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Old 08-27-2019, 12:06 AM   #17
NorthmenCollectibles
Mini-Con
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Toronto
Posts: 6
Re: Northmen Collectibles - not impressed

A lot of things to go over here so I'll try and hit them 1 by 1.

"I appreciate that this is a policy. I don't appreciate that they are dinging me all this money for a product we paid for EIGHT MONTHS AGO and they have not been able to make it happen or find any information whatsoever. On a preorder."

All orders must be paid for upon checkout. This is going to be a recurring theme here but people repeatedly abusing my site as a backup service just in case they can't find something at big box stores locally has resulted in me having to change a lot of my flexible policies. How long it's been since the cash was taken is irrelevant to the complaint as every single order placed on the site must be paid for upon checkout regardless of when the item is scheduled to come out. There are items I put up for pre-order that are only scheduled to come out 12+ months later and those have to be paid upon checkout.

I used to offer a flexible cancellation policy, no cancellation fee, and a pay-later option and after having these policies abused over and over and over again I had to turn into a fascist. Do these restrictive policies lose me business? Almost for sure. But at the scale the store is currently at this is a non-issue because these restrictive policies also prevent 95% of the problems I've had to deal with prior to implementing them.

"I'm really unimpressed with this way of doing business. After all this crap you want to take money from us? I plan to call them later and argue over it. It was a large-ish order."

You can try calling. I currently have someone helping me with phone calls so I can't predict exactly what he'll say in response to the "arguing" but I can say it won't make a difference regarding the 15% cancellation fee.

This was the support ticket you submitted: "re: order # FYC105279

I would like to cancel this preorder and receive a full refund, immediately.

Thank you
R."

I proceeded with your request accordingly. You demanded a refund immediately, didn't provide any explanation as to the reason for cancellation, demanded it be done in full. I mean, that doesn't leave a lot of wiggle room there? Normally when someone emails me inquiring as to what their options are for a particularly stubborn order we can usually figure out a compromise but when someone emails me "full refund immediately" the policy gets administered by default. Any time someone emails me "demanding" or "immediately" or any kind of strong "customer is always right" style language the default action just falls down to administer the store policy and wash your hands of it.

I realize the above is all very frustrating for you, and personally from this post here you seem fairly level headed and I wish you'd have responded to me in a tone similar to what you used when making this post but this is a one man show and I don't have the time to attempt to decipher how someone is going to react. I literally had someone email me telling me I was "lucky he didn't knock me out" the other day because he was charged a shipping fee for an order that was under the $99 free shipping threshold...

"They need to reimburse you all your money and take it up with their supplier. End of story."

No I don't. I make the policies very clear including the fact that people are charged upon checkout for all orders. There is nothing to take up with the supplier because Diamond is in the exact same position I'm in which is at the mercy of Hasbro. 90% of the time if not more I have any kinds of problems like this it's with Hasbro product. This is very much so a Hasbro problem and frankly it's soured me on them to such a point that I don't even personally collect Legends and SWBS anymore. Now if more consumers vote with their wallets and stop supporting big box retailers or go out in droves and email Hasbro expressing their dissatisfaction with them not fulfilling specialty shop orders maybe something might actually change. My policies are all laid out on the site, it is the consumer's responsibility to look up a store's cancellation policy prior to placing an order. I can't force people to do it, I can simply provide them with the information. I am more than willing to be flexible with people who email me in a respectful manner and are willing to work with me on the issue but when someone emails me once in regard to an order and states they want a refund "immediately" they are immediately provided with a refund according to the store policy.

"Interested to hear if they refund your money"

I'm sure it's clear by now but I have not. What I have been willing to do in the past is refund the cancellation fee as a store credit to be used at a future date. The policy is the policy and it is completely unfair to treat someone special because they posted a complaint to a forum or wrote me a "sternly worded email". A lot of customers (including repeat customers) have paid the cancellation fee without any complaint and it is a slap in the face to every person that paid it without issue to void the policy just because someone causes a fuss.

"we'll find out. sent off a strongly worded email."

Where was the email sent? I haven't received any yet. If you could please resend it to info@northmencollectibles.ca that would be greatly appreciated because I don't think it went through however it was sent or it could have been sent to an out of service email address.

"don't offer a product you can't produce."

