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@XM: my "people are always more likely to complain" is just a loose guideline for me. I always expect anything to have a certain amount of negative reviews. That doesn't mean that you can't see a pattern or that negative reviews are not justified. It's more of an "I will excuse X number of bad reviews" but still take a closer look if there are more than that.

Isengard wrote:

IMHO if you cannot run a competent business, answer all your mails and ship reasonably fast then you should accept criticism. I don't know this specific company and I don't have any idea if they are good or not, I'm talking generalities. For me the bottom line is an E-Bay seller takes my money, therefore they should quickly supply the goods and respond to any queries. Being on E-Bay is not an excuse for shoddy service or attitude.

In some cases, obviously, people do have very large and established "legitimate businesses" that sell exclusively through ebay. As a setting however, ebay was created for the "bedroom seller" getting rid of the occasional junk or personal collection. Expecting to be treated fairly is of course legitimate, but some people's attitudes about service and turnaround are childish and unrealistic.

I used to spend $40-$50 a month at HOB with a few big purchases of around $200, the shipping was usually very quick and I didn't have any problems ove rthe last 3-4 years.

Then 3 months ago when I put in an order for some chaos and orc bits that amounted to $54. Typically stuff from them arrives in about 4-5 days so after three weeks of waiting I was a bit curious so I checked the tracking number that had been provided through ebay. Tracking said it'd been shipped out the day after the order was submitted and the last update occured two days after shipping. Then there two weeks of no status change. I politely emailed them to ask if the package might have been returned to them or if there was any way they might be able to inquire about it at the post office.

As a seller I know that on a rare ocassion the post office loses stuff and there are delays so I wasn't particuarly upset. What changed my mind is that there was no response from them for well over a week at which point I'd already gone to two seperate post offices to see if they could provide any information which amounted to a shrug and an obvious statement of "gee that's weird it should have arrived by now". (as it was showing having entered the sort facility 3 weeks prior, which is less than 20 miles from my house )

At this point I was over a month so I filed a paypal claim which is finally what prompted HOB to actually get around to emailing me back. They said nothing had been returned and that they'd look into it and email me back. Thought to myself ok the communication level here is a bit dodgey but maybe they are just busy.

After another full week still no reply from them even though I'd sent a nice follow up email during that time, so without any other options I escalated the claim to a dispute. The dispute was left open another two full weeks before it was closed by paypal, during that time there was still ZERO communication from HOB.

I know that the package being lost wasn't their fault as the trakcing provided proof that it had happened while in the hands of the PO. I was certainly willing to work out a compromise with them but they actively ignore communication even when it's trying to be helpful in working out a mishap.

Paypal refunded my purchase (at this point a little over the two months mark) I left a neutral feedback as I was still trying to remain positive about the situation. In the feedback I stated that the order never arrived and that a refund had been granted. Honestly they deserved a huge Negative for their lack of communication but I was still trying to be fair. Immediate response from HOB was to give me a permanant ban. ::shrug::

Any semblance of communication or customer service is completely lacking with HOB. Even when being aproached by somebody attempting to work their way through a dispute they simply opt to ignore any contact. After that experience it's doubtful I'd ever want to use their service again which means some other seller will now get my business.

ordered stuff from them several times, never had a problem. Guys is a fast shipper too.

Can someone tell me any reason to buy from this terrible seller?Also I bought a moria and angmar lotr book off GW.A page ripped for no reason.Now I send them a email,get a new one everybody's happy.I go on the site:not blocked for complaining am I?You people who buy from HOB:Shame on you!how dare you leave neutral feedback!Shameful.Getting the wrong amount and type of legs:Your fault for..errr...Joining the legion of doom.Guy who didn't get a land raider:That's what you get for....hating America! (I can Imagine someone using these excuses sometime.)

Locrian wrote:
I've probably ordered from them over 40 times, without any issues.

"I've been in business (in an entirely unrelated industry) for ten years and you can't find a single complaint or poor review about me anywhere" - or you are just completely naive to it, which is far more likely.

Who are you? How do you know anything about anything? I can't believe how rude people are on the internet behind the shield of anonymity. You're just some random kid on the net. I handle transactions in the hundreds of thousands and millions of dollars. I guarantee you if there were a bad review about me out there, I'd know about it. So knock the smug attitude off when you don't know a damn thing about anything.

If I gave people the same service that HOB gives their customers, I would have been out of business long, long ago. The only difference is the dollar amount. If I had anything like the terrible reviews that HOB has with the dollar amounts that I deal with, I can pretty much promise you NO ONE would do business with me. I also would be sued and possibly prosecuted criminally. But, I guess because she only rips people off for $15 here, $50 there, then bans them from her site, people just overlook it.

And what's with people rushing to her defense? What do you care? So you've had good experiences with HOB. Great. Good for you. Guess you got lucky. I guess we should all just keep our mouths shut whenever a vendor that you happen to like screws us over.

