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 Lutharr101 wrote:
DarkTraveller777 I understand your points and think overall they may be sound(lots of benefit of the doubt having to be applied there mind). But they have been nothing but unacommatating to myself to the point where they expect me to be out of pocket because of their mistakes.

All I have done i put across MY experiance. I dont imply its the same for everyone or put words in anyones mouth. The messages myself and DCS shared are up for all to see. I only ever responded baddly to them when they sent me the email in the original post.

No worries, man. I am completely sympathetic to your situation and I don't want my position in this thread to be misconstrued otherwise. You bought something that you did not receive. I personally have issues with the (very) common customer expectation that shipping should be covered by small business operations, but if that is EU law, then by all means you should have been treated according to the rule of law. I don't think DCS has a leg to stand on there. You should get your money back including shipping (and any return shipping you paid).

My issue is that forums, and the internet in general, can create a mob mentality where people get carried away with emotion over trivial things. Like people finding a moral issue with DCS deleting your Facebook posts. I don't mean to imply that you acted a fool on DCS' page, and they may very well have overreacted by deleting your posts, but without seeing what was said, it is simply your word versus their word regarding the content and merit of those posts. However, others are willing to run with that and assume DCS are morally bankrupt. That seems a stretch to me without more information.

Anyway, I hope you get sorted out, Lutharr101.

It's a clear-cut case.

a) The company willingly (!) sent out a faulty product in order to scam a customer. Red flag.

b) The company is not aware of EU law and that they're breaking it by not fully paying for the return and all cost involved.

Instead of admitting to their mistake, they went full-out defensive and openly refuse to adhere EU law. Complete no-go. Stay away from that company as far as possible.

Just sent an e-mail to all club members (roughly 100 people + their friends) warning them from Deep Cut and never buy anything from said company, along with warning others to buy from them.

i can guarantee you sir that what I posted was merely what they advertised and what arrived They very much did overreact to the posts. But since you dont know me personally I wont take it baddly that you dont automatically take my word for it. I know whats the truth and thats good enough for me.

I understand your kinda playing devils advocate.

My main issue in all this is while they may be a small buisness it still shouldnt equal me being out of pocket as non of this is my fault at all. I bought something in good faith and frankly that good faith has been soiled in this case.

I wont be going back into the old mat threadto necro it as I put that up as a guide and dont really want it tarnished with back and forth there and the other mat companies being overlooked due to and arguements that could break out. I did make an edit that their customer service is not very good but left it at that.

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:

 Ketara wrote:
So....one person telling their friends not to bother buying with the company, and one person telling another to link to this thread to warn people, which he does.

I think you and I have very different definitions of the word 'mob'.

A group of people are forming opinions based on hearsay.

If you think that sort of response is appropriate based on the information we have, then fine. I disagree. I think people are jumping to conclusions based on one person's account of what happened with a sale gone wrong.

DCS have basically written that they will not refund the OP's return postage for the faulty product - which goes against EU law regarding such returns.

DCS have engaged in some seemingly condescending communication with the OP - This may be due to language differences.

DCS are using PayPals resolution of the escalated claim to justify their position regarding refunding return postage (going against the above)

DCS have not admitted liability stating that the customer wasn't happy with the product (this could be their position via the PayPal resolution if OP didn't state the item is faulty).

The best response for DCS would have been to refund the return postage or send prepaid returns documentation. They could also offer to send a replacement mat at the same time.

Gavel down, case closed.

 Sigvatr wrote:
It's a clear-cut case.

a) The company willingly (!) sent out a faulty product in order to scam a customer. Red flag.

b) The company is not aware of EU law and that they're breaking it by not fully paying for the return and all cost involved.

Instead of admitting to their mistake, they went full-out defensive and openly refuse to adhere EU law. Complete no-go. Stay away from that company as far as possible.

