The Energon Pub

Posted: **Fri Oct 18, 2013 12:01 pm**

So I check my email today and find an email relating to my pile of loot being shipped out. I was expecting everything to be fine and maybe that was my mistake - as I've just experienced nothing short of a cluster foul- up and an offer of compensation which doesn't even come close to compensating me for being more than $200 out of pocket if I try and track this stuff down again.

Last year in October, I preordered a case of the Series 5 Rescue Bots, which to my knowledge went through without a hitch. To fill everyone in, this was the case assortment that had Blades, Boulder, Medix and Hoist in it - you know, the absolute scalper fodder of the Rescue Bots line. Also these weren't figures I was getting for me - I was getting these to put away for when my fiance and I have kids a few years down the track (I already have a case of Encores - admittedly just Ratchet and Ironhide - put away for when kids are older).

As far as I knew, for the past year, they'd been sitting there (my pile of loot was only just triggered for shipping) and everything was fine and dandy. Boy was I wrong.

Turns out there was a "product shortage" (translation - someone screwed up and didn't physically put my order aside) and so I'm out of luck. To make matters worse, I haven't been told until now, a year later, meaning that the prices on these guys have been scalped to high hell.

Now they've refunded me the order and apologised as well as given me a $15 credit for any inconvenience I might have suffered, but a quick check on ebay, shows that $15 doesn't even begin to cover how out of pocket I am now. It might not have been so bad had I been informed at the time, but being an entire year later, the secondary market prices on these guys are insane.

Admittedly Boulder and Blades aren't TOO bad, they're around$40 and $50 respectively checking ebay. However as for Medix and Hoist, they're $70 and over $120 respectively! Running the sums and now accounting for the fact that I paid $13.50 for them, I'm out of pocket well over $200 now if I try and track them down.

Not only has a massive dampener been put on something I was looking forward to sharing with kids down the track, but even monetarily, the compensation they're offering isn't even 10% of how out of pocket I am. I shouldn't be forced to pay through the neck for their screwup - especially when technically it amounts to either theft or embezzlement, no matter how negligent it might have been on their part.

So yes, not happy at all.

Posted: **Fri Oct 18, 2013 12:06 pm**

You say they were sitting in your POL for the past year? I thought BBTS automatically shipped your POL after 180 days.

BBTS may have screwed up, but I think you should accept a little of the blame. You probably shouldn't have left stuff in your POL for that long if you really wanted it.

Posted: **Fri Oct 18, 2013 12:13 pm**

GuyIncognito wrote:You say they were sitting in your POL for the past year? I thought BBTS automatically shipped your POL after 90 days or something like that.

BBTS may have screwed up, but I think you should accept a little of the blame. You probably shouldn't have left stuff in your POL for that long if you really wanted it.

The hell I am. By that warped thinking, if I order from HLJ and leave it sitting in my Private Warehouse for the full 60 days, it's my fault when they sell it from my private warehouse alotment to someone else, because I didn't have HLJ ship out the items earlier. What hogwash!

The only people responsible here are BBTS. They are the ones who as a condition of sale and offering the POL function, took responsibility for setting items aside after they have been paid for, with the option for them to automatically send them out after that time. They are the ones who had the responsibility of setting things aide after they'd taken my money for them and didn't. My actions were entirely reasonable and in good faith- a faith they have broken through their incompetence here. End of story.

Posted: **Fri Oct 18, 2013 12:20 pm**

BBTS only holds stuff in your POL for 180 days before it ships. Did you cancel and then reorder it or was there a computer problem on their end?

Posted: **Fri Oct 18, 2013 12:24 pm**

njb902 wrote:BBTS only holds stuff in your POL for 180 days before it ships. Did you cancel and then reorder it or was there a computer problem on their end?

