"Very poor experience with Wayland Games (UK)" Topic

Posting here as an outlet for my frustration at Wayland Games attitude.

My partner ordered online several boxes of 'goodies' for my Christmas presents on 12 December from Wayland as part of a wider Christmas shopping blast. Everything has quickly turned up except for the Wayland Games order.

Wayland had taken the money from her account, and she'd heard nothing since. Ringing them today to see where the order had got to, she was told that two of the boxes were out of stock, and that they had no idea when they were coming back into stock – If I remember correctly they were either victrix or warlord games Napoleonic French and a Perry box, but I'm not 100% certain.

Either way, stuff that had shown as being in stock when she ordered wasn't actually in stock, which is frustrating. Then they took the money, and then they did nothing, did not dispatch the elements of the order that was in stock, and didnt bother to contact her to say what was going on.

If she hadn't have rung up, then I wonder at what point would Wayland have bothered to tell us that the order wasn't being dispatched, and that they had no idea when it would be dispatched?

We've finally got a refund sorted for the boxes that are out of stock, but it looks like I won't get the rest of the order in time for Christmas (if at all). So thanks very much Wayland Games for ensuring I'm not getting my Christmas presents this year. I really appreciate your outstanding attitude to customer service like not bothering to tell people that an order placed for christmas isn't actually going to ship, and you have no idea when it will ship (if ever). Is there any reason why I should possibly consider using this firm again, and I am the only person to have fallen foul of their shoddy attitude to taking the money and failing to deliver?

(Crossposted to Warseer as well).

Well, look at it this way – this year you'll get a second Christmas when your Wayland order arrives.

Glass half full and all that…

Hmmmm, I had a similar experience.

My first order arrived within 24 hours. When I ordered again, it was pending or processing for a few days and when I rang up I got a rather unhelpful "Its out of stock, not sure when it'll arrive…"

It took a few weeks. I've not ordered from them again!

Does anyone take anything but payment on order when buying online?
I expect my money to be drawn as soon as I click the 'Confirm' button, else I'd be worried. Any worries to be sorted out later.

I know a number of gamers who have suffered similar experiences from them online. At wargames shows, they're great and helpful but maybe it's their online ordering department that is the weak link?

had the same problem myself I only order from them if I have to

Thanks – glad to know its not just me.

I appreciate its a busy time of year, and I know that they are a busy firm, but it makes me cross that they were happy to take payment on order, but then not dispatch the order, advise us it wouldnt be dispatched for an unknown period of time, and still mark the stock up as in stock.

How difficult is it to send an email going – we've got a problem, here are your options, and take it from there?

Me too…a few months ago I ordered some BF stuff from Wayland that was marked "in stock" I wasn't in a hurry for the order but after 7 weeks of waiting they eventually contacted me to tell me my stuff wasn't coming at all and that they hadn't been in stock in the first place but they were hoping to be resupplied in the meantime…I was obviously annoyed about the original misinformation, I don't like any form of dishonestly even in minor situations like this so I immediately decided I'm not going to order from them again. Unlike the OP's situation the order wasn't urgently needed or a Christmas gift so I have great sympathy for Jimlad.. I don't like to miss out on my pressies and I'd be pretty upset myself under the circumstances …hope he has a great Christmas despite the upset of this…

I am sure that someone will be jumping in to yell at you and your partner for being impatient children. Not me though. I firmly believe that in these days of e commerce customer service is even more important . I cant stand when individuals or companies ignore emails.

Thanks again – normally we'd be okay about waiting a while. I think its the fact that its Christmas, and that if they'd been honest about their stock levels, we could have made alternate plans. An email doesnt take much to do!

Ah well, this at least gives me time to tackle lead mountain rather than adding to the mountain!

You are most definitely not alone.

Bug struck, lost my post when editing.

Wayland marks things as "High Availability" and promises to ship within 9 days but they won't.

What they do instead is put your whole order on hold and ignore your attempts to contact them.

If you go into individual items you can see their stock levels, so if you do order, be sure to check those first. Ordering anything that is not confirmed in stock means you're going to end up waiting weeks without any customer contact from them.

Best bet? Don't bother with Wayland as they lie about availability and then just sit on your money until your paypal claim date passes.

I'm glad to have noticed and read this post as I was considering placing an because of their 20% discount but I think I'll refrain at this point…

My brother had a similar experience earlier this year. He ordered a couple of miniatures to convert for a Blood Bowl team he was commissioned to paint. The items showed as "in stock" at the time of ordering. After a few weeks of emailing them and waiting for a reply (which never came) he cancelled his order and got his money back through paypal.

Up until then I had used them and without any problems, I even recommended them to him, but his experience has put me right off using them again.

