The Energon Pub

To add further insult to injury over the RTS/Generations/United lack of stock, I received this email today from Robotkingdom:

"Hi,

This is Po from robotkingdom.com. We would like to inform you that the item UN-20 Rumble & Frenzy is over sold. We are glad to be forced to refund the price and difference to you. The price USD 39.9 + Shipping difference USD 10. Thanks.

Po"

I haven't received any refund as yet, but I have emailed them back requesting a full refund of that particular order if they cannot supply the United set - I'm not interested in doing business with them if they cannot fulfil preorders.

I preordered these back in January, cancelling my preorder with BBTS - as a RK customer for over 3-4 years, I expected a little bit more loyalty from them, but obviously Takara are the only ones producing these now, so pricing and demand for these have skyrocketed.

Ignoring all the tank/cassette hate here, I was really looking forward to these guys.

Now what? Scalpers on eBay?

I feel your pain bro' But online stores usually put a rider somewhere that pre-orders don't necessarily guarantee the item. Heck, from what I understood from your post, you already paid them as such. That's even more painful.

In another Japan based store which will remain anonymous, they first email you of your pre-orders' availability then give you a 5 day allowance to pay. Once paid, then they ship.

I haven't pre-ordered anything from RK yet so how does their system work? Do they ask for full payment first? Anyway,thanks to them, I managed to snag Takara Breacher.

Edit:

I got mine by accident because I stupidly didn't order the set from my regular shop..........Y 6,000/US$ 74.00 not including shipping.

Takara United Frenzy & Rumble are gonna get reissue in June or July..... No need to panic.....

And get sold out in like 10 seconds? Btw, United WFC Soundwave already up for sale (2nd wave)

@fenrir72 - Yup, paid them in full - that's why I like(d) ordering from them - I would pay upfront for Takara at regular price (rather than have the BBTS US imported price, as I'm importing to Ireland anyways), and I cancelled my preorder with BBTS - internationally, they are the cheapest (outside of Hong Kong) with the POL service, but I ordered them from RK as I wanted to get them fast.

These last few waves (Generations, RTS, United and MP Rodimus) all started off with such promise. Yet again, I feel cheated as a collector, quality and distribution wise.

And still Hasbro/TT are asking us to pony up for multiple DOTM Bumblebees and Primes in the next few months.

At the very least, knock-off 3rd parties (PP Faith Leaders, Seekers, etc - you know who) are offering us what Hasbro/TT have had YEARS of chances to offer us - these guys at least court the collectors....

Mach wrote:Takara United Frenzy & Rumble are gonna get reissue in June or July..... No need to panic.....

With a second chance at Scourge and Laser Prime?

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:

Mach wrote:Takara United Frenzy & Rumble are gonna get reissue in June or July..... No need to panic.....

With a second chance at Scourge and Laser Prime?

Scourge, Wheeljack, Jazz & Wreckgar are confirm too.... I donno about Laser Prime

And to think from what I heard, a lot of people dislike United Laser Convoy. But I have to agree with Mach, given the demand, Takara has already released 2nd waves of United like Megs and Op, so the rest are probably in the pipe line. At least until DOTM comes (the horror)

Btw the going rate of 1st wave Scourge is Y 4,000 while Laser Convoy at around Y 2,300

Well, scalpers rejoice! eBay, quickest cheapest Buy It Now, $125 all in. Discgraceful.

I'm still waitimg for someone at RK to mail me - I'm interested to get a reply, if any....

They did the same with Generations Warpath IIRC....

NaM3L3sS wrote:I preordered these back in January, cancelling my preorder with BBTS - as a RK customer for over 3-4 years, I expected a little bit more loyalty from them, but obviously Takara are the only ones producing these now, so pricing and demand for these have skyrocketed.

Loyalty? Meaning what? That you should get to cut in line ahead of someone who placed a preorder before you did?

I understand your frustration; but at this point I'm not sure what you would have expected RK to do differently. Apparently they received fewer of these figures than they were expecting. That sucks. But it happens. You can blame TakaraTomy for giving these figures such short production runs.

On the plus side, it looks like at least most of the United figures will be getting an additional production run. So you'll have another chance. When the time comes, you might want to place your preorder a bit earlier.

Easy kimosabe. I think the pain Nameless feels is that he plunked down some cash already only to be informed of its unavailability.If it's a pre-order without any payment then that fine imho.You win some you loose some then........and there are lots of potential sources.

Thanks for sharing this info. It's always good to know how the different online retailers do business.