All I did was preorder it, at which point, when it came in a month later, my card was charged and it's been supposedly sitting in my POL ever since - "supposedly" being the operative word, because it's clear now that it wasn't, despite what my account has been saying. The first that I was aware that there was even a problem was about 20 mins before I typed out the OP - now that my order is being automaticaly shipped after my POL was flagged for shipping a few days ago on their end.

Posted: **Fri Oct 18, 2013 12:29 pm**

Something about your story just doesn't add up. Can you clarify the timeline? When did you preorder, and when did they tell you the items had arrived and had been added to your POL?

Posted: **Fri Oct 18, 2013 12:29 pm**

I agree this sucks, but their refunding you your money is all they should be expected to do. The fact that they gave you at least a little something on top of that is pretty nice. Most retailers would tell you to take a walk if you asked for any more than what you paid.

Posted: **Fri Oct 18, 2013 12:31 pm**

Bowspearer wrote:
njb902 wrote:BBTS only holds stuff in your POL for 180 days before it ships. Did you cancel and then reorder it or was there a computer problem on their end?

All I did was preorder it, at which point, when it came in a month later, my card was charged and it's been supposedly sitting in my POL ever since - supposedly, because it's clear now that it wasn't, despite what my account has been saying. The first that I was aware that there was even a problem was about 20 mins before I typed out the OP - now that my order is being automaticaly shipped after my POL was flagged for shipping a few days ago on their end.

It sounds like you have more problems than just the merchandise issues. It sounds like there may be an issue with their automated shipping, and if so I may be rethinking my use of it. I hope you bring that issue up with customer service and let us know what they say.

Posted: **Fri Oct 18, 2013 12:50 pm**

GuyIncognito wrote:Something about your story just doesn't add up. Can you clarify the timeline? When did you preorder, and when did they tell you the items had arrived and had been added to your POL?

The preorder (and I set the items to go on POL for shipping) confirmation email was received Sept 28, 2012 at 1:01PM AEST.

I got the "preordered products now available" email notification (payment went through on the card automatically) on Oct 10, 2012 at 6.46am AEST (might have been AEDST- can't remember when Daylight Savings time kicked in last year off the top of my head), from which point it was showing in my POL.

I received an email from CS 2 days ago at 10.20am saying that my POL had flagged for being shipped out.

ScottyP wrote:I agree this sucks, but their refunding you your money is all they should be expected to do. The fact that they gave you at least a little something on top of that is pretty nice. Most retailers would tell you to take a walk if you asked for any more than what you paid.

Except that this is technically a break of contract on their part. In this case, a service that was offered as a part of the sale and is technically a term of that sale, is for them to hold onto goods after the point of sale. In this case it's a breach of the terms of sale on their part which has resulted in a financial loss on my part. After the joke of an email response I got from them, it;s clear that their POL system is a complete joke and that they're system reeks of negligence.

njb902 wrote:
Bowspearer wrote:
njb902 wrote:BBTS only holds stuff in your POL for 180 days before it ships. Did you cancel and then reorder it or was there a computer problem on their end?

All I did was preorder it, at which point, when it came in a month later, my card was charged and it's been supposedly sitting in my POL ever since - supposedly, because it's clear now that it wasn't, despite what my account has been saying. The first that I was aware that there was even a problem was about 20 mins before I typed out the OP - now that my order is being automaticaly shipped after my POL was flagged for shipping a few days ago on their end.

It sounds like you have more problems than just the merchandise issues. It sounds like there may be an issue with their automated shipping, and if so I may be rethinking my use of it. I hope you bring that issue up with customer service and let us know what they say.

Well your post certainly proved prophetic with this absolute joke of an email I got:

Good afternoon Andrew,

Thank you for your feedback and I will be happy to explain some further details regarding this matter. When a shipment arrives, we count the items by hand to ensure the quantity we receive matches the quantity we stock on our website.