Just sent an e-mail to all club members (roughly 100 people + their friends) warning them from Deep Cut and never buy anything from said company, along with warning others to buy from them.

a) id not say they did it on purpose to be fair. Even though Im not best happy with them atm I wouldnt assume that.

b) to be fair on that point it wasnt til i made this thread I found out that was incase the law. I'm more bothered that law aside its immoral in my eyes to expect a customer to pay for ones own mistakes.

Edited as my opinions on Deep cut have changed for the better since this post was made.

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:
A group of people are forming opinions based on hearsay.

It's not hearsay, there is photographic evidence of the mat, and both parties have posted in the topic. There is no question that DCS is in the wrong here. Even in the unlikely event that the photo is a complete fabrication, DCS still should have offered to take it back for inspection, and offered to reimburse the OP on the condition that it is faulty.

Deleting the facebook post is not the issue. No one who has posted in this topic has made a big deal about the facebook post, beyond noting that it is suspicious. The focus in every post is on why the OP's map is blue, and why he wasn't offered a full refund. Those issues are not a matter of speculation.

 Lutharr101 wrote:


a) id not say they did it on purpose to be fair. Even though Im not best happy with them atm I wouldnt assume that.

b) to be fair on that point it wasnt til i made this thread I found out that was incase the law. I'm more bothered that law aside its immoral in my eyes to expect a customer to pay for ones own mistakes.

Sending out a product with small errors like transport damages can definitely happen and are no problem. Sending out such a disastrous product that clearly is a huge production mistake cannot happen by accident. Someone saw this one and thought "meh, that's okay". The company's job is to find that person and punish him / her, e.g. by deducting the entire cost from his / her wage. Secondly, you need to make full amendments to the customers who received the faulty product which includes covering up all cost. Without any second of hesitation. Law or not.

Ive had this thing happen before, bigger companies will just issue a refund without getting the item back but Ive had smaller companies as well as private sellers on eBay request that the buyer pay the shipping back for returned items. Ive done the same thing through eBay, someone didnt like something or didnt read a description and Ive refunded them but had them pay shipping and wasnt really a big deal.

Im in the U.S. so I understand it may be different legally but I still dont get people getting up in arms about this.

Hope it gets resolved though.

 Rotgut wrote:
Ive had this thing happen before, bigger companies will just issue a refund without getting the item back but Ive had smaller companies as well as private sellers on eBay request that the buyer pay the shipping back for returned items. Ive done the same thing through eBay, someone didnt like something or didnt read a description and Ive refunded them but had them pay shipping and wasnt really a big deal.

Im in the U.S. so I understand it may be different legally but I still dont get people getting up in arms about this.

Hope it gets resolved though.

because this isnt me reading a description wrong. It turning up and me thinking afterall I dont like the product. If it had turned up and been exactly as they advertised it I would have given them a glowing review. The items faulty, and to get my original purchase money back I now have to waste £10-15.

 Smacks wrote:
Deleting the facebook post is not the issue. No one who has posted in this topic has made a big deal about the facebook post, beyond noting that it is suspicious.

Let's look at Ketara's response which I bolded.

 Ketara wrote:
Yes, they have every right to erase it (it is their facebook page), but again, the fact is that ignoring him/erasing his comments is indicative of the problems this company seems to have, IMO. Instead of engaging/rectifying, they chose to delete and ignore.

That is a huge leap considering we do not know what was posted on Facebook. I don't think he is alone in arriving at that conclusion.

 Smacks wrote:
The focus in every post is on why the OP's map is blue, and why he wasn't offered a full refund. Those issues are not a matter of speculation.

Nor am I disputing that. In my first post in this thread I stated that the mats are not the same. What I am disputing is the assumptions being made. Assumptions about motivations on the part of DCS, and assumptions on what was or was not posted on the Facebook page.

People jumped on this problem like flies on gak, and for what?

"DCS didn't follow EU law!"

Okay. Perhaps they were unaware of the law. Does that make them a bit incompetent? Sure. But if I am not mistaken, the OP admitted he was a small business operator and he was unaware of the same law until coming into this thread. So does that mean the OP is unfit to have customers as well? No, of course not. But DCS needs to be boycotted, apparently.


