Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hi,

I'm pretty new to wargaming and 40K and, to bulk my army, made a few orders from Rocket Hobbies. The first couple of orders went smoothly, but the 3rd (roughly £50) placed on the 18th of Jan never got shipped. Having had a couple of successful orders with them, I was pretty patient, it was a month before I sent the first enquiry about my order, but didn't get a reply. Stupidly, as I was TOO patient, I went past the window for a Paypal refund before I realised it. Since then I have sent multiple e-mails (no response), multiple contacts on Facebook (no response) and tried ringing often (the phone was never answered).

To be honest I'm at the point where I'm about to put in a complaint with Trading Standards, and I mentioned as much to them in a message a couple of weeks ago (still no reply), but I was wondering if anyone else has had a similar experience, are they having trouble at the moment? It's a big step to take, but with no contact from them I'm at my wits end with what else to do?! Can anyone with more gaming experience offer any suggestions? IS this length of wait ever normal?

Thank you!

I have never heard of Rocket Hobbies. Their web site is down. My suspicion is they have quietly gone bust.

You certainly should complain to Trading Standards, who might be able to find out something about the company and its proprietors.

Do you have any contact info like a real world address, a company number or VAT number? That would help Trading Standards.

At the worst, you will have to take this as an expensive lesson never, ever to accept any reason whatsoever for not starting a PayPal dispute within the time limit.

I have had dealings with RH, and have gone so far as to recommend them on here. (They have also been advertised on Dakka, so someone on here may hold details for them.)

Over the last 6 months or so, there have been more grumbles from people about delays etc, and an order I placed late last year for an item that was in stock took far longer than it should have.

These seem to be fairly common signs of troubles with online retailers, so, while sad, it looks like the recession and GW's increasing desire to screw with independents has claimed another victim. They did offer very deep discounts though, and that seems a little high risk as you need volume to make money, but then need to invest in infrastructure to support that volume, and if anything doesn't go to plan the wheels fall off very quickly.

Companies house does not show them as dissolved, but they can be up months behind.

If it's ROCKET HOBBIES LTD in CANTERBURY then the Company No. is 07702082.

Customer Service
Rocket Hobbies
t: 0800 0337496 e: help@rockethobbies.co.uk w: www.rockethobbies.co.uk

Rocket Hobbies Ltd is registered in England & Wales, company number 07702082, VAT registration GB116898477

Full details as pulled from an old CS email, they always used to reply, and yes, Canterbury is the right location.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I noticed on companies house that the accounts are due, if they've spent some time recently getting them organised (which they will be obliged to do, closed or not) it may well have shown some harsh realities about their trading which lead them to decide to close. No help to you, just making an observation.

It sounds like a legit company which has gone bust due to lack of cashflow, bad trading conditions, and so on.

The plus side about that is that you might get some of your money back as they go through the liquidation process. Send a registered letter to the company's registered address, laying out your case clearly, and ask for your money or goods.

This should notify the official receiver that you are due as much compensation as might be possible.

You should also ask Trading Standards if they can help get any money back for you.

Thank you everyone for your speedy and helpful replies! It looks like Trading standards may be the only way to go to see if I have a chance of getting my money back after all.

Thank you azreal13 for looking up the VAT number for me too, that should help a lot!

Dark Sphere all the way, old sport.

Seconded.

While there's always a chance that it could happen, Dark Sphere remain the only online retailer I've used repeatedly that haven't (yet) let me down.

I'd love to go and see the shop in person, but as I only visit London to visit my sister and her family, and she gives me a hard enough time for being a nerd already, I doubt I'll get the chance!

Hmm...in London you say? I'm heading up there next weekend, I'll have to see if I can convince the (non-gaming) people I'm going with to take a detour....

It's right near Waterloo, if you're doing anything remotely touristy it will be right on your doorstep.

Spend £100 in store and you get their Internet prices iirc.

I live 5 minutes away from rocket hobbies and can vouch for the business and Richard the owner, as can a few other canterbury based people who are on dakka.

I am led to believe at this time that Richard is ill. I can't say too much but they haven't gone bust. I will try to drop him a line and point him to this thread....

Hope it helps......


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I have dropped him a message on Facebook. His personal page, sure it will get sorted. Richard is a good guy.

You might want to let him know his website is down. A message explaining the delays on the site would be infinitely preferable to webpage not found.

I have told him.....hope this helps? Good luck

I can thoroughly recommend Dark Sphere. I used to go in there a lot, and the owner is a decent chap. They are doing well enough without GW sales too, so GW's Indy-bashing should not put them in too much danger. In fact, they hide the GW stuff in the back room these days... They even have two stores on the same short stretch of road right below Waterloo.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I have never heard of Rocket Hobbies. Their web site is down. My suspicion is they have quietly gone bust.

