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Hello,

I'm not sure if this is the correct place for this. Has anyone had any experiences with Brother Vinni Miniatures?

I bought some miniatures in November in the black Friday style sale. I have received an automated email to say it is being processed, but I have had no further information on dispatch. I have contacted them several times, but have had no response over the past few months. I've even tried facebook, but with no luck. Some people on there have said it takes up to 8 weeks for an order to be done (I guess some will have to be moulded/created, it was a pretty busy time of year, and there has been a Christmas/holiday break for most people.

I have sent a final email to them saying I'll be opening a case with PayPal if they don't respond in 7 days. Has anyone else ordered recently and received any communication or their minis? Should I be concerned? I've checked the order and it still says it's processing. I'm annoyed there's no further communication except the invoice (paid).

I've ordered from him a few times, it always takes ages(4-10 weeks IME), and the communication is always fairly nonexistent, but I always got the models in the end.

 Yodhrin wrote:
I've ordered from him a few times, it always takes ages(4-10 weeks IME), and the communication is always fairly nonexistent, but I always got the models in the end.

OK thank you. I do want the models, so I don't really want to cancel the order. I'll hang on a little later, and I've noticed a phone number on the website that I might call. I just want to know what the status is, as if it's sent via dodgy mail I'll know whether it's stuck at the border or at the post office (as I've heard happens, every so often). PayPay gives me until March to start a case and I've kept a record of all my sent communications.

I've ordered from Brother Vinni directly three or four times. All but one I got within three to four weeks of placing the order, which is reasonable as far as I'm concerned.

The one that didn't work so flawlessly got stuck at being processed. I e-mailed after waiting for a month, got a reply, an apology and my order within a couple of days.

I tend to agree with Yodhrin that you can rely on Brother Vinni to deliver the ordered goods eventually. That's my experience anyway.

That said, I'd still keep an eye on the deadline Paypal sets and act before it's too late. Better safe than sorry.

 Geifer wrote:
I've ordered from Brother Vinni directly three or four times. All but one I got within three to four weeks of placing the order, which is reasonable as far as I'm concerned.

The one that didn't work so flawlessly got stuck at being processed. I e-mailed after waiting for a month, got a reply, an apology and my order within a couple of days.

I tend to agree with Yodhrin that you can rely on Brother Vinni to deliver the ordered goods eventually. That's my experience anyway.

That said, I'd still keep an eye on the deadline Paypal sets and act before it's too late. Better safe than sorry.

Thanks. I will keep an eye on the date.

May I ask how long it took to receive a reply to your email?

I also ordered on the Black Friday Sale and still waiting.
They mentioned it will take some time in their last newsletter, so I'm sitting patiently at the moment.

TarkinLarson wrote:

 Geifer wrote:
I've ordered from Brother Vinni directly three or four times. All but one I got within three to four weeks of placing the order, which is reasonable as far as I'm concerned.

The one that didn't work so flawlessly got stuck at being processed. I e-mailed after waiting for a month, got a reply, an apology and my order within a couple of days.

I tend to agree with Yodhrin that you can rely on Brother Vinni to deliver the ordered goods eventually. That's my experience anyway.

That said, I'd still keep an eye on the deadline Paypal sets and act before it's too late. Better safe than sorry.

Thanks. I will keep an eye on the date.

May I ask how long it took to receive a reply to your email?

A week I think. That was two or three years ago, so not exactly fresh on my mind. I can say for sure I didn't wait endless weeks or months, though.

Just an update on this... I received a notification on Facebook saying it hadn't been posted yet and it's been pushed to the front of the queue to be made.

This is 2 months after ordering and no other communication. I think it's pretty poor, but hopefully the quality of the models will more than make up for it. I am still looking forward to them.

TarkinLarson wrote:
Just an update on this... I received a notification on Facebook saying it hadn't been posted yet and it's been pushed to the front of the queue to be made.

