"MINIATURE HEROES - Avoid." Topic

Well thanks to Miniature-heroes.co.uk I have no surprise present to open on christmas day from my very frustrated and upset wife.

They certainly have a lot to learn about customer service.

I cannot recommend you AVOID them strongly enough.

Full tale on my blog here… link

I believe Tim Fitch who runs the company is Bossco101 here. (that's the name that posted the sale notice).

I'd be happy to hear what he says about the situation and his lack of communication.

There is no direct email address listed on their website. (Which I believe is a legal requirement in the UK by the way)

Almost. The legal requirement under the distance selling regs is to provide a postal address, which he does (albeit also buried in the T&Cs).

Not much consolation but at least they did'nt just take your money!

According to your blog:

About 10 days ago my wife ordered on-line and received a confirmation email for the transaction, only then to get a refund notice with NO reason given.

So you got a full prompt refund? I am not really sure why the rant – is it because they did not contact you and tell you why?

Why not just make a purchase else where, seems that they did not have it in stock?

Just curious.

I'm surprised by this, I've had several good dealings with Tim in the past and never had any problem with communications – though I think they were all either personal deals or through ebay, rather than his webstore.

To be fair to Brandlin, it seems that his wife placed a legitimate order, which was cancelled with no explanation given. A short line to say unfortunately it is out of stock would have been good.

Many times these web storeowners get into business just to get cheap miniatures. They are not real business people, therefore lacking service skills.

It looks like this just another web store that sells stuff you can get at many other places on the web. You would think with such competition in this economy they would try to compete with good service. At least the owners can buy himself cheap miniatures :0

I also notice that they sell Warhammer products. I thought you were unable to sell GW stuff on the web. I thought GW wanted customers to go to the official site or use brick and mortar stores. Maybe a note the GW rabid lawyers might be fun.

On eBay, demanding a resolution, after giving a negative feedback, from someone in order to provide positive feedback would be considdered feedback extorsion and get you a strike against your account! Isn't it funny?

On eBay, demanding a resolution, after giving a negative feedback, from someone in order to provide positive feedback would be considdered feedback extorsion and get you a strike against your account!

'Demanding' and 'in order to' seem to be the significant parts of that arrangement. I'm not sure you can change the feedback to positive (in the event of resolution) if you have already left a negative.

Pay by Paypal and lodge a dispute accordingly in the event of non-delivery.

Don't want to derail the OP, but it is possible to have feedback removed if both parties agree to it. That's why you'll occasionaly see in someone's feedback profile that some feedback has been removed. Only brought it up because I told someone, who got mad I left negative feedback and didn't contact him, that I would only consider getting it removed if he gave me a full refund, but I wasn't really interested as the item was only $10, with shipping. I told him I knew he wasn't going to do anything to fix it in a manner that was worth worth my time or effort. I wasn't trying to get a refund, but he reported me and they gave me a strike and because I was trying to "extort" and him he got the feedback removed. It was lame, but it was no skin off my teeth and I got on with my life.

I also notice that they sell Warhammer products. I thought you were unable to sell GW stuff on the web. I thought GW wanted customers to go to the official site or use brick and mortar stores. Maybe a note the GW rabid lawyers might be fun.

That type of restrictions only apply in the US – this seems to be a UK based company.

Warlord – you are correct my wife is not out of pocket. The rant is simply because orders placed are simply cancelled without any correspondence and no response to any query is forthcoming. All despite the website saying they were in stock. You may think that's an acceptable way to treat potential customers. I don't.

It may not be the worst case of customer service ever and i might agree with you. I chose to share my wife's experiences. Partly in the hope that the company might change the way it operates, partly so others don't go through the grief, and partly because i am ed off.

I would add that having placed the first order and the order being summarily cancelled she then tried to order DIFFERENT products the second time. only for the same thing to happen.