And if this doesn't sum up my point perfectly:

 Lutharr101 wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
It's a clear-cut case.

a) The company willingly (!) sent out a faulty product in order to scam a customer. Red flag.

b) The company is not aware of EU law and that they're breaking it by not fully paying for the return and all cost involved.

Instead of admitting to their mistake, they went full-out defensive and openly refuse to adhere EU law. Complete no-go. Stay away from that company as far as possible.

Just sent an e-mail to all club members (roughly 100 people + their friends) warning them from Deep Cut and never buy anything from said company, along with warning others to buy from them.

a) id not say they did it on purpose to be fair. Even though Im not best happy with them atm I wouldnt assume that.

b) to be fair on that point it wasnt til i made this thread I found out that was incase the law. I'm more bothered that law aside its immoral in my eyes to expect a customer to pay for ones own mistakes.

The injured party is even giving the DCS the benefit of the doubt. The injured party here is being reasonable and not jumping to conclusions.

People are assigning motivation and assuming a lot, and I don't think that is particularly helpful.

Okay. Perhaps they were unaware of the law. Does that make them a bit incompetent? Sure. But if I am not mistaken, the OP admitted he was a small business operator and he was unaware of the same law until coming into this thread. So does that mean the OP is unfit to have customers as well? No, of course not. But DCS needs to be boycotted, apparently.

well in my defense my buisness is painting and decorating. I dont provide actual goods, more a service. I just know Ive on occassion fethed up on a job which Ive had to pay out of my pocket to rectify as its just how things should be done. Though I must admit the £500 quid carpet I once had to replace cos one of the lads ruined it with gloss stung lol

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:


Let's look at Ketara's response which I bolded.

 Ketara wrote:
Yes, they have every right to erase it (it is their facebook page), but again, the fact is that ignoring him/erasing his comments is indicative of the problems this company seems to have, IMO. Instead of engaging/rectifying, they chose to delete and ignore.

That is a huge leap considering we do not know what was posted on Facebook. I don't think he is alone in arriving at that conclusion.....

People are assigning motivation and assuming a lot, and I don't think that is particularly helpful.

If you are going to quote me, please at least do me the courtesy of pulling the full statement, especially the bit where I said:

If we're brutally honest, unless the OP just posted half a dozen curse words (in which case ignore the following), he's perfectly justified in being unpleasant on their FB given his recent commercial experience with them.

I accounted for the possibility of the OP posting unreasonable obscenities. I then said that if the company is erasing anything beyond that (which as it is turns out, they seem to have been), I 'regard that as indicative of the problems this company seems to have', namely the way in which the consumer appears to be being treated as nothing more than a pain in the arse. And I base that general opinion on the photographic evidence, and the company's lacklustre efforts thus far.

Please indicate where the assumption is being made, because quite frankly, I'm pulling the companies 'motivations' from their own comments and actions. You are free to disagree with my interpretation of those comments and actions, but calling opposing viewpoints 'assumptions' at this stage is just derogatory.

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:

 Ketara wrote:
So....one person telling their friends not to bother buying with the company, and one person telling another to link to this thread to warn people, which he does.

I think you and I have very different definitions of the word 'mob'.

A group of people are forming opinions based on hearsay.

If you think that sort of response is appropriate based on the information we have, then fine. I disagree. I think people are jumping to conclusions based on one person's account of what happened with a sale gone wrong.

Hearsay you mean up until DeepCut posted (becoase the did very first page) and comfirmed want happened, ending with IF we did something worng will fix it. So yeah I think it fine to help people avoid them until such time as the prove they fixed the problem. DakkaDakka is great for threads of what happens when you keep giving companies the benefit of the doubt without proof they changed or fixing the problem. Best thing for them to do fix it and make the whole thing disappear and never get to this point in the first place. Now they need damage control, quickest way would be to refund his money or get him his product and ask that he have this thread closed. Sure being called slimey is not nice, but if your a business your feeling have no place it sells or customer service, or your business will not last long, more so in the age of the internet and only reviews.

well to be fair I was nither unpleasant nor abusive on their facebook page. Merely providing photographic evidence of what their mats actually looked like

Only time i was ever unpleasant was in a private email after they were arsey with me.

