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I just received a couple of models off the Cool Mini or Not store, and one of them had a pretty severe casting defect. I emailed them to ask for a replacement (with a picture of the defective model resting on my shipping invoice), and their response was "ship the model back to us at our own cost, and once we receive it we'll start going about refunding you for it." I thought that was a pretty gak response, from a customer service perspective. My only other miscast experiences have been with Games Workshop, and all it took was emailing them a photo of the miscast model before a replacement was in the mail directly to my door.

I've emailed a couple other retailers to find someone with a better return policy to take my business to in the future, but I figured I'd ask the community what their experience has been with various online retailers for this issue. Is CMON's response a fairly standard one? Or am I being reasonable in thinking that's a pretty crap policy.

It's the best policy for you. If you get a refund you can buy another one, creating a new contract. If that one is miscast, you can get another refund. If they just sent you another one with a miscast, they're not obligated to send you a replacement as that is NOT the item you paid for.

Not so much.

Warranty replacements (for any item - not just miniatures) for manufacturers defects are the same as having that original item. They are still obligated (in most jurisdictions) to continue providing you will new items till you get ones which is whole and functional.

Many countries (UK and most of Europe, Australia, Canada) have rather straight forward laws that cover this issue. If you receive a damaged or defective product, the supplier is responsible for replacing it with one which is not damaged or defective. It doesn't create a new sale contract - it simply is a replacement. If there is a warranty on top of that (not generally applicable for miniatures...) that warranty is still in place even though the replacement is not the one you bought.

That said - I have never had to provide anything more than a picture to get a replacement for a miscast, in most cases companies don't even ask for that. The laws allow for them to require the damaged goods to be returned to them before issuing a replacement or refund...it is just much more of a hassle for them to deal with that as opposed to just dealing with it immediately.

The only time I have ever returned a miscast was with a silver casting - but in that case it was because the miscast was actually rather valuable on its own because of the precious metal content.