Warning to all.
If you are like me and make use of web based mail orders
companies then please take notice of this.
I have the worst experience with this company.
West Wind Productions (http://www.westwindproductions.co.uk/catalog/index.php?osCsid=98791921163ea70f42e50df7d42f47b9)

I have placed a very small order with this company and all I have return
was a smart arsed email telling me they are really busy. Poor them.
Now I am £6 out of pocket, no item I ordered and I am annoyed cos they
seem to have some nice stuff. I really like the gas masks and was planning on
placing a largish order of them. But not now.

People may moan about games workshop but atleast you can be 95% sure you will
get your items to you and will try and help if they haven’t.
I just hope that people who set up these internet mail companies realize
that they have a niche market product which is going to be hard pressed to compete with
the already established giants such as G.W, if they want to get people to buy their products
then a) they need to actually delivery there products. b) lower the cost of P&P.
If they can’t do that they will fail, because who will use a company that has a bad rep for
ripping off customers and overpriced p&p charges???
Like i said, use if you want. But i would strongly urge you not to use this company till they sort their ideas out.

I am not sure if LO has a section or thread dealing with this already, but I think this opens up an idea for a new sticky thread:
Online ordering companies are very much a risky area, as it often hard to tell if they are going to deliver on thier goods or not. Would it be possible on LO to have a thread where people can post the results of thier dealings with online companies (both good and bad results) to allow others to benefit from thier experiences.

As to this case - out of interest how long have you been waiting for your package, from the content of the e-mail you brifly described it sounds like they have not canceled your order but are delaying its release to you.

This is very good to know, I will order with someone else.

Tekore

Hi everyone,
Well this is turning into a complete joke.
I have sent an email, describing my distress over this issue and asking
when will my item turn up
A few minutes later I received a phone call from west wind productions (a lady called Wendy)and get this, she is was more concerned about my attitude than the fact a customer order has not been fulfilled. I just had to listen to a five minute rant about how nice all her other customers are. Then she told me I should not be moaning cos my order was only for six pounds and that’s nothing to her.
Well super for them. In the end she said they will send at my item again.
I’m not holding much hope for that one to turn up. Come back G.W bitz ordering all is forgiven.
Never have I been so insulted by a sales person over the phone. Thanks Waste Wind that’s the last time
you will see my money.

Oh and to answer the question asked, I ordered my item on the 05/03/2008.
Over the phone I was told that orders are only posted out on a Monday but they don’t work weekends.
So it’s anyone’s guess what has happened to it.
I can’t believe I am getting this much stress my a miniature mail order company. it should be
Place order > Pay for Order > Item is packed and sent > I get item.
See simple, millions of other companies can do this without phoning the customers up and complaining about them!!!!

Now that's really odd, sine I have only heard good things about WWP! Really sorry to hear this!

not to takes sides in this, but -- its only been 13 days since your order. Most delivery companies state that you should allow 28 days for delivery unless you pay extra for special delivery (usally next day or 2-3days).

West Wind will deliver your order as soon as possible, this should normally be within 5 working days (UK) and 10 working Days to Europe from the time of your order and if your order should be delayed for any reason we will try and contact you by e-mail or telephone to let you know of the possible delay and reason for it.
- taken off the west wind website.

So they are infact 8 days late cos I do live in the U.K so I should have my order next day if I get the first class postage I paid for. I wouldn’t mind it being a few days late. But this is beyond amusing for me. Nobody buys something if they don’t want it or need it, I infact need them for a project which is just sitting waiting for this to turn up, plus I really wanted them so I could see the quality of west winds items. I still have no clue what I will end up with in the end.
When G.W messed up my order from them I sent an email expressing my displeasure (I had paid for next day delivery and it didn’t come), within five minutes I had a phone call and the first thing they did
was apologize and then they explained what had gone wrong. I then got my order the next day. Simple.
But instead I get told off!!! like I’m a naughty school boy. Hence I am furious right now. And to tell me my £6 order is nothing to them well that just grinds my gears. £6 is not much to me either since I usually send £30-£40 a month on miniatures.
Like I said in my first post, use west wind if you like there stuff (sadly I have seen quite a lot of stuff I would like on their website) but I warn you, I have never had abuse given to me by a sales person before and I have never had this much trouble
buying something off the internet as I have with this. And an apology would have been nice.
I would send them a link for this to read themselves but I don’t fancy Wendy calling me again and telling they with holding
my order cause they think I’m impolite.

its not an ideal solution - but if you wanted to in the future use thier service they do have a list of shops :
West Wind Productions (http://www.westwindproductions.co.uk/catalog/shop_listing.php?osCsid=98791921163ea70f42e50df7d4 2f47b9)
which stock thier products - you could make an order through one of them if one is near to your home.

I am not sure if LO has a section or thread dealing with this already, but I think this opens up an idea for a new sticky thread:
Online ordering companies are very much a risky area, as it often hard to tell if they are going to deliver on thier goods or not. Would it be possible on LO to have a thread where people can post the results of thier dealings with online companies (both good and bad results) to allow others to benefit from thier experiences.

As to this case - out of interest how long have you been waiting for your package, from the content of the e-mail you brifly described it sounds like they have not canceled your order but are delaying its release to you.


Good idea :)

Hi,

I am not sure if LO has a section or thread dealing with this already, but I think this opens up an idea for a new sticky thread:
Online ordering companies are very much a risky area, as it often hard to tell if they are going to deliver on thier goods or not. Would it be possible on LO to have a thread where people can post the results of thier dealings with online companies (both good and bad results) to allow others to benefit from thier experiences.

