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GW loves its customer base...... ...... ... Everyone stop laughing!!!

I know no one wants to hear another "GW is the Devil" rant so I will simply ask a question.

Does anyone else find it insulting that on top of the high prices, crappy service and nonexisting support, GW now wants the customer to pay more when GW screws up?

I was just informed by the 1-800-394-GAME line that when you get a severe miscast, you are required to send the entire item ( in this case, an entire box of Eldar Rangers) AT YOUR EXPENSE, back to GW and they will send you a new item. In all fairness though, they did say that they would not charge any extra to ship the replacement back to you.

One good thing I can say about GW is that they always fix problems with models and packaging. I've had to contact them twice about missing parts and each time they shipped a new item ASAP at no cost to me. Maybe you just got someone new who doesn't know what they are doing.

Realy? That's odd.
I've had a few screw-ups from GW mailorder and they've always fixed me up at no expense to me.
Even when I volounteered to send the product back.
I'm in Canada however so GWUS may be a different kettle of ducks.

That happened with the BfM box set as some of the plastic was miscast and they wanted me to ship them the whole box back. I asked them if it was possible for me to send them the sprue , but they replied that they dont have sprues laying around, just boxed sets.

They should ask for only the sprue if it was miscast and send another one. In the case of missing bits, its completly unacceptable to ask for the box back just to recieve a small missing metal bit.

That also happened to me. They gave me the address where to send it and I never recieved my exorcist back. It cost alot just to send it to them because it weighed so much, and then they said they never recieved it. It still hasnt been resolved to this day even after sending them a copy of the shipping confirmation information. According to the USPS it was delivered.

So I spent $50 on the exorcist and then another $10 to ship it back. That was a lose-lose situation.

In all fairness though, even though I am still bitter about that fiasco, I still maintain that GW is usually very good and prompt about replacing any mixups in their product.

I heard someone mention that you can return such things directly to the store you
bought them from. True?

Posted By malfred on 10/21/2006 10:36 AM
I heard someone mention that you can return such things directly to the store you
bought them from. True?

In the US, it depends on the store. Some stores do returns, others ask you to go direct to GW. Some companies won't even let you go through the store, prefering to handle all mis-casts, mis-packs and other product problems themselves.

Whatever you do, if you have a problem with a GW item bought from an online store, Do Not Ever, Ever Tell GW that's where you got it from. They'll instantly refuse to deal with it (something like "we don't do returns from internet retailers" or somesuch). Lie and tell em you got it from a gift from your Uncle Neil, Aunt Cmo or whatever.

Regarding the original issue, GW had (has?) a rep of having top class mail order customer service and in the past would take care of these things no questions asked. I know that was my experience in years past. But if GW is now requiring blisters & box sets to be mailed back to replace a single mis-cast piece or sprue (BfM & BfSP sets excepting), is sounds like a huge step backwards to me. Of course, GW is an expert at walking backwards these days...

I've been hearing a lot of buzz about GW reversing their policy on miscasts.  I've gotten good responses from them nearly the entire time.

It's possible that their finally changing their policy about this, after a lot of people got a lot of free stuff.  Keeping in mind how often stuff get's miscast though, it's essentially becoming a crapshoot when you buy something if it's quality. 

Not to make a cliched "I'm going to stop buying GW" statement, but their quality assurance and customer support was their greatest asset, IMO.  I knew when I bought their product, they would support it, and make sure I got what I paid for.  It's one of the ways i could justify spending over $4 a piece on human sized models.  If they keep charging premium prices, but don't offer the support a premium product requires, then I have to mentally add a few bucks to every purchase I make, to cover the potential cost of shipping.  It's another reason to stop buying, unfortunately. 

Indeed. If you cannot offer the best quality product, service or price, then the value of said product goes down.

Lets see, GW definatly doesnt offer the best prices. Now if they continue to be daft in the return of all problem products, then not only is the price problem in the red, but now single handedly, they have erased both quality product and service from the equation.

It is not only a reason to reconsider paying premium prices for GW, its a MAJOR reason.

Well, I buy from Neil so price isn't so bad overall, really.

no it isnt, but then you have to take into consideration that the possibility of getting less than you paid for is outweighed by the fact you now have to pay frieght for the return and wait even longer to get what you paid for.

Its hard to justify even at 20% off.

And if you order from Neil, if you have any problems, you can't tell GW where you got 'em from since they refuse to back up their product sold via mail order/online retailers. This is, of course, pretty crap customer service, but par the course for them.

It doesn't surpise me in the least that they're now moving on to the even more boneheaded requirement for people to pay out of pocket to have the screwed up product sent back to get fixed/replaced (if they even do that).

I will say that whenever I have had a problem with missing or miscast bits, GW has always replaced them promptly and at no charge.  However, the last time I had a problem with something like that is when I got my Land Raider Crusader, back when Land Raider Crusaders were new.  That was several years ago.

Many things could have changed since then.

GW may be quite expensive, and they might do stupid stunts to further alienate them from their customers on a regular basis. However, I must say that when it comes to mail order, GW has always made sure that I have been compensated for anything missing, or out of order. I haven't ordered anything in a couple of years though, so things might have changed.

When I ordered stuff, it was almost exclusively metal bitz or blisters, so no plastic boxes. For my orders it was more common than not that some small stuff was either missing or mistakenly swapped for something else. In each and every case GW sent me the missing items at no extra cost, and when I had gotten something else, it was given to me as a bonus. A couple of times I got sent some extra blisters with my missing bitz to even further compensate me.´

Now, if GW has indeed changed its policy that the customer has to return what's miscast, misplaced, or the erroneous box, at our own expense, that would definitely make me think twice about ordering stuff. As for buying boxed set, I'm not sure. Just how often are they miscast really? I would never have guessed that they would make you send in the box, like they did to you, Hellfury. And if it subsecuentially went missing, and they denied it, I would have been absolutely furious.