People can read the thread and make up their own minds based on the limited evidence available from both sides of the argument.

The legal situation regarding long distance selling regulations has been made clear.

OP and the company can correspond outside DakkaDakka to come to hopefully a mutually satisfactory solution.

I think we're done here.

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:

 Ketara wrote:
So....one person telling their friends not to bother buying with the company, and one person telling another to link to this thread to warn people, which he does.

I think you and I have very different definitions of the word 'mob'.

A group of people are forming opinions based on hearsay.

If you think that sort of response is appropriate based on the information we have, then fine. I disagree. I think people are jumping to conclusions based on one person's account of what happened with a sale gone wrong.

The pictures he posted are not hearsay, nor is the rep's post in this thread. To quote SNL, "Learn a book, Seth."

 Wyrmalla wrote:
And my point was that they offered a refund, but weren't aware that they had to pay for the return cost due to taking on Paypal's word rather than looking it up themselves. A poor mistake, but its not a sky shattering thing which people seem to be going on about in this thread...

This is not okay, the proper respons would be: " Oh gak! Was that the seriously inferior product we supplied you with? Keep it sir, we will send you a new one, free of charge."

Yep, best way is to have them keep the crappy product and send a replacement.

Because let's be frank here, it's their fault for not being more careful about quality control, not the consumer. And moreover, considering the quality difference is as plain as day, they knew they were sending out product that did not match the advertised quality. I've literally seen this first hand in many businesses. If they really wanted to clear out stock, they should take new photos of the off color mats and clearance them out, it's better than throwing it away, and much better than shiftily trying to sell them to consumers.

I don't have much sympathy if a company goes to some cut rate shop for production, fails to make sure that shop gets somewhere near their advertised quality, and then get hit from it. The only reason why this isn't a legal issue is because the cost and this hobby is so small that no one really cares, and that's what they're banking on.

There's always more companies out there willing to step in and fill the market's needs. Part of the reason why our industry has stagnated is because people put up with all sorts of bad practices.

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:
Let's look at Ketara's response which I bolded.

 Ketara wrote:
Yes, they have every right to erase it (it is their facebook page), but again, the fact is that ignoring him/erasing his comments is indicative of the problems this company seems to have, IMO. Instead of engaging/rectifying, they chose to delete and ignore.

That is a huge leap considering we do not know what was posted on Facebook. I don't think he is alone in arriving at that conclusion.

I don't think we need to know what was written in the facebook post to draw that conclusion. Someone could just look at what DCS themselves have posted (or not posted) in this topic. Engaging and rectifying is not what they seem to be doing thus far. So I don't think it is a leap.

People jumped on this problem like flies on gak, and for what?

Probably to show some solidarity, and convince Deep Cuts Studios to do the right thing. I don't think people are posting here saying that they are going to warn their various communities, all because of reactionary anger. I think people are actually saying "hey look, an awful lot of your potential customers are networked through this board, and none of us want to be treated this way."

 Smacks wrote:

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:
Let's look at Ketara's response which I bolded.

 Ketara wrote:
Yes, they have every right to erase it (it is their facebook page), but again, the fact is that ignoring him/erasing his comments is indicative of the problems this company seems to have, IMO. Instead of engaging/rectifying, they chose to delete and ignore.

That is a huge leap considering we do not know what was posted on Facebook. I don't think he is alone in arriving at that conclusion.

I don't think we need to know what was written in the facebook post to draw that conclusion. Someone could just look at what DCS themselves have posted (or not posted) in this topic. Engaging and rectifying is not what they seem to be doing thus far. So I don't think it is a leap.

People jumped on this problem like flies on gak, and for what?

