The Energon Pub

I had to vent a little because of the poor experience I had recently. I had ordered 2 Henkei figures from them because they were the only story that had them in stock at the time. This was April 20th. I ordered Ironhide and Hound (the second batch, which was a pre-order). Ironhide was in stock. Since Kapow requires payment immediately I had hoped they would ship Ironhide since it was in stock, but when I asked about this they responded that they ship the entire order once it becomes in stock.

So I figured no big deal and waited. 3 months later, all online stores have Hound in stock except Kapow toys. I send an e-mail every 4 or 5 days asking about my order. They screwed up the online system and switched my orders so it shows that it shipped out, but that's a whole different story. The point is I wanted to keep on them because of this mix up, just in case they thought my stuff did ship and never send it.

I get the same e-mail every time, Hound is coming this week and will ship out as soon as it gets in blah blah blah. A month later, after a few more e-mails, I am told it is in and will ship tomorrow. I finally get a dispatch notice and patiently wait for the order.

My package arrives and of course, Hound is there, but no Ironhide. I send another e-mail and get a reply that says "we're sorry the Ironhide we put aside was damaged so we couldn't sell it to you. We sent an e-mail about this when we dispatched the package, please check your junk mail or let us know if you didn't get it." Which translates to "we sold it to someone else and didn't want to tell you, also we hoped you forgot about Ironhide so we didn't intend to refund your money"

I have received every e-mail from them since ordering and of course I don't get this key e-mail that miraculously vanished somewhere on the internet tubes.

They finally refund my money, and I will never deal with this shady company again. I've heard that people have had to keep on them constantly to get their orders but this was after I had ordered. So anyone got a Henkei Ironide for sale?

Dude... you need a virtual hug.

Hollywood,

Are you located in the UK or Europe? I've never considered Kapow Toys before because I'm more familiar with BBTS, and I probably won't consider them at all after this story.

Just wondering what would be more convenient for you...giving shipping and whatnot, and also using a more reputable company.

This is the first time I've heard anyone unhappy with Kapow so you must have been really unlucky.

Lord T wrote:This is the first time I've heard anyone unhappy with Kapow so you must have been really unlucky.

I've never once had a problem after multiple orders. I think you were just unlucky. Have they offered to sort it out or made good after you pointed it out to them? They are a very reputable company. Check the UK sightings thread both here and at TFW2005 for a plethora of happy customers.

I`m most comfortable with BBTS. I picked up my package of 8 figures last Friday, the 20th, and had ordered the figures Monday the 9th. VERY satisfied. Except for the taxes i had to pay when i picked them up, but htever. That`s not BBTS fault. I also ordered 4 figures for pre-order. Now i am just looking forward for them to come.

And after reading this, i`m probably going to use BBTS another time as well.

This is pretty new to me, I know they had a few problems the last month or so with Auto Assembly coming up and Red being pretty ill till the con started.
Don#t give up on them, they are very very good to deal with, heck they wanted to refund me and send me a new figure just due to the figure they received sealed was of a bad quality. And I'm pretty sure they even state on site that they will only send out orders once all items are in stock, which is why you should keep your pre-orders separate from in stock items.
I even received e-mails from them that there where problems with pre-orders and that I should reply what I ordered so that they could sent the stuff out although I didn't pre-order anything meaning it was a mass released news letter type of e-mail all of their customers received.

Due check out your spam filter, as some times e-mails like these do end up in there, especially if you're using yahoo like me, plenty of e-mails from sources I have in my contacts list somehow end up in there.

Yeah I did check the spam box, nothing from them about the issue in the 4 months I waited for hound to be in stock. I'm talking with Red Leader in pm's right now about the issue, and he seems very helpful. I'll keep you updated.

Edit->

Red leader has confirmed that my ironhide was indeed damaged in the package, something was dropped on it unfortunately. He has graciously offered me his personal Ironhide MISB as compensation. This is beyond the call of customer service, since I already received my refund. I declined at first and offered to pay for it instead, but he insisted that it was free or no figure, so I relented. I am obviously very happy with how he dealt with the situation, so don't let this experience I had deter you from ordering from Kapow Toys in the future. Thanks everyone for your input.

Glad to read it worked out.

glad everything was sorted out, and andy kept up with his amazing service

i pm'd him when i saw this thread, so he was made aware, just incase he didnt see it

hope you will continue buying from them guys

and as you can see from the testimonies from here and tfw, kapow-toys does great work

You may want to update the thread title to say "Poor Experience with Kapow Toys (Resolved)" or something similar.

kirbenvost wrote:You may want to update the thread title to say "Poor Experience with Kapow Toys (Resolved)" or something similar.

Not yet ! I'm also very frustrated with Kapow-Toys UK ...

I'm a 1st-time customer based on Continental-Europe. 1 month ago I ordered (and paid for) 2 "in-stock" items for my collection. Guess what ? No items delivered up to now, no tracking numbers disclosed, only excuses ...

More details as soon as I have more time to write.

Yeah I wouldn't edit it. Red Leader mentioned he wouldn't want it edited either. Also, just to update, he hasn't sent me the tracking info and hasn't been online since offering me the Henkei Ironhide. Talk about taking the cookie away at the last second. I'll update the thread if I get it.