When a shipment arrives, we count the items by hand to ensure the quantity we receive matches the quantity we stock on our website. Occasionally we find the count is incorrect due to human error, case miss-pack, or unaccounted for damaged product later found. This becomes obvious when a customer releases their Pile of Loot or order to ship. The items for the order are pulled from locations and gathered together at the time your Pile of Loot is released. It is at this time inventory errors are found and a thorough search is performed. This results in a list of all other orders containing the item to be generated. We then send out an email notice like the one you received to all the affected customers. We do not anticipate such inventory errors to occur and given the thousands of different products we offer, the amount of inventory errors we do experience is very limited. Unfortunately when it happens with an item that may no longer be available or has been discontinued, the affects become more apparent. When a product becomes inflated in other markets, that is something that is beyond our control and we cannot view those price hikes or take them into consideration when that particular item is not available. What we can do is provide a refund for the purchase and offer additional compensation accordingly based on the original purchase price of the product. I do apologize that the compensation provided did not meet your expectations.

Unfortunately older Pile of Loot orders are more likely to be affected by these inventory errors because the items in the order are not put together until the order is released to ship. We are working on improving this system to try to eliminate this type of error from occurring in the future. We are currently in the process of creating a system update to implement more user friendly options into our Pile of Loot feature. This feature should allow customers to ship portions or certain items of their Loot when ready. We also will be firm on our 180 day holding period as well when using the Pile of Loot feature, so that orders will not be on hold in our warehouse for a more lengthy period of time.

Once again I do apologize for this matter and I am hopeful that these errors will not occur in the future. At this time I have issued an additional $15.00 BBTS Store Credit for the inconvenience this has caused you. Please let me know if I can be of any further assistance, or if you have any other questions or concerns I would be happy to address them for you.

Yeah an additional $15 that doesn't even come close to the $200+ I'm out of pocket to fix this now as well as a glorified response of "not our problem; stiff $#!+".

I'll be rethinking more than just my usage of their pile of loot from now on, considering they're not even trying to fix the problem of their causing (and no tokenistic gestures are not fixing the problem).

Posted: **Fri Oct 18, 2013 1:11 pm**

You bear some of the responsibility for leaving items sitting in your POL for an entire year.

Your suggestion that they should give you an extra $200 so you can pay inflated scalper prices is silly.

Posted: **Fri Oct 18, 2013 1:19 pm**

GuyIncognito wrote:You bear some of the responsibility for leaving items sitting in your POL for an entire year.

Get back to me when you've actually read up on business ethics and consumer law and therefore actually have a credible and informed opinion.

No matter how much you would like to engage in revisionism, they bear the sole responsibility for delivering on the pile of loot service they willingly offered as a condition of sale. Therefore at least ethically, they are responsible for rectifying any losses resulting from failing to deliver on that service on their part. Legally speaking, there's a case there too as technically this is a breach of contract on their part.

GuyIncognito wrote:Your suggestion that they should give you an extra $200 so you can pay inflated scalper prices is silly.

Remind me to never do business with you as it's clear you have absolutely no sense of business ethics or accountability if this is your response as to how BBTS should respond.

Posted: **Fri Oct 18, 2013 1:53 pm**

Bowspearer wrote:Therefore at least ethically, they are responsible for rectifying any losses resulting from failing to deliver on that service on their part.

I'll agree with this, though we can agree to disagree on the degree of rectification in this context

Bowspearer wrote:Legally speaking, there's a case there too as technically this is a breach of contract on their part.

I think this part is just you being mad. There's a long and winding gap from a case of poor service/execution and actual legal responsibility. I've never gotten a signed POL contract, have you? Do they have that? Contracts involve mutually agreed upon terms and mutually agreed upon courses of action if the contract is breached. If they have a terms of service that you ever checked off on being ok with, then you mutually agreed on something they already put in place if this were to happen.

Posted: **Fri Oct 18, 2013 2:02 pm**

WWJJD?*

*What would Judge Judy do?

Posted: **Fri Oct 18, 2013 2:08 pm**

ScottyP wrote:
Bowspearer wrote:Legally speaking, there's a case there too as technically this is a breach of contract on their part.

