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Ok... Matty only spends maybe £200 a year on minis, it takes a fair amount of gak to make Matty angry.

Anyway, I got home from work last week early.. it was maybe 1300hrs, I checked on dakka, they said Maelstrom are taking pre orders now! And obviously I really want DV Limited edition so I can split the chaos with my pal Alby and we can get some nice cheap minis.

I ordered literally 8 hours after it must have went live on their website. The cash went out of my account on the 25th of August. I noticed from checking other stores (gifts for geeks was cheap too) that many of them sold out quickly and marked the item as SOLD OUT to obivously keep things on a first come first served basis, and I was actually a bit concerned that MG never seemed to do this as well.

Gets to fething YESTERDAY (September 6th) and I get this email...

------------------

Hi,

We are contacting you regarding your recent order of the Warhammer 40,00 Dark Vengeance limited edition box set. Unfortunately we regret to inform you that Games Workshop have completely sold out of this limited edition set and we shall not be able to obtain stock of this item beyond our initial allocation.

We understand that this may come as a disappointment and inconvenience to our customers. And in light of this, we would like to offer you a choice of how we can process your order:

1. You may cancel your order for a full refund either to store credit (moneyback) or to your original payment method.

2. You have the option to switch your order to the standard version of Dark Vengeance. We will of course refund the price difference between the two sets to your store credit account. See below for an FAQ.

Q: 'I ordered Dark Vengeance using a discount voucher, will that still be valid if I choose to downgrade?'

A: Our staff will apply exactly the same discount levels that you benefited from when you placed your original order. This will be credited to your store credit account (moneyback).

Q: 'Will this change have an effect on when my order will be shipped?'

A: Unfortunately, yes. Games Workshop had placed a restriction on independent retailers to prevent standard versions being ordered before the limited edition was sold out. This, combined with other restrictions (such as being restricted to one order per week) means that the earliest we will be able to order stock will be next Monday, to arrive later in the week. We will still be processing all orders on a 'first come, first served' basis as we believe this is the only fair way of doing so, and we will process, pack and dispatch all items as fast as possible.

Please inform us how you would like to proceed with your order by contacting us via this e-mail. Once again we apologise for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience regarding this issue.

Yours,

Simon Robinson
------------------

And I was pretty pissed. Fortunately, as I had the aforementioned willies about MG, i ordered another set off GFG when It came back to "In Stock" on about September 2nd, just in case said scenario came to pass. I figured, I can use the extra DA and Ill ebay the chaos if my mate doesn't want them, either way I wont lose that much cash if I get both sets, its only £50 anyway... but I have a bad feeling about this.

So Lo. Maelstrom, who didnt do what the other companies seemed to do, and mark the item as sold out when they had shifted their allocation, have now told me, 13 days after taking my money, that I dont get one, even though, 8 hours in.. surely I was near the top of the list right?

I can only presume they took a few hundred orders, kept everyone's cash in the bank, and then shipped them at random, clearly there was no queue in place. They get to hold everyones dough, and then email a big feth you to everyone who didnt get one in the random raffle they had to determine who gets a box.

Also, I rang GFG today to say "Have I defintely got one then even though I ordered so late?" and a guy picked up quickly and said "Yes mate, if you ordered when it was still in stock, you will get it in the next few days as we got another batch yesterday"

I tried to ring Maelstrom after to say "Give me back my money you incompetent feths" and they have been engaged for an hour. Which suggests to me, they just dont want to answer the phone.

So.. If you have just joined me after the wall of text.

Gifts for Geeks seems worth using.

Maelstrom games are mother fethers.

In fact, Im going down there for a Tourney in March... I might drop in personally...

That's just absolutely shocking. If you can't afford or be assed to maintain your website, then you shouldn't have one. This is just another facet of my general gripe about the company.

The funny thing is, I've been to the store in person and the guy running the shop is a spot on guy, so I can only assume that the monkey's running the weboste are a seperate department to the physical store.

Maelstrom Games have never failed to serve me fine.

Two sides for every coin and all that... Not sure what you're trying to achieve by posting rage-text on an internet forum.

Shame you got burned like that Matty. I have to say that I would never order anything limited from MG as they are always slow and pants about updating their site.