Unreal.

 Xenocidal Maniac wrote:

And what's with people rushing to her defense? What do you care? So you've had good experiences with HOB. Great. Good for you. Guess you got lucky. I guess we should all just keep our mouths shut whenever a vendor that you happen to like screws us over.

Unreal.

And what's with people rushing to condemn them? What do you care? So you've had bad experiences with HOB. Sorry. Bad for you. Guess you got screwed. I guess we should all just keep our mouths shut whenever a vendor that you happen not to like sends us what we pay for.

Unreal.

(see how that post is stupid when you complain about people discussing things on a discussion board?)

People posting that they had good experiences, or that they haven't had any problems, is not the same as people rushing in to defend the company.

Nobody is keeping you, or Paulson Games, or anybody else from sharing the problems you have had with them, if there have been problems you should report them. That doesn't mean that people shouldn't be able to post if they have had good experiences. From what I can see it looks like HOB used to be pretty good, and over the last few months they have had an increasing pattern of problems. People should take all comments that have been posted here, including the more recent problematic ones, and make a decision for themselves if it is worth the risk. (Personally, at this point I would look elsewhere for my bits)

I am still laughing at your conflicting positions of "how dare they ban me and keep me from posting my opinions" and "how dare people post their conflicting opinions here" though.

 Xenocidal Maniac wrote:
Who are you? How do you know anything about anything? I can't believe how rude people are on the internet behind the shield of anonymity. You're just some random kid on the net. I handle transactions in the hundreds of thousands and millions of dollars. I guarantee you if there were a bad review about me out there, I'd know about it. So knock the smug attitude off when you don't know a damn thing about anything.

Who are you? I can't believe the number of assumptions people make on the Internet behind the shield of anonymity. You're just some random kid on the net. I can make up numbers to make me seem important too. I guarantee - like, absolutely guarantee - that if you handle transactions that large, you have unsatisfied customers. Not customers that never received the product/service, but unsatisfied customers just the same.

Discussion boards are for discussing. Different people have different opinions and experiences.

Nice to see a thread about this finally as for a long time now I felt like the only one out there that wasn't mad for HoB, but it seems like a lot of people have suffered from their lack of professionalism.

My issue with them took place several years ago and I had been a regular enough customer at the time. This particular time however I ordered some items, and I waited patiently 2mths and they still hadn't shown up. Contacted HoB, they ignored, contacted ebay on their dispute thing, HoB ignored the hails from ebay, ebay suggested I move to a PayPal dispute so I did and after a total of 3mths the ordeal ended with me getting my money back as well as a lot of sense not to buy from there again.

Wow, I can't believe a thread that I started made the front page. Or that it popped back up over a year and didn't get locked.

Anyway, I never ordered again from them (obviously, but I considered making a second account for something that only they had). Windowbox and another seller that is located less than two hours from where I live are the only ones I'll buy from.

And Xeno, it's crappy that you never got the bits or a refund. People like HOB shouldn't be in business at all if they can't take criticism from their own mistake.

I did receive a refund, along with a ridiculous lecture about how rude I was for not accepting whatever she chose to send and for for daring to open a case with ebay, despite which I had sent her a thread from an eBay forum with others complaining about just the very same problem (that you can't contact a seller through ebay messages about a wrong item without opening a case anymore).

She made it out as if refunding my money was some sort of magnanimous gesture, when in reality, the entire case was a series of different suggestions by me, all of them quite reasonable, as to how I would be willing to resolve the mix-up (as if it were even my responsibility), and she knew perfectly well that the minute I escalated it someone from ebay would look at that and rule the dispute in my favour because she had never replied to any of it. Big sellers lose privileges with ebay if too many disputes are ruled against them and she knew she was going to lose.

It's been an astonishing experience. She would clearly rather lose a customer than simply apologise and correct an error. I was more than willing to leave positives for all of the transactions if she simply made good the error; instead she chose to ignore, then ban, then antagonise me, and I felt compelled to leave negative feedback based on her behaviour.

Our phone conversation was the most telling. She berated me for opening a case, and kept doing so even after I explained I had no choice . She berated me for calling on a Saturday, although I would have been perfectly happy to leave a voicemail for her to answer on Monday and she was in no way obligated to pick up the phone. At no point did she seem in the least bit concerned with solving my problem, all the while claiming she had no idea which transaction I was talking about, although the simple fact that she was clearly already irate from the word "hello" made it pretty clear to me she knew exactly who she was talking to.

It's kind of like buying your bits from The Rhubarb Lady.

