Re: Northmen Collectibles NMC Toys - not impressed
Similar story here.
I wanted to buy Shattered Glass Prime & Ratchet and the Canadian stores I usually go to (tftoys.ca, kooltoyz.ca, ages3up) didn't have it.
I Googled around and found NorthMenCollectibles. Great - I thought - another Canadian store!
I made the preorder on Sep 23 and prepared myself to wait a couple of months.
A couple of days later, my kids wanted some bots from the Kingdom line, so I made another preorder on Sep 28. This time on NMCToys, as they had just changed to the new website.
The items were supposed to be released in January. Just to set expectations, I told my kids that, because of the pandemic, the order could be even delayed to February.
A couple of weeks after, I made a couple more preorders (more Transformers from the Kingdom series and some Masters of the Universe). In total I prepaid more than $500 worth of toys.
Fast forward January 2021. I start seeing the Kingdom line showing up on more and more stores. I contact NMC support and ask for updates: a couple of days later I get the "you have to wait" reply.
A couple of more weeks and now the Kingdom bots are available on Amazon. Again, I contact support and get the same answer (after a couple of days).
Now we are well into February, my kids are complaining, as the bots are available even in frigging ToysRUs! I reopen the support ticket and wait for an answer.
At this point, I start Googling around and found this forum, the BBB and Yelp pages, and the 180 days PayPal policy.
I paid with CC, but the statement read mentions PayPal (I guess because the store uses PayPal as processor even for normal CC transactions) and was approaching the 160 days mark, so I got nervous about getting stuck with getting a store credit that I didn't want to use (after reading the horror stories from this thread).
I contact NMC on Facebook messenger. The guy tells me to send an email to support. I express surprise that emailing to support would be preferred instead of using their ticket system, but that I would try that avenue. Then the convo derails once I mention that 15% restocking fee seems a bit steep. I get accused to make things up, to be a liar. I point out that I was just reading from the site T&C (he updated them after our chat) and he replies that I should have read the FAQ instead (?!). Telling him that the during the order process only the T&C are mentioned and not the FAQ doesn't seem to make a difference. I just drop the chat, as I have better things to do.
I contact my CC (RBC Visa) and inquire what my options are, but specify that I don't want to do anything yet, just want info.
I explain what I purchased, when the item were supposed to be shipped (NMC website STILL shows them as preorder for January 2021 even now!) and they tell me that I have 120 days to dispute the charges from the time I was supposed to get the order (so, 120 days from Jan 1st 2021).
Since I didn't want to be an a**hole, I write to support and ask for cancellation for the preorder for my kids (I was still OK to wait for my other preorders) and ask them to confirm, otherwise I would have to go via the CC.
I see that "someone" read the email the day after (I had put a tracker in the email) but no reply. I wait another couple of days and send a follow up, stating I would dispute the charge in 2 days. Again, no reply.
I am finally fed up and call Visa again, starting the chargeback process.
The day after I start getting angry emails from the store owner. I let you imagine the tones (and I have screenshots and printouts of all the convos and support tickets before he banned me from the website).
Apparently, he is so swamped that he cannot reply to support tickets, but he has plenty of times to send angry, unhinged emails once you "skip the line" (as he defines calling your CC to ask for refund).
Since I did the chargeback for one of the orders, he cancelled the other 3 preorders and kept ~$20 as cancellation fee.
In the end, I got all my money back (I was actually able to price match some bots at TRU, so I more than compensated the $20) and I was able to buy exactly the same items from other stores and make the kids happy.
Lesson learned: buy from reputable stores, and do some research before trying someone new.
Last edited by Fab; 05-01-2021 at 10:33 PM.
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