I have bought from Kapows a few times now and not had any real problems with them. Delayed pre-order items is as bad as it got and that wasnt their fault.

They send out email updates all the time, though they always get dumped in my Hotmail junk folder no matter how many times I say its safe.

Their website has come along since it first launched, used to have some formatting issues and was quite slow.

Kapow Toys is my preffered source for TF figures not available in local stores and unless they stuff something up for me they will remain so.

Any store dealing with lots of orders will trip up from time to time. I work at one and no matter what you do, how many processes you put in place things will find a way to go wrong.

HollyW00d wrote:Yeah I wouldn't edit it. Red Leader mentioned he wouldn't want it edited either. Also, just to update, he hasn't sent me the tracking info and hasn't been online since offering me the Henkei Ironhide. Talk about taking the cookie away at the last second. I'll update the thread if I get it.

Oh dang, spoke too soon I guess.

very curious to see how this plays out. I held off ordering from another site that has a poster here after seeing/reading how the proprietor reacts to problems, and have considered Kapow a few times already for things, primarily the recent Classics Rodimus/Galvatron/Cyclonus pack. Don't want to buy it if I risk getting messed about though.

kapow are an excellent retailer, and the fact that andy has gone above and beyond here is a testament to that fact.
they are definitely the best people i've ever dealt with and bend over backwards to put things right if they go wrong.
i wouldn't flip over not receiving tracking info, sometimes that can get delayed if they're mad busy. you can end up receiving the item before you receive shipping notification.
he's been off sick with swine flu and this has been his first week back, i would imagine it's pretty hectic.
bottom line is he's told you that you're going to get an ironhide.
you'll get the ironhide.

I respect the opinions of everybody in this forum that had had previously good experiences with Kapow-Toys. However, my experience couldn't have been more frustrating ...

More than 4 weeks ago (27-July), I ordered (and immediately paid for) 2 "in stock" toys from the ROTF toy-line. 3 days after my order was still tagged as pending, and I decided to contact them. They told me I have to pay a supplementary shipping-fee because my delivery address was in Continental Europe.

I personally think a properly designed web shop should up-grade shipping costs automatically based on the address informed by the customer. But ok, it was my fault as I did not read in advance Kapow-toys' "Terms, Conditions and Postage" policy. Anyway, on August-1st I got a PayPal invoice (immediately paid) to cover the extra shipping fees.

According to Ms Charlotte Rose, my order was officially dispatched on Monday, August-2nd. However, two weeks later (15-August), my order haven't been delivered and I contacted the shop again.

By August-16 they explained me that, for an unknown reason, my parcel was returned to the shop by the Royal mail ( I personally believe that they just forgot to ship it because of all the preparations for Auto Assembly 2010 ).

The 2nd shipment "officially" happened on August-19 and it should have been delivered after 5 working days (i.e. last Thursday, August-26). Guess what ? No delivery until now ! If my order is not delivered by Tuesday (August-31) I will ask them to start the reimbursement procedure ...

Bottom line, based on my extremely poor and frustrating customer experience, I do not consider Kapow-toys a reliable internet retailer. I'm very very sorry for that because they have "in stock" all the items I want to complete my collection of ROTF/HTFD Transformers. Belive me, I was very excited when I found a web-shop in Europe (and very close to home, as I live in the Netherlands) with such large assortment of TF toys ...

If you are planning to become a new customer like me, at least wait a few months to see if the quality of the service raises again to previous levels (as stated by old customers).

After 4 weeks waiting, today my Kapow-toys order was finally delivered (all items in perfect conditions) !

Thanks to the tracking number they provided me, I could better understand what really happened. In order to make sure there is someone to receive my packages, I always specify my working address
as my delivery address. This way, the office secretary is always there to receive all parcels 5-days a week. The exception is Saturday of course, as the company is closed. Against all odds ( 1 chance in 36, or 2.8%), it seems the Courier delivered my package twice on a Saturday: the 1st time the parcel was returned to the UK, the 2nd time (28-Aug) the Courier tried (with success) to deliver it again on the following working day (Monday).

Without doubt, bad luck really exists ... But I have to admit, it was not the shop's fault.

Just got an email from Kapow Toys saying that they are no longer allowed to sell loose G1 figures! Something to do with not having the box with the safety mark on. Another daft law designed to inhibit private enterprise possibly?!?

Dude, it sucks they messed it up so badly. I have only had one bad experience with Kapow Toys and it wasn't really their fault. I was ordering Universe Unicron and had him in my basket all through the checkout process. When I got to the end it told me it was out of stock. I emailed them and someone else bought the last one while I was checking out. I do wish they had some kind of hold system in place. Never mind, a better Unicron is coming out soon and it is preordered through Robot Kingdom.

One thing I would like to point out is that no matter how many orders go right with and online company, there is the possibility something will go wrong with an order. It is how a company deals with the wrong orders that shows how good they are. There service generally is very good and I would recommend them for all UK based collectors. The only reason I preordered Unicron from Robot Kingdom is how fast they ship to Asia (I am currently working there). I got my DL Blaster in two days from them.