I'm also sceptical about a company advertising discounts and only having a very small number of units in stock (seems to have been 2-3). And making no attempts to

As to the issues of positive and negative feedback … I have simply chosen to share the facts and my feelings about the service offered by this company.

Delthos said :

On eBay, demanding a resolution, after giving a negative feedback, from someone in order to provide positive feedback would be considdered feedback extorsion and get you a strike against your account! Isn't it funny?

Well this isn't ebay. Also ebay encourages you to communicate with the other party to resolve the problem.

I'm unhappy with the way this company has operated, and I have shared the facts and my views.

I left the door open for Tim to respond if he wishes to. He hasn't wished to in private.

Brandlin:

Understood, and I sympathize with you on that – it would have been good business practice to have communicated the information to you.

When I first read your "rant" I thought it was another situation of a company taking money and not delivering the goods, then discovered you were promptly refunded.

Although your complaint is valid, it was not clear as to the reason after I read the story on your site. In my opinion (and I emphasize my opinion), one is most certainly worst than the other. It only seemed fair to make very clear that a refund was issued and that this was a clear case of POOR communication.

Thank you for responding and I hope that you and your wife find the goods for your surprise gift. (just to be clear I don't know either of the folks involved except what has been said here today)

Warlord.

Warlord.

I thought I had made it clear in my post, sounds like thats not how you read it.

I agree getting stiffed for money – which is emphatically NOT what happened here – is worse.

Brandlin

Most odd, I have ordered from them once via the webstore, earlier this month, and received an email notifying me one item was out of stock, & asking did I want a refund or was I prepared to wait; I was ok with waiting. The rest of the order was shipped and arrived within a couple of days. So, I've had what I class as fine service.
Is it possible that emails are going astray and so your wife isn't getting the reason for non-acceptance of her payment? It is a very busy time for all concerned at the moment, and the fault may lie with Paypal, not Miniature Heroes.

Hi Huscarle

Your experience is what I would have expected.

Emails are not going astray. Certainly nothing in her spam box, and the company emails to cancel the order and we get those, but the email contains no explanation, offers to back order or anything. And to email him you have to go through his website form and we get no response.

As I said in my original post she tried ordering twice, once with paypal and once by credit card… same experience. It's not a paypal problem.

As to it being a very busy time – yes it is, so what? As a potential customer we have still been messed around and ignored.

brandlin says on his blog "I can only assume that this company had no intent of honouring orders placed during their sale at their sale prices once their very limited stock had been exhausted."
Is there a legal requirement in the UK for a seller (web or otherwise) to order in more stock at the sale price if your current stock exhausts itself? There certainly isn't in Australia. Its illegal here to advertise a sale if you have no stock to start with, what would be called a "bait and switch".
I can understand your wife being frustrated and upset by this outcome but there are other discount stores in the UK. Maelstrom link for one.
My wife refuses to buy wargaming items for me because her limited knowledge makes the whole process in her opinion hopeless.
I've dealt with Tim (from miniature-heroes)on a couple of occasions for second hand stuff and found him to be good to deal with.
My two cents worth and with due respect to the inconvenience this has caused to your wifes plans i think you're overreacting.

I really didn't want to have to be doing this, and here on the TMP with whom it has absolutly nothing to do with. Alan has been quite vocal with his views about Miniature-Heroes, and while I've tried to keep a professional silence, I now feel I have little other option.

Firstly a little background which does have a bearing on the more recent events. I've seen Bradlin about here on the FOD ever since I joined. He post's a lot, argues with some but on the whole I thought him to be a sound and reasonable sort of bloke. So when this order came into the shop I was pleased a TMP stalwart was buying from me,
(copy of original invoice 6th May 2009 )
Dear Alan Phillipson

Thank you for ordering from Miniature Heroes

Please save this confirmation e-mail as it contains your order details
and order number.

Please provide your order number (549) as reference for future
communications.

