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They have pubs in Wales?!

Nah..your yanking my chain!

GW are clueless about how well things will sell (there is no point making a "limited edition" quite that limited); Maelstrom have poor customer service and even poorer stock control. These things can (and in fact are) both true!

 mattyrm wrote:
They have pubs in Wales?!

Nah..your yanking my chain!

Sorry for the off-topic. I think it was this place, a little down the road from Craig-Y-Nos castle, where my ex and I stayed.

My need to use Maelstrom evaporated the moment GW set up their fething embargo. I've used them very occasionally since then (I have a Rogue Trader book in the post from them as we speak, but that's the first thing in months). They're the place I'd buy Scibor from... but that's probably it.

It's a pity too, because I (and a lot of us Aussies) used to spend hundreds of dollars there.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
My need to use Maelstrom evaporated the moment GW set up their fething embargo. I've used them very occasionally since then (I have a Rogue Trader book in the post from them as we speak, but that's the first thing in months). They're the place I'd buy Scibor from... but that's probably it.

It's a pity too, because I (and a lot of us Aussies) used to spend hundreds of dollars there.

Let me know when it arrives mate.. if its not there in a month and I still havent got my money, I can give them a few digs from you when I drive up there at the end of the month and start dishing the beats out.

You have to be very careful with MG & The Warstore for nonsense like this. :( It's why I try to avoid both.

I'm noticing a trend now I've started looking though.. total wargamer, rocket hobbies, Wayland, The war store, Maelstrom... what the feth is it about wargaming companies?!

I have ordered gak off the internet for about ten years, I can count on one hand how many times I've had issues!

Maybe wargaming companies are ran by war gamers, and the fethers are too busy playing D&D or painting to be arsed to get the fething packages sent out!

I'm going to hazard a guess that internet demand, plus brick & mortar store frontings, is outstripping supply from the distributor // manufacturer.

 Eiríkr wrote:
I'm going to hazard a guess that internet demand, plus brick & mortar store frontings, is outstripping supply from the distributor // manufacturer.

Which at the end of the day as a paying customer all ultimately are excuses from my end. Yes it sucks to have these things happen from the buisness side (as a former LGS owner I know they do).

I place an order and give you money. I did so in good confidence that you have what you say you have and that it will be delivered in a timely fashion, etc. If that doesnt happen we have a problem and I am perfectly in my right to let people know that you are in breach of our contract.

Seller beware?

 CT GAMER wrote:

 Eiríkr wrote:
I'm going to hazard a guess that internet demand, plus brick & mortar store frontings, is outstripping supply from the distributor // manufacturer.

Which at the end of the day as a paying customer all ultimately are excuses from my end. Yes it sucks to have these things happen from the buisness side (as a former LGS owner I know they do).

I place an order and give you money. I did so in good confidence that you have what you say you have and that it will be delivered in a timely fashion, etc. If that doesnt happen we have a problem and I am perfectly in my right to let people know that you are in breach of our contract.

Seller beware?

Well that's my point, It was said so right from the off, on all the sites I seen, that GW only would let them have a small set amount per week. I think GFG said it was 85 boxes, and MG said 75 or something. Ergo, either I was in the first 75, or I wasn't, but on GFG, within 24hours the set had been made unavailable, it had big ass letters SOLD OUT next to it, and you couldn't stick one in your basket.

MG, were taking orders the entire time.

They took my money within 8 hours of my order on the 24/25th of August, they didn't bother to do anything else, not even send an email, until 12 days later. When they said "tough luck".

That isn't acceptable in my book. If it was my store, and I had taken 500 orders for a box I ADVERTISED on the homepage that I could only get 75 a week of, I would have made it unavailable, and emailed people early and said "Sorry, you guys bought them all so fast"

That is not acceptable.. just grabbing as much cash as possible, when surely they must have known within 24 hours they were fethed. So why take orders for another two weeks!?

Anyway, I'm not that pissed now I've had one shipped by a competitor, I'm just saying GFG seem to have the right idea, and MG have behaved entirely unacceptably so I wont be using them again.

Well, I got my starter set yesterday. The models are extra pretty for a starter box. So it should cheer you up when you get them.

I'd avoid Maelstrom after this incident if I were you.

 kronk wrote:
Well, I got my starter set yesterday. The models are extra pretty for a starter box. So it should cheer you up when you get them.

I'd avoid Maelstrom after this incident if I were you.

Aye that's the plan, the Chaos are going to Albatross... which is a shame, because the Chaos models are hoofing, better than the Angels. I think the chosen are some of the best I have ever seen.

But, alas.. I'm a staunch loyalist.

Money talks! Hopefully, you can get it all fixed!

MG will have put your refund into their moneyback scheme. I had that after cancelling an order a few years ago.

One of their chaps explained that they do this to avoid credit card fees since most people will want to buy more games stuff any way. Possibly true but I Called and asked for a refund and to be fair they begrudgingly gave me one.

