Y'know, I had heard about people being screwed over by MC customer service before, and although I have never been a fan of how Mr. Savage conducts business in general, I must say with regards to this Botcon, MC's customer service has done a great job in dropping the ball.

Maybe I feel this way because this time it happened to me personally. Let me explain...

On the morning of May 2, I faxed in my Botcon pre-reg papers at the end of my shift at work, glad to have gotten it out of the way.

On May 4, the announcement that the sets were sold out goes up. As I see it, I got in just before the deadline, but it would be nice to receive some sort of confirmation. Daily, I check my credit card to see if there has been a charge from MC. No charge.

About a week passes and I call MC... they tell me they aren't done processing all the paperwork yet, and I should receive an email or phone call either way. Ok, things are backed up, I can understand that.

So I wait it out.

Finally, I decide to call today, because as of yet, no charge to my card. I speak to someone named Christy. Nice enough lady, but she can't find my paperwork. Moreover, I had gone so far as to give her the approximate date and offer the fax confirmation page if need be. She swears that there is no way they could lose my paperwork and that something must have happened with the fax transmission.

Though it isn't my current occupation, having worked 2 years as a telecom technician, I know that is entirely not possible. Why? Well, a fax is like a phone call, both ends need to be on the line during the transmission. Having one side absent means that the call cannot, and will not, go through, even if it is just two machines talking to one another.

While I don't explain that on the phone, I do explain that I have a fax transmission page (as seen here(4 MB) ) that says it went through OK and even includes the duration of the transmission. So, obviously, something happened on their end; which leaves it entirely out of my hands.

What I am told next really infuriates me. Apparently, I could resubmit, but I will go to the BACK of a waiting list. So, because of their mistake, not only am I passed over for the convention set, despite having my paperwork in on-time, but now I have to wait behind EVERYONE who filed their after mine. Again, because of a screw-up on MC's part. In fact, just the notion of going on a waiting list is unacceptable, since, for all intents and purposes, I secured my boxed set 2 days before the sell out.

Moreover, I am posting this because no where on MC's site is there a link to an actual email address to send my images to, and until Monday, I have no recourse on the phone.

Really, MasterCollector needs to make good on this. Practices like this are entirely unacceptable. I have a feeling I may not be the first person in this fandom to have something like this happen, and I suggest that anyone else who has experienced the same difficulties step forward and not take this lying down.

--Anthony "Tonyfitz" Brucale
Webmaster - www.TFU.info

 

That really, really sucks. I'm dissapointed--although not surpised--that this happened, and that they didn't reserve a few 'whoops, we screwed up' slots. I know MC is a small operation and claims they can't do the online thing, but this was bound to happen with a fax-only system.

Also, your website rocks.

 

A. Holy crap your website is awesome.

B. Hope you get this straightened out with Master Collector. Tales like these are one of the reasons I decided not to get any sort of package in considering Botcon this year.

 

Thanx for the support. Courtesy of a few people on other boards, I was able to email MC directly, so we'll see where that goes.

Glad you folks like the site. Before anyway asks, yes, there will be an update. Likely a massive one, probably sometime in August.

 

Thats great to know, I definitely was going to ask  I go to your site all the time it's the best resourse on the net by far.

Sorry to hear about your problems with MC hope you can get them worked out!

 

I wasn't gonna put it out there first, seeing as how I don't pay for it or anything, but that's great news. If server costs are an issue or anything, PM me details for a PayPal donation. Don't have much, but I owe your site a least a coupla dollars.

 

Considering the importance of your site to the TF fandom, I think you should be given some kind of precedence.

 

Yeah, even if you don't update the site, plz plz plz keep it online. It's a wonderful reference!!

 

In fact, it's so awesome I'll Q(myself)FT.

 

I think you took more offense because you didn't like her response   Let's be honest here, do you really think a call center attendant knows anything about how telephone networks work?

However, thinking about the situation I can think of one way where your scenario doesn't work out. Let's say, instead of the fax going directly to a fax machine it went to an IVR, or any server really that can receive faxes. Now let's say this system has OCR capabilities, it can read the fax images and parse the characters, in a way to automate the processing. Now let's say it failed to read yours for some reason and when it gets a failure its supposed to print out the actual fax for a person to review. In this case, the print fails as well, and the system doesn't have a failsafe.

In this case, the fax system failed, even though you got confirmation that it went through.

Anyways, I hope that they help you out better, you deserve to be in botcon.

PS, I hope no one says "well that can't happen, this doesn't even exist" as you'd be telling me that I don't have a job. :/

 

Good luck, man. TFU.info FTW!

 

Botcon related, moved to conventions forum.

 

Frankly. MC needs to get with modern technology and ditch the fax system altogether. Fax technology is basically obsolete.
They need to go to a web based system that gives customers instant confirmations.

 

Wasn't that a Hasbro site problem, not MC?

 

nah, they had a few on the collector's club store too, but the site crashed under the traffic.

same would happen if they had the server taking botcon pre-regs too, I bet.

 

I hate to hear of the whole mess, man. I really hope you can get things settled.

I'll chime in and say that TFU.info is a tremendous resource and I use it quite frequently. I've recommended your site to many of my friends as well. I've also linked it on my "Superquad Links" page of my own website. I always like to have image links on my page so I made this banner for that purpose:



Hang in there and keep up the great work!  

 

From the scan it appears you did not dial (1) in front of the number.

 

I had the same problem I had to fax it 4 different times. I know for a fax that the faxes were recived cause I got the fax confirmation page. But I was able to get all my paperwork in about 2 or 3 weeks before they said the box set were sold out. I will be putting the extra set I bought on my table for sale So stop by I own you some money as I also use your site to help restore the non U.S. chartcers like OVER LOAD for last year show. Thanks for have a great site.

 

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Count me in on all the kudos for your site. Your site has been in my Favorites since forever, and is always the first place I go to to find a TF name.

It's a shame about your problems with MC, though. I hope it gets rectified.