You certainly should complain to Trading Standards, who might be able to find out something about the company and its proprietors.

Do you have any contact info like a real world address, a company number or VAT number? That would help Trading Standards.

At the worst, you will have to take this as an expensive lesson never, ever to accept any reason whatsoever for not starting a PayPal dispute within the time limit.

Give them a chance, its been a day with no webpage and all of a sudden you are claiming they have gone bust ??

Reneshi wrote:
Hi,

I'm pretty new to wargaming and 40K and, to bulk my army, made a few orders from Rocket Hobbies. The first couple of orders went smoothly, but the 3rd (roughly £50) placed on the 18th of Jan never got shipped. Having had a couple of successful orders with them, I was pretty patient, it was a month before I sent the first enquiry about my order, but didn't get a reply. Stupidly, as I was TOO patient, I went past the window for a Paypal refund before I realised it. Since then I have sent multiple e-mails (no response), multiple contacts on Facebook (no response) and tried ringing often (the phone was never answered).

To be honest I'm at the point where I'm about to put in a complaint with Trading Standards, and I mentioned as much to them in a message a couple of weeks ago (still no reply), but I was wondering if anyone else has had a similar experience, are they having trouble at the moment? It's a big step to take, but with no contact from them I'm at my wits end with what else to do?! Can anyone with more gaming experience offer any suggestions? IS this length of wait ever normal?

Thank you!

I have had problems with Rocket Hobbies in the past and it has all been sorted out by them really well, Hope you get it sorrted.

Thank you again everyone. Lovepug13 thank you for contacting the owner, and for assuring me that the company is still in business, hopefully something will come of it, so I'll give a few more days before I contact Trading Standards.

 Rayvon wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I have never heard of Rocket Hobbies. Their web site is down. My suspicion is they have quietly gone bust.

You certainly should complain to Trading Standards, who might be able to find out something about the company and its proprietors.

Do you have any contact info like a real world address, a company number or VAT number? That would help Trading Standards.

At the worst, you will have to take this as an expensive lesson never, ever to accept any reason whatsoever for not starting a PayPal dispute within the time limit.

Give them a chance, its been a day with no webpage and all of a sudden you are claiming they have gone bust ??

Reneshi wrote:
Hi,

I'm pretty new to wargaming and 40K and, to bulk my army, made a few orders from Rocket Hobbies. The first couple of orders went smoothly, but the 3rd (roughly £50) placed on the 18th of Jan never got shipped. Having had a couple of successful orders with them, I was pretty patient, it was a month before I sent the first enquiry about my order, but didn't get a reply. Stupidly, as I was TOO patient, I went past the window for a Paypal refund before I realised it. Since then I have sent multiple e-mails (no response), multiple contacts on Facebook (no response) and tried ringing often (the phone was never answered).

To be honest I'm at the point where I'm about to put in a complaint with Trading Standards, and I mentioned as much to them in a message a couple of weeks ago (still no reply), but I was wondering if anyone else has had a similar experience, are they having trouble at the moment? It's a big step to take, but with no contact from them I'm at my wits end with what else to do?! Can anyone with more gaming experience offer any suggestions? IS this length of wait ever normal?

Thank you!

I have had problems with Rocket Hobbies in the past and it has all been sorted out by them really well, Hope you get it sorrted.

If you read the start of the thread it has been over 40 days, not one day.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 Rayvon wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I have never heard of Rocket Hobbies. Their web site is down. My suspicion is they have quietly gone bust.

You certainly should complain to Trading Standards, who might be able to find out something about the company and its proprietors.

Do you have any contact info like a real world address, a company number or VAT number? That would help Trading Standards.

At the worst, you will have to take this as an expensive lesson never, ever to accept any reason whatsoever for not starting a PayPal dispute within the time limit.

Give them a chance, its been a day with no webpage and all of a sudden you are claiming they have gone bust ??

Reneshi wrote:
Hi,

I'm pretty new to wargaming and 40K and, to bulk my army, made a few orders from Rocket Hobbies. The first couple of orders went smoothly, but the 3rd (roughly £50) placed on the 18th of Jan never got shipped. Having had a couple of successful orders with them, I was pretty patient, it was a month before I sent the first enquiry about my order, but didn't get a reply. Stupidly, as I was TOO patient, I went past the window for a Paypal refund before I realised it. Since then I have sent multiple e-mails (no response), multiple contacts on Facebook (no response) and tried ringing often (the phone was never answered).

