock. The suggestion that people should accept a stream of "later this week", "middle of next week" this coming Friday" BS excuses is insulting, particularly when that has the capacity to take people past the 45-day PayPal safety net. To put it another way, I'd still be waiting for the stuff I ordered in August if I hadn't cancelled my stuff. Including stuff that was listed as "in-stock" when I ordered it. It's almost November now. What about the guy who pre-ordered X-Wing last year? Should he "not get jumpy" and let them keep his cash when they apparently have no intention of fulfilling his order? (Hope you paid by CC, mate!)




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Grimtuff wrote:

So you think they've ran off with yours and everyone else's money to go driving around in brand new Porsches and have swimming pools for their gardens.
No.
Granted they *should* put up a notice on their website or something to put people's minds at ease, but to think they're just trying to up sticks and run off with people's money is just asinine.

Read the bloody financials that have been posted half a dozen times. They split off EOTS and Mierce, leaving Maelstrom as a sinking shell company with all the debt. No-one has said anything akin to "they've moved to the Caymans", so stop trying to straw man the discussion.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Grimtuff wrote:

Of course they're screening emails. Do you really think they're going to dedicate a person's entire shift to simply answering the many hundreds of "WARRS ME TOY SOLDJARS!" emails. That's why most companies have the auto update things on your order (some even mention on their site to not contact them about your order, as it's usually covered by their FAQ). In the nicest possible way, you're just wasting their time and holding them up from picking and packing orders by asking the same question over and over again.

Don't get me wrong, I sympathise with people who haven't got their orders, but this fething witch hunt over them is just getting preposterous.

It's money. It's hours of my (and everyone else's) lives spent working at our jobs. It's customer service. It's their business and their obligation to do so. Again you're trying to write it off as "unimportant". Next shall we get a comparison to starving kids in Africa? What about AIDS? The Black Plague?

 scipio.au wrote:
Stuff

Sorry, I can't take any of that seriously as I just read your posts in a John Cena voice...

All I'm doing is providing some kind of Devil's advocate here and am giving Maelstrom the benefit of the doubt due to their history. Who knows, maybe a few months down the line I'll have to eat these words if Maelstrom goes belly-up so I'd better keep em short and sweet. There's a lot of hyperbole being thrown about more or less calling for the owners of Maelstrom to have their heads put on spikes (because nothing says "Obey me!" like a head on a spike) on the walls of Dakka, even though their past dealings should give them a little bit of a leeway IMO.

Are we clear? I'm in no way affiliated with Maelstrom and am continually annoyed they have nothing in stock for Warmahordes (had my own debacle with them trying to get a WM rulebook. They sent me the Hordes one by mistake, had to send it back to them. Then the one I bought got sent to someone else. So it's not been all buttercups and roses for me with them.). I *want* to support them and give them cash for PP stuff, but they are my secondary (at best) place to get Warmahordes from. http://wargamestore.com/ is miles better for stock levels than Maelstrom could hope to be.

Hey Grimstuff, as you're so close to them (presumably), can you pop in and take some happy snaps and see if you can hear their phone ring in the background?

Would clear things up a bit on the speculation!

Here's my experience with Maelstrom:

Been ordering stuff from them for 4 years, never has it been really fast but I've got what I've ordered eventually.

But, I ordered X-Wing and a bunch of expansions from them back in september. Since then nothing, order stays in processing and the stock levels have not indicated they've got any products for that line so far.

Been trying to cancel my order for two weeks, by e-mail (and the "contact us" form they have on their website). No replies, nothing.

Other stores can get the products, they can't => reason enough to cancel.

S.

To those that are wanting refunds but not getting replys to your emails/calls it is a simple case of contacting your credit card company or bank. They will recover the money as is your right and are better equipped to do this as well.

I have had this situation before and I can tell you PayPal we good for nothing, barclaycard/visa had the money back in my account in 6 hours.

I have also had much e perience of suppliers going into administration/receivership, and maelstrom bears all of the same hallmarks. At this point judging by the clamour on this thread it has gone beyond a rumour and is now self forfilling even if it wasn't true before. Just a matter of time.

True there may be bargains to be had but it is a gamble: will they dispatch your order before they are wrapped up. If it is outstanding at that time you will not get anything out of MG and the administrators will prioritise their own fee, then large debtors before customers. You might get some relief from a credit card company but I suspect PayPal although the technically hold MG money will have to freeze those accounts pending judicial review before having to forward it to administrative accounts.

So I guess I am saying is people are right to be wary, administration can happen overnight with little warning to those that work there - I know of one supplier I had that knew less than 2 hours before they turned up. Suffice to say allot of staff who will probably not be paid might look for alternative renumeration at that point.

This was a weird thread to stumble across.

I ordered some stuff from them at the very beginning of the sales wave (when it was just a few select ranges on sale). Received the parcel very quickly, discovered some errors, contacted them, got a quick reply + a replacement package within days. Had no idea things had gotten this complicated.

It's pretty sad, and I sympathize with the frustrated customers who don't have their stuff, their money, or an explanation. But at the same time this thread has featured some pretty distasteful posts from people who pounced on the fire-sale, then went full chicken little and cancelled their order while inundating Maelstrom with emails and phone calls. Regardless of how deep the shenanigans may ultimately go, and what effects they are having on Maelstrom's service, expecting top notch call-and-response customer service during a massive sale/purported warehouse move seems unrealistic and entitled. Act like an adult, stay patient, and be conscious of any time limits that may exist among the financial bodies you deal with (most of whom will be able to return your money if you truly never receive your items). Freaking out and trying to desperately claw back a refund seems unhelpful.

All of that's just in response to the recent customers who have been having (and apparently making) problems. To the dudes who placed orders months ago and still don't have their stuff -- any anger or desperation you may be feeling is completely justified. That really sucks.

