"Buyer Beware of Black Tree Design" Topic

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This is not a rant,hopefully it's a public service to the
group. In early February I bought the Bull's Head Deal from BTD. It
was supposed to be 150 random Zulus from their packs. I received the
deal in a quick 3 weeks. There were problems, There were only 135
figures, of those 22 were musket armed(they sell a sniper deal for
muskets/rifles)104 of the figures were unmarried Zulus of which 75%
were from the same pack, the ones where you have to glue on the
assigis. I received 9 married Zulus. I emailed BTD and was told that
they would send out the 15 shorted figures and some other figures to
make up for the unrandom selection.
It's been 2 months and still no figures. I have emailed them 2
times and received no response. I emailed the American sales rep and
he told me they owe him money, and will not respond to his emails.
He did get one email from them telling him not to forward complaints
from American customers. I know of another group member who ordered
the Bull's Head Deal in early February and still hasn't received it.
Therefore, beware of dealing with Black Tree Designs.
Jim Ferich

i hope black tree sorts itself out before The Editor has to put a "bad trader alert" on them . . .

This is unfortunate,as they have many nice figures,and not that long ago,it seemed nobody had any problems dealing with them.

Friend of mine deals with BTD by phone - he's not online. They make the odd cock up, but phoning them seems to resolve things more than emailing them. They just don't seem very good by email.

JDE

Never had any problems with them - but they did say they were having problems getting through a back log of orders a while back I believe on a different thread. I really do hope there's no real problem with them as they are one of the best - they listen to customers for a start (and they brought back out those 'Squats' - so they're heroes in my book! lol). Seriously though give them a call rather than rely on e-mail - it's much easier to sort things out that way. GL.

I have never had a problem with BTD - but maybe thats because I'm in the Uk and its only a problem in the States? I hope they sort it ut soon!

Gav Tyler

When will these places learn that communication is the key to good relationships, seems when any one of them screws up they cut off all communication.

I've only dealt with the American rep, and have not had any issues. Though to be completely honest, I've only ordered 2 times.

What problems Justin? I must have sent 200 plus parcels to the States since November and not a reported problem with any one of them.
Cheers
Mike

BTD was shipping ground to the states (IIRC). No matter how you slice it, BTD should be proactive in their customer service department. Seems that has sorely taken a back seat to who knows what else.

Are BTD going the same way as Harlequin.........? I haven't seen loads of their BTD threads recently.

Another Target/I-Kore.... in the making?

Naughty naughty Bungle!
Mike

Perhaps a compromise/some damage control might be in order?

Once they get their email/ordering system sorted out perhaps they could request a list of the disatisfied US customers (those that had their figures swim across) and offer them free shipping on a future order or a one pack credit? Would ease things a little.

Not upset that it took 2-3 months, but upset that this was not the advertised time frame. Telling me someone screwed up in shipping doesn't get me in a happy mood nor my figures painted for an upcoming convention any faster.

Email issues for 2 months? Sorry I don't believe it.

If you ran a business that was so vocal in its advertising a few months back and seemingly critical of others customer service then its a pretty pathetic attempt at distracting those complaints by indicating an email issue.

If you did have a mail problem you would in my opinion 1 do something about it, 2 post on this board via a internet cafe or something.

Just as apoint of interest their domain and mail DNS records all check out so all the mail you send should at least be getting to their server/host.

Why it seems acceptable in wargaming to put up with crap service i dont know.

A very simple alternative to server and email issues is to get a very popular and free account from someone called MSN.... hotmail :P It may be dirty, but it works :D

Yahoo is a much better alternative. This is due to great spam and virus filtering and is the reason why I use it (I have a paid Yahoo account, not a free one) for most of my communication.

Although I have had some issues with legit emails getting designated as spam. But then again no spam software is perfect.

You received the miniatures in a 'quick'? 3 weeks and it was only partially screwed up? Surely that qualifies as 'great service'!

Or was it if you receive almost all your miniatures in 8 weeks and they actually answer 1 e-mail that it's 'great service'. I can't keep track these days.

I use Microsoft Outlook and SpamBayes. SpamBayes works really well .. it separates your mail into suspects and spam. I check the junk suspects list daily. But, that which it thinks is spam is definitely spam.

