Monday, April 11, 2011

Fail World



Oh Forge World, how did I love thee?, Let me count the ways!

Summer 2008- @ Games Day Chicago, I ask the gentleman behind the rapidly growing line if they have the Empire Cannon emplacements? he says."sure do" we a have bunch. After waiting in line 90 mins...I find out, they are sold out..I ask"you sold them all in last 90 mins, while I was in line? it looked like 40K central to me?, No. he responds..we sold them all yesterday to the Fantasy players when we opened the store for the GT (this year the GT started the day before gamesday and was a 2 day event) OOOF.....buuut the guy told me you had them..I griped..."we did yesterday" also I should mention all the convention exclusives sold out too, its was 11:30 am at Games Day. I never got that 90 mins of my life back...but they offered me free shipping!

November 2008- Mail Order - I order a bunch of Space Marine bitz and vehicle parts. The package never arrives after about 5-6 weeks of waiting they reship. When the order finally arrives. Items are missing from the order, they say "no worries" we'll ship you the missing bitz for free! when I finally get the reship, in late Febuary 2009..I've lost interest in 40K.

Spring 2009 Mail Order-I order the Great Unclean One to compliment my rapidly growing Daemon Army, on sale at the time for 80 pounds with a great US/UK conversion rate. I bite the apple again, although stupidly I decided to use my debit card instead of a credit card. Forge World somehows enters an extra "Zero" and charges my bank account $800 Pounds not 80 which almost causes me to bounce my mortgage but I thankfully caught it in time. the overcharge is summarily corrected, they were very apologetic and offered me Free Shipping on the model. (credited me back shipping costs with my extra money ) Warning: never use a debit card to buy anything online..dont know what I was thinking there

Summer 2009- Games Day Chicago- somehow new pieces people are salivating for dont make it to Games Day in time, all those new Daemon Sculpts and whatever else people were waiting for doesnt make it to the show but are available in limited quantities..massive line..tons of unhappy people. Thankfully I had nothing to with this other than witness it and feel sorry for people that waited two hours for new Khorne Daemon Prince and Herald only to find out they didnt have it.

Spring 2011- Adepticon. Warhammer Forge. Knowing my own relationship with Forge World.I write in to order the Theo Bruckman on Demi Gryph model. I get a confirmation # and reserve order number from Forge World. I bring this print out with me to Adepticon.The day starts out with a bang when I get downstairs to lobby at 8am the line for the Forge World store is easily 150 people long. the line builds to over 200 but the time the open the doors. when they do..they also open the partition between the main ballroom and the store so people rush to Forge World from the other side...thereby screwing everyone who waited in line for 2 hours. Convention exclusives sold out quick many of those folks who thought they were covered getting out at 8am, got hosed..if you've been to a Forge World booth before you know what they do. They hand you and order sheet, and say "well give you Free Shipping".

Seeing this debacle I decide to wait until Saturday to go pick up my model, after round 1 of the WFB championships..I rush over to the Forge World booth and find only a dozen people in line..I jump in and it still takes me 20 mins to move up to where they can see me. Once I am only two or three people back. the Forge World guy sees me with a piece of paper in my hand and says quote " He knows what he wants and how to do it, this gentleman here has wisely pre-ordered his model!" he takes my paper and goes back to get..but cant seem to find it...(I think to myself this cant really happen, can it?) he keeps looking comes back to me red faced and says dont worry it has to be here..I'll find it...10 mins later...he still cant find it. Now its 5 mins before round 2, I'm like I have to go..I'll come back later..he's like " I'm sure I'll find it". I come back right before they close for the evening...I find the same guy..he remembers me and says "sorry guy, its not here..I dont know what happened" he shoves an order sheet at me and says. "Fill this out pay the guy over there and you'll get Free Shipping" I just walk away in disgust.

Monday morning after Adepticon I write a letter to Forge World explaining what happened and also detailing my history with the company. I ask them what they'd like to do about it..and dont ask for anything specific. Today, a week later, I get a response. "well I talked to all involved and we think the best course of action is to give you Free Shipping" "But you'll have to call in because if you order it thru the webcart we can't remove the shipping..so call us and we will take care of you". That's it. No apology, No, what can we do for you to make this right?, no grand overture of perhaps a discount is warranted?? Considering the time of mine they've wasted is worth far more than all FW stuff I own combined-any of these seem like small gestures..but nope, nada.

Well dear sirs..you can take your "free shipping" and stuff it straight up your arse. Despite your litany of epic screw ups in my short history with you, I have always made positive note (both privately and publicly) of your strong customer service in liu of these shortcomings. NO MORE, Free Shipping is not a customer service panacea for your inability to have even the most basic skills in running a retail company. If you were selling anything else other than boutique models with a fanatical high demand. you would have been out of business ages ago. So it is with much disgust I bid farewell to your company and hope that others whom currently support you have the common sense to come to the same conclusion as quickly as possible.

8 comments:

Bill said...

I can say that I've been ordering from FW now for years and I guess I've just been lucky. I've never had that level of continued ineptitude. Sorry to read about your troubles, but I'm just too addicted to some of the IG stuff to quit them cold-turkey like that.

Tylermenz said...

I know I have had a lot of problems with FW. They lost my last $500 order from them, I ended up emailing them and they sent the entire order for free, along with some other stuff that I had been missing from previous orders (3 sets of tau tetras to replace one engine piece).

BigPaul1e said...

I have had good luck with mail orders from Forge World, but yeah, I was not happy with the wait or the line setup at Adepticon. The saving grace was that they undercharged me by about $60 for my pre-order - I figured they just forgot some of my models, and by that point I was too tired and frustrated to argue about it, I just wanted to get out of there. When I dug through the box later they actually were in there, they just forgot to ring them up... I guess we'll call it even.

Anonymous said...

Some of their models are dead sexy, but ordering from them seems like a pain (in general, not just based on your experience). Yup, no thanks.

allanhennius said...

You´ve taken a real beating here, that´s obvious! But the sad thing is that this kind of s**t is happening all too often when, as you say, amateur retailers sell a "hot" product to "hungry" customers!

Diehard2501 said...

Been through this same battle with them. First nightmare was at GD Chicago where after waiting in line for an hour the only stuff that have in stock is marines, no xenos stuf of any kind. Ended up getting some minor guard stuff because after waiting in line that long I needed something.

Next problem was ordering from the Bunker. Huge waste of time (http://thegamersworkbench.blogspot.com/2010/10/chicago-battle-bunker-is-joke.html)

I was in the line with you at Adepticon this year. I was one of the ones in the hall that got shafted. (http://youtu.be/FjXcsfusIEE)

It still amazes me I can order stuff form New Zealand and get it shipped to Chicago faster than form the UK. Hell, I have ordered stuff from Hong Kong and had less trouble.

Sadly we all keep going back because their aren't any other options.

Anonymous said...

I'm sorry to hear of your misfortune with Forgeworld. I'm equally amazed that all they did was offer you free shipping. It saddens me to see a retailer that never learns from their mistakes.

Joe G Kushner said...

You should make your complaints known to GW as well. For better or worse Forge World is sucking on the IP tit of Games Workshop and their poor customer service is a reflection of GW's handling of them. GW should be fining them or providing some extras to customers who are shafted by Forge World least people like you, lose interest in their games, as you did with 40K.

 

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