I think this part is just you being mad. There's a long and winding gap from a case of poor service/execution and actual legal responsibility. I've never gotten a signed POL contract, have you? Do they have that? Contracts involve mutually agreed upon terms and mutually agreed upon courses of action if the contract is breached. If they have a terms of service that you ever checked off on being ok with, then you mutually agreed on something they already put in place if this were to happen.

You're talking about written contracts, not the types of contracts which come when you order a service or a product. The fact is that every single product you buy at a shop is essentially a contract. Person A agrees to hand over X sum of money and person B agrees to provide Y service or Z product. If person A pays out money but is not given the product or service they paid for, they are entitled to a reasonable restitution. Likewise if Person B provides a service or Product and Person A does not pay for it, Person B is entitled to seek restitution, including for economic losses incurred due to negligence on their part.

In this case, you have 2 failures on the part of BBTS. The first failure being to supply the goods, and the second failure being to inform me of when the goods were supplied. If they had've acknowledged a screwup at the time of the preorders for example if the error was there, then I would have been paying secondary market prices at that time. Yes they would have been annoying, but there's a difference between paying secondary market prices at the time when something is out and paying secondary market prices 12 months later because the company you're dealing with failed to inform you that the products were there to begin with (not to mention the fact that this is negligent embezzlement and a criminal offence on their part).

The fact is that thier initial screwup is the reason I'm forced to pay secondary prices; their screwup in not telling me that they screwed up for over a year after I paid for the products I ordered, is the reason I'm forced to pay the crazy prices on things now.

In short, they're liable and they should be made to put things right, which their solution to date, simply doesn't even remotely come close to doing.

Furthermore take not of BBTS's terms and conditions for their "Pile of loot" function:

Learn more about the Pile of Loot shipping system:

We designed the Pile of Loot shipping system to better serve you! With the Pile of Loot feature turned 'on', all items will be held in a virtual storage bin until you tell us to ship. Pile of Loot items can be shipped immediately, or be held up to 6 months, the time frame is up to you. This system will work particularily well with preorder customers, international customers, and frequent customers. The flexibility of adding in-stock items to your preorder shipments allows you to improve your collection without much added shipping expense.

Pile of Loot Rules
To use the Pile of Loot, a credit card is required for all orders.
All items added to the Pile of Loot must be paid within 10 days, or they will be cancelled.
You may cancel unwanted items from your Pile of Loot within 15 days of purchase. Store credit will automatically be given.
Pile of Loot orders may be held for up to 180 days. After 180 days, your order will be shipped automatically, we will email you with a reminder before we ship.

Pile of Loot turned 'Off'
Your order will ship immediately after payment is received.
Preorder items will ship immediately upon arrival to our warehouse.
Preorder items are not charged until items arrive to us.
Choose 'Off' if you'd like orders to ship traditionally.

Pile of Loot turned 'On'
Combine and Hold orders & preorders in our virtual storage bin to save money!
Add In-Stock items to your recently arrived Preorders and ship it all together.
We'll ship your Pile of Loot when you press the 'Ship My Loot Now!' Button
Preorder items are not charged until items arrive to us.
Non-preorder items will be charged to your card as they are added to the P.o.L.
Choose 'On' if you sometimes want to hold or combine orders.

Nowhere in there does it say they make no guarantee that items which have been paid for and added to your pile of loot will still be available when you go to ship your POL.

Posted: **Fri Oct 18, 2013 2:21 pm**

Bowspearer wrote:negligent embezzlement and a criminal offence on their part

Yep, you're just mad. BBTS messing up your order is not criminal - it's just bad service, it happens to every business from time to time, and they gave you your money back and then some.

Posted: **Fri Oct 18, 2013 2:28 pm**

Bowspearer wrote:(not to mention the fact that this is negligent embezzlement and a criminal offence on their part).

Call the police, then, and file a criminal complaint.