I've had good experience with them….oddly…they're cheaper than buying from U.S. sources on some things…..

Oh boy does this seem very familiar…

Similar situation in that my wife ordered a whole pile of instock x-wing miniatures all of which were listed as in stock. Two weeks later we opened a ticket asking where they were – no response. A day or so later some of the itesm were awiating delivery but would definately be back in stock within the week.

You guessed it a week later the items had still not arrived and when we opened another ticket we were told all of the items were out of stock and that there ws no way we would receive the minis before christmas.

After challenging them on being deceitful and lying about stock levels they made us wait 5 days for a full refund which came through on monday of this week.

Resigned to not receiving my christmas present, my wife suggested i order something else from another company (North Star) – and they came up trumps. Order placed Tuesday goods recieved yesterday afternoon.

Thank heavens someone cares about their customers.

Frankly Wayland can 'kiss my furry behind' as far as future orders are considered.

Same here, only got half of what I ordered and the communication was very poor. Will never buy again

…this is starting to sound like the Maelstrom games story all over again.

Funny enough, it was Wayland games who pulled the plug on Maelstroem

This was the answer I had from the owner over at Warseer. I am choosing my words with great care, but I associate my experience with these guys as the sort of thing I'd have expected to happen with a Maelstrom order. My partner was clear to me that the stock she ordered was shown as being in stock, and that she'd asked for orders to be posted as they arrived in stock. There is no excuse for the experience we've had. Thats the last time we use them, which is a shame as I have a lot of orders waiting to be placed.

We try to be as clear as possible regarding our stock levels and stock availability. On each category page there is a break-down which explains the meaning of each 'traffic light' colour, and we also have a section in our FAQ regarding the matter. On each product page is a live stock level which shows the exact quantity of stock available at any given time.

The 'traffic light' indication system is a guide of the likely turnaround time for customer orders – however if there are supply issues further up the supply chain, these turnaround times may be affected. If we are made aware of a delay or a supply issue, we try to be as clear as possible with our customers – and we are always working to try to improve our customer communication (we are at present setting up a mailshot system to inform customers of any stock issues or delays which may affect their orders.)

If a product is out of stock with a supplier on one of our stock orders, the product is automatically added to the next stock order, and our system automatically re-orders the product on each following stock order until the customer's order is fulfilled. If however a product is unavailable on consecutive stock orders, we first try to source the product elsewhere (where possible,) or refund the customer in good time – however we are not always made aware of whether an item will be out of stock long-term, or short-term.

Regards,

What a crock of * were being sold!

My wife was told (when she asked how long the refund would take to process) that she was in a queue of people all waiting to be refunded THAT day.

There must have been one hell of a queue then because it wasn't until five days later she received her refund.

Wayland are rip off merchants pure and simple.

Maybe "Waylaid Games"….

@Nosher use AA or PurebuyUK on ebay for your X-Wing needs. They have stock, are prompt, courteous and deliver fast. :)

Well a minor update – My partner was assured on Friday that the one item that was in stock would be dispatched on Friday and it would be here in South London for Christmas.

Strangely enough, 48 hours later and we've not had any update to confirm that our order has been dispatched.

Right now, I am beyond angry at this utter shower – they've failed to talk to us, when they were chased they've lied to us, and so far we've also seen no sign of a refund.

From where I'm sitting, I'm bloody tempted to take the advice of a warseer poster and talk to Trading Standards about our experience – a lot depends on whether or not we actually get our promised refund. Given the experience to date, I'm only half joking when I say I'm thinking about dusting off the policies for going to the small claims court, as I suspect on previous form I may need to think about this to get our money back.

If you paid via paypal, make a claim for the full order value right away.

Jimlad48, did your Xmas goodies turn up given there's been two postal days since Christmas Day?

Nosher – no they did not. Wayland are not answering phone calls or emails.

I've given them till next week, and will then report them to their local trading standards. It looks like the promise of a delivery was a lie, as it never even shipped.

Sadly, this seems to be a common experience, as both here and Warseer and replete of tales of people having similar problems.

Not good Jimlad – not good at all. Good luck pinning them down

I ordered some items from them on the 3/1/13/ they arrived on the 5/1/13/.I am happy with the service i have received from them.

Wayland Games's service is mixed, sometimes it's great, sometimes it's subpar. Unfortunately if you order something there is a big fat chance that it is out of stock, however they always responded to my emails and tickets.

Simple – don't order from a faceless online store that has a poor attitude to customer service and aggressive market stance at the expense of others. Support your local hobby shop or you will be faced with is faceless online stores with poor customer service.

In the UK we have recently lost HMV, Blockbusters and Comet to name just 3. All victims of increasing online sales as well as business cost.

Perhaps change their name to New Wayveland????