ORDER CONFIRMATION

Order no : 549 – Date of purchase : May 6, 2009

2 x OR004 Mirliton Orc Command Group 1 (OR004)
£8.02 GBP
2 x OR006 Mirliton Orcs with Field Crossbow (OR006)
£7.12 GBP
1 x OR026 Mirliton Orc Shaman (OR026)
£2.95 GBP

Total incl. VAT: £33.23 GBP
(VAT: £0.00)
Shipping: £2.45 GBP

TOTAL: £35.68 GBP

Now I had only just got the mirliton range in at this time, and by that I mean the agreement to stock it. I have never said I have the whole range for sale, its vast and I don't have the money to invest in it all. So I try and do the best I can. All items are offered, and when purchased I write to the buyer if there is anything I don't have in stock.

Just as a point of interest, and as it has been brought up, my stock control system. Because I sell quite a few pre-owned figures along with brand new ranges it has created a bit of a problem for the cart to deal with. Generally I only have one example of a pre-owned miniature for sale at a time. So the cart is set up so that the listing disappears when the stock level reaches 0. This means I can't sell another of something I haven't got. The downside of this is that I have to show a stock level on all my listings in order to get the listing to show in the shop. I've tried to get round this manaually by writing IN STOCK next to all the ltems I do have. This is also noted in the header text of the Mirliton section.

However some of Alan's ordered items weren't in stock, so I wrote to him and explained this. I offered to order them in, which would entail a wait of about 4 weeks, or he could have a refund, either whole or partial straight away. He agreed to wait, I ordered the missing packs and dispatched them to him on the 22nd May 2009. Trusting him I just used ordinary 1st class post.

A couple of weeks later he emailed me to say that the package hadn't arrived. I expressed my concern at this and asked him to wait a further few days just to make sure and to email me again then.
( copy of email dated 2nd June 2009 )

Tim

I have still not received this order.

Alan

(My reply dated 2nd June 2009)

Hi Alan,

Clearly this isn't good. I can offer 2 options. Firstly a full refund via
paypal. Second is to send you your order again, this time recorded delivery.
I have 1 each of OR004, OR006 and OR026 currently in stock. I can have the
second OR004 & OR006 in about 16 days if you're happy to wait. What I have I
can dispatch now.

Please let me know which option you would like.

Regards

Tim
Miniature-Heroes

( His reply dated 4th June 2009 )

Tim

I have to say I'm very disappointed.

The items I ordered from you were listed as IN STOCK, yet having ordered
them on 5th may you admit they weren't sent until 22nd may.

I would have ordered more from you but your system said you only had 2 in
stock and would not let me order more!

At 12:19 today your website still says that you have 2 in stock of codes
OR004 and OR006. So clearly there is something wrong with your stock
control!

I would like you to complete the order. Send the whole order together, but
note that I'm not happy at having to wait.

I can't currently see why I would order again from you in the UK rather than
direct to Mirliton.

Alan

(My reply dated 4th June 2009 )

Dear Alan,

I understand your frustration and disappointment at the non arrival of your
order.

However I am not responsible for Royal Mail and their failure to deliver to
you.

Upon your initial order I mailed you to explain the stock situation, a
situation you indicated you were happy with at the time.

I understand you not wanting to order from me again, and I am happy to
refund you in full so you can order from Mirliton directly if you wish.

Thanking you

Yours Faithfully

Tim Fitch
Miniature-Heroes

I did order in a second batch of the items he ordered, and dispatched them recorded delivery, all free. Mirliton had forgotten to include some separate casting maces in the pack, which Alan contacted me about. Again I got these in and sent them to him, again all free.