I dont see why someone who ordered recently should be any less frustrated or worried than someone who ordered a while back.
Both parties are still in limbo and still want to know what is going on.


I've been buying with Maelstrom for ages, just because my latest order was recent doesnt change the fact I (like many others) was lied to or left in the dark.

I had only had one bad experience with Maelstrom, it was like two years ago. One of the items I had ordered had missing bits (wich is actually a problem of the manufacturer - a box of 4 45th Highlander Galwegian for Infinity). I contacted them to ask what to do (should I send the box back? etc). For months, one guy responded me telling me that I would receive another box, once and again, but it never arrived. I kept insisting, until another guy responed me. He said that the other guy was fired, and inmediately sent me the box. I could see that in the website, another order had been added to my orders list, including only the box. In about a week, the new box arrived.

Surprise, this box had the same problems. So I had 8 highlander bodies, without heads and arms. I contacted them again, and they never answered. I contacted Corvus Belli, the manufacturer, and in about three days I received from them the missing bits. For 4 higlanders. I have 4 extra free bodies :\

After that all my orders had been succesful. When this sales wave started, I ordered some GW 40k scenery, wich is still processing. After ordering the scenery, I received another mail talking about big discounts only for items in stock. I ordered some Infinity models and received them in about a week or ten days.

My guess is that they are doing the best they can.

Interesting, Eye of the Storm Ltd has been renamed today to Maunsfield Gaming Ltd, wonder what's going on ...


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Sorry MAUNSFELD GAMING LTD


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Get ready for another website

maunsfeld-gaming.co.uk

Maunsfeld is the archaic form of Mansfield, if it wasn't obvious.

What is this about...

Its archaic alright, like Maelstroms archaic CS practices hmmmhmm.

I don't think the administrators will care how many different names they (maelstrom) give to a company - it all has it's roots in the same place

16 calls to them about one o clock, each after each other, non stop.

No answer.

17th call, "user busy."

Calling every 20 minutes, "user busy."

I want my money back for the order they have canceled, not much to ask!

If it's true they are near bankrupcy I am pretty sure you won't see your money back.

I am in the same boat as some people, I ordered some Warmahordes (in stock) , now it's saying all out of stock but still no shipping status :(

I will lose about 120£ , which is allot for me since I am a student, it was the money I got for my birthday -_-"

Oh well I guess there are worse things in life, but still I am a bit sad lol

If anyone is worried about their orders then they should call their card companies and get a refund.

The sale is on until the 22nd which is Monday. IF Maelstrom goes into administration after this 'final' sale, and its still an IF, after this it will be too late.

Don't waste money if you think that you may loose it.

 Grimtuff wrote:

 scipio.au wrote:
Stuff

Sorry, I can't take any of that seriously as I just read your posts in a John Cena voice...
.

Interesting how you refuse to even acknowledge that he has made some very valid points.

 Grimtuff wrote:

Are we clear? I'm in no way affiliated with Maelstrom and am continually annoyed they have nothing in stock for Warmahordes (had my own debacle with them trying to get a WM rulebook. They sent me the Hordes one by mistake, had to send it back to them. Then the one I bought got sent to someone else. So it's not been all buttercups and roses for me with them.). I *want* to support them and give them cash for PP stuff, but they are my secondary (at best) place to get Warmahordes from. http://wargamestore.com/ is miles better for stock levels than Maelstrom could hope to be.

I'm not sure I believe you about no affiliation. You obviously have spent time in the store so I am going to assume you probably are at the very least friendly with some of the staff. Just playing devils advocate? Not so sure about that either. What is the point of playing devils advocate at this point? People are, at the very least, being actively mislead about their orders. At the very worst MG is purposefully defrauding new customers to buy stock to fill old orders. I find it very odd that you would keep making excuses for the company while at the same time never answering legitimate questions about their conduct.

I popped into the retail store in Mansfield last weekend, there was very little stock in, certainly of GW products and MTG in particular, used to be full to the rafters.

Just got my order that i made on monday only a small one carefull to only order stuff showing as plenty in stock thats 2 orders in 2 weeks that went ok but saying that , i reckon they are winding down i worked quite high up for a local company a few years back and it started doing things the same way and even us staff couldn't get the anawers from head office, like how our orders for stock were being refused ,alot of bosses do stick their head in the ground untill it ends while the workers just carry on as best they can.

Anyone else wonder about all these success stories from posters with one or two posts in this thread only?

12thRonin>> Not really, actually. I am visiting another forum where two other members (long standing ones) state that they just recently received their orders.

Nah, though I guess you could say I'm a success story, I suppose? Admittedly, it was 3 dudes...

However, I just think I was lucky and going for something relatively obscure that they had kicking about.

only just joined dakka after starting wh40k again on my son's insistence, got to this thread because i wanted to order from MG but thought this warehouse move seemed odd, nothing to do with them never been there, and glad i didn't bother getting any wh40k with them

oldandcrabby wrote:Interesting, Eye of the Storm Ltd has been renamed today to Maunsfield Gaming Ltd, wonder what's going on ...


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Sorry MAUNSFELD GAMING LTD


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Get ready for another website

maunsfeld-gaming.co.uk

Eiríkr wrote:Maunsfeld is the archaic form of Mansfield, if it wasn't obvious.

What is this about...

EotS is listed at companies house as being registered as a trading company formerly called Maelstrom Games. In the event of MG going under it would be a simple task to lay liability for debts at eotS's door as they are the same thing, the name
Only changing in the last six months. To all intents and purposes a name change is irrelevant in a insolvency/administration situation.

Maunsfeld Gaming ltd was registered in Jume this year and is directly link to EotS as it is listed as their former name, and therefore connected to Maestrom Games. If they are avoiding creditors then they are doing a poor job of it as i have found that out in 10minutes on an iphoe on a train; all very weird behaviour.

