My Foundry Order Experience

[JoeGKushner]

Back in October, I found the Foundry website. The upcoming Empire of the
Elves preorder looked sweet and I'd been meaning to pick up some Samurai and
Great Orcs for a while. I placed an order online and sat back and waited for
my order.

Next month, bill, but no figures. I'm thinking, well, it isn't an American
based company so maybe it just takes longer.

December and I figure, well, it's the holiday season and things are probably
a little screwy over there. Damned Brits are probably watching a marathon
of the Prisoner meets Dr. Who or something.

January. Now I'm getting worried. Call up one office and am told to call
another office. Get the number, some 405 area code thing. Great. Not only
am I in Chicago without any figures, now I'm paying long distance to find
out what happened to my stuff. Talk to Patricik, real friendly guy who
provides me with a vague explanation of what could have possibly happened
and assures me that my figures are on the way.

February. Still no figures. Getting worried again. Speak with Patricik
who verifies that nothing has been sent out and that he'll get right on it.

March: It's like the twilight zone. Patricik promises me some goodies to
make up for the wait.

April: Well, according to Pat, the goods were sent off. No tracking number
though as the company that use doesn't have a tracking number system. The
goods should've been here according to good old Pat, but.

Now is this the typical experience with Foundry? Almost every time I spoke
with Pat, it wasn't good news. I don't knew if he was trying to make me
feel better or what, but hearing things like "Well, it forwarded the billing
but didn't forward the order,", or "We've been having this problem for some
time", or "I can't understand why this is happening" are not things I want
to hear.

I told him today that if it doesn't get here in the next two weeks that I
want a refund. Has anyone had a problem with getting a refund on Foundry or
is this some terrible tragic fluke that I'm suffering alone?

Between this experience and my New Wave experience, I gotta admit that I'm
pretty leery of buying miniatures online again. I'm just glad that I've had
pleasant experiences at http://www.dragglestown.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?
(just wish they carried more lines) and http://www.thewarstore.com/ (another
store I wish carried more lines).

Joe G Kushner

 

[Furn_Darkside]

Salutations,

I had been considering order from them myself, but two things kept holding me off-

1) Their website is a mess and hard to find things ( I still have not found where I can order their judge dredd mini they show on one of their pages).

2) I dislike the idea of buying box sets of miniatures.

With your experience, I think I will indefinitly hold off until I see any positive responses here or the yahoo group you posted on.

Thanks for the chuckle though- I have sympathy for you (I suffered a new wave loss as well), but atleast you are funny about it.

FD

 

[Wolfspider]

Better Business Bureau?

 

[uv23]

You don't need to worry about a refund if you ordered by credit card. All you need to do is call up the cc company and ask for a reverse payment, they'll ask you to fax in asigned letter stating the circumstances and voila. I have had to use this in the past with half-assed mail order outfits.

 

[Dieter]

No offense, but I would have never waited 6 months to finally demand a refund. If I didn't get a decent answer after the first call to the company (which was a bit sketchy anyway), I would be calling my credit card company the very same day.

It's just a game, you're not a patient waiting for a donor liver transplant.

 

[Eben]

This really saddens me. Foundry is the big name in historical miniatures. I have loads or their pirates and ancient Greeks. Never had to wait long for an order to arrive and regularaly received extra stuff: preview figures, limited editions, ...
But apparantly they've been having some problems recently. Some of their top sculptors have left the company: the Perry twins (whom you might know from their GW exploits) and Marc Coppelstone (you might remember his excellent future warriors he made for Grenadier) have started their own companies. Rumour has it that even more have left (among them Steve Saleh who did my excellent Greeks!)

Check out this thread on The Miniatures Page:

http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=658

 

[Bagpuss]

Salutations,

I had been considering order from them myself, but two things kept holding me off-

1) Their website is a mess and hard to find things ( I still have not found where I can order their judge dredd mini they show on one of their pages).

That is a preview of a new range coming out in the future, as the ALT text says if you leave your mouse over the image.

2) I dislike the idea of buying box sets of miniatures.

Can't agree with you more on this point.

With your experience, I think I will indefinitly hold off until I see any positive responses here or the yahoo group you posted on.
FD

I've had good service from them, in the past with quick delivery, but I'm in the UK so it isn't a fair comparison I suppose.

They are good if you intend to buy a lot of figures at once, but a real pain if you only want one or two figures, or even one or two sets.

The minimum Postage and Packing (even in the UK) is something like nine pounds, considering this is more than the price of a single pack of figures its a tad expensive.

Especially if you compare it with 'Copplestone Castings' http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Corridor/3588/copplestone.htm which is 10% minimum of one pound.

Why does it cost the Foundary nearly 10 times as much to post the same weight of figures?

However if you buy a lot of figures from the Foundary then the Postage and Packing is free. You can also get bonus packs.

If your in the UK I've found it better to try and find the Foundry stall at a show, I got a great deal cheaper than the website and with some bonus packs thrown in at a show.

I probably would have bought a lot more figures from the Foundary if the prices of postage and packing ment its only worth buying anything from then if you can afford £60 in one purchase.

I probably would have spent more than £60 pounds buy now, but like most gamers I don't have £60 all at one time and if I did it wouldn't go on figures.

 

[EricNoah]

(as this is actually pretty On Topic, at least for General RPG, I took the liberty of adjusting the topic's name to remove OT. Hope that's no problem. )