:roll:

Posted: **Fri Oct 18, 2013 2:44 pm**

ScottyP wrote:
Bowspearer wrote:negligent embezzlement and a criminal offence on their part

Yep, you're just mad. BBTS messing up your order is not criminal - it's just bad service, it happens to every business from time to time, and they gave you your money back and then some.

Actually embezzlement is a criminal offence. Furthermore you'll notice I specifically referred to it as negligent embezzlement.

But by your logic, if I sent an appliance away to be repaired and when I plugged it it, it turned out it had been poorly repaired and caused either an electrical fire or a fault in another appliance working in it due to shoddy repairs, that's just "bad service" to you. After all what we are talking about in both cases is negligence resulting in economic losses.

Posted: **Fri Oct 18, 2013 2:47 pm**

"negligent embezzlement"? :lol:

Are you just putting together random words you heard on Law & Order? Are you sure it's not misdemeanor securities fraud or grand loitering?

Posted: **Fri Oct 18, 2013 2:52 pm**

GuyIncognito wrote:Where did you get your law degree?

It doesn't take a law degree to know what embezzlement is. It's common knowledge that embezzlement is taking someone's money under false pretenses. In this case BBTS took my money for over a year under false pretenses. The reason I said it was negligent embezzlement is because it happened due to professional negligence on their part.

But then I guess we can add an understanding of embezzlement to business ethics and other things you clearly don't have the first clue about.

Posted: **Fri Oct 18, 2013 2:55 pm**

Bowspearer wrote: It's common knowledge that embezzlement is taking someone's money under false pretenses.

OMG, this just gets funnier every time you post. Thank you for entertaining us. Please go on!

Posted: **Fri Oct 18, 2013 2:56 pm**

GuyIncognito wrote:
Bowspearer wrote: It's common knowledge that embezzlement is taking someone's money under false pretenses.

OMG, this just gets funnier every time you post. Thank you for entertaining us. Please go on!

So tell me, do your lips ever get tired from being a BBTS suckup?

Posted: **Fri Oct 18, 2013 3:00 pm**

You win! Bravo! :APPLAUSE:

Posted: **Fri Oct 18, 2013 3:01 pm**

Elements common to embezzlement are as
follows: (1) the property must belong to a
person other than the accused, such as an
employer or principal; (2) the property must
be converted subsequent to the defendant's
original and lawful possession of it; (3) the
defendant must be in a position of trust, so
that the property is held by him or her
pursuant to some fiduciary duty; and 4) the
defendant must have an intent to defraud the owner at the time of the conversion.

It sounds like an accident to me, so I'm not sure it counts as embezzlement.

Posted: **Fri Oct 18, 2013 3:08 pm**

njb902 wrote:4) the
defendant must have an intent to defraud the owner at the time of the conversion. [/b]

It sounds like an accident to me, so I'm not sure it counts as embezzlement.

Hence the reason why I referred to it as negligent embezzlement. The problem for me is that there is clearly an awareness on their part that they're dishonestly guaranteeing that if you've paid for something and have it in your pile of loot, that you will get it when you ship it out. Yet there is absolutely nothing in place (even in the measures they claim to be implementing) to ensure that is the case. The fact that they know that people are getting stung 6 and even 12 months down the track and are doing nothing to fix the problem - combined with an attitude of "it's rare, so who cares".

That goes beyond "hey we tried but sadly mistakes happen" to outright willful negligence as they are clearly aware that the current system effectively makes the POL one giant case of misleading advertising (clearly orders need to be physically allocated and isolated from unsold stock in their warehouse) but apparently couldn't care less about fixing it.

Posted: **Fri Oct 18, 2013 3:13 pm**

Like I said... call the police and file a criminal complaint. If they are committing "negligent embezzlement" on a large scale as you suggest, I'm sure some Attorney General will be interested.

The Energon Pub

When BBTS screw up, BOY do they screw up

When BBTS screw up, BOY do they screw up

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