An e-mail has gone out to all members of the G.I. Joe Collectors Club and Transformers Collectors Club advising us that as of tomorrow around noon Central Time, the online store will open and begin selling items. Footloose figures, loose, carded, and signed, are all on the docket, though the Club is strictly enforcing a one-per-customer limit. Even with that limit, don’t expect them to last long.
Check out the full context of the email below, and have your browsers ready tomorrow!
“This quick update is going out to all members of both clubs.
Both stores are closed until tomorrow at approximately noon CDT when we are planning to bring the G.I. Joe Club Store online. The Transformers Club Store will come back online at the same time.
For the Joe Club members:
Please note that there are LIMITS on the loose