White Wolf Compensates Customers for Mistake in Shipping

[ayrwind]

Just found out that White Wolf made a mistake in shipping their new line of World of Darkness books, with people wanting overnight delivery to be Saturday and not Standard Overnight Delivery (next working day). Hence, as the books were released on Friday, many people did not get their books till Monday and were very pissed.

As a gesture of goodwill, WW has actually refunded the $20 shipping paid by people, and gave them an additional $20 as goodwill.

I wonder if other companies would treat their customers this well by being man enough to admit mistakes and making compensation. I can hardly see WoTC doing a similar thing but I could be wrong.

So, I am curious to find out if you guys have other pleasant experiences with game companies in terms of compensation for mistakes etc?

 

[MerricB]

Wizards has done similar things in the past. I can think of the time they banned about 7 cards for Magic shortly after they were released. To anyone that returned those banned cards, they were rewarded with free booster packs.

Today, Wizards send out miniatures and statcards to those people who have gotten incorrectly packaged D&D Miniatures boosters, so they haven't stopped.

Cheers!

 

[ayrwind]

Silly me, forgot to add the link to the post on WW forums. Here it is...

http://forums.white-wolf.com/viewtopic.php?t=362

 

[Funksaw]

Yeah, for a company that's completely evil and rotten to the core, they do some nice things sometimes. But it's all a front from the pit of pentultimate darkness...

Sir Simon Milligan: "Oh, I am so wicked. I am going to ship the books using the slowest method possible - even for people who paid for overnight shipping! Muahaha!"

Hecubus: "But, master, won't they get terribly upset and cry fraud?"

Sir Simon Milligan: "Hmm, you're right. Refund the difference and give them a $20 gift certificate. But their books still won't get there on time! Evil!"

Hecubus: "This is almost as quazi-evil as when you developed a good game setting, promised something brand new, delivered the same old stuff but improved the hell out of it anyway making it a fun game but merely mildly dissapointing thousands of gamers... Master, I have a question."

Sir Simon Milligan: "Yes, putrid spawn?"

Hecubus: "Why are you giving away the first suppliment to Vampire the Requiem? Isn't that a bit... not evil?"

Sir Simon Milligan: "Well, you need to look at the big picture. To use that file, they need to download Adobe Acrobat and activate DRM - Adobe could go under and snatch away the document at any time! But that's not the real plan. The real plan is, because Adobe Acrobat is so Ram-intensive and memory hogging that it will slow down word processing time, which means that millions of goths around the world who write poetry will be delayed by a few seconds which will end up in them missing the bus and being late to work, thereby losing their jobs!"

Hecubus: "Ah, now I see. You are truly the master of evil!"

 

[Calico_Jack73]

I could see WoTC giving back the difference in shipping costs but never $20 online store credit for free. Never in a million years.

 

[PJ-Mason]

Yeah, for a company that's completely evil and rotten to the core, they do some nice things sometimes. But it's all a front from the pit of pentultimate darkness...

Sir Simon Milligan: "Oh, I am so wicked. I am going to ship the books using the slowest method possible - even for people who paid for overnight shipping! Muahaha!"

Hecubus: "But, master, won't they get terribly upset and cry fraud?"

Sir Simon Milligan: "Hmm, you're right. Refund the difference and give them a $20 gift certificate. But their books still won't get there on time! Evil!"

Hecubus: "This is almost as quazi-evil as when you developed a good game setting, promised something brand new, delivered the same old stuff but improved the hell out of it anyway making it a fun game but merely mildly dissapointing thousands of gamers... Master, I have a question."

Sir Simon Milligan: "Yes, putrid spawn?"

Hecubus: "Why are you giving away the first suppliment to Vampire the Requiem? Isn't that a bit... not evil?"

Sir Simon Milligan: "Well, you need to look at the big picture. To use that file, they need to download Adobe Acrobat and activate DRM - Adobe could go under and snatch away the document at any time! But that's not the real plan. The real plan is, because Adobe Acrobat is so Ram-intensive and memory hogging that it will slow down word processing time, which means that millions of goths around the world who write poetry will be delayed by a few seconds which will end up in them missing the bus and being late to work, thereby losing their jobs!"

Hecubus: "Ah, now I see. You are truly the master of evil!"

LOL. Dude you are completely opinionated and unbiased with your dislike towards White Wolf and/or DRM...but funny....very funny!

 

[Mark]

...by being man enough to admit mistakes and making compensation.

This is purely a "man" thing?

...and gave them an additional $20 as goodwill.

...$20 online store credit...

Which is it?


I wonder how many of those advance sales and overnight orders they actually had, who it is that would be yearning for a product so much to require that sort of expediency, and why the kind of customer service that small companies routinely exhibit is glorified when a large company does it on the odd occasion? :\

 

[MrFilthyIke]

Hecubus: "Ah, now I see. You are truly the master of evil!"

Props for knowing my favorite Kids in the Hall sketch.

"Puppies of Purgatory!"

 

[JeffB]

Today, Wizards send out miniatures and statcards to those people who have gotten incorrectly packaged D&D Miniatures boosters, so they haven't stopped.

In this case, there was a "flaw" with the Product and Wizards simply made it right.

In WW's case, there is no problem with the product, it was just a shipping error.

Big diff, if you ask me.

 

[Vocenoctum]

Sounds neat and all, but I and a couple friends have had many bad experiences with WW's shipping, so this special circumstance must be special indeed.

Quite a few orders that were sent "next day air" would be shipped that way, but leave them almost a week later. It didn't take too many tries before we just stopped ordering from them. I can only imagine that they must have really harped on the next day thing for this one, since they've been doing pre-orders for months now.