So don't ever put anything up for pre-order and thus basically shut down the business because there are never any guarantees? Furthermore, nothing has been cancelled by my distributor. I don't use a back alley small time company, I order Hasbro product from Diamond, the largest distributor of this stuff in the world. I placed my order for these as soon as they went up and then posted the pre-orders to my site based on the information provided during the solicitation. By virtue of that statement basically every single collectibles store should shut down because there is no way to guarantee anything ordered arrives on time and frankly 99% of items arrive early or late and not when scheduled.

"It's one thing for people to order shit and cancel it randomly and hurt you."

I used to allow people to cancel orders as well as pay once the item arrived in stock. Do you know what the result was? People's cards expiring and not telling me then not answering emails for the new info. People buying the item elsewhere and not telling me and just not paying for it. People not having enough space on their card and not answering emails regarding putting the charge through. Meanwhile every single one of those prevented someone else from buying it who likely turned around and bought it elsewhere leaving me stuck with inventory.

I was outright being used as a back-up service for people who could not find items locally at big box stores. The second I saw people posting on the FB trading groups that their local wal-mart had an item in stock I started getting cancellation emails up the ass because there were NO repercussions for cancelling orders so people just went out to the first store that received inventory and then cancelled their order or even worse didn't even email me the cancellation request but simply refused to pay for it once it arrived.

Do you know what removing the pay-later option and instituting a 15% cancellation fee did? It solved the VAST majority of the problems I was experiencing via customers abusing my website for pre-orders they had no intention of keeping.

Whether the item was in-stock or a pre-order is irrelevant. A cancellation is a cancellation. Obviously in instances where the item's availability is up in the air (recently occurred with TMNT Mikey Batman and Marvel Legends Mysterio) requests for cancellation are done without any penalty. But for these items there are a lot of other specialty stores who have yet to receive their inventory and Diamond has not gotten any of their shipment sent in yet. So it's not a case of it being cancelled, or allocated, or some sort of other issue, it's just usual Hasbro incompetence. These policies are the only way I can offer Hasbro product for pre-order because of the way hasbro chooses to run their business.

"If you paid via paypal or credit card, get them to refund you the money (if the call to Northmen is unsuccessful). You have full grounds for getting a refund."

This is not true and incredibly misleading. Store policies are store policies. Neither paypal nor a credit card company will reverse those funds if disputed. People have tried. I have won every single dispute that has attempted it. If you honestly tell the card company what happened and that you cancelled an order and were charged a 15% fee they won't even file the chargeback, you'd have to lie about it which would then result in you losing anyways because presumably you were informed of everything via email.

"Preorders are a great way to gauge interest in a product and allow a store to order sufficient product to fill demand."

I have NEVER put a product up for pre-order on my site that I did not already place my order for. Pre-orders are not used to gauge interest. I gauge interest prior to even putting the items up for order. I place my order for a quantity of units I think will sell and then I put that up for pre-order. If the pre-order sells out right away (very rare) I will order more units and put them up. If the pre-order sells out after like 1-2 weeks I will place a new order for inventory but will not put them up on the site for order or will put them up with a warning. Once a product has been solicited as more time passes the higher the risk of the order not being fulfilled in full becomes and as such I avoid putting product up on the site that I think might not be fulfilled.

This is just business as usual when it comes to Hasbro product. Hell just recently it was posted everywhere that the Marvel Legends X-Force wave is going to show up at EB Games 2 months late at the earliest meanwhile it's released at a few other big box stores already. Even the big boys aren't immune to Hasbro BS.

People can or cannot place orders with me as they see fit but I am not misleading about my policies and everything is clearly stated on the website. Hell if an item hasn't come in I've gone out of my way in the past to find it somewhere else (including sometimes paying retail and losing money on the sale) just to ensure the order can be fulfilled and the customer isn't inconvenienced.

I bust my ass running this store and I don't do that so people can just on a whim decide something is taking too long and go buy it somewhere else. When someone places an order they're expected to commit to that order unless there is a valid reason for the cancellation. Or hell at the very least email me with respect, show a little courtesy, try and see things from my point of view, and offer a compromise. I've cancelled items for people in the past without a fee by providing a store credit or swapping out items. Emailing me demanding "a full refund immediately" though is a great way to just have policy slapped on your request by default.
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