12thRonin wrote:Anyone else wonder about all these success stories from posters with one or two posts in this thread only?

Well Pacific has posted the same so it's good enough for me. The thing is I have no doubt that MG are trying to gain orders and forfill them as they uave done before. But overtime because of stock their ability to do so will be limited and will only get worse. My concern is that it's just when the hammer falls customers will be caught out.

On the subject of completed orders, the one I placed at the weekend turned up this morning.

I was just curious. Threads like this often draw certain types of waterfowl at times.

12thRonin wrote:
Anyone else wonder about all these success stories from posters with one or two posts in this thread only?

In my defense, I only post when I've got something that's even remotely useful/funny to say.

 notprop wrote:

12thRonin wrote:Anyone else wonder about all these success stories from posters with one or two posts in this thread only?

Well Pacific has posted the same so it's good enough for me. The thing is I have no doubt that MG are trying to gain orders and forfill them as they uave done before. But overtime because of stock their ability to do so will be limited and will only get worse. My concern is that it's just when the hammer falls customers will be caught out.

Haha thanks for the vote of confidence mate!

I've used Maelstrom many times in the past, and haven't had problems generally. That being said, they have been pretty crappy when I have ordered something that isn't in stock - although not only them, but Wayland and Dark Sphere on occasion as well (the latter surprised me with a blister pack once that I had ordered about 4 months before, and completely forgotten about!) Sadly it often becomes a problem where the bigger the company, the further their customer services level drops.

In light of my own experiences I would say if you want to take advantage of the current 30-50% offers they have on then go for it, but make sure the items are in stock, or possibly not showing just a single item in stock (anyone who has worked in a warehouse will know that there is a good possibility the item is not actually there).

Redacted to keep the peace.

TheHamDroog wrote:
Balls to this, for those of you that don't know Maelstrom Games has been the subject to a HMRC tax investigation and fined, this is the root cause of all their cash flow problems. They also took business grants and did not fulfil the conditions for which they were given. The business is still under investigation. The management have already confirmed within the industry that Maelstrom is closing and creditors will not be getting all of the money owed.

Can people please now stop saying that they have a problem with their telephone line.

This is common knowledge within the industry.

Do you have a source for that?
I'm not a british jurist, but I'd say that some of these things would be part of public record?

TheHamDroog wrote:
Balls to this, for those of you that don't know Maelstrom Games has been the subject to a HMRC tax investigation and fined, this is the root cause of all their cash flow problems. They also took business grants and did not fulfil the conditions for which they were given. The business is still under investigation. The management have already confirmed within the industry that Maelstrom is closing and creditors will not be getting all of the money owed.

Can people please now stop saying that they have a problem with their telephone line.

This is common knowledge within the industry.

Source?

Hollow words otherwise...

I am not going to reveal my source.

But you're willing to throw it out onto the internet? Righto.

I met Stevie Wonder last night.

TheHamDroog wrote:
I am not going to reveal my source.

What harm could there be if it is so called "common knowledge"?

Dawnbringer wrote:

TheHamDroog wrote:
I am not going to reveal my source.

What harm could there be if it is so called "common knowledge"?

"Common knowledge within the industry" is not the same as "common knowledge to every single person with a cursory idea from Google".

 Kanluwen wrote:

Dawnbringer wrote:

TheHamDroog wrote:
I am not going to reveal my source.

What harm could there be if it is so called "common knowledge"?

"Common knowledge within the industry" is not the same as "common knowledge to every single person with a cursory idea from Google".

There is that...... BUT it would be good to get some confirmation.

@TheHamDroog: Thanks for your contribution. What you said sounds plausible and would explain everything.
And please, don't reveal your source..

Balls to this, for those of you that don't know Maelstrom Games has been the subject to a HMRC tax investigation and fined, this is the root cause of all their cash flow problems. They also took business grants and did not fulfil the conditions for which they were given. The business is still under investigation. The management have already confirmed within the industry that Maelstrom is closing and creditors will not be getting all of the money owed.

Can people please now stop saying that they have a problem with their telephone line.

This is common knowledge within the industry.

Thanks for the info. I dont see any reason not to believe this. It sounds very consistant with all the other informations we got. Lets summarize what we know :

Fact 1 : MG is broke. source : http://www.companycheck.co.uk/company/04724863 and MG's email "we have decided to clear as much of our hard-earned stock as we possibly can over the next few days - and therefore generate some much-needed cashflow - in order to ensure we can fulfil the orders that you, our valued customers, have placed over the last few weeks. "

Fact 2 : MG is trying to sell its stock in order to have enough cash to order the items already paid by customers. "I would ask all of our customers to remain as patient as they can with Maelstrom Games and, indeed, our staff, for we will use the money generated by the sale of our stock to ensure all of your orders are fulfilled in their entirety as quickly as possible" (source : Maelstrom's email)

If they dont have enough stock, this will quickly lead to some sort of Ponzi scheme. Which leads to

Fact 3 : MG refers items to be in stock and then does not ship because it is out of stock. (i have this problem with this item : http://www.maelstromgames.co.uk/index.php?act=pro&pre=mrm_blg_bnb_mon_008_000 )

Fact 4 : MG 's ebay shop is empty

Fact 5 : MG is still shipping some orders (they shipped two of mine yesterday)

Fact 6 : MG is not taking paypal anymore

Fact 7 : MG does not answer the phone or emails

Fact 8 : MG has opened a new online shop, then changed its name. Why ? Why not keeping maelstrom's online shop, which is well known ?

From all these facts, i conclude that MG is about to be bankrupt, running away from creditors. What they are trying to do with their customers is unclear. Do they try to sell their stock to generate the cash needed for the other customers orders ? Could be. Do they try to lure as many people in , shipping a few small orders from time to time to make things less obvious ? Could be. Is it just chaos, like in most soon-to-be-bankrupt companies ? Could be.

