The Energon Pub

Gutter Bunny wrote:that does sound like BS...

then again, I've always thought restocking fees were...but I'm not a business owner(I know we have at least one on here that could drop a little insight on us)

After reading this i will be more than hesitant of ever using them.

Thank you for the warning.

Restocking fees make sense for people with a small inventory with low turn over. If you supply parts like that and someone places an order, you may have to build/buy equipment to sell to that end user and if they cancel, you have to pay your suppliers even though they backed out, so a restocking fee tries to cover some of that cost.

GetterDragun wrote:

Gutter Bunny wrote:that does sound like BS...

then again, I've always thought restocking fees were...but I'm not a business owner(I know we have at least one on here that could drop a little insight on us)

After reading this i will be more than hesitant of ever using them.

Thank you for the warning.

Restocking fees make sense for people with a small inventory with low turn over. If you supply parts like that and someone places an order, you may have to build/buy equipment to sell to that end user and if they cancel, you have to pay your suppliers even though they backed out, so a restocking fee tries to cover some of that cost.

A3U has two brick and mortar stores in town, both located in busy shopping malls. I would think they wouldn't have much trouble selling an item originally preordered by another customer.

I just don't understand how someone could become so...underhanded in their tactics. For the longest time, I heard nothing but great things about A3U and that no matter your location, US or Canada, Spencer was the man.

Now, all of a sudden this happens?

I'm just at a complete loss here.

I'm glad to see some good news though, especially for those with money on the line.

Still...he's not Bills Toys & Games. (they put scum on a whole new level.)

This is unfortunate to find out, im a Canadian TF collector and have considered buying from them many times and check the site quite often. Guess i'll be scratchin them off the list...I'd say post this at Cybertron.ca where my fellow Canucks would really hear about it but A3U is a sponsor of theirs. Perhaps not for long...

Venksta wrote:

GetterDragun wrote:

Gutter Bunny wrote:that does sound like BS...

then again, I've always thought restocking fees were...but I'm not a business owner(I know we have at least one on here that could drop a little insight on us)

After reading this i will be more than hesitant of ever using them.

Thank you for the warning.

Restocking fees make sense for people with a small inventory with low turn over. If you supply parts like that and someone places an order, you may have to build/buy equipment to sell to that end user and if they cancel, you have to pay your suppliers even though they backed out, so a restocking fee tries to cover some of that cost.

A3U has two brick and mortar stores in town, both located in busy shopping malls. I would think they wouldn't have much trouble selling an item originally preordered by another customer.

Some one asked about why there are restocking fees in general. If you read my post again, you will see I was referencing in general why there are restocking fees.

Venksta wrote:

GetterDragun wrote:

Gutter Bunny wrote:that does sound like BS...

then again, I've always thought restocking fees were...but I'm not a business owner(I know we have at least one on here that could drop a little insight on us)

After reading this i will be more than hesitant of ever using them.

Thank you for the warning.

Restocking fees make sense for people with a small inventory with low turn over. If you supply parts like that and someone places an order, you may have to build/buy equipment to sell to that end user and if they cancel, you have to pay your suppliers even though they backed out, so a restocking fee tries to cover some of that cost.

A3U has two brick and mortar stores in town, both located in busy shopping malls. I would think they wouldn't have much trouble selling an item originally preordered by another customer.

Though it's a picky little detail that probably shouldn't matter, the brick and mortar stores and the warehouse maintain separate inventories, so reselling things through their stores might not be feasable from an accounting point of view. But like I said, I just visit there.

Trale Strife wrote:I'd say post this at Cybertron.ca where my fellow Canucks would really hear about it but A3U is a sponsor of theirs. Perhaps not for long...

I did post it there as a new thread, and my post was actually moved to a 13 page thread called "have you received your A3U preorder yet."
Which was filled with stories similiar to mine, and to top it all off, Spencer the owner of A3U responds to these posts as a member of Cybertron.ca.

Unfortunately, he tends to anger people with his responses rather than sort things out, there are A LOT of angry canadian collector's who have been strung along by this guy.

My post at TFW was also moved into a 22 page thread called Ages 3 and up feedback. Which is full of similar stories as well.

A3U is NOT A GOOD PLACE TO GET YOUR 'BOTS!

I received my refund from A3U and as an apology, the owner of Ages is sending me my Encore Ratchet and Ironhide for free.

Glad that is over.

Sid Burn wrote:I received my refund from A3U and as an apology, the owner of Ages is sending me my Encore Ratchet and Ironhide for free.

Glad that is over.

I'm glad Spencer made the right choice. A3U is back on my supplier list again!

coolpop wrote:

Sid Burn wrote:I received my refund from A3U and as an apology, the owner of Ages is sending me my Encore Ratchet and Ironhide for free.