Glad you had a back up order with GFG - I've never heard anything bad about their service, unlike the fairly often MG threads that seem to have been cropping up in the last few months (as well as my own experiences of them being extremely slow with every order I have ever placed with them, which is a reasonable amount).

So yeah, moral of the story, never order from MG when what you order is limited or otherwise time dependent.

Poor communication on MG's part I think. Total Wargamer were very clear about how many LE DV sets they'd get and when you'd get yours based on order date etc.

Bad luck Matty. I've never had any trouble with Maelstrom, but then I've never tried ordering anything limited edition from them. I guess sloppy service and lengthy dispatch times are the price we pay for discounted stuff.

 Eiríkr wrote:
Maelstrom Games have never failed to serve me fine.

Two sides for every coin and all that... Not sure what you're trying to achieve by posting rage-text on an internet forum.

Im just curious if anyone else did the same, I presume that they carried on taking order for the full fortnight and therefore there would be a few hundred people got fethed the same way.

What DID you think I was trying to acheive like? The crushing of my now eternal foes?

Its a website we post topical gak on to talk about. This is topical, I am curious to hear if anyone else has anything to add, end of dit.

You had a good experience, nice one... what was the rest of your sentence supposed to achieve?




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Davylove21 wrote:
Poor communication on MG's part I think. Total Wargamer were very clear about how many LE DV sets they'd get and when you'd get yours based on order date etc.

Yeah see that's what I was curious about it seems Wayland and GFG did the exact same thing, namely, marked it as SOLD OUT when they had shifted their 90 copies or whatever.

As I said, It takes a lot to annoy me, the way I see it, taking endless orders on your limited edition set you are only getting a set amount of (what, 75-100 tops?) is fething irresponsible, and secondly, clearly I must have been one of the first 50 people to order, obviously they need a new techmarine.

I've still heard nothing back from the mother fethers either.... I just presume the web monkeys are busy playing Solitaire eh?

 mattyrm wrote:
I've still heard nothing back from the mother fethers either.... I just presume the web monkeys are busy playing Solitaire eh?

I'm not sure if they are still moving warehouses or not, but I am pretty sure they were supposed to be doing that some time around now.

 mattyrm wrote:


Im just curious if anyone else did the same, I presume that they carried on taking order for the full fortnight and therefore there would be a few hundred people got fethed the same way.

What DID you think I was trying to acheive like? The crushing of my now eternal foes?

Its a website we post topical gak on to talk about. This is topical, I am curious to hear if anyone else has anything to add, end of dit.

You had a good experience, nice one... what was the rest of your sentence supposed to achieve?

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Davylove21 wrote:
Poor communication on MG's part I think. Total Wargamer were very clear about how many LE DV sets they'd get and when you'd get yours based on order date etc.

Yeah see that's what I was curious about it seems Wayland and GFG did the exact same thing, namely, marked it as SOLD OUT when they had shifted their 90 copies or whatever.

As I said, It takes a lot to annoy me, the way I see it, taking endless orders on your limited edition set you are only getting a set amount of (what, 75-100 tops?) is fething irresponsible, and secondly, clearly I must have been one of the first 50 people to order, obviously they need a new techmarine.

I've still heard nothing back from the mother fethers either.... I just presume the web monkeys are busy playing Solitaire eh?

Fair enough. I placed an order on the GW website at midnight on release as Maelstrom were late to the party. I then cancelled my order from GW in the morning and placed the order fresh with Maelstrom around 9am when the pre-orders finally went up. Watched my order over the week, it went through the various stages, picked up the limited edition on Saturday no problem. I'm going to point a finger at Maelstrom running out of stock [the number is floating around somewhere here on Dakka, Ltd. Edition runs were -very- limited for independents] and not updating the stock system quick enough for you. That in itself is a fault of Maelstrom's, whether it was intentional or not.
How are you aware that you were one of the 'first 50' to order? Placing the order on a limited item eight hours after the page went up and you reckon you were one of the first? Lawl...

I spoke to Maelstrom during the run-up week inquiring about the order. The phone was engaged a couple of times, eventually it was picked up - I accept that I am not the only customer they have. They even replied to my email at the end of the day on inquiry as to when funds would leave my account.

For what it's worth; Games Workshop still haven't reimbursed me for the cancelled order, nor have they updated my order yet through their website. Guess they're busy playing Solitaire too.