If it's true, why do they still accept orders and take money... Isn't there any buyer protection law in the UK ?
If a company is under investigation no way they would still be able to sell and take money from customers. (here in Belgium that is)

It is not because you are under investigation for tax fraud and/or not fulfilling conditions for grants received that you cannot run your business. It is the same in Belgium.

Read it here maybe (not much other info either)?

 Eiríkr wrote:

TheHamDroog wrote:
Balls to this, for those of you that don't know Maelstrom Games has been the subject to a HMRC tax investigation and fined, this is the root cause of all their cash flow problems. They also took business grants and did not fulfil the conditions for which they were given. The business is still under investigation. The management have already confirmed within the industry that Maelstrom is closing and creditors will not be getting all of the money owed.

Can people please now stop saying that they have a problem with their telephone line.

This is common knowledge within the industry.

Source?

Hollow words otherwise...

I can back him up on this, a source in the industry told me pretty much word for word that. Can't reveal who told me they were closing as it was told to me in confidence.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 devilution wrote:
If it's true, why do they still accept orders and take money... Isn't there any buyer protection law in the UK ?
If a company is under investigation no way they would still be able to sell and take money from customers. (here in Belgium that is)

I don't know 100% they are under investigation, but if so I believe they are allowed to sell existing stock in order to get out the red.

brettz123 wrote:

I'm not sure I believe you about no affiliation. You obviously have spent time in the store so I am going to assume you probably are at the very least friendly with some of the staff. Just playing devils advocate? Not so sure about that either. What is the point of playing devils advocate at this point? People are, at the very least, being actively mislead about their orders. At the very worst MG is purposefully defrauding new customers to buy stock to fill old orders. I find it very odd that you would keep making excuses for the company while at the same time never answering legitimate questions about their conduct.

Cute.

I've no affiliation whatsoever. I've worked for Tesco (A supermarket) on Produce for the last 6 years if you must know mateybobs. Want me to tell you my line manager's name so you can run a background check? This is turning into a quite literal witch-hunt. "Tell ya what, if they floats they works for Maelstrom!" I've been to their physical store a grand total of 3 times (Warhammer World is easier to get to for me, better grub and no train changes) but have been a loyal customer of theirs with no faults (other than the WM rulebook thing), so I'm wont to cut them a little slack, okay?

Granted, I do have a policy of "only order from Maelstrom if it's listed as in stock" as their restocking rates are a little dire and only if there's a voucher too (Wargamestore is my primary source), but to flat out accuse me of being in cahoots with them and/or some kind of plant is just stupid. This is the last I'm going to say on the matter.

It was getting uncomfortably close to the cut-off period for initiating a paypal dispute so I've done that. Good luck to anyone else with outstanding orders, but I'm not taking any chances.

Rob Lane, yesterday.

He's a red X?

 Grimtuff wrote:

brettz123 wrote:

I'm not sure I believe you about no affiliation. You obviously have spent time in the store so I am going to assume you probably are at the very least friendly with some of the staff. Just playing devils advocate? Not so sure about that either. What is the point of playing devils advocate at this point? People are, at the very least, being actively mislead about their orders. At the very worst MG is purposefully defrauding new customers to buy stock to fill old orders. I find it very odd that you would keep making excuses for the company while at the same time never answering legitimate questions about their conduct.

Cute.

I've no affiliation whatsoever. I've worked for Tesco (A supermarket) on Produce for the last 6 years if you must know mateybobs. Want me to tell you my line manager's name so you can run a background check? This is turning into a quite literal witch-hunt. "Tell ya what, if they floats they works for Maelstrom!" I've been to their physical store a grand total of 3 times (Warhammer World is easier to get to for me, better grub and no train changes) but have been a loyal customer of theirs with no faults (other than the WM rulebook thing), so I'm wont to cut them a little slack, okay?

Granted, I do have a policy of "only order from Maelstrom if it's listed as in stock" as their restocking rates are a little dire and only if there's a voucher too (Wargamestore is my primary source), but to flat out accuse me of being in cahoots with them and/or some kind of plant is just stupid. This is the last I'm going to say on the matter.

It's not about being cute. It is about you making every excuse you can for a company that is obviously behaving badly. It is about you coming to a thread and calling out other people while at the same time not answering their legitimate gripes. Devils advocate is a great thing to do as an intellectual exercise..... not so cool when there is a very real possibility that the company you seem to be defending may be purposefully taking new orders in order to pay for old orders.

Perhaps instead of giving someone the benefit of the doubt you look at the facts of the situation and make an honest appraisal of what is looking like a very bad situation.

hmm I'm not taking any risks with this, all the items I ordered were out of stock at the time and if they aren't taking in new stock it raises concerns over what they are going to do with my money.

I've also raised a Paypal dispute and will see what happens, sad really they've been excellent for years.

the whole thing makes so little sense

They (Maelstrom) could have solved so many problems by just communicating a little with their customers!

But instead seem be inclined to do the exact opposite.

Now many of us are in difficult situations! and Maelstrom are only making their position worse with all the forced cancellations/blows to their rep!

Unfortunately they probably couldn't have solved things by better communication with their customers. They took on too many debts, presumably in the forms of, stock that didn't sell fast enough, and new premises.

They pissed off their suppliers to the point that credit was withdrawn. In retail, it takes a *lot* to hit that point. No supplier wants to see a shop go out of business, because (a) they'll never get paid if it happens and (b) they lose out on the future income from that shop too. So if they feel there's any chance that credit willl be repaid, they will extend more credit, even if not all the last order has been paid for yet. That so many of them have refused to do so is one of the strongest indicators yet of just how much trouble Maelstrom is in.