Glad that is over.

I'm glad Spencer made the right choice. A3U is back on my supplier list again!

Whoa, chief. Let's see how this ends. I wouldn't jump the gun and be the next victim just yet.

Yeah, I know businesses that say one thing and do another. I got royally screwed on ebay years ago from an arafat209 after buying a Jetfire. He was a big business guy to. I don't know if he's still around.

Autobot032 wrote:Whoa, chief. Let's see how this ends. I wouldn't jump the gun and be the next victim just yet.

Autobot032 is right, you are asking for trouble jumping right back in with A3U, although my situation is resolved, I waited 9 months for nothing, and was treated poorly as a customer.

In addition, I wish my story was unique but I'm not the only one who saw huge delays, many are still waiting for their toys. He agreed to send me what was actually in stock from my order.

That is 4 items from a 10-12 item order. Which means the other 6-8 are still in some kind of preorder limbo.

Make your own decision based on my experience, if you want to hear more on the situation, cybertron.ca and allspark.com moved my posts to entire threads dedicated to issues with A3U.

For me, I consider that matter closed, wont be shopping with him again.

It looks to me like ages three and up got screwed by their supplier, witch in turn, affected some of their customers. It is not like they are just sitting on all the product laughing about how they dont feel like shipping them out. Of course you will hear similar stories because it was all caused by the same shipment.

You think it is bad not recieving an order of 1 or 2 figs? How about an order of 1 or 2 thousand figs and being out of the money for those aswell? There are 2 sides to every story. It looks to me like they are trying their best to fill the orders instaed of just giving up, wich I think is pretty cool given the circumstances.

As for all this talk about "kicking him in the nuts"?! Come on guys, how old are we? 8?

I agree that this is a very bad situation to be in and that there is a limit to the amount of patience that can be asked for. As adults, I would have expected a far more mature response to a sittuation like this. All this name calling makes me ashamed that I even take part in some of these discussions.

Bad things happen. Welcome to life. In this situation, the worst case scenario is not getting your product and getting a refund. I think it would be much worst for A3U, who doesn't get anything other than a bad rep and name calling by the people they are trying to help. Just be gald they are a legitimate business that is not running away at the first sign of trouble.

Good luck to all of you and hope this situation turns out well for you.

Harley,

I agree with some of your points, and feel bad for them for getting hosed by their supplier, but after reading the threads on here, cybertron.ca, allspark, etc., I think what got them into a lot of trouble was the aftermath of the situation. Some of the early posts from Spencer were pretty offensive. He may have lost a lot more money than his customers, however, many of his customers are probably playing the game with a much smaller wallet. I wish Ages 3 And Up luck, and seeing the progression of Spencer's post shows (atleast to me) that this was a learning experience for him as well, as he seemed to handle the situation much better as it progressed. Hopefully they can make it through this and come out as a stronger company, and win back their customers, because it is nice to have as many options available as possible. Good luck to all of you with a stake in this situation, both customers and Ages 3 And Up.

He lost any mercy he would've been granted, the moment he decided to become a prick about it. I read countless posts where people said he was just downright impossible to deal with, even in person.

Is it his fault the supplier screwed him? No.
Should he have had a contingency plan in place? Yes.
After all of that, does he have any right to be belligerent to the customers? NO.

He sat on 1,000s, upon 1,000s of customer dollars.
He didn't secure the stock, or find a back up "In case".
He was a prick towards people, in person and online.

Some people are still having to fight with him about getting their stuff, and let's face it...he's charging people a 15% restocking fee for items he never had in stock to begin with!

Any credibility he had, went out the window. He's shady and he's committing massive fraud. The people have the facts to prove it.

If you can look at all of the cases, plus the 15% thing and still give him even the slightest benefit of the doubt, you need to put down the 5th, and hit the local AA, tomorrow.

All customers on Ages Three and Up received a newsletter with the subject: An Apology and more

I am sorry if you are receiving this email twice. I had no idea the site
could send email out to EVERYONE on the customer list. I thought it would
only send out to people who have subscribed to the newsletter. You can turn
on your newsletter function in your preferences if you would like to receive
further notices or updates. This is the ONLY time I will be using the email
EVERYONE function so please do not think I will be spamming everyone`s inbox
all the time. If at any time you would like to be removed from either the
newsletter or the customer list please email me direct at
toys@agesthreeandup.com I will ensure it gets taken care of. Thanks for
your time.