Ok, guys, I can see that I am not going to defeat the internet lynch mob hate squad here. All that is happening is that I am getting enraged and am about to put my fist through my computer monitor. My dad died last week and I don't have it in me to go at it with you guys. Order from HoB or whomever you please until you're blue in the face and go ahead and think that just because you can't maintain a 100% customer satisfaction rate that no one can. And, no, I don't deal with huge transactions, right, I am making all that up. If that makes you feel better about yourselves, great. I am very happy for you.

I could not care less and I just don't have it in me right now. I am out.

Nobody here is defending HoB.

I think your personal issues are making you see things that aren't here, and maybe it's just best if you take some personal away time to deal with them.

If people saying "I haven't had a problem with them" makes you want to punch your monitor, then it is time to walk away and deal with your real problem and get your emotions sorted out.

Loosing your dad is a hard thing to go through.

XM, take a chill pill and get off of this thread, and preferably the internet, for a few days. If it's pissing you off, get OFF, instead of raging, calling people kids(and thus displaying a "holier than tho" attitude), getting extremely defensive, and explaining how life sucks right now(that does NOT excuse name calling any more than it would excuse you yelling at a customer). Those things aren't going to make you feel better, it's just going to piss you off more.

You need to go take care of your real life through real life means, not an anonymous internet board which offers no ability to help you work through what's going on.

So after being a long term customer and a very active customer (I've blown over $400 in the past year alone from their online store) they shafted me $20 in pieces and refuse to respond. Thankfully I went through PayPal so we'll see how it goes.

Sorry to hear about this. I've bought huge amounts of stuff from them, more recently through their direct site.... perhaps it's worth paying the extra 10% and ordering thru eBay.

DO have to say that, I've had queries on quite a few of my orders; changing shipping, checking on items, and thought their customer service was terrific. That said, when I sell on eBay, I'm so paranoid about some of the unreasonable buyers out there that if I get weird or passive aggressive messages, or a 0 feedback buyer bids without emailing me first, as I ask, I always block the buyer. It's just not worth the risk.

 felixander wrote:
So after being a long term customer and a very active customer (I've blown over $400 in the past year alone from their online store) they shafted me $20 in pieces and refuse to respond. Thankfully I went through PayPal so we'll see how it goes.

say good by to buying from them then.

Yeah, they gave me the typical "Well since we ****'ed up you don't want to order from us again so we'll take care of that for you by blocking you from our website" line but they DID give me a refund.

Sorry for the slight thread-romancy here.

I'm unsure whether to worry at this point. I purchased an item from these guys a while back on ebay. After a lengthy delay they finally sent me a tracking number. The problem is that it has been 9 days since that tracking number was sent, and it has yet to be accepted by the post office. Do they usually hang onto items for a couple weeks after they have a shipping label printed?

I don't remember having problem with that particular bits vendor but purchasing bits on eBay has always carried its problems. Some bits vendors ship within a week, others have taken over a month. I wish I could work with someone more reliable than these eBay sellers, but GW has a policy of cracking down of bits vendors and most of the ones that run independent internet sites either don't sell the bits you want at all, or are out of stock on half of their listings. Sadly, shopping for bits can be an exercise in frustration.

The only "problem" I ever had with them was they accidentally sent me double my order, once, which they were okay with me keeping. Other than that it's always been perfect.

I have ordered bits from them a couple of time to get shipped to the UK and not had a problem.

I've ordered from them 21 times and always got my bits within 2 weeks, packaged well and everything accounted for.

Only complaint I've had with them is they don't put new bits intotheir store from New kits for a couple of months

I've been a frequent customer of Hoard O' Bits for a couple of years, and it wasn't until recently that I've had a problem.

Hoard O' Bits sent me an incorrect item from their bits site hoardobits.com. I've attached my original correspondence to them, their reply, and my follow-up.

Since April 28th, I've received a message stating "Unauthorized site access" when visiting their website.

From: scott_kowalczuk
To: hoard@hoardobits.com
Subject: RE: HOB Question
Date: Thu, 1 May 2014 17:39:40 -0400

Hello,

The incorrect items were shipped to you today via USPS.

The total shipping was $5.80, which you can credit to my account - I'm sure my son and I will be ordering more bits from you in the future anyway

The tracking number is 9114901230801861752503

I also included a copy of this e-mail with the returned items, which explains the part numbers.

Scott

From: hoard@hoardobits.com
To: scott_kowalczuk
Subject: Re: HOB Question
Date: Mon, 28 Apr 2014 11:49:02 -0400

you can send the items back for an exchange, thanks

----- Original Message -----
From: scott_kowalczuk
To: hoard@hoardobits.com
Sent: Friday, April 25, 2014 6:20 PM
Subject: HOB Question

User Name: Scott_K
Return Email: scott_kowalczuk@live.com

Order #2014010521

Good evening,

I received the above order, and there are 2 discrepancies.

The first discrepancy is I ordered...

