I'm not happy Bob, Not. Happy.
TLDR; TFsource needs to get there shit sorted, or I am going to the better business bureau.
Pardon me while I set up, I generally don't like conflict but I was engaging in good faith for about a month until I realized that it was not being returned on the other end and I want to make clear exactly what happened.
My most recent irresponsible hobby is transformers model kits. I've been doing them for about two years now and its great fun putting them together. Sadly one of my favorites, IDW Drift, came out in 2019, before I got into the hobby, and is sold out everywhere. Occasionally I'll poke around for him but I've been unsuccessful. (I was able to get a interesting metal kit that you fold into shape but it was miserable to put together and the motherfucker fell off of its self once and stabbed me in the back with its sword.) Until this January. I happened to see one in-stock on TFsource, perfect, mint-in-box, ready for assembly. I excitedly clicked the buy button and waited with bated breath. Its important at this moment I point out the collection of links at the bottom of the order received email I got. It's a surprise tool that will help us later.
I also think its notable that this is my first order I have ever made with TFsource. Spoilers: there will not be more after this. I waited a few days. There is no 'your order has shipped' email in my inbox. I check the order. Everything seems fine, but weirdly its listed as a preorder? Did I buy the wrong model kit? I assumed this was a resale. I double check.
Its the right model kit. It came out in 2019. This should not be a preorder. (Important to note at this point that there is no longer a clickable order or preorder button, despite this item now being falsely labeled as a preorder. Not to mention the estimated arrival is a price and not a date.) I check the forums for the average amount of time it takes them to ship. Its about a week. I shake off my misgivings and wait a week. I wait another. Still no shipping notification. I hate sending in tickets or calling or generally being a nuisance in any way but its been two weeks on an item they had in-stock and the order has it listed incorrectly. Its time to talk to someone.
I send an email. I made my order on January 30th. My first email goes out February 16th.
I get a ticket received notification. It says I should get a response in a day or Monday to Tuesday if I sent it Friday.
I don't get a response until the next Wednesday, but whatever. That's still totally in the bounds of reasonable. But the response itself is very weird. Starting with the fact that I get two responses at the same time from the same person outside of their business hours.
This reeks of automated response, which, honestly fine, I expect the first round of a ticket to probably be a bot simply to weed out the people who didn't just check the QA page. BUT if its an automated system why did it take so long to answer me? And if its not a bot why did I receive two emails, each feeling like an automatic response to a keyword found in my email? Okay whatever, they still aren't answering my question and are under the impression that this is a preorder, which again. Its not. I respond.
At this point I'm a little disappointed, I reaaaally wanted that kit, but I mostly just want answers. If someone else got it that's fine. I'll just cancel my order. But I want to be sure that I'm not missing out on my chance to snag this kit.
This time it does take a full, proper week for the response.
"Most Probably"?! Its your job to find out and I figure the second round of a ticket should be a human, but this still feels vaguely bottish. Why are you just regurgitating the order details at me? I would have at the least expected them to ask me directly if I wanted to cancel. Okay so its time to be a big girl and call them, just to be absolutely sure I'm not missing out on the model before I cancel, but I want to have all my ducks in a row and make sure everything is in front of me for the call. This is where shit hits the fan for me because of several facts I had hither to been unaware of.
I checked my credit card. They had already charged me for the kit. The kit, that according to them they did not have in stock and according to their system, was a preorder. This is where I learn that unlike the other sites I have used, they charge you for a preorder before they ever even get it in stock. What the Fuck.
okay well, I want to make sure before I call I know how to cancel the order myself.
Okay, that's weird, no way to cancel. Maybe the view details?
Huh, that's fucking weird. You have literally no way to guarantee I get my product and you already took my $80, and there's no way to cancel the order. (I feel its important to note the other site I use does let you cancel preorders and does not charge you until they come in, you know, like a respectable fucking site.)
I am fucking livid at this point. How am I not able to cancel my order. You labeled this a preorder and your email tells me I can cancel those anytime.
Funny that. In fact, if you go to their front page, they have all those same little link badges...except for one very important one. Can you guess which one?
Something sure seems to be missing there sport. If you click the link in the email it takes to you a page that also says you can cancel preorders at anytime. However. I checked the QA page.
WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU CAN'T CANCEL A PREORDER. YOU SAID YOU COULD IN TWO SEPARATE PLACES.
I call. I call with the flames of Hell in my heart. I was so excited to get this model kit. If I had simply missed my chance I would have accepted it. But their system has blocked me from getting real answers. Lied to me about my options and stopped me from solving the problem myself. I am answered by a robo voice cuts out every other word and I select the option that takes me to customer service. I am briefly put on hold and then told nobody is home would I like to leave a message. I wait a while and call back again in an hour. Its the same thing. I leave a message with my number. I just wanted to spend my money on a silly little robot. If they don't call back by Friday. I'm contacting my credit card company for a charge back and the better business bureau for their misleading preorder policy (WHICH SHOULD NOT EVEN APPLY SINCE THIS WAS NOT A PREORDER). Eat my Shorts TFsource.