This is 2 months after ordering and no other communication. I think it's pretty poor, but hopefully the quality of the models will more than make up for it. I am still looking forward to them.

Oh man, if you had to get pushed up in the queue after two months, I don't even want to know where all the other people are (including me) who ordered during their Black Friday Sale.

Good (not actually good) to hear. I'm in the same situation.

Black Friday order, contacted via email a few times, heard absolutely nothing.

I'm guessing they got really swamped in orders. It *was* a good sale after all.

Guess I should hold out a bit longer?

Yea I've ordered the 'Captain Batiste' figure from Brother Vinni in the past.

It took a little while to arrive, but it did get here and I didn't have any problems with them.

I don't remember trying to contact them tbh.

So anyone got any infos or even received their order?
I'm at day 103 since my order and three mail inquiries without answer since end of January.
Paypal protection is ending soon :(

That's nearly a third of a year. I would say even with the best will in the world, even the slowest of miniature producers shouldn't take that long.

I heard nothing back as well. :(

I just wanted me some nice post apocalyptic dudes.

Oh, Paypal protection is 180 days, I thought it was 120.
So I guess they have 2 extra months...

You may find you have some extra protection from the credit company you use, if you have a credit card you use through PayPal.

TarkinLarson wrote:
This is 2 months after ordering and no other communication. I think it's pretty poor, but hopefully the quality of the models will more than make up for it. I am still looking forward to them.

Bear in mind that this is a single guy (I think) working out of a shed (maybe not even full time), and not some large company with a customer service team. Any time he's spending doing emails is time he's not spending casting and shipping figures. It seems like the black friday sale was pretty popular and that he's completely swamped, but it's also likely to be temporary so not worth hiring someone to help out.

Herzlos wrote:

TarkinLarson wrote:
This is 2 months after ordering and no other communication. I think it's pretty poor, but hopefully the quality of the models will more than make up for it. I am still looking forward to them.

Bear in mind that this is a single guy (I think) working out of a shed (maybe not even full time), and not some large company with a customer service team. Any time he's spending doing emails is time he's not spending casting and shipping figures. It seems like the black friday sale was pretty popular and that he's completely swamped, but it's also likely to be temporary so not worth hiring someone to help out.

Well, the mails are always signed with "Natalya" so I guess he has at least one helping hand. And sending out a newsletter saying he's swamped doesn't take much time. He has also published at least two new minis since the sale, so...

Herzlos wrote:

TarkinLarson wrote:
This is 2 months after ordering and no other communication. I think it's pretty poor, but hopefully the quality of the models will more than make up for it. I am still looking forward to them.

Bear in mind that this is a single guy (I think) working out of a shed (maybe not even full time), and not some large company with a customer service team. Any time he's spending doing emails is time he's not spending casting and shipping figures. It seems like the black friday sale was pretty popular and that he's completely swamped, but it's also likely to be temporary so not worth hiring someone to help out.

So what? It takes seconds to send off an e-mail and keep waiting customers updated on delays. Especially if delays are months long, there is no excuse to leave people in the dark and eyeing their Paypal protection limits wondering if they should seek a refund. Treating people in such a manner is inexcusable for operations of any size.

He's certainly around and active as he was posting in Frothers at the end of January

(http://frothersunite.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=55755)

note NSFW content in the thread

In addition to the above, I notice they've posted in their Dakka thread in News and Rumours over the weekend too. Now might be a good time to try to get back in contact.

I PM'd Brother Vinni with a link to this thread so hopefully next time they are on they will pop in.

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:

Herzlos wrote:

TarkinLarson wrote:
This is 2 months after ordering and no other communication. I think it's pretty poor, but hopefully the quality of the models will more than make up for it. I am still looking forward to them.

Bear in mind that this is a single guy (I think) working out of a shed (maybe not even full time), and not some large company with a customer service team. Any time he's spending doing emails is time he's not spending casting and shipping figures. It seems like the black friday sale was pretty popular and that he's completely swamped, but it's also likely to be temporary so not worth hiring someone to help out.

