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Hi
Would like the advice of the forum, I ordered on the 31/01/12 from a premier retailer (name withheld) in the UK a few minor items listed on there website £28.00 in total, and as of today havent received zip.

Have called weekly and been told the delivery is only days away, but I know that deliveries from GW take 5 days so the items should be instock by now. I seem to be the only person who has problems with this retailer.

What would you do, I want to cancel the items and go to GW themselves as i'd rather pay more and get it when I need it, then keep calling and being lied to.

How did you pay for it?

If by paypal, then start proceedings and it will either bump them into sending you them, or you will get your money back.

Karl

Hi
I paid via paypal, but will give the guy 21 days and phone him on Tuesday, and get a refund, if he mucks me around will gladly name and shame them.

Filing a dispute with Paypal should be done within 48-ish days of the transaction taking place. I forget the specific number. You have a limited time to file a dispute before matters get really complicated.

If they sent you notice that your items are en route and you haven't received them 3 weeks later, file a dispute.

Basically every time i call its on back order, and will be there in a few days. This guys shop is possible the biggest in the country, so there should be no reason why there is this delay.

The items I have ordered are coomonly available, and if GW arent delivering that means his credit with them is maxed out.

Tomorrow is 21 days, will call him and cancel, and if I get mucked around will contact paypal.

Thankfully I am in a good position with legal cover and would think nothing of using the small claim court.

Maelstrom or Wayland?

I have had the same problem with Wayland. I placed an order on the 1st feb. It was finaly dispached, apparently, on Saterday. If it is them i guess they are having some sort of problem, whatever it is I don't think they are ripping people off, however i have been put off ever using them again.

Maelstrom. Customer service my ass. Delivery is here, so waiting for dispatch.

There not ripping people off, but there lots other shops and what makes you shop somewhere is customer service.

It can unfortunately take this long from them if you order out of stock stuff.

Would never order out of stock items, and according to there website it was in stock, and is still showing instock when it was out of stock.

I don't like being given a run around.

Maelstrom appear to have been a bit clogged up recently. They're definitely a bit back-logged with the recent FOW offer, but I have no truck with GW, so I couldn't say if their slam-tight ordering process might slow things down particularly.

What I have noticed is that they move at the speed of the slowest item, unless you request an order split. So if an item is out-of-stock or pre-order, it seems to make the rest of the order drag somewhat. Once requested, my orders were split, re-split, added together and re-split again, and finally dispatched. Maybe their online systems are playing up? Maybe they have a noob on staff?

I do wonder whether their stock taking doesn't work as fast as their sales do as well. One hand not talking to the other?

Generally I've found them to be rather good (apart from the lag described), so I'm hoping this current issue is a temporary aberration rather than the rule.

What does irk me is that the delay in posting items that other people have already received (and are thus in stock) means that Royal Mail will be delivering tomorrow or the next day, when I'm stuck in hospital for my son's chemo. Thus I can't be in to receive them. Thus I'm going to have to take the damn red card all the way to the sorting office on foot to fetch the bloody thing, bring it back here then go all the way back to the sodding train station to get to the Hospital which is in a different city. Right what I wanted to be doing... OK so that's not directly Maelstroms fault, (its directly the fault of royal Mail for moving the sorting office out of town) but hugely irritating nevertheless. Grrrr. (/rant)

Finally here, only took 25 days for something that I could have gotten off of my fat ass and gotten cheaper and faster it turns out from Dark Sphere.

Maelstrom can kiss my ass, wont be wasting my time with them again.

TBH I'm more narked that it took until Thursday for me to get my PSC Panthers, which I could have bought from the PSC guy in the flesh last month, that my mate who ordered them well after me got last week, which is how I realised they had them in stock, and thus why i had to make them split the order (again again.) The book was secondary to this.

Magnamaniac wrote:Finally here, only took 25 days for something that I could have gotten off of my fat ass and gotten cheaper and faster it turns out from Dark Sphere.

Maelstrom can kiss my ass, wont be wasting my time with them again.

25 days isn't too bad for an online order; just over 3 weeks - a week or so to order in anything that is out of stock and for it to arrive, a week to unpack, sort outgoing stuff and ship, a week in the post.