Dont worry folks, everything will be fine, I cannot reveal my source though

blingman wrote:
Dont worry folks, everything will be fine, I cannot reveal my source though

Maelstrom may be fine, but after this, their customer base won't be.

I will still love them *rose coloured glasses firmly in place*

Not knowing of this on going saga I apologies for my thread re MG folding. However when IT contacted paypal re dispute as MG had taken my cash the person at paypal didn't seem suprised atmy request and immediatly upgraded it to a claim. I the past I've had no problems with MG. But makes you wonder

I heard about what is bassicly Maelstorm's fire sale going on right now, and decided to see what kinda deals they got going on despite their sketchyness ATM. (I only ordered from them once, and besides one issue that was resolved it wasn't to bad of a experience. Since you can only order what's in stock, I don't see how they could screw it up...)

I've been looking around on their site, and haven't found 1 thing yet that isn't out of stock. I haven't even been able to find a single pot of paint that isn't out of stock.

To me it seems even if they are able to resolve this back log issue of their's, they are still boned since their Cash flow is 50 shades of shot. Even if they fill out the back log it looks like they got no stock left, and no money to restock. Seems they are trying to fill the last of their orders before they close their doors in all honesty.

If you want something to buy in stock just look at the Micro Arts Studio Bases... if the sale gets better I will take another shot at it (200 pounds so far... I think that's enough)

blingman wrote:
Dont worry folks, everything will be fine, I cannot reveal my source though

I heard Maelstrom realised the world will end in December, so are accumulating as much cash as possible to fund a huge party they know they'll never have to pay for. This is common knowledge in the industry.

TheHamDroog wrote:
I am not going to reveal my source.

Well thats a meaningless statement as is your previous. Common Knowledge within the Industry? That means nothing....That's like a prophecy that everyone believes but no one can verify. Common Knowledge within the industry = Industry Rumour.

Lockark wrote:
Seems they are trying to fill the last of their orders before they close their doors in all honesty.

That's exactly what it is and what has been going on for a while now. Honestly, I am surprised at some of the inability to read between the lines and general naivety being displayed here in this thread. Maelstrom are going bust; its plainly obvious from the discounts and sales emails that have been arriving in inboxes daily. And no, they aren't trying to fulfill orders so they can buy in more stock; this is all about selling off as much existing stock as possible before the curtain falls - simple as that. There is no stock being ordered in and if even the smallest inkling of rumours have any credence, then their suppliers have cut them off. This is why the website isn't being updated (no stock coming in to replace stuff). As for the phone not being answered and emails not replied to, well that's fairly par for the course in situations like this; it's not that the boss has his head in the sand - he knows full well that the hammer is about to drop, rather that they have probably released most of their staff and don't really see the point in responding to customer grievances at this stage; it's not like they have to worry about maintaining good customer relations now, is it?

So, by all means order stuff if it seems to be in stock because you can get some great bargains (I got a whole bunch of Carnevale stuff for half price) but there is the distinct possibility now the end is close that you won't see your items at all. If you can afford to gamble £20 or £30 or whatever, then you could end up winning. You just as well might not though; all bets are off.

I've ordered from Maelstrom three times, most recently in June, and I've received everything I ordered from them. They're not perfect - after preordering some Dropzone Commander models through them, I asked for a refund a month and a half after release, only to discover by reading a Waylands newsletter that they'd only just arrived - but I'm glad for the service they have provided.

 filbert wrote:
And no, they aren't trying to fulfill orders so they can buy in more stock; this is all about selling off as much existing stock as possible before the curtain falls - simple as that.

I would imagine the main reason for even bothering with the sale is to pay off suppliers because ones that get screwed might not be willing to do business with the new company given the wargames industry in the UK is one of those "everyone knows everyone" type of industries.

I have read on another forum that paypal said they could not refund given the fact that MG account is now closed. Is it true ? Did anyone who opened a paypal claim recently get his cash ?

 Baragash wrote:

 filbert wrote:
And no, they aren't trying to fulfill orders so they can buy in more stock; this is all about selling off as much existing stock as possible before the curtain falls - simple as that.

I would imagine the main reason for even bothering with the sale is to pay off suppliers because ones that get screwed might not be willing to do business with the new company given the wargames industry in the UK is one of those "everyone knows everyone" type of industries.

This happens all the time in business, even those where the industry is tight. Whatever happens to the new maelstrom, or whatever companies Rob Lane is director of they will be able to re establish links with suppliers. Even on restricted terms.

captain tanuki wrote:
I have read on another forum that paypal said they could not refund given the fact that MG account is now closed. Is it true ? Did anyone who opened a paypal claim recently get his cash ?

Thats old information based on how paypal disptes used to work;

as long as you don't miss the 45 day cut off for a dispute paypal should refund your payment if goods are not delivered (they'll pay if they cannot recover the money from maelstroms account)

And if you are over 45 days and funded the payment via a Credit Card you may be able to claim from your CC provider (some will not help as the initial transaction was cc to paypal and that worked fine, but always try and if they refuse switch CC provider). This protection depends on your claim amount, in the UK you need to have spent £100 or more to get it (again some CC will help for lower values even if they are not legally liable)

Of course if the person your paying has taken the money (and run!), then PayPal cannot retrieve it and you get nothing.

I had this happen to me when I got scammed. Put through a complaint all within the correct times. Result was "Unable to gather funds from payee - we cannot refund your money. Sorry."

Of course if the person your paying has taken the money (and run!), then PayPal cannot retrieve it and you get nothing.

I had this happen to me when I got scammed. Put through a complaint all within the correct times. Result was "Unable to gather funds from payee - we cannot refund your money. Sorry."

Which is exactly the case here, right ?

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Of course if the person your paying has taken the money (and run!), then PayPal cannot retrieve it and you get nothing.