As an observation it's notable that BTD has been noticably missing around these parts of late. Generally they are commenting, they are responding in some fashion, etc. The last month has been rather lacking in their participation. I would have thought they'd have already gotten on this topic and replied.

More important than a public service announcement such as this one: is the only communication you've attempted with the company what you described? If so I'd say you didn't give them a chance before a quick trigger pull. That's a rather odd response to get from their representative, if I got something like that I'd question it back to him and also go past him. Anyone who speaks poorly of their higher ups is a potential to be unreliable when commenting for them.

At least toss them a phone call or another email and let them know that the US distributor is badmouthing them to customers or something...

[it's notable that BTD has been noticably missing around these parts of late]

In their defense, they may have technical problems - but I haven't been able to get through to confirm that. They said something about email and/or internet access being blocked. I've sent them my phone number so we can communicate direct, but I don't know if they got my message...

Hi
Don't think our Post Office allowed us the luxury of being pursuaded - they just changed it and we had to accept it. If the supplier ie. us, uses Airmail stickers then I can't see many going by surface mail. It's down to how you prepair the parcel. I actually use the stickers and write on 'Small Packet Airmail' In six years and maybe several thousand parcels I have only known of two marked that way which went by surface.
Sorry, but it sounds like a load of balls to me. US customers are wary of buying from abroad, they don't need lame excuses for other deficiencies to further put them off.
And as for e-mail excuses, as an internet trader, if mine went down, I would have the local computer guys in within hours and would expect to be back up and running within 24 hours.
But, we all need a holiday, have BTD taken theirs recently with the profits from the January Sales?
Cheers
Mike

I've had a couple of minor problems with them particularly with postal delays, I live on the other side of the world, we usually just live with it. But they have always been resposive to my equiries.

Greg

Hooray ! I was patient, and my BTD order showed up yesterday. My CC was debited on February 2nd, so that is exactly ten weeks and two days. The ONLY way I knew they had received my order was by my monthly statement from the CC company. Boat mail has gotten slower and slower over the past 5 or 6 years.

Figures are very nice, but I knew that, and the order was correct.

Very relieved, after ten weeks I was beginning to get jumpy.

Didn't someone from BTD post on here a few weeks ago they were pregnant?? Between that and some computer trouble they were having a difficult time replying to emails?? I've ordered from them twice. Had no problems.

I ordered twice. Once the order came relatively quickly. The second time it took 3 months and I was mislead and was not happy with the outcome.

I made my first order ever (as a test) January 17 and finally got it last week, after nearly three months waiting. Great figures, but their customer service is non-existent (US and UK). They never responded to any of my repeated mail inquiries. If I ever order from them again, it would have to be something I can wait to receive three months down the road. Sorry to say, I don't plan that far ahead with the figures I need. dm

Use a phone, they are nice people to deal with. In answer to the Zulu deals ... they are excelent value and do say Random mix.

Nice to see the BTD can make posts about themselves, but yet can't get an order right.

Sorry to hear of all the problems that have been experienced with BTD. I've only ordered once and was happy with the transaction.

What a load of crap. E-mail works VERY well. Millions or people rely on it DAILY.

I don't know too much about shipping from the world to the US, but I do quite a bit of shipping from here to the world. Not one single order has taken longer than 5 business days from the day that I shipped it.. Its pretty simple really.. You get a customer order in, you package it, you ship it. I don't really understand why some companies feel the need to sit on an order for weeks or months..

It seems like most supposedly "professional" miniature makers are really nothing but a few gamers with a talent for sculpting and some casting equipment in their garage, so none of this should come a much of a surprise. But honestly -- log-rolling your own product? Reluctance to do business by email, after inviting customers to do so? This is a very, very competitive field, and I see absolutely no reason to send my money to people that have to have apologies made for them.

The Internet is a wonderful thing, but I admit I miss shopping in actual stores that carry something other than Games Workshop crap. I think people were less likely to try to rip you off when they had to look you in the eye while doing it.

To quote Father Ted, "random mix".

The only "random mix" is which username BTD will be using when they make another faudulent post!!

Delljohnb