Old Glory regularly manage to ship me things within 3 days. Maelstrom sometimes manage that as well. Amazon rarely takes longer than four. 25 days these days is the province of custom-built furniture. Not off-the-shelf toys.

I agree, most purchases I make off eBay will be shipped within a day or two, yet I have made an order with te bitzbarn, (over 400$ order) and it ha been 10 days an still have not been shipped, nor have I received a reply from the email I sent asking what the situation was.

In your case 25days is WAAAAY to long. I would have asked for a refund days ago. Good customer service should be the number 1 priority and such a long time to just ship an order is ridiculous IMO it shouldn't take anyone longer then a week to ship out an order. And if you are out of stock, inform the customer as soon as they place the order and reimburse them.
It's not difficult

think its a conspiracy to make me angry lol.

Am wiser now and Dark Sphere can have my pennies.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

SilverMK2 wrote:

Magnamaniac wrote:Finally here, only took 25 days for something that I could have gotten off of my fat ass and gotten cheaper and faster it turns out from Dark Sphere.

Maelstrom can kiss my ass, wont be wasting my time with them again.

25 days isn't too bad for an online order; just over 3 weeks - a week or so to order in anything that is out of stock and for it to arrive, a week to unpack, sort outgoing stuff and ship, a week in the post.

You are a very patient person. In todays cutthroat world, I expect online stock levels and a maximum of 48 hrs processing time. Will never order out of stock items. You cant be bothered to stock it, i'll go somewhere else.

Maelstrom just came off the back of a massive sale over the new year period, when ever they do that you can almost add three weeks to the order due to high demand.

Its cheaper, but somtimes you have to wait.

Although I find upgrading to 1st class post will cut that time in half, and when in stock I normally have it within a few days.

Also don't forget due to Changes GW has enforced on indepedents, for reasons I can't even begin to fathom, (as any GW sale surely has to be a good GW sale) Malestrom can only put in a new order each Friday.
So if you order Saturday or Sunday, you'll be waiting a week before they can even order it from GW if out of stock.

It's one thing if the website has a disclaimer about delays, it's something made to order, something being shipped from overseas, or something that's listed as back-ordered. In those cases, you know you've got a wait on your hands, and can factor that into your decision to buy it there or not.

If something's listed as in stock, I expect the order to be handled within a day or two. Five days is about as long as I'll wait for processing, and anything beyond that, it's deceptive to call it in-stock, since obviously it wasn't.

Agree with you 100% stormfather, if an item is listed as IN STOCK, ther should be no reason for it to take any more then a couple of days at most to have it shipped out, otherwise list it as out of stock and don't accept money for it, Or at least do the honorable thing and inform the customer straight away the situation an offer a refund.

ArbeitsSchu wrote:
What does irk me is that the delay in posting items that other people have already received (and are thus in stock) means that Royal Mail will be delivering tomorrow or the next day, when I'm stuck in hospital for my son's chemo. Thus I can't be in to receive them. Thus I'm going to have to take the damn red card all the way to the sorting office on foot to fetch the bloody thing, bring it back here then go all the way back to the sodding train station to get to the Hospital which is in a different city. Right what I wanted to be doing... OK so that's not directly Maelstroms fault, (its directly the fault of royal Mail for moving the sorting office out of town) but hugely irritating nevertheless. Grrrr. (/rant)

Might sound crazy but is it possible to get stuff delivered to the Hospital?

OT: I've had the same issues with Maelstrom as you had. It seems to be GW that slows them down to a crawl as they can only order from them once a week IIRC. If you just order stuff that is listed as in stock and not GW then you'll be fine. I've never had any qualms with their service and they've always been top notch, if a little slow in the past with PP stuff (but we all know how that came about last year!).

Must admit i would not be happy with a 25 day wait for a company in the same country, especially if the item was listed in stock, i always used mealstrom in the past but i think i will try darksphere too as it seems cheaper.

Grimtuf wrote:
It seems to be GW that slows them down to a crawl as they can only order from them once a week IIRC.

