The Energon Pub

Seems their site is a bit wonky right now. Did my order. Went to complete and got an error. Called them and the rep brought it right up and completed it.

She kept asking about a promo code though. I tried the NYCC2011 one, but it didn't work so I just went on without it.

I am surprised that the Prime set still "In Stock"..

highburn wrote:It's good to know that I spent 2 hours in line (LEAVING MY TABLE IN ARTIST ALLEY WHERE I MAKE MONEY) to stand in line and pay to purchase something, then ship it home. When I could have just waited a few days and bought it off the internet at non-scalping prices and actually 3 dollars cheaper. Show EXCLUSIVE my rear drive shaft.

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

One lesson I've learned about collecting: if you see something you want and have an opportunity to buy it, don't wait, don't put it off, BUY IT.

Pinoytron wrote:I am surprised that the Prime set still "In Stock"..

Well it's just an early bird special with a fancy package rather than an exclusive repaint or retool. Guess people are willing to wait for the regular release at half the price. Either that or Hasbro made WAAAAAAAAAAYYYY too many of him.

highburn wrote:It's good to know that I spent 2 hours in line (LEAVING MY TABLE IN ARTIST ALLEY WHERE I MAKE MONEY) to stand in line and pay to purchase something, then ship it home. When I could have just waited a few days and bought it off the internet at non-scalping prices and actually 3 dollars cheaper. Show EXCLUSIVE my rear drive shaft.

2 hours? Geez, when did you go for it? There was no line whatsoever when I went Saturday morning O_o

On a Marvel collector's site, they said Hasbro officially stated that tue code won't work on these or any other exclusive and the code is operational until November.

Full price or nothing. I'll wait for retail then.

Autobot032 wrote:On a Marvel collector's site, they said Hasbro officially stated that tue code won't work on these or any other exclusive and the code is operational until November.

Full price or nothing. I'll wait for retail then.

They don't sell the Comic Con exclusives at retail.

I picked up two sets. Still had them at 1:30 EST.

GuyIncognito wrote:

Autobot032 wrote:On a Marvel collector's site, they said Hasbro officially stated that tue code won't work on these or any other exclusive and the code is operational until November.

Full price or nothing. I'll wait for retail then.

They don't sell the Comic Con exclusives at retail.

I assume he means the regular, non-repainted 'Bee and Arcee.

How embarrassing for them that their website is a complete piece of ****.

oh well

highburn wrote:It's good to know that I spent 2 hours in line (LEAVING MY TABLE IN ARTIST ALLEY WHERE I MAKE MONEY) to stand in line and pay to purchase something, then ship it home. When I could have just waited a few days and bought it off the internet at non-scalping prices and actually 3 dollars cheaper. Show EXCLUSIVE my rear drive shaft.

As a long-time (mid-80s) SDCC attendee, I can tell you that this is Hasbro's (and many other toy companies') normal MO. To my knowledge, this is just the first time they've done it with any OTHER comic convention exclusive.

Counterpunch wrote:How embarrassing for them that their website is a complete piece of ****.

That's not true. And even the best websites crash when they get an unprecedented amount of traffic.

GuyIncognito wrote:

Counterpunch wrote:How embarrassing for them that their website is a complete piece of ****.

That's not true. And even the best websites crash when they get an unprecedented amount of traffic.

Which part isn't true? The website isn't crashing, they were unprepared despite sending out messages to this site and every other to alert customers, and they deal with this several times a year.

Diem wrote:

GuyIncognito wrote:

Autobot032 wrote:On a Marvel collector's site, they said Hasbro officially stated that tue code won't work on these or any other exclusive and the code is operational until November.

Full price or nothing. I'll wait for retail then.

They don't sell the Comic Con exclusives at retail.

I assume he means the regular, non-repainted 'Bee and Arcee.

Thank you, that's exactly what I meant. Apparently I should've clarified...

sigh... I broke down and got a set. Shipping to Canada cost more than the bloody figures...

Counterpunch wrote:

GuyIncognito wrote:

Counterpunch wrote:How embarrassing for them that their website is a complete piece of ****.

That's not true. And even the best websites crash when they get an unprecedented amount of traffic.

Which part isn't true?

The part about their website being "a complete piece of ****".

Mkall wrote:sigh... I broke down and got a set. Shipping to Canada cost more than the bloody figures...

Shipping to Canada cost more than $30.00??

That's highway robbery!

GuyIncognito wrote:

Counterpunch wrote:

GuyIncognito wrote:

Counterpunch wrote:How embarrassing for them that their website is a complete piece of ****.

That's not true. And even the best websites crash when they get an unprecedented amount of traffic.

Which part isn't true?

The part about their website being "a complete piece of ****".

I stand by what I said. It's been six hours and the problem has not been fixed.

You're merely being argumentative.

...ahem...

I might have said at some point in the past that Prime Arcee would be no less the badass she is if they did make her pink. What a surprise Hasbro would be so clairvoyant to prepare a G1 redeco and provide it so shortly after I opened my big dumb yap

I have just ordered mine and fully expect to get used to it, but going by seeing it, I can say that as a strict pink and white Arcee does come off a little silly.

Perhaps a paintwash to dull the whiteness or more silvery white will make her closer to the WFC Arcee design.