So what? It takes seconds to send off an e-mail and keep waiting customers updated on delays. Especially if delays are months long, there is no excuse to leave people in the dark and eyeing their Paypal protection limits wondering if they should seek a refund. Treating people in such a manner is inexcusable for operations of any size.

Oh I get that. But say you only have an 8 hour working day, and you get 100 emails a day from customers asking for the status of an order. Assuming you do your due dilligence and look up the order in the system you're probably spending 2-3 minutes per customer. That could easily consume 3-4 hours or half the working day just responding to customers. in that case, if he ignores the "where's my order?" emails, he can probably get twice as many mini's cast and shipped that day.

I think people forget how quickly small businesses can be swamped by administration work, especially if they've had an unexpected order load or illness. You see loads of smaller 2/3 man companies complaining about this stuff too.

I'm not saying there isn't some middleground, like handling the order status emails once a week and filtering out the duplicates, because you can be certain there will be some people asking 2/3 times a day especially if they haven't got a response.

It's pretty poor form anyway, but you need to set expectations and can't hold these cottage shops to the same standard as GW who has a substantial customer service team.

Brother Vinni's fairly active on Social Media. He posts in the his news thread on the Lead Adventure Forum pretty often.

Find some way to have things escalated. It seems par the course for smaller companies to be non-communicative and have long wait times, however I'd make an effort to keep contacting them. Its just poor customer service to not respond to repeated attempts at contact and the like.


As for the quality of service. Back when the company was operating out of Russia I placed an order. This is in no way reflects the current state of things, but ah, the order was just after Russia had invaded Ukraine and sanctions were coming into effect. Well my order takes weeks to turn up - when before it had been merely ...well, weeks, but still, it took a deal longer. When it does it has tonnes of customs stamps on it, and had been sealed and re-opened multiple times. At least customs now knew that Brother Vinni wasn't shipping drugs, weapons or explosives into the country illicitly.

I;ve ordered a few items from Brother Vinni. always go what I ordered but it always takes a while and he isn't the quickest when it comes to responding to emails. although his minis are very good quality

...surprisingly I got a notice that my order had shipped.

It was only three months late or so, but better late than never!

Now the waiting begins!

I also made an order with Vinni at the time of his Black Friday sale and my was told to expect about 8 weeks. Turned up in under 4 if I recall.
Now I couldn't say if I just got lucky and he had all I ordered on hand and ready to go, or if the postal service he uses just was working in a exceedingly timely fashion on, but it was far less then the advertised wait time. So no complaints form me.

I can't comment on his communication skills as I didn't have to deal with him about any issues.

Wow... just a bit of information on this (sorry for updating an older threat, but it should still be valid)

I have had a dispatch notification of my order. I had looked on ebay and confirmed that I could sent a complaint up until May.

I have only had one communication from Brother Vinni, but after ordering in November 2018 it looks like I might get some miniatures soon-ish in April or May.

TarkinLarson wrote:
Wow... just a bit of information on this (sorry for updating an older threat, but it should still be valid)

I have had a dispatch notification of my order. I had looked on ebay and confirmed that I could sent a complaint up until May.

I have only had one communication from Brother Vinni, but after ordering in November 2018 it looks like I might get some miniatures soon-ish in April or May.

Let's hope for the best.
I'm at day 138/180 of PayPal protection without a dispatch info (or any info at all).

So I decided to just go ahead and open a claim with Paypal, I thought he might just refund straight away (much easier for him if he is super behind on casting.) I heard nothing for a couple of days but now he's responded saying it's now dispatched with a tracking number.

Doesn't say what carrier so I can't really check it yet but if you wanted to "encourage" some progress it appears to be a decent option.

Only problem is I have to either escalate the claim or permanently close it by 1st May, might not be enough time to get the parcel here assuming it really is on the way.


Hope this is somewhat helpful
Chris