All in all, I cannot really believe GW is willing to cut corners with this. As it was before, everyone and his brother knew that even though GW might be expensive, they always, always made sure that you got what you paid for. It would be incredibly stupid to destroy that superb goodwill that they have earned for themselves, and rightly so.

Well, they didnt deny it was sent, they just said they didnt get it. I realize snafus happen. I dont like the GW company but I really really doubt they would just outright say they never recieved the package just to keep from spending the $6 it takes to make an exorcist.

I just never ordered anything from them directly again. I havent bought anything in the last two years either except for 2 boxes of termies a year and a half ago. Seems to work for me. Though I will shamefully admit to buying a box of three warwalkers (and a codex) through alliance, but paying $45 for that box when buying them individually would cost $90, I just couldnt pass on updating my eldar somehow. I havent bought anything that cheaply from GW in a very very long time.

As a store, I've never had them ask me to pay shipping on a return, and I only have to even do a return of the product if its over about 30 dollars or so. Half the time not even then. They just ship me out replacement bits, with no hassle. It definitely makes it easy to replace bad parts in something a customer picked up.

I agree with everybody that has gotten great service from mail order. I know that they've been excellent in the past. Their policy towards damaged kits, mixed up orders, and missing pieces was pretty much always "we'll send you a replacment ASAP, no charge." On the other hand, nearly half of all mail orders were botched, stuff was often screwed up, and there was a high demand for this service. Nobody complained when they got free/bonus/replacement bitz, but maybe GW is looking to close this loophole.

Now, if GW has increased it's quality assurance/quality control, and hired anyone other than monkey's on ecstasy to package their mail orders, then maybe they can start charging folks for messed up orders. I somehow doubt it.

Stil, this is all speculation. A few people here are there have encountered problems, and it's possilbe there's just some operator at mail order who's feeling like cracking the whip, and not a new company policy.

If, however, there is a new GW policy to be stingier with fixing orders, then I'm going to be disappointed. Price is one thing, stuff costs what it does, buy it or don't. But if I buy something, and it's not complete or unusuable, then I don't want to have to go through the time and expense of mailing it back to GW. I have no ethical problem paying $50 for a kit, but I expect the highest quality, both in the box and at customer support.

Yea, if some of you old-guys haven't dealt with trying to get someting replaced from either a Hobby Center or Mail Order, the heydays are over.

I picked up an Ogre Kingdoms army box and found out that one (1) Yhetee hand was missing. Rang up Mail Order, told them what I had and what I was missing. Whichever phonemonkey it was told me I was going to have to send the whole boxed set back (Yhetees were just in a plastic tray) the conversation went something like this:

Phonemonkey: "You're going to have to send the set back to us for a replacement"

Me: "The Yhetees or the whole Army box?"

Phonemonkey: "The whole army box."

Me: "Are you F*****G jerking my chain? Let me speak to your Manager"

Phonemonkey: "One moment please, sir"

2 min wait

Phonemonkey: "Sir, what I can do is find you the bit in one of the open boxes that we have around here and I can send it out to you. I just need your name and address."


So I say, give 'em a little lip and see what happens. Of course that was a while ago. Good Luck!

If the Ogre Kingdom army box was purchased within the first few weeks of it coming out, I know what was going on, assuming this was in the US. (No clue how the Uk works.)

Mailorder doesn't have bits or product laying around anymore, and a warehouse 5 steps behind them. All product is shipped out of memphis.

The ogre kingdom box was out, Yetti's weren't out yet. The only way for the phonemonkey to input the yetti bit was to ship out a full army box. To do that, he has to have the defective box back. Or he has to wait until yetti come out a month or two down the line. Looks like someone had an open one they didn't mind pulling a bit out of.

I've had similar happen with 3 defective tomb kings armies at my shop. Had to wait on pieces to replace them. They should really have some extra bits available to fill replacement orders, on the big army boxes. Not like they don't mess up in packing them.

 

When I was missing a sprue from a SM command boxed set GW sent me out a sprue with no cost to me. Of course, I didn't tell them where I got it from. 

If GW is changing their normally great customer policies.... Well. I just won't say it.

ender502

They aren't actually obligated to replace/fix anything. Box sets clearly state "contents may vary from those shown".

You pays your money, you takes your chances.

Posted By Abadabadoobaddon on 10/26/2006 9:20 AM
They aren't actually obligated to replace/fix anything. Box sets clearly state "contents may vary from those shown".

You pays your money, you takes your chances.

True.  But you can only fak the customer so many times before the  customer tells the company to fak off by not buying anymore.

I did a big Tyranid order not long ago, and they forgot several blisters. I wrote them about it, and they sent them all over within a week. This is after the first order arrived in 6 days.

I'm in Australia.

I was ordering from GWUS.

I love GWUS Mail Order. They fix their mistakes, and they deliver quicker than I thought possible.

BYE

Yeah, whenever I had screwup boxes or blisters, they sent the replacement no charge, no questions.

I mean, I may think GW has got its head up its rear in many many respects, but customer service for screwups was one thing they always did right.

I hope they dont take that away.

The only time I've ever had to send something back was when I received (from mail-order) a blister of swooping hawks filled with fire dragons (i.e. mislabeled blister). Why they wanted it, I don't know, but they reimbursed me the cost to mail it back, and I got my hawks (for whatever good they do me; I wonder what would have happenned if it had been a SM w/lascannon).

I like what PP does, with their 'packed by' labels. They're still not as prompt as GW mailorder, but the front desk is getting there.

i have always had GW send me the replacxement at no cost and have never asked for me to return the broken/miscast stuff back. but that could be GW Uk rules only dont know how they do it over the pond