I got an email earlier from MG about their latest 20% off sale (immediately after their 18%off sale no less!), in it it states that thu still haven't moved (in the hands of legal beagles they say) so they are probably holding off over stocking or even restocking. They don't seem to have added anything in some time.

Got confirmation now that

1) I will be getting my LE DV due to being an early (late) bird.
2) GW screwed Wayland over once again.

So back to Maelstrom... I guess they also got the "Woops, all our LE/DV sold out!" from Games Workshop?

 mattyrm wrote:
Are you purposely attempting to troll me? Do you speak to people in public places and pubs like you have done to me in this thread?

He is lovely in person. However you would know beyond doubt if he was trolling you, trust me on that, you'd really know.

Put this one down to a bad experience - high demand for a product that is available in limited numbers with plenty of people trying to order the same product. I have never had a problem with Maelstrom from the few pieces I've ordered from even if, like Wayland, they can take a while to ship your order.

Slipstream wrote:
@helium42, according to the email from Wayland they were told by Games Workshop that the Ltd edition would be available until the start of October and there would be enough.

In my opinion, it does not matter what GW told them or anybody else. A responsible company will not take orders for items that they do not have in stock. They decided to take a chance with somebody else's money, and they are solely to blame for that.

They needed to say: "We are taking pre-orders for the limited edition DV set. Buyer beware that you may not get one depending upon how many we get/how many people order them." Then at least people would have known what they were getting into.

Miniature Market decided to not even bother with the limited edition box set because of the way GW has handled these things in the past. They could have grabbed as many orders as possible and then dealt with refunds or store credit a month later like MG, but they chose to take the responsible route and not screw over their customers.

Miniature market is like that.

What's in stock is in stock. No crazy vouchers and sales, but consistently good prices. Good at shipping internationally.

I personally order everything I can from Maelstrom and have always found them to be quite assertive when dealing with any customer issues I've had. My only frustration with them at the moment is their lack of stock of so many of their product lines and the endless stock clearence vouchers when they have no stock for anything I want.

I think the DV issue was casued in somepart by GW as they assured independant retailers that the limited edition set would be available through to October. Couple that with the new ordering restrictions they've placed onto independant retailers this year.

It makes good business sense for GW if they wish to increase sales through their own webstore if they can reduce the level of service / stock through independants, whilst maintaining their own.

After GW poor behavior from 6th's release, I swore to not preorder a major item from them again, and it paid off for me. I waited a week to order a standard edition and it saved me from the loss of a limited or fancy edition.

Same time with DV, waited for everything to run to see where I could get. I'll jump aboard for the Chaos codex though. That is about it, maybe tau too.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I've also been waiting over 3 months now for 9 battle choir psykers. Still waiting.

 helium42 wrote:

Slipstream wrote:
@helium42, according to the email from Wayland they were told by Games Workshop that the Ltd edition would be available until the start of October and there would be enough.

In my opinion, it does not matter what GW told them or anybody else. A responsible company will not take orders for items that they do not have in stock. They decided to take a chance with somebody else's money, and they are solely to blame for that.

They needed to say: "We are taking pre-orders for the limited edition DV set. Buyer beware that you may not get one depending upon how many we get/how many people order them." Then at least people would have known what they were getting into.

Miniature Market decided to not even bother with the limited edition box set because of the way GW has handled these things in the past. They could have grabbed as many orders as possible and then dealt with refunds or store credit a month later like MG, but they chose to take the responsible route and not screw over their customers.

Funny enough the description of the product on our site said exactly that it was limited and there was no guarantee of supply. We even updated it to say which weekly batch the order would be in.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 helium42 wrote:

Slipstream wrote:
@helium42, according to the email from Wayland they were told by Games Workshop that the Ltd edition would be available until the start of October and there would be enough.

In my opinion, it does not matter what GW told them or anybody else. A responsible company will not take orders for items that they do not have in stock. They decided to take a chance with somebody else's money, and they are solely to blame for that.

They needed to say: "We are taking pre-orders for the limited edition DV set. Buyer beware that you may not get one depending upon how many we get/how many people order them." Then at least people would have known what they were getting into.

Miniature Market decided to not even bother with the limited edition box set because of the way GW has handled these things in the past. They could have grabbed as many orders as possible and then dealt with refunds or store credit a month later like MG, but they chose to take the responsible route and not screw over their customers.

Funny enough the description of the product on our site said exactly that it was limited and there was no guarantee of supply. We even updated it to say which weekly batch the order would be in.

If I had a Throne for every assumption in this thread I could just buy a Warhound Titan instead of stealing one. Well ok that is an exaggeration. I'm not really stealing it, just cutting corners on the requisition forms.

Whilst I don't think this issue is entirely MG's fault, it doesn't look like they did enough to safeguard themselves from it happening, and really by now they should know these sorts of potentialities. I am saddened to see MG dying a death of a thousand cuts from their lack of various CS aspects. :(

 Eiríkr wrote:
I'm going to hazard a guess that internet demand, plus brick & mortar store frontings, is outstripping supply from the distributor // manufacturer.