I had this happen to me when I got scammed. Put through a complaint all within the correct times. Result was "Unable to gather funds from payee - we cannot refund your money. Sorry."

Not sure if it is different for a paypal business account espically given the fact the transactions are covered under the DSR in the UK

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Of course if the person your paying has taken the money (and run!), then PayPal cannot retrieve it and you get nothing.

I had this happen to me when I got scammed. Put through a complaint all within the correct times. Result was "Unable to gather funds from payee - we cannot refund your money. Sorry."

This used to be the case (and I've been stung that way) but it has changed

first paypal purchaces used via ebay got extra protection

now any paypal purchace is covered and you should be able to get your cash back IF you claim within 45 days (although if you keep buying from places that go bust and getting your money back I suspect they'll cancel your account to prevent scamming)

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Of course if the person your paying has taken the money (and run!), then PayPal cannot retrieve it and you get nothing.

I had this happen to me when I got scammed. Put through a complaint all within the correct times. Result was "Unable to gather funds from payee - we cannot refund your money. Sorry."

This used to be the case (and I've been stung that way) but it has changed

first paypal purchaces used via ebay got extra protection

now any paypal purchace is covered and you should be able to get your cash back IF you claim within 45 days (although if you keep buying from places that go bust and getting your money back I suspect they'll cancel your account to prevent scamming)

see - https://www.paypal.com/uk/webapps/mpp/buyer-protection for more info

Thanks for the clarifications.

Looks like the paypal protection would work here.

I did know about the 'rumours' about their problems and so was concerned when the new csm stuff came out (put up for pre-order) but because they still released pre-order information on the site I thought everything was ok. I bought the helldrake on the 5th Oct.

I expected delays as their policy with GW is that they cant send out new releases until after the release date. I really dont know what to do. I am thinking they are going to order the product from GW once they finally move warehouses thats why I have been waiting but reading all this is really worrying.

If worse comes to worse what should I do to get a refund, contact my bank? Sorry, any help would be appreciated, never had to sort something like this out before i.e. the company is not responding to people at all.

How did you pay? With credit card, debit card or PayPal?

If Paypal = Claim (within 45 days)

If Credit or VISA/Mastercard Debit = Chargeback Scheme

You're covered, just have to wait a while to get money back

Ah cool thanls guys good to know at least I can get my money back Shame since I wont get a good saving like that on the helldrake anywhere else.

well just got yet ANOTHER email from maelstrom with an even bigger discount attatched.


:/


and yet still no change in order, no phone, no reply to messages.

redeyed wrote:
well just got yet ANOTHER email from maelstrom with an even bigger discount attatched.


:/


and yet still no change in order, no phone, no reply to messages.

This +1

Maelstrom Games wrote:Hi there,

Here at Maelstrom Games (www.maelstromgames.co.uk) we've still got fairly good stocks of certain ranges, so Battlefront Miniatures' products will be reduced to 35% off UK RRP, Gamezone Miniatures, Micro Art Studio, Scibor Miniatures and Magic: the Gathering to 60% off UK RRP, with everything else at 50% off UK RRP except for Templar's Forge at 75% off. We still have some Games Workshop, Privateer Press and Malifaux, too! These sales don't come along very often - so take advantage of it, as this is our FINAL stock sale and it WILL end on Monday the 22nd of October! Grab a bargain now!

Again: "This is our FINAL stock sale"
Sounds final to me

Who will end up with the prize when the music stops?

So exciting!

God-damnit.. 60% off Gamezone and Scibor. Do I go for it again?

*busies away looking through the Maelstrom site*


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Bugger there is literally nothing in stock ! Except for 167 tins of Army Painter purple spray!

Ok, I know they share the name, but do they really need 167 cans of Maelstrom Purple?

 unmercifulconker wrote:
Ah cool thanls guys good to know at least I can get my money back Shame since I wont get a good saving like that on the helldrake anywhere else.

Plenty of places are cheaper
http://www.rockethobbies.co.uk/Games-Workshop-Chaos-Space-Marine-Heldrake/-p-6907/

In all of this, I am most curious about Darklands/Mierce Miniatures/whatever it's called. They're still churning out content rather consistently, even with their parent company in the tank. Will they survive if/when Maelstrom dies?

rocketboy wrote:

 unmercifulconker wrote:
Ah cool thanls guys good to know at least I can get my money back Shame since I wont get a good saving like that on the helldrake anywhere else.

Plenty of places are cheaper
http://www.rockethobbies.co.uk/Games-Workshop-Chaos-Space-Marine-Heldrake/-p-6907/

Forget places, what about models? Here is one that is cheaper than the Helldrake and looks less like a toy

Hasbro - It's the 5th Chaos god.

rocketboy wrote:

 unmercifulconker wrote:
Ah cool thanls guys good to know at least I can get my money back Shame since I wont get a good saving like that on the helldrake anywhere else.

Plenty of places are cheaper
http://www.rockethobbies.co.uk/Games-Workshop-Chaos-Space-Marine-Heldrake/-p-6907/

Holy mother of god thank you sir, thank you

Happy to second the recommendation of Rocket Hobbies.

And I don't have a low post count and the word Rocket in my username! ;-)

 azreal13 wrote:
Happy to second the recommendation of Rocket Hobbies.

And I don't have a low post count and the word Rocket in my username! ;-)

I know, it was a shameless plug for ourselves in amongst the doom and gloom, but I couldn't resist it. Thanks for the second

Well the EOTS store is stocked up very well this time, vast improvement over last months team tourny, shame as I might spend some money this time!

How was the stock on GW stuff?

Good mate, pretty much full shelf, i did post somewhere before saying the 40k shelves were empty when I was here end of September (come here for team tourny) and I am back here for another tourny this weekend

So their spun off bricks and mortar store is well stocked?

Interesting...