Just a few things to add to the end of my postings for the day. this is arguably better then previous dealings with exclusives from hts, where the website just locks up and most people just cant access it at all.

but I gotta agree with counterpunch on this. I hate ordering from hts. it never ships like they say they will, they can and will sell more product then they have, and then be all like... whoops our bad, well just wait a few months and we will send you something... eventualy... might not be what ya want. not to mention today was the first time EVER I got friendly costomer service that actualy was willing to, and did help O_O now thats a surprise

but heres a little fun tip, if your getting the errors, and dont want to wait for the phone call to go through, if ya got a friend with a mac, ask them to order for you. my friends with macs, all had no issues or errors whatsoever in ordering. when we realized this seemed to be happining, one of my friends started offering to log into peoples accounts (dangerous that) and complete the order for them. sure enough, people who had been getting error after error got thier order just fine and dandy from my friends mac.

go figure

Autobot032 wrote:

Mkall wrote:sigh... I broke down and got a set. Shipping to Canada cost more than the bloody figures...

Shipping to Canada cost more than $30.00??

That's highway robbery!

Yep, that's why I've never yet ordered from HTS.

So...if anyone in America wants only the Bumblebee, I'm willing to buy the Arcee off you for half of your total cost plus cheap shipping to Canada.

Autobot032 wrote:

Mkall wrote:sigh... I broke down and got a set. Shipping to Canada cost more than the bloody figures...

Shipping to Canada cost more than $30.00??

That's highway robbery!

That's my life as a Canadian Collector

Immortal Starscream wrote:Just a few things to add to the end of my postings for the day. this is arguably better then previous dealings with exclusives from hts, where the website just locks up and most people just cant access it at all.

but I gotta agree with counterpunch on this. I hate ordering from hts. it never ships like they say they will, they can and will sell more product then they have, and then be all like... whoops our bad, well just wait a few months and we will send you something... eventualy... might not be what ya want. not to mention today was the first time EVER I got friendly costomer service that actualy was willing to, and did help O_O now thats a surprise

but heres a little fun tip, if your getting the errors, and dont want to wait for the phone call to go through, if ya got a friend with a mac, ask them to order for you. my friends with macs, all had no issues or errors whatsoever in ordering. when we realized this seemed to be happining, one of my friends started offering to log into peoples accounts (dangerous that) and complete the order for them. sure enough, people who had been getting error after error got thier order just fine and dandy from my friends mac.

go figure

I have to say that all of my experiences with HTS have been flawless. It takes 4 days to get to me and I know not o check the tracking until 2 days in and by then it's updated and nearly to my door.

On the other issue, it's not that it's a Mac, it's the browser, Safari. I'd suggest everyone download Safari if you want the advantage, if it truly works.

kirbenvost wrote:

Autobot032 wrote:

Mkall wrote:sigh... I broke down and got a set. Shipping to Canada cost more than the bloody figures...

Shipping to Canada cost more than $30.00??

That's highway robbery!

Yep, that's why I've never yet ordered from HTS.

So...if anyone in America wants only the Bumblebee, I'm willing to buy the Arcee off you for half of your total cost plus cheap shipping to Canada.

I don't understand why HTS hasn't opened in Canada.

Mkall wrote:

Autobot032 wrote:

Mkall wrote:sigh... I broke down and got a set. Shipping to Canada cost more than the bloody figures...

Shipping to Canada cost more than $30.00??

That's highway robbery!

That's my life as a Canadian Collector

Just a few things to add to the end of my postings for the day. this is arguably better then previous dealings with exclusives from hts, where the website just locks up and most people just cant access it at all.

but I gotta agree with counterpunch on this. I hate ordering from hts. it never ships like they say they will, they can and will sell more product then they have, and then be all like... whoops our bad, well just wait a few months and we will send you something... eventualy... might not be what ya want. not to mention today was the first time EVER I got friendly costomer service that actualy was willing to, and did help O_O now thats a surprise

but heres a little fun tip, if your getting the errors, and dont want to wait for the phone call to go through, if ya got a friend with a mac, ask them to order for you. my friends with macs, all had no issues or errors whatsoever in ordering. when we realized this seemed to be happining, one of my friends started offering to log into peoples accounts (dangerous that) and complete the order for them. sure enough, people who had been getting error after error got thier order just fine and dandy from my friends mac.

go figure

In my earlier post this morning, I mentioned that I was receiving the order error message using the Safari browser on a Mac so it simply seems like a system error on the HTS side of things. I was eventually able to order after about 20 minutes or so.

For what my opinion is worth, I am just happy that Hasbro even offered the set for sale at a reasonable price.

I was thinking that I would have to try to get this off some scalper selling it for 3 times what they paid for it. I would have passed on it in that case.

I was even expecting the site server issues, since Hasbro had made the release public, and even gave a time frame of the posting. If you were surprised by the resulting back-up, and phone line wait times, you obviously are not really familiar with how network servers work, or the difficulty in manning a call center for a planned surge like this. If they had not prepared their servers for this surge, they would have crashed, rather then give error in processing order please try again message.
I got the same issue with Amazons Unicron, when it released, and I guarantee you that Amazon has a he'll of a lot more server traffic then HTS.

Autobot032 has a clearer understanding then most when he stated that those on Macs had fewer issues, not due to there Macs, but there browsers. Since most server traffic is coming from those using Explorer, and a he'll of a lot less from Safari. Those on Safari experienced less server traffic back up.

We as collectors and fans are no doubt a demanding bunch, but we all have to try to accept that all of our demands and expectation may not be met.

Trust me, I had the same error message over and over again, and just kept submitting, until there was a space on the server traffic to allow my order in. I figured if it didn't end up finally processing, I just wouldn't get the set.
No harm done.