Probably to show some solidarity, and convince Deep Cuts Studios to do the right thing. I don't think people are posting here saying that they are going to warn their various communities, all because of reactionary anger. I think people are actually saying "hey look, an awful lot of your potential customers are networked through this board, and none of us want to be treated this way."

Yes. Yes. Yes.

Pretty serious difference between design and print. Thats why I like http://www.gamemat.eu/6x4-g-mats.html having lot of real pictures of mats up there...

matous1983 wrote:
Pretty serious difference between design and print. Thats why I like http://www.gamemat.eu/6x4-g-mats.html having lot of real pictures of mats up there...

all my other mats are from there and I couldnt ask for better products or customer service from them. Infact after several purchases my gaming club and several friends ordered mats also. As it stands I wanted a lava style mat and the one they do isnt to my tastes compared to the deep cut one (hence the order), but saddly the one I got would only look cool if I started playing Powerpuff Girls vs My Little Pony.

Did you ask for a replacement to be sent to you prior to a refund?

 notprop wrote:
Did you ask for a replacement to be sent to you prior to a refund?

no i simply asked how I return it. I was happy to send it them so they could see what the issue was in person just that I expected them to foot the bill for such a thing due to it being their mistake. But as you can see in the messages they initially just said send it back and wasnt even goign to refund me the original postage to me either. That only happened once paypal got a dispute claim.

PS: boss necromunda thread you got going on.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
PPS

I have tried to message them via facebook but they have blocked me. So I guess that goes to show exactly how far their customer service goes.

Nor is this an entirely isolated incident - from the other thread:

 plastictrees wrote:
I received a mat damaged in shipping from them.
They offered a partial refund or to have me return the mat (my shipping cost) for a replacement.
I took the refund and was happy with the resolution.
The mat was 95% fixable.

Would and have ordered from them again.

PlasticTrees was happy with the partial refund - but they were required to send the full refund.

That fact that PlasticTrees was happy does not make what DCS was doing legal or ethical. (Not saying that it is the same ballpark as making stuffed puppies out of actual puppies, but it is slightly wonky.)

The Auld Grump

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:
This thread's title is hostile to DCS, and thanks to Google, will follow DCS around for a long, long time.

Yep, which is why they should have been even more careful in their response. They could have turned bad publicity in to good publicity with a response that was aimed at helping the customer instead of just doing the minimum paypal required of them (which is still less than the law requires).

At this point they have no one to blame but themselves. Sending out a bad mat? Annoying for the customer, but forgiveable. Asking the customer to pay return shipping? A bad mistake that should have been corrected ASAP to avoid making a bad name for yourself. Posting in a public forum in any way that doesn't show empathy for the customer and doesn't show you are doing your best to rectify it? A horrible PR move that is going to cost you sales.

Let's say that OP was indeed in the wrong in terms of how he/she addressed the situation. Let's say he/she did curse on their FB page. So what? They're the customer. There's a reason why the customer is always right: because bad word from the customer can make you lose other customers.

Bait and switch laws don't exist over there, I see.

 notprop wrote:
Yeah, I'm confused by this one.

The blue mat shown is nothing like the sales image so is a defective product.

I have to say that having dealt with DCS myself and having recieved a mat I wasn't happy with (scratched, probably by customs I think) the outcome here is the polar opposite of my exchange. I found Gediminas to be pleasure to deal with even in that circumstance. I was sent a replacement and Gediminas and I agreed that returning the defective product was an unnecassary expense for both of us. I still use the mats and donated the defective one to a club to use for intros.

If as has been suggested here the OP has been abusive then I can see how DCS wouldn't go beyond the minimum basic provisions.

I would suggest that the best course of action here would be for both parties to be a bit magnanimous and sort this one out. So the OP should apologies for any rudeness and delete any accusations and DCS should look ad sending replacement product out, then belatedly handeshakes all round.

Just a suggestion of course.

It's nice to see some input from someone other than the two affected parties. I think this bears reading again, from the tone this topic is starting to take.