 Grimtuff wrote:

 scipio.au wrote:
Stuff

Sorry, I can't take any of that seriously as I just read your posts in a John Cena voice...

Pretty sure he sounds pretty much just like a generic American. Unless that's the problem? If you don;'t like it, just wave your hand back and forth in front of your face a few times and you won't see the avatar anymore. Or the avatar won't see you. Something, anyway.

Actually, not being a fan of wrestling, the first time I saw that I saw your avatar Scipio I thought it was tennis player Andy Roddick!

Yeah going to claim my money back today, really hope it works, hate it when you get pissed about :(. Might try that rockethobbies but not straight away.

 Pacific wrote:
Actually, not being a fan of wrestling, the first time I saw that I saw your avatar Scipio I thought it was tennis player Andy Roddick!

I haven't watched wrestling in years. I've got this avatar because Cena looks a total nonce in the picture.

 unmercifulconker wrote:
Yeah going to claim my money back today, really hope it works, hate it when you get pissed about :(. Might try that rockethobbies but not straight away.

I've placed about half a dozen orders with them so far. No complaints at all, had an issue where an item wasn't packed, replacement was sent within 24 hours, so it's not just been normal orders I've had a problem which was sorted handily.

 azreal13 wrote:

 unmercifulconker wrote:
Yeah going to claim my money back today, really hope it works, hate it when you get pissed about :(. Might try that rockethobbies but not straight away.

I've placed about half a dozen orders with them so far. No complaints at all, had an issue where an item wasn't packed, replacement was sent within 24 hours, so it's not just been normal orders I've had a problem which was sorted handily.

So you've received all of your orders from this series of sales?

I've tried phoning "eye of the storm." who now have a different number to Maelstrom, unfortunately to no avail. Let me know if any one has luck!

JamieisOOP wrote:
I've tried phoning "eye of the storm." who now have a different number to Maelstrom, unfortunately to no avail. Let me know if any one has luck!

EOTS is a different company now, as is Mierce.

EOTS will have absolutely no responsibility for Malestroms orders.

Even though it is/was run by the same people and has the same directors.

 The Plastic Surgeon wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:

 unmercifulconker wrote:
Yeah going to claim my money back today, really hope it works, hate it when you get pissed about :(. Might try that rockethobbies but not straight away.

I've placed about half a dozen orders with them so far. No complaints at all, had an issue where an item wasn't packed, replacement was sent within 24 hours, so it's not just been normal orders I've had a problem which was sorted handily.

So you've received all of your orders from this series of sales?

I was talking about Rocket Hobbies.

I've placed two with Maelstrom in the sales, one was dispatched within 24 hours, but I'm still waiting on its arrival, the other was only yesterday.

Yeah, I placed another order last night, to eat up my last chunk of moneyback in case things turn out bad after the 22nd. I'll report back if and when the package arrives (although by that time we might well have a more public declaration about the state of things).

I've gone for a last chance 'use up cahback' purchace as well

so I'll see how that goes, fingers crossed

I personally wonder what will happen to these new stores when Maelstrom takes the bullet eventually. I, for one, know that I will NEVER order anything from these new stores. I just feel bad for all the people who would lose their money. I hope that justice will be delivered to Maelstrom by their new shop tanking as well.

I would fear that someone would head over to their physical store and smash a few windows at night if they really scam people.

I am personally giving Maelstrom the benefit of the doubt until they prove me wrong. And if it will take them 2+ months to get my order sorted, then that is how long it will take. Obviously, I too believe that the only way to salvage the bad reputation that they are getting each day is to communicate what is going on.

I'm sure they are not trying to scam people,

however it does look as if their business is in trouble

not quite the same thing (although if the business folds the end result may be the same)

I hate them now for how they treat their customers, taking money off people and updating the site with new stuff, vouchers etc and knowing full well they arent going to do about your order. Damn son thats dark.

cmon...
Maelstrom and eye of the storm are the same!!
Had the same address, and phone...
not talking about the page..
And they are going to let all the costumers with no solutions??

its totally disappointing...

 unmercifulconker wrote:
I hate them now for how they treat their customers, taking money off people and updating the site with new stuff, vouchers etc and knowing full well they arent going to do about your order. Damn son thats dark.

This is what bothers me too really. They have never let me down, i had an order from them only last week, but its not really on for them to ignore the customers that have already paid and to keep sending them further offers as well just rubs it in.
All these problems and this witch hunt could be simply avoided with some basic communication on their behalf.

Not an excuse for not putting updated info on the website,

but if your run a business your staff should be busy all the time, so it may not be possible for them to actually do the work (picking, packing, dispatching) AND answer emails/calls in the volume they are probably getting

As far as we can see they are clearing stock

some stuff from these sales has arrived AND the amount of stuff listed on the website is falling so this seems genuine

As long as the cash realised from the sales is being used to bring in the stuff that folk have ordered everybody MAY get what they need

(We have no proof on this, but if some of the long standing orders start being filled it it will look positive)

As to Eye of the Storm and Miece Miniatures, if things fold and there is still debt that will be one for the lawyers to fight over (especially if stock has been moved over to eye of the storm without the appropriate cash moving to maelstrom in return)

What I resent, is that they took my order in August, knowing they couldn't fulfill it, and then sent me emails offering discount on stock they did have, just so they could do what they should have done with my money in the first place, which they still didn't do...