03172012-6-18 WARHAMMER 40K BIN BITS CHAOS DAEMONS BURNING CHARIOT - HERALD OF TZEENTCH HEAD

.. but was sent this instead... 03172012-6-17 WARHAMMER 40K BIN BITS CHAOS DAEMONS BURNING CHARIOT - HERALD OF TZEENTCH BODY

The second discrepancy is I ordered...

04252013-1-48 WARHAMMER BIN BITS HIGH ELF ON DRAGON - DRAGON HEAD with SPIKES

.. but was sent the head from this instead... 04252013-1-47 WARHAMMER BIN BITS HIGH ELF ON DRAGON - DRAGON HEAD with FINS

Please send the Herald of Tzeentch Head, and the Armoured High Elf Dragon Head.

Thank you.

On ebay, as a seller, I set up a block for buyers who

"...have under 5 feedback, &/or have -1 or more neg feedback, have been members less then 6 months, left multiple neg feedback for multiple sellers in the past 6 months, and have been inactive for the last 12 months."

I also have blocked several buyers who requested partial refunds or they'd leave neg feedback....

Lots of ways to get blocked on ebay!

You can set up bidder requirements by location, activity, etc....


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I've blocked slow paying ebayers too, even if positive was left....

Even blocked a buyer who left a positive comment of just "K" but left 3 stars outta 5.....


Automatically Appended Next Post:
**** BTW, I also have worked with HoB, 100% positive dealings. *****************

The eBay feedback systems is a complete joke. Sellers who either never bother shipping or take months to ship can still somehow retain scores of 98%. Meanwhile, leaving anything short of perfect scores or leaving neutral feedback is often treated with hostility and blocks, probably because if a scammer can consistently retain over 95% positive feedback then everybody has to ensure they have nothing short of perfect scores to account for the resulting score inflation. So not only does leaving negative feedback seem to do nothing, you will probably be punished by the seller or even unrelated sellers just for leaving it.

I have long stopped bothering playing the feedback game on eBay. I don't even worry about checking sellers scores and I just leave positive feedback unless somebody openly rips me off. When I do get ripped off, I just request a Paypal refund through eBay; that has yet to fail me. The Paypal refund is basically eBays quality control mechanism now, the feedback system is just a dead husk of a system that may have worked 5 or more years ago.

I have used HOB many times (30+). Usually, I order through their site. I think their service is above average for their particular niche. I've used all the other bits sites over the years and in each case I've eventually stopped using them due to bad service, mistakes, etc. HOB has been great in resolving the one or two problems I've had with their orders over the past several years. They remain my go to choice for all bits. I'd recommend them.

I've also never had a problem out of HOB, infact I've recommended them to several friends that do make a hobby of minis. Having things shipped through military mail I'm used to long wait times so I cant tell if their's are excessive or not.

Phanixis wrote:
The eBay feedback systems is a complete joke. Sellers who either never bother shipping or take months to ship can still somehow retain scores of 98%. Meanwhile, leaving anything short of perfect scores or leaving neutral feedback is often treated with hostility and blocks, probably because if a scammer can consistently retain over 95% positive feedback then everybody has to ensure they have nothing short of perfect scores to account for the resulting score inflation. So not only does leaving negative feedback seem to do nothing, you will probably be punished by the seller or even unrelated sellers just for leaving it.

I have long stopped bothering playing the feedback game on eBay. I don't even worry about checking sellers scores and I just leave positive feedback unless somebody openly rips me off. When I do get ripped off, I just request a Paypal refund through eBay; that has yet to fail me. The Paypal refund is basically eBays quality control mechanism now, the feedback system is just a dead husk of a system that may have worked 5 or more years ago.

There seems to be an expectation that sellers are entitled to positive feedback.

If I'm not completely happy, I leave neutral feedback. (There were things I was happy with and things I wasn't...kind of the definition of a neutral experience.)

If I'm unhappy for an reason, I leave negative feedback.

That being said, after observing a number of ebay related threads, it appears that the internet (or at least the wargaming community) tends to view Ebay as the new wild west. No law, no order, no civilization but what you can force into existence yourself. If someone deals from the bottom of the deck, no one's going to lift a finger to help you. Your options are either suck it up or DRAW! (Preferably while their back is turned because, hey, this is the wild west baby!)

That being said, I appreciate everyone warning that shipping from Hoard o Bits can take so long (as well as the forewarning that they have such a petty and vindictive policy regarding feedback!). I'm planning on ordering some pieces from them at some juncture in the future, so it's good to get some advanced warning.

I'm confused about the OP here.

He had a bad experience with a small shop. Why would you then return to that shop when you have clearly identified others that you've successfully done business with? It's not like HoB has a corner on the market for bits sales.

I appreciate any and all warnings about dealings with certain providers; however I think the OP is a bit disingenuous with claims of trying to place a second order from a group that he clearly didn't have a good experience with.