To be honest I'm at the point where I'm about to put in a complaint with Trading Standards, and I mentioned as much to them in a message a couple of weeks ago (still no reply), but I was wondering if anyone else has had a similar experience, are they having trouble at the moment? It's a big step to take, but with no contact from them I'm at my wits end with what else to do?! Can anyone with more gaming experience offer any suggestions? IS this length of wait ever normal?

Thank you!

I have had problems with Rocket Hobbies in the past and it has all been sorted out by them really well, Hope you get it sorrted.

If you read the start of the thread it has been over 40 days, not one day.

I did read it, you said the website is down, your suspicion is that they had gone bust, thats not really good reason to suspect that they have gone under now is it.
Even if he has not had his stuff for 40 days, that is still no realistic indicator that they have gone bust, plus the website has not been down for 40 days either.
What you said is how baseless rumours get started, thats the only reason I replied, I apologise to the OP for getting off topic, i will leave this now.

If a business vanishes from the Internet, and doesn't deliver any product for over 40 days and does not answer emails, it is a reasonable supposition that it has gone bust.

In what way is the business up and running?

 Kilkrazy wrote:
If a business vanishes from the Internet, and doesn't deliver any product for over 40 days and does not answer emails, it is a reasonable supposition that it has gone bust.

In what way is the business up and running?

Or answer Facebook, or pick up the phone. I'd guess they had gone bust too without more info. Even a message on an answering machine saying "Due to unforeseen circumstances we'll be closed until...." would be helpful. Or an email auto-reply. If it's a one man operation and he's ill, customers will be a lot more understanding when given some kind of heads up.

I'd be going to Trading Standards sooner rather than later, if it were me.

I would point out that I have had no response from rocket hobbies......I have tried to contact Richard but to no avail. I just don't know what has happened to them

My point is that whether the proprietor has suffered an accident or something to prevent him from carrying on business, the OP is still down £50.

Thank you Lovepug13 for the update. I've been drafting up how I want to put things to Trading Standards, and at this point I suspect it will be in by the end of the week.

To be honest I'm at a bit of a loss again, the day after I first posted this thread, I saw on the RH Facebook page someone commenting that they'd been waiting 4 weeks for 'a small order of paints'.
I sent them a message warning them to get their money back ASAP due to their recent lack of response and how close they probably were to their Paypal cut-off time.
Today when I checked, that message has disappeared. It seems likely that either RH got back to the customer and sorted their issue, or RH removed the comment from their feed.
Of course the poster could have just removed the post, but to me it seems likely RH have been active online within the last 48 hours...

They have gone for good apparently. We've been in the marketplace for the last 10 years and have lost count of the number of times this has happened. For some reason, most of these companies don't seem to be able to work out that to stay in business you have to be able to pay your suppliers, pay the bills for somewhere to store stuff and work etc etc. This includes a little bit left over to keep a roof over your head. The maths are amazingly simple. If after all this you have 1 penny left you are fine...poor but fine! I can see this coming a mile away. Just look at the market and find the biggest discounter. He'll be next, or pouring money into the business to keep afloat. Learn from history, there is plenty of it and then you won't be surprised when this happens again

All good advice and sensible points.

I would argue though that a retailer offering deep discounts as a means to grow market share is a flawed idea, but one can look at an established player (Wayland or Dark Sphere maybe) who offers deep discounts as a way of out competing with a little more confidence.

All of us retailers are small fish in a big pond compared to GW. We buy at 30% off retail. If we sell at the same price what does that mean? We all have costs on top of that. We've survived for 10 years by sticking to the idea that to carry on providing the service that we do do pretty well we have to discount by no more than 10% with free postage. Maelstrom was a big fish temporarily but got drawn into the same game that TWG and the others you mention are playing. Retail is simple. Buy for X sell for Y. X, in the long run, has to be greater than Y plus costs. There are no volume discounts. GW do not do deals. 30% off means you can buy your £50 Riptide at our trade price. Delivery charges mean you are not really getting 30% off of course but in the end the only loser is the retailer.

Turnover (like doubling in size in 12 months) is vanity
Profit (have any of them doubled their profit in the same period) is sanity.

Only time will tell. But I know that businesses like this have been going bust since 2003 and will continue to do so.

Postage has gone up a lot in the past year or so.

WarGameStore wrote:
We buy at 30% off retail.

While you are here care to comment on how total wargamer can offer 30% off?

There has to be a tier system based upon spend to get you to 40 or 50% discount? Surely?