First off I would like to make a formal apology to everyone involved. I
handled this problem very poorly and instead of getting to the root of the
problem I chose to allow others to talk me into a sense of security that my
items would indeed come on time. Well, as you know, the items in question
never did come and I should have started looking for other sources long
before I did.

Currently here is a list of items that are currently shipping from either
China or Japan:
• WST Sludge and Swoop – all orders will be filled for these figures.
• Revoltech Starscream and Rodimus – one more box is arriving with all
remaining orders for these figures.
• Henkei Megatron, Starscream, Bumblebee, Grimlock and Leiger are all
currently being shipped.
• Music Label Optimus Prime – G1 Colours.
• MA-22 Bumblebee
• Transcaning Bumblebee
• New Omega Supreme figures

Some of the other items we are currently in negotiations on are the
following.
• MA-21 – it does look like we will be able to fill all these orders. I will
know for certain within the week.
• Encore 9 Minibots – these are bought and paid for. Just awaiting another
item to arrive at the supplier before he will ship.
• Encore 12 Metroplex – These are shipping to us within two weeks. The
supplier was awaiting ocean freight delivery.
• Encore 11 Skywarp and Thundercracker – I am working on a deal for the
Encore 11 currently and am hoping it will go OK but I do not have 100%
confirmation at the moment.

Because of this supplier issue we have lost 4 months of preorders with
overseas orders. I am working very hard at attempting to obtain these items
from other sources but without preorders on many items, it is very difficult
to get any quantity in. A new supplier has been secured and verified and so
all of our fall orders will be filled. No preorders have gone up yet but we
will have them set up within the next week.

Several items I do not think we can currently get are the following items:
• Henkei Optimus, Rodimus and Astrotrain
• Transcanning Optimus Prime
• Revoltech Optimus Prime and Megatron

The Revoltech figures become available several times throughout the year
and so these will become orderable again in the future but they are not
going to arrive within the next two months. Orders for these items can be
cancelled without any penalty and any funds put towards these items can
either be refunded or placed in credit to be used on any other items on our
site.

If you have an order for anything not listed here or are unsure of your own
order please do not hesitate to contact me through email at
toys@agesthreeandup.com. Again I would like to apologize for this heinous
screw up and would like to thank everyone with their patience and
understanding in this regard. It has been an absolute terrible year for
agesthreeandup.com with the Hasbro shut down and this supplier issue, but
the support and understanding has been overwhelming by many people and I
thank all of you from the bottom of my heart. I hope to see you all again
soon on the site!

Spencer.

Some generic site news:

We have launched our Collector Coins program. Now each purchase you make
will earn you collector coins which can be used as big savings on future
purchases. Save all your coins or use them as you go along, it is up to you.
See our front page for more information on how to use these great coins.

The site has been very busy and active with tons of new items on it from
Anime figures to Video Game stuff. Check out all our recently added figures
at:
http://www.agesthreeandup.com/index.php ... id=7bd53a7
b3a561b75f7d3e487afb3cd72 which will list all the newly added figures from
the last 30 days. You can also browse our Preorders section here:
http://www.agesthreeandup.com/index.php ... =preorders which not only
has import items anymore but many new domestic products as well!

Do you like to watch movies on the big screen? Do you wish there were older
movies you had the opportunity to see on the big screen? A3UPodcast is now
presenting a feature called Sick Flicks. This feature will allow you to
choose what you would like to see on the big screen. We are starting off
with a bang for our Christmas special movie this year with Die Hard, the
original first movie on December 15th, 7:00 PM at Oakridge Cinemas in
Oakridge Center Mall. Tickets will be $12 and will be available on the
Website or at either of our stores. What do we have in store for January?
You will have to attend and see what is going to happen. Or you will just
have to check out the site, http://www.a3upodcast.com for more information.

Are you tired of typing out http://www.agesthreeandup.com every time you wish to
browse our site? Ages Three And Up has made it even easier to arrive to our
site with their new domain name, http://www.a3u.ca. Three simple letters/numbers
and a .ca at the end make this much easier to type in. This will
automatically bring you to http://www.agesthreeandup.com without all the typing.
This email address was given to us by you or by one of our customers. If you
feel that you have received this email in error, please send an email to
toys@agesthreeandup.com
This e-mail is sent in accordance with the US CAN-SPAM Law in effect
01/01/2004. Removal requests can be sent to this address and will be honored
and respected.

Here is an update from Ages 3 and Up. My order finally shipped! I only ordered a Takara Transformers Movie MA-21 Battle mode Optimus prime and MA-22 Battle Mode Bumblebee. I was finally charged to my credit card.

Date Ordered: Thursday 22 May, 2008
Date Shipped: Monday 17 November, 2008

I know it was rediculously long, but hey, patience is a virtue.