I'm sorry, but that simply isn't an excuse. Software which links physical stock to web sales and automatically updates the webstore accordingly is technology that's been around since the late 90's, which means either these companies are A; too cheap to pay for the infrastructure their business requires, B; too lazy to update their webstore with new software, or C; too lazy to undertake the very-slightly-higher level of effort required to manage such a system. None of those is a problem with the distributor. Further, it's not like limited stock for indie retailers, especially indie e-tailers, is some shocking new development, this has been GW's MO for several years now, if they still haven't adapted to account for it that's simply another failure on the part of the indie.

This isn't some universal constant, there ARE online retailers who have competent stock management, who hold reasonable levels of stock ready to ship, and who don't sell people things they will never have in stock and then hold their money for long periods of time. So either those good stores are run by extraordinary Ubermensch, or the bad stores are being run by people who're falling short.

Funny enough the description of the product on our site said exactly that it was limited and there was no guarantee of supply. We even updated it to say which weekly batch the order would be in.

Well I was basing my opinion off of what I read in the OP. So in this instance, at least you warned buyers that you were taking orders for stock you did not have and potentially could not get. But I still think that it is a poor business practice to take orders for stock that you do not have on hand. This is likely the number one cause for the delays that so many people have experienced and posted about in this very forum. If you had modern systems in place that tracked orders as they were taken and updated immediately on the web store you'd avoid a lot of the bad reviews you've been getting for the abnormally long delays.

Why do people buy from maelstrom then? People complain about their service, and they're not as cheap as rocket hobbies.

I guess I have been one of the lucky ones. I commute between Singapore and Sydney, and have ordered from Maelstrom numerous times over the past 5 years or so. Only had a single issue with them - admittedly, it took a couple of weeks to resolve.

Matty, sorry to hear you had issues with them.

Companies which do a lot of business naturally accumulate complaints over time. I don't think there are many good excuses for not communicating clearly about stock levels, and updating them promptly, though.

 helium42 wrote:

Funny enough the description of the product on our site said exactly that it was limited and there was no guarantee of supply. We even updated it to say which weekly batch the order would be in.

Well I was basing my opinion off of what I read in the OP. So in this instance, at least you warned buyers that you were taking orders for stock you did not have and potentially could not get. But I still think that it is a poor business practice to take orders for stock that you do not have on hand. This is likely the number one cause for the delays that so many people have experienced and posted about in this very forum. If you had modern systems in place that tracked orders as they were taken and updated immediately on the web store you'd avoid a lot of the bad reviews you've been getting for the abnormally long delays.

The item was a pre order. How would we show customers how many we have on hand?

If you think taking pre orders for something is a bad idea then you are not looking at the big picture. Long ago GW used to canvas us for numbers of pre orders required a while before release. They dont anymore, but pretty much every other manufacturer relies on pre order information. As do distributors, how many should they take into stock etc. If you want the entire supply chain to operate without doing that then you would almost overnight see the collaps of almost every part of the chain as it simply isn't viable, and a single product could bankrupt multiple tiers.

If we had modern systems... I wouldn't assume anything there.. we are talking about a situation where a supplier gives us in writing the estimate of the numbers we would receive. We made sure we only sold 75% of them and stopped taking sales. We were then told no more would be coming, a week after the supplier would have had the information to give to us that no more would be coming.

rich1231 wrote:
We made sure we only sold 75% of them and stopped taking sales.

 Mannahnin wrote:
Companies which do a lot of business naturally accumulate complaints over time. I don't think there are many good excuses for not communicating clearly about stock levels, and updating them promptly, though.

Aye that's my point see, that's why I am pissed off. MG should have simply stopped taking orders when they sold 75. Its not hard to mark it as SOLD OUT, that's what most companies seem to have done. They even put on their homepage "We only get 75 of these a week" or something, but then obviously never stopped taking orders for two whole weeks!

So loads of people will have paid, and now we have to wait for a refund, its out of order in my eyes, as I said, I'm not one to whinge, If I get a bad meal I don't say anything, I just don't go back there again, if I get bad customer service, I just feth off, I don't kick a fuss up.

But seriously, taking cash off people for two weeks when they MUST have been aware 48 hours in that they had ran out, is definitely out of order. They obviously did it on purpose.

I still haven't got my money back either.. funny that.

Good news though, I got one of Gifts for Geek's and it arrived yesterday. So alls well that ends well..

As long as the bastards give me my cash back!

Matty did you asked them on the phone for a cash/credit card refund or just can el the order on the web?

Unless you phone and ask for a cash/credit refund they will just leave it in your moneyback account ie with themselves and call the job a goodun'.

Too many things about MG smell of nearing administration (I've had 5 suppliers go under in the last twelve months), I'd get my money off the buggers ASAP.