"Problems with Hotzmats?" Topic

Anybody else had problems with this outfit? I have been waitng for a terrain mat from Hotzmats since November 2007! I have been in contact repeatedly via email -occassionally get a reply promising despatch 'on Monday' but still waiting! Is this a common thing with this guy? Hey I'm a patient bloke and even stated in my original order that I didn't expect super fast delivery because of the Christmas logjam! I guess I should specify which Christmas! Approaching 6 months now and just waiting – …..

I'm afraid that's just Eric. It's been that way for everybody since he started.

On one hand, he's a good guy, and makes a good product.

On the other hand, you have to beat him repeatedly with emails and phone calls for months, to get it to happen. 4-6 months seems to be the average wait-time. I've ordered from him twice, and my gaming buddies have made several orders, and we've all gotten the same messages about how some crisis has just passed, but now he can get those mats done and out to you by next week…. (Not to be mean-spirited, nor to imply that the crises aren't real, but I'd rather not be given the false sunshine that things are all better now, when in fact service never improves.)

I wish he would just get some assistance, either in the production or the shipping, or both. Surely there's some kid in the art-school at the local college who could put in 5 hours a week for some beer-drinking money, in return for boxing and shipping ?

Oh, and while we're beating up this poor guy… It's a little irksome to discover, after waiting that long, that a 4X6' mat isn't really 4X6. It's about 3-4 inches short in each dimension.

Thanks for the info. it seems then that the mat is on 'schedule'? I'll just have to email daily now instead of weekly!
And the it comes up 3-4 inches short in each dimension……jeez unlucky….

Had the same problems and waited for couple of months. I emailed the guy and recieved the mat within few days. And yes, the mat was a bit too short, but it didn't matter since I was interested in hexes which were just fine.

I've pointed out the problem with the fact that his website claims the mats are a certain size in feet (Length x Width) but when you look at the detailed informaton the sizes (quoted in inches) do not equate to the sizes claimed.

He says one thing in one spot and then contradicts himself.

I actually had a response to my email but IIRC the response basically ignored the issue. "Problem? I don't see a problem."

I agree, the mats are good. Saying that, I will never do business with Hotz again. Especially now that terrainguy.com is in business. As a contrast, I ordered on a Sunday and had my 4 x 8 mat on Friday. The physical quality is far superior to Hotz for a similar price.

With all due respect, I think Eric would be better off doing something else than this side business.

My group had a 5-mat order delayed about 4 months and I finally managed to get the thing going by call him twice using the phone number on his site (paypal disputes and emails yielded promises but no mats).

He also promised to make it up to us with some samples of his new lines but that hasn't happen (three months and counting).

I think the smaller size has to do with needing to trim off the edge of templates. And perhaps getting the hex grids to line up geomorphically. But yes, mine are smaller than 4x6'. No big deal to me, though.

Nice mats, but a lot of hassle to get them.

Wow. I am in the market for 2 hex mats. All of this just lost him some business. Too bad really. It looks like he has a nice product.

I reckon one of these complaint threads about Hotz Mats pops up once a month.

I will never order from him ever after reading the about the number of problems… and despite all of these threads and phone calls, emails and paypal disputes… nothing changes.

If it's that hard to run, he should call it quits for a while until he sorts stuff out and is in a better frame of mind to run the business properly… all of this bad press is just hurting his business' image.

Ben.

I ordered 3 mats from Hotzmats. The whole ordeal took 6 months and no mats. He responded twice I think over the whole 6 months and said that the mats should be shipping out within the week. Still nothing was sent. He did refund my money and said that he would still send the mats as it should never had been that long of a wait. Still no mats and it has been two or three months. Instead I ordered my mats from terrainguy.com and it took less then a week and a half to receive my mats and some hills. Will most likely place another order with terrainguy in a few weeks. The mats are excellent.

Does theterrainguy.com do hexes on his mats?

i echo acarhj's comments and will be looking else where :-(

We had to play the dash of the Scharnhorst up the English Channel last night on a green Great Plains mat, since the blue sea mats have been on order since the Reagan administration.

There is a "the" in theterrainguy:
theterrainguy.com/index.html

BTW, do his mats come with printed hexes on them for air games?

i am going to try Monday Knight Production's mats instead: link

any one got any feed back on these? (sorry for the hijack)

The MKP sea mat I had was very robust but the green/blue was pretty vivid. It stood up to lots of play without any issues.

Does Monday Knight still print a gigantic MKP logo in the corner of their mats? I was really torqued when I saw that; in every game I used it for, there was a mysterious forest always in that same corner of the board.

Spargel -

The recent mats I obtained did have the logo on the corner. They too have had some delays getting mats out but have remained very good with communication via email.

Erik

I do plan to produce hex mats in the near future, my first mats will have 5 inch hexes.
theterrainguy.com

Hey! After 5 months and 25 days (almost 6 months!) my Hotzmat arrived! No note or explanation or even an apology for the delay, so when I'm in the market for another mat – (the aerial view of fields for aircraft games) At least I know where not to shop……..Thanks for the comments chaps!

I got a Hotz mat a couple of months ago now, and it came within 3 weeks of ordering and I'm in the UK. Couldn't complain at all.