Took a risk with TCP and ordered Landbull. Comes tomorrow. Probs my last time shopping there.

 

Funny, that's my usual experience with every Chinese retailer.

 

You're not gonna go for Ferocious? I started a bit late in the game when it came out to these guys. The first 2 were released last year and the 3rd, earlier this year. Ferocious and Landbull for me were the reruns from this year. Firmament was the first batch. Despite that, I've managed to catch up just in time for the last 3 figures of this set. Oh, and "Firmini" was during the summer.. Only thing about this that would frustrate any buyer/collector is playing the waiting game. That takes the fun out of everything lol..

 

Is there a current of racism in that comment?

I'm not sure why all the Chinese retailers should be grouped together for CS. They offer different levels of service much like American retailers.

 

Oh I plan on getting Ferocious. I just really like Landbull more lol. I know it’s a bit weird to work backwards.

 

What?!? Hell, no. Not in the slightest bit.

I was just pointing out that my experience with overseas retailers (pretty much every one I've used) has been the same kind of runaround as a US shop. As in it doesn't seem to matter who you order from, that tends to be the response you get and it takes forever to get anywhere if you're lucky enough to get anything at all.

The bottom line, I think, is not about the retailers but rather the manufacturers. Chinese 3rd part manufacturers operate very differently than a distributer in the states. Here, a retailer would just create a chargeback for a defective product and get credit. So there's no problem breaking open a mew box and sending parts to the customer because it ends up with the same result if they charge back the one they busted open. Seems like with these companies, there is no such system. If the retailer busted into a new box to get a part, they are stuck with an unsellable product by helping you out. So we are stuck with the seller trying to contact the manufacturer for parts, which is probably a compounded problem for US sellers with language barriers.

 

Lol, you do how you see fit. Everyone has a specific way of going about collecting whether it's forwards, backwards, etc. The ending result is what matters most from it and as long as you're happy, then that's all that matters as well..

 

Pre-ordered all of them on Bombusbee. Still plenty left there.

They have pre-orders for all 6 dinobots as well.

 

I'm curious about something here. What is the difference between a deposit and a preorder and why do we need to make a deposit for a preorder? Why not just pay the preorder price (whatever it is) in full and get it over with? I mean, either way it goes, there's still waiting involved before receiving what you paid for..

 

That's good. There have been plenty of "strange" comments about Chinese retailers in the past. These are Chinese toys, after all...

Simply untrue. Here's a list of replacement parts and figures I've received in the last year. This list is not complete but it's what comes to mind. I suppose it depends who you buy from and what you buy...


-FT-14 Forager rusty leg replaced - replacement part sent by Fanstoys CS
- Missing FH PowerBaser tire - request ignored by TCP - replacement tire sent by FH CS
- Missing NewAge Galvatron accessory - replacement sent by ShowZ
- TT MP-39 Sunstreaker loose leg - replacement part sent by RobotKingdom (they must've held back/salvaged stock)
- TT MP-43 BW Megatron broken Trex arm - replacement figure/swap sent by BigBadToyStore
- TE-03 green ankle - replacement part sent by ShowZ
-FH MB-15 Naval commander cracked turret strut - replacement part sent by SHowZ
- 01 Studio Cell - I broke a part of the arm - entire new Cell arm sent by ShowZ CS

I have a few more parts that I'm waiting on. I'm confident that I'll receive my parts in all but a select few cases.

Robotkingdom was willing to savage their official TT MP-39 stock to get me a replacement part. BBTS allowed me to return and get another MP-43 BW Megatron. Some companies provide absurdly good CS, but they may cost a little more sometimes.

TCP on the other hand, tends to be cheap for American retail but they provide absolutely NO cs in my experience.

 

I've dealt with TCP on a couple different occasions in the past and had no problems with them whatsoever, that was until the Firmament incident. Still waiting for a screw hole cover and a missing gun for him. Besides TCP, I also dealt with BBTS, TFSource, TFSafari, TF-Direct, Robotoybase, RobotKingdom and a few others to name a few. Had some setbacks with BBTS & TFSource, but it's all good now. I also dealt with Captured Prey for a while until they one day just went *poof*. No one knows what happened to them. They had good deals on TF figures too.

 

They [captured prey] shut down. I liked them because they were a few hours away so normal shipping would still be a day or two.

 

Any idea as to why Captured Prey shut down? I remember about a couple months ago, I wanted to check out the latest they had in stock TF wise and saw that everything went out of stock and the home screen was just blank..

 

If memory serves me well, Orson (the owner of CP) was on the way back to the US from Canada after TFCon, and his goods could not clear customs for some reason.

 

I feel sorry for Orson on that one. That's jusr every bit messed up. About a couple years or so ago, he sold me his TFC Uranos (Superion) for $275 even. I still have it, believe it or not. He was a really cool guy. I just find it strange that something like that would happen to him..

 

So around that time, I had an outstanding order with him that he hadn't been able to fulfill for the longest time, but in the end he came through. But yeah thinking about it, it certainly seems weird that other retailers didn't have the same issue. TFSource, TCP, and possibly others have always had a presence in TFCon Canada, and I've never heard of them having a problem like that.

 

The deposit kind of ensures you're serious about purchasing the item, as there's plenty of people that would otherwise pre-order with several stores and then cancel, potentially leaving a store with overstock.
I pre-ordered all 3 remaining bots, and all 5 MMC Protectobots, so am glad I don't have to pay pull price right away and spread everything out. Also saves me from pre-ordering something full price that might eventually be cancelled and such.

 

Which begs the question, what was really going on that led to the shutdown? I think even at this point, we were never meant to know. Anyways, you're right about that. TCP, TFSource (along with others) are professionals at best. If they came across a problem, they would at least let the customers know ahead of time. Everyone deserves to get what they paid for..

 

I do appreciate TCP’s same-day shipping and rewards system. They and Bombusbee were the only ones I found Ferocious and Firnament. Only went TCP because I was impatient and really wanted these in my hands.

 

Ahh, makes sense. So, the full price would be posted before the final release of a figure? If so, that seems to make a lot more sense than what I was thinking..