It's not just Maelstrom. I got the same type of e-mail from Wayland. Together with the options of 5% off on my next order + some figure from Kabuki Model OR a total refund.

My order was placed at 0200 the day when preorders went up. So either there was a ton of people ordering (not unlikely) or GW screwed them – and other retailers – over (not unlikely).

Sucks to be us I guess

I might be wrong like Eirikr, I just presumed MG didnt get an immense amount of traffic. I mean, our hobby aint THAT popular right?

How many orders do you think a company like MG gets in a week? Surely no more then a couple hundred? I guess there are more nerds out there than I figured.

And thanks for that Pixel.. You were even earlier than me.

Misery Loves company.

Last count, and especially during sales, it was around 5000 a week. They are that busy.

I'm not excusing what they've done here - FFG have stock problems, and their website is terrible at managing the stock automatically - but they take far more than 'a couple hundred' orders a week.

A couple of hundred a week...

Good Lord man, wake up a little.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Last count, and especially during sales, it was around 5000 a week. They are that busy.

I'm not excusing what they've done here - FFG have stock problems, and their website is terrible at managing the stock automatically - but they take far more than 'a couple hundred' orders a week.

feth me! That's mental.. I feel better then, I almost thought they were purposely taking the piss as I didn't presume that our hobby was popular enough to garner that many sales. Plus, there are so many bigger retailers, I'm genuinely surprised.. how many order will Wayland (hes the biggest right?) take in a week?!

That being the case I suppose I should expect some feth ups as part and parcel of a limited edition release. You live and learn.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Eiríkr wrote:


Good Lord man, wake up a little.

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?

A reply as per HBMC is sufficient, or "No actually they do a roaring trade"

You are basically making yourself look like a keyboard warrior with a bad attitude. So I suggest you wake up instead eh?

Doesn't surprise me. A mate of mine is still waiting on his free Flames of War v3 rulebook (ordered in February).

 George Spiggott wrote:
Doesn't surprise me. A mate of mine is still waiting on his free Flames of War v3 rulebook (ordered in February).

Yeah well.. .. they get 5000 orders a week no wonder they are fething confused!

 mattyrm wrote:

 Eiríkr wrote:


Good Lord man, wake up a little.

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?

A reply as per HBMC is sufficient, or "No actually they do a roaring trade"

You are basically making yourself look like a keyboard warrior with a bad attitude. So I suggest you wake up instead eh?

Do you always curse as much as you've done in this thread?

fishy bob wrote:

Do you always curse as much as you've done in this thread?

Whats that got to do with anything?

Oh but yeah I do.. I swear like a sailor with tourettes.

What? It was a light-hearted jest, matty. If you're under the delusion that one of the two largest independent stores (with Wayland) in the UK makes less than two hundred sales a week, you need to have another coffee.

To quote a particulary ginger sod from my wargaming club on Maelstrom,

"That big alien **** at the start of Prometheus isn't actually seeding life on earth as part of some long-sighted socio-genetic experiment. He's just trying to see which takes longer:
Evolution of a sentient multi-cellular organism, or getting what you ordered from Maelstrom games."

I don't know if its area based or whatever, but I'm yet to find anyone that I know who hasn't come to expect poor service from that webstore. =/

 Eiríkr wrote:
What? It was a light-hearted jest, matty. If you're under the delusion that one of the two largest independent stores (with Wayland) in the UK makes less than two hundred sales a week, you need to have another coffee.

The point is, I wasn't under a delusion because it was more of a question! I followed it with a question mark, obviously I have absolutely no idea at all and it was a shot in the dark. When HBMC said "about 5k" I didn't say "Bull gak!" I said "feth me I didn't expect it to be that high!"

It was merely a shot in the dark based on.. I dont know.. the population of the country and the general popularity of the hobby. I was genuinely surprised, because I really didn't think thatmany people played with toy soldiers.

It almost seems then, that pretty much every company has a higher than expected negative feedback from checking the forums.. Wayland, Maelstrom and many others seem to get plenty of negative feedback.

Maybe thats the crux of the problem? Perhaps none of them have enough staff because the demand is far higher than people might expect?