I would advise some caution here. On a number of other modeling forums I belong to (model trains), they have tried this sort of thing. I'm sure sometime in the past here as well. It just doesn't work. Inevitably it becomes something like this:
Person A has great service from company XYZ.
Person B has rubbish service from company XYZ.
Person A defends company XYZ.
Person B moans about what a bad company XYZ is.
Person C comes along, states something about another company DEF and has know person who owns XYZ for years and they're a stand-up company, way better the DEF.
Person B slags off Person C and Person A for rubbish comments.
Person A and Person C have "verbal issues" with Person B.
Tensions mount, comments degrade.
.......repeat cycle until Admin is forced to close the thread.

A much more logical approach would be to have a section of Librarium Online, where people can rate a company. Say for example I owned a shop. I could submit my show to the area, and have a link to my home page. Or a person who is a member here could list my shop on that section.

On the Librarium side, people can rate my shop on Service, Cost Effectiveness, etc. Everyone who is a member of Libarium could see the results. AND it should have a system to allow me as a shop owner to respond to a bad / good comment. For an idea of how it's used, see a website called hellopeter.com - Free customer service site containing comments on good and bad service experiences. (http://www.hellopeter.com). It's a site where people can rate service offered by companies. There are some of the larger company's here in South Africa that have people permanently reading comments about them, so they can react on it.

This allows a system of fair voting, as opposed to someone ranting in a thread. I don't want to have to search through all histroical threads to look for a company name to see how people rate it. I'd rather have a central location listing all companies A - Z and their ratings, as opposed to a thread in a forum.

Hi,



I would advise some caution here. On a number of other modeling forums I belong to (model trains), they have tried this sort of thing. I'm sure sometime in the past here as well. It just doesn't work. Inevitably it becomes something like this:
Person A has great service from company XYZ.
Person B has rubbish service from company XYZ.
Person A defends company XYZ.
Person B moans about what a bad company XYZ is.
Person C comes along, states something about another company DEF and has know person who owns XYZ for years and they're a stand-up company, way better the DEF.
Person B slags off Person C and Person A for rubbish comments.
Person A and Person C have "verbal issues" with Person B.
Tensions mount, comments degrade.
.......repeat cycle until Admin is forced to close the thread.

A much more logical approach would be to have a section of Librarium Online, where people can rate a company. Say for example I owned a shop. I could submit my show to the area, and have a link to my home page. Or a person who is a member here could list my shop on that section.

On the Librarium side, people can rate my shop on Service, Cost Effectiveness, etc. Everyone who is a member of Libarium could see the results. AND it should have a system to allow me as a shop owner to respond to a bad / good comment. For an idea of how it's used, see a website called hellopeter.com - Free customer service site containing comments on good and bad service experiences. (http://www.hellopeter.com). It's a site where people can rate service offered by companies. There are some of the larger company's here in South Africa that have people permanently reading comments about them, so they can react on it.

This allows a system of fair voting, as opposed to someone ranting in a thread. I don't want to have to search through all histroical threads to look for a company name to see how people rate it. I'd rather have a central location listing all companies A - Z and their ratings, as opposed to a thread in a forum.


I have been working on setting up a directory here at LO. we could make it possible to rate the sites from there.

we would also have to be careful for legal raesons, clearly deformation/libel is a risk

A way around the flame wars and legal issues is to use a poll only system. Kinda like eBays feedback.

Start a sub-forum called "Online Games Suppliers Feedback"

Members can start (or have to PM a Mod) a topic call "Company ABC Online". In the topic is a poll with "Good", "Neutral" and "Crud" (or whatever)... LO Members can then vote on what the company's service is like from their own experiences.

If possible you could allow a max of 100 characters to describe the problem / glowing appreciation... Or just leave the reply button looked to prevent flame wars / only allow one post..

To be perfectly honest, I didn't have any problems with a small order I placed with them a little while back (January sometime). Since it had so far to travel - to Australia - I wasn't expecting fast delivery, but it was only about a week and a half to get here.
Sometimes service is good, sometimes service is bad...

It looks like you was lucky.
This is the year 2008 not 1980. Why should anyone have to face
customer service which is bad? Like I have already said they produce
a product for a niche market, surely they should be aiming for 100% customer satisfaction?
I work for a world famous brewery (Inbev) and we have hundreds of thousands of customers,
we don’t always get things right but we when do drop the ball we bend over backwards
to make sure we put it right for the customer. I don’t expect them to hand deliver my items but it’s been 14 days since I placed my order and they emailed me to tell me they sent the item 7 days ago by first class post. Plus it would be nice to have my comments taken seriously by the company instead of being told I have a bad attitude. I speak to customers every day over the phone and never would I tell them that especially if it was not the customer who was at fault.

I am about to place an order with pig iron I just hope I don’t face the same problems.

Boomer, I think your expectations are a little high, most companies assure delivey within 28 days, currently FW are not meeting this.

This is a small company not a large brewery, they have limits to turnover which limits both stock and staff. I dont think you have anything to complain about appart from:

Their response to your email, which you dont detail, but which if you are right, does seem odd.

You said you payed extra for a gaurenteed delivery first class (or implied it)

Overall there have been other bad experianced, DWHS springs to mind, but there are no shortage of other companies

I put up a review section where the users do the rating. We simply enters the stores with a screenshot and quotes their "about" page and ends the article with a link to them

You can now rate them based on different aspects like price, quality, customer service, shipping, speed, ease of use etc ..

http://www.librarium-online.com/category/reviews

Check it out in the sub-nav menu or the link above

Cheers