Knowing this maelstrom should then increase their stock holding.

Maelstrom always has been slow, it usually takes well over a month for an order to reach me, so I only use them when the project is either low-priority or I see no other option. The thing that annoys me the most is when your order is all packed up and they send you a message telling you that some items are out of stock, despite the stock levels on site saying otherwise.

Mr. Burning wrote:

Grimtuf wrote:
It seems to be GW that slows them down to a crawl as they can only order from them once a week IIRC.

Knowing this maelstrom should then increase their stock holding.

I think they only have a pokey little warehousing area so storage could be a problem.

I have been to Wayland quite a few times and never found stock to be a problem even when I arrive unannounced with a great long list of stuff, although this could just be down to luck.

That said because both Mealstrom and Wayland can be visited and bought from show while the website might say 6 chiemras in stock, if someone turns up one day and clears that out there could be a discrepancy with the website?

My order with a UK online discount gaming store is currently sitting at the "Processed" stage for 10 ten days now. They don't tell you on the site if the item is in stock or not, so i just have to assume that they have no chimeras in stock!

notprop wrote:

Mr. Burning wrote:

Grimtuf wrote:
It seems to be GW that slows them down to a crawl as they can only order from them once a week IIRC.

Knowing this maelstrom should then increase their stock holding.

I think they only have a pokey little warehousing area so storage could be a problem.

I have been to Wayland quite a few times and never found stock to be a problem even when I arrive unannounced with a great long list of stuff, although this could just be down to luck.

That said because both Mealstrom and Wayland can be visited and bought from show while the website might say 6 chiemras in stock, if someone turns up one day and clears that out there could be a discrepancy with the website?

They could certainly do with better inventory management. Someone dedicated to stock control web sales as well.

Just to give credit where it's due, placed a (fairly large) order with Dark Sphere on Friday, when shortly after it became apparant that an ebay bargain was lost in transit.

The ebay seller was very good about a refund, and I contacted Dark Sphere to add the item (a SM Tac Squad) to my pending delivery.

I received no response, which was a little disappointing, but not a massive surprise as some have said that they had issues with communication.

However!

I received an email this morning saying it would be fine to add the tac squad to the order (which by now was already in transit) and a paypal invoice for the difference. I gladly paid, thinking I had at least saved on the shipping, even if I had to wait a few more days.

About an hour ago the original order turned up, including the Tac Squad!

This means that they must have sent it on trust, with no payment received for it, and while I have used them before, this was only my second order, so I'm hardly an established customer.

Quick delivery, great service, cheapest I can find anywhere and they are good enough to show that sort of faith in their customers, I won't be going anywhere else for my plastic crack for the foreseeable!

Nrljm wrote:I agree, most purchases I make off eBay will be shipped within a day or two, yet I have made an order with te bitzbarn, (over 400$ order) and it ha been 10 days an still have not been shipped, nor have I received a reply from the email I sent asking what the situation was.

Wow that is funny. I placed an order with them and they shipped it within a few days, mainly because I ordered over a weekend. Stuff turned up last week. All up it was about 2 weeks delivery from the US via USPS for $9. Given that I was paying half the price for the stuff that I would here in Oz it was a totally satisfying exercise. Just placed another order.

Magpie wrote:

Nrljm wrote:I agree, most purchases I make off eBay will be shipped within a day or two, yet I have made an order with te bitzbarn, (over 400$ order) and it ha been 10 days an still have not been shipped, nor have I received a reply from the email I sent asking what the situation was.

Wow that is funny. I placed an order with them and they shipped it within a few days, mainly because I ordered over a weekend. Stuff turned up last week. All up it was about 2 weeks delivery from the US via USPS for $9. Given that I was paying half the price for the stuff that I would here in Oz it was a totally satisfying exercise. Just placed another order.

Mmm I'm guessing they didn't have something in stock at the time, I'm unsure, but anyway, 12days after the order, and 3 emails which I received 0 replies from, I received an email this morning saying it has been shipped now. Finally it's on it way, but theres no excuse for such a delay, and what's more disappointing is that I didn't receive a reply to any of my 3emails :/ I think next time I will purchase from else where.