Now Alan clearly stated that he wouldn'y buy from me again. And frankly I was quite happy with that. Did the first set of miniatures go missing, I'll never know for sure. I do know that they had my return address clearly printed on the label and they've never come back. Things do of course go missing, and when they do I do my best to help. I didn't have to offer a refund, or send a second order. I did it because despite what has been said I do take customer satisfaction very highly. MH is my full time job. Yes I am just a one man band, and yes things have been pleasantly busy in the run up to Christmas. I have dealt with others on this Forum and beyond and I've only ever had a problem with one customer, Alan. In light of his comments, and general manner I removed his account details fron the shop and made a not never to deal with him again.

Then a few weeks ago I get this order come through.

( copy of invoice dated 9th Dec 2009 )
Dear susan phillipson

Thank you for ordering from Miniature Heroes

Please save this confirmation e-mail as it contains your order details
and order number.

Please provide your order number (1332) as reference for future
communications.

ORDER CONFIRMATION

Order no : 1332 – Date of purchase : Dec 9, 2009

1 x DW021 Mirliton Dwarves on Giant Bats (DW021)
£10.40
1 x GO003 Mirliton Goblin Command Group 1 (GO003)
£6.68

Total incl. VAT: £17.08
(VAT: £0.00)
Shipping: £1.80

TOTAL: £18.88

I have to say my heart fell, and I wondered what to do next. Was she a collector buying for herself, was she buying for a friend, or was she buying on Alan's behalf as he had previously stated he'd never buy from me again. He has also mentioned on numerous forums and even his own blog that buying from Mirliton direct is too expensive do to the high Italian Vat and postage charges.

I settled on refunding her money in full ( which costs me a small amount with paypal ), and hoping she'd go elsewhere. There are other Mirliton Sellers in the UK after all. I didn't put an explaination for the refund as I felt I couldn't. How can I write on an email and tell a loving wife that I won't serve her because of her husbands past behaviour? Granted she has done nothing wrong but I didn't and don't feel comfortable dealing with a family that has such a loose cannon as its head.

On the 14th December this came through.

( copy of invoice dated 14th December 2009 )
Dear susan phillipson

Thank you for ordering from Miniature Heroes

Please save this confirmation e-mail as it contains your order details
and order number.

Please provide your order number (1367) as reference for future
communications.

ORDER CONFIRMATION

Order no : 1367 – Date of purchase : Dec 14, 2009

1 x GO006 Mirliton Goblin Command Group 2 – IN STOCK (GO006)
£6.68
1 x GO005 Mirliton Goblins with Bows – IN STOCK (GO005)
£6.68
1 x GO011 Mirliton Goblin Srocerer with Spiders – In Stock (GO011)
£5.00

Total incl. VAT: £18.36
(VAT: £0.00)
Shipping: £2.45

TOTAL: £20.81

For the reasons already set out above I refunded her again, the same day. I might add that even at this stage there was time for a replacement present to have been bought elsewhere.

I had a last angry email from her, which again I didn't reply too. How could I be truthful and honest when it would only inflame and already awkward situation? I chose silence not out of bad customer service, but as a way of not making things worse. Perhaps those reading this will judge me in error, I don't know.

What I do know is that I have actually done very little wrong and have been slandered because of it. I have not kept any money. All refunds were made in very good time, and I have the documents to prove it. I have tried to keep a dignified silence as the TMP does not deserve to be the place of a slanging match which it has nothing to do with. I have a forum of which Bradlin is a member, why didn't he post there?

Has he hurt my business, yes quite probably, which was his intention. Perhaps that makes him happy?

As for me I'm tired of trying to deal with a childish and petulant man who should really just grow up.

While I understand your reservation at not wanting to deal with her, I think the proper and professional thing to do would have been to tell her you couldn't deal with her and why. Sure she would have been upset, but I don't think it would have gotten this far had you done it.

That's a fair point Delthos.

I think if you had the order in stock you should have sent her the items. If you set her the items I would have had an order conformation. If you did not have the order in stock, you should have refunded her money, apologized, and perhaps suggested a place where she could get the items.

Brandlin should let his wife know that he does not deal with your store in the first place.