Although Im lurking Dakka for a long time, I admit that I registered because of this thread.
I wouldnt name me a wargamer. Im more of a modeller. I collect minis and paint them (or at least try) just for the joy of it and for displaying as figures. So Im not a very frequent customer of wargaming shops in any form. I had ordered from Maelstrom in the past, about 4 times, mostly paints and grey/green stuff. I had absolutely no complain. Everything arrived swiftly, within 5 working days. In fact the only small delay was due to the local useless post office. The thing is that the last time i ordered from them was last spring.
On September 30 I decided that I needed some paints and the new talk of the town ''liquid green stuff''. I had 2 options.
A) Go to a physical wargamming store. The thing is that there isnt anyone near my home so I have to get to the centre of Athens just for this. Meanning about 2 hours come and go, plus the fact that I can do it only on a Saturday morning cause of work. And I like to wake up late on Saturdays . But biggest problem is that I had to deal with the monopoly called ''Fantasy Shop''. These guys are the biggest and till lately the only representatives of GW. They have a chain of franchise stores and the norm is that they jack the prices by 20% at least! If you visit one of their stores you will propably have a stroke.

B) Order online. There is going to be a waiting time, but 5 days or one week never killed anybody. The greatest disadvantage usually is the shipping cost and thats where Maelstrom enters the story.

I decided that since anyway I had to wait few days till weekend and certainly I was reluctant to be skinned alive by Fantasy ''give me your wallet'' Shop, the best choice was trusty old Maelstrom
I placed an order and because I was looking around in their site also the next day, I placed another order (so clever). I must admit that I didnt invest any serious money, about 50 euros + 6 moneyback for paints and a box of Bretonnian Knights that were sold half the price of the Fantasy Shop. I forgot the whole thing for 3-4 days and then I just went to check my order status just for the fun of it. I saw the ''processing'' label and that stroke abit strange to me. 2 days after the same. And then i noticed this thread. I searched some more and discovered sporadic posts in other forums. Then I knew that something stinks. I mailed Maelstrom about the status of my order. No answer. I mailed them aboy 4 times more with no answer and then I decided to play the Paypal card. I thought that if i dispute the transaction, at least then they will be allerted and contact me. Nothing. No answer through Paypal or to my numerous mails asking for cancelation of my 2 orders. The funniest is that after 3 days of the Claim I checked my order status and I saw one still processing and one canceled! Madness! I specifically asked them for cancelation of both orders with their codes and they canceled one of them only!
The aftermath is that today after 10 days waiting Paypal mailed me that I won the dispute of both orders. As I understand nobody from MG communicated with Paypal either. Im going to get my money back after 5 or 7 days. The thing is that what they do in MG is horrible. This whole silent treatment have just killed their business if its not dead yet. The most valuable asset of an e-business is reputation. Lose that and you have lost everything. Customers dont care about their financial problems. Customers of first world services (like wargaming) want to have fun with their hobby. Anything that complexes that is ruining the experience. We already have problems. Thats why we paint little soldiers! To forget them!
So Maelstrom Games stop gaking all over our hobby and pursuit of good mood!

Can you still get money back if you didn't pay with paypal but with visa directly?

It's going to be hard to get the money back :( Damn thieves, all my birthday money gone lol.

It really gets my pissed they don't even have the decency to make an official statement and why the hell did they still take orders from out of stock items if they know they are going down.

Same as ted1138 and many others it seems.

How about we organise an angry mob lol ? There irl address is public knowledge isn't it :p?

VISA has something called chargeback, it's basically the same as every card companies have. Call your issuing bank tomorrow, explain the situation and ask for a chargeback for not receiving your items.

Time limit is usually around 120 days or so.


And... what The Stranger says. /thread

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
Not an excuse for not putting updated info on the website,
but if your run a business your staff should be busy all the time, so it may not be possible for them to actually do the work (picking, packing, dispatching) AND answer emails/calls in the volume they are probably getting

Having worked in warehouses in the past, we've always had casuals we could call in during busy periods (ie when large shipments arrived, so we could clear them out promptly). But let's face it, if the phone isn't being answered at all (nor emails) anymore, the problems are pretty severe, and this level of customer dissatisfaction is extremely hard to recover from.

 devilution wrote:
Can you still get money back if you didn't pay with paypal but with visa directly?

It's going to be hard to get the money back :( Damn thieves, all my birthday money gone lol.

It really gets my pissed they don't even have the decency to make an official statement and why the hell did they still take orders from out of stock items if they know they are going down.

Same as ted1138 and many others it seems.

How about we organise an angry mob lol ? There irl address is public knowledge isn't it :p?

Call your bank tommorow. I guess the bad thing is if you are underage, that you have to put your parents (or whoever the CC owner is) through this trouble. You have my sympathy. Have your birthday money stolen/withheld really sucks.
As for me in all this jinx, at least I had some sun shine. I was walking to my local comics shop and right next to it opened a new wargamming shop. I asked the owner of the comic shop (Im customer for at least 15 years now) whats going on with these guys and he told me that they are very stand up guys (they are also his customers for years and he help them rent the space). I went for a visit and I was very happy to find out that they have logical prices (they charge official GW prices), I can order what ever I want from GW, Vallejo, GF9 without any extra charge. They are very friendly and most of all they are wargamers themselves. The best part was that they were having a sale on blisters of metal minis from GW and I bought about 10 for 4 euros each. So as long as these guys play fair, Im sticking with them.

Well, I think we'll find out tomorrow or the next day (UK Time) what is going on with Maelstrom.

That's if we don't all get a final final final clearance offer e-mail.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 scipio.au wrote:

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
Not an excuse for not putting updated info on the website,
but if your run a business your staff should be busy all the time, so it may not be possible for them to actually do the work (picking, packing, dispatching) AND answer emails/calls in the volume they are probably getting

Having worked in warehouses in the past, we've always had casuals we could call in during busy periods (ie when large shipments arrived, so we could clear them out promptly). But let's face it, if the phone isn't being answered at all (nor emails) anymore, the problems are pretty severe, and this level of customer dissatisfaction is extremely hard to recover from.

Yeah, you shouldn't be a busy fool in a warehouse, especially not in a mail order operation. If Maelstrom head onwards and upwards I think a warehopuse may be the last thing they need