I got a similar message from Wayland;I did pre-order on the day for doing so. The ironic thing is that I wanted the limited edition solely so I could avoid paying the ridiculous amounts people are offering the chaplain for! I don't blame Wayland, nor do I think any independent store should be blamed also. Blame Games Workshop. Why?
1) They knew this set was going to be big and would sell out quick.
2) Why were there no restrictions on how many sets people could buy? Surely it would have been better if more players had got the chance to obtain a set? I read some posts on this site of how people were going to buy 5 sets or more. Now when you consider that the models are nowhere near as convertible as standard models(i.e. these models are just basic snap together) are you seriously going to build an entire army based around the same models? So far all I can see is GW have helped profiteering on some people's parts. Regardless of how rare a model is, its PLASTIC, please don't try and justify putting a price tag on it that is over 50% of the LE boxset cost! IT just won't fly.
3) The same thing happened with Space Hulk. No restrictions on how many people could buy basically allowed many to sell them at horrific prices; there is one currently on sale on ebay for just 4 times the cost of the release price! What a bargain!
It may sound like I'm bitter, you bet yer ass I am! I had to shell out for the chaplain on ebay .
@Games Workshop; you knew this was going to sell out, it wasn't going to be a product that stuck to the shelves like dreadfleet. You should have limited it to one per person(same with space hulk), but hey, can't let customer care get in the way of profit can we?

I don't think you can blame GW for this one. Any store that sells something that they do not have in stock, especially something limited edition, is taking a risk that they may not be able to get said item in stock. Couple that with the fact that MG apparently can't keep track of their stock, and the failure is firmly in their boat. There is no excuse for a company that does as much business as MG to not have a system in place that updates their web site as sales come in.

 Eiríkr wrote:
Not sure what you're trying to achieve by posting rage-text on an internet forum.

Save the rest of us from wasting our time with them in the future?

Putting his experience on record?

using public pressure to maybe make them get their asses in gear for next time?


I'm not sure why he shouldnt post about this?

@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.

 mattyrm wrote:
It almost seems then, that pretty much every company has a higher than expected negative feedback from checking the forums.. Wayland, Maelstrom and many others seem to get plenty of negative feedback.

Maybe thats the crux of the problem? Perhaps none of them have enough staff because the demand is far higher than people might expect?

Thats usually how it is. The negatives about a company gets aired much more often than positive things. No matter if it's restaurants, Games Workshop or Valve. To counterbalance that I want to say that Rich from Wayland sent me a PM asking for my order number since he was kinda sure I would be able to get the LE version.

Hi PP,

I see you mentioned that you ordered at 2am and were told you would not be getting your DV ltd edition from us?

That seems starange as the cut off pint was 3.29 pm on the 25th.

Can you pm me your order number so i can check for you, some customers were told in error yesterday that they would not be getting DV Ltd as someone used the wrong cut off pont but we sent a correction a few hours later.

Go Wayland!

For pre-orders like this I think I would, in the role of manager, hire some temps just to be able to handle the massive amount of orders coming in when such a high ticket item goes on sale. Just like we used to do when I was working retail at the start of a sales period. A little bit out of my lane though, I have never had any experience running mail-order companies (thankfully!)

Well chaps, I just received an email from gifts for geeks saying my box off them has shipped. 1828hrs on 07/09/12

So, for what its worth, I know they have given some people decent service on here, but MG had my money for 11 days longer than GFG, whom I only ordered from on September 2nd, and GFG have now shipped my gear.

So, for myself I wont be using MG again, and I've read so much gak about Wayland I think ill feth them off in future as well. I now just hope that Maelstrom send me my bastard money back before we have converted to Euros... and then back to pounds when it all collapses in 2016.

Sounds like either they didn't get as many as they had hoped allotted to them, or their online inventory didn't keep track of the number of orders coming in.

Either way, it's pretty gakky to keep your money that long when they know they're not getting more product in.

I'm lucky that I have TheWarStore and FrontLineGaming to order in the US. I've never had a problem with either.

 kronk wrote:

I'm lucky that I have TheWarStore and FrontLineGaming to order in the US. I've never had a problem with either.

If it gets any worse here I'm going to have to use them as well, get them sent to my missus mom's house in Pasadena and then pick them up the twice a year we go visit.

Maybe us Brits just have gakky customer service, have you seen how much worse our waitresses are?

I dunno, the only time I had bad service on my trip over there was at a pub in Wales...