In a service industry on the internet communication is key to customer satisfaction. I know you probably get 100 e-mails a day but if you don't answer them then you will lose customers.

When I sold stuff on the internet I had a word document with reply's to commonly asked questions that I sent when needed. Even if the customer writes everyday demanding where his/her products are you should answer daily with the same cut and pasted reply. At least the customer knows he has been heard.

"Well thanks to Miniature-heroes.co.uk I have no surprise present to open on christmas day from my very frustrated and upset wife. "

awwwww kids all over the country don't get a present and he didn't get his toy soldiers. Donate the money to a shelter or buy a gift for donation.

You got your money back QB.

As an interested observer…

Some years ago I had a client I did some custom work for who ranted and raved that the items I spent nearly two month making never showed up. I'd made the profit killing mistake of trusting him by not insuring the shipment or having a way to prove he got the items in order to save him money on shiping.

Being an honest businessman I supplied another set of the items he ordered.

Two years later I attended a convention on the left coast that I'd been able to work into a pretty busy schedule with other business. No one knew I would be there in advance.

Lo and behold there was a game in which both sets of figures I'd provided were being used by the snake who'd told me he never got the original shipment…

He was all full of excuses until I called the police, …after which he quickly coughed up the price of the second set, as well as some extra remuneration for my "pain and suffering".

I'm not saying Brandlin has pulled off a similar con but I would be very careful dealing with him in the future if I was still in the trades and I might ask around to see if there are more "missing" shipments that were scheduled his way in the past. That information would be posted on this forum for all to read.

The gentleman doth protest too much, methinks.

This is only early Christmas morning speculation mind you…

Will

As an interested observer…blah

Before lurching in to libellous statements, why not read and digest what actually happened rather than assume?

The trader has already appeared on this thread to confirm that the order wasn't sent and that the monies were refunded

Have another go.

The gentleman doth protest too much, methinks, applies for other reasons and to other "posters" as well.

C'est un vrai connard… perhaps applies?

"I did order in a second batch of the items he ordered, and dispatched them recorded delivery, all free. Mirliton had forgotten to include some separate casting maces in the pack, which Alan contacted me about. Again I got these in and sent them to him, again all free".

Perhaps your ability to read has been compromised???

Why not "have another go" CONNARD!!!

Will

Neither party looks very good.

Tim, it's much more considerate to tell the wife her husband's non grata than tell her nothing, but it would be less petty simply to explain there is a problem with shipping to that address, and she must pay for delivery confirmation.

Brandlin, you vow never to do business with them again, and then your wife happens to notice a 20% holiday sale? Puh-leeze. You should apologize to Miniature-Hero here and on your blog, disavow your previous stance, and humbly ask if you can place the order with delivery confirmation.

Until you are burned it is basic human nature to trust most people when they say "I didn't get what you said you sent me." Sooooooooooo, you bite you lip, squeeze your nether cheeks, and send a duplicate order. But after you've been burned a couple of times there is a little more doubt in the back of you mind each time someone first doesn't want to pay the extra for insurance or confirmed delivery, then comes back at you with both barrels blazing on the net saying you are such a sleazy operation… Can you trust them? Do you dare when the profit margin is only 30-40%? Are they scamers?

You must make a decision that can be costly if the customer is indeed an honest practioner, …and really didn't get the shipment. Your only call is to "pay yourself" for delivery confirmation on every shipment. It's like your own business insurance… It only takes once for it to pay for itself.

I totally understand Tim's position because I've been there too many times already.

Will

Thats well and good but from your ranting and ravings here I doubt I would buy anything from you Will.

"A Sock puppet's revenge"

You already have "Hordie", …in fact you purchase from me on a daily basis even though you don't see it directly. I get a bit of your money each month as regular as clockwork.

Thanks very much, by the way I appreciate your support!

Will

PS… if you think I'm ranting and raving you should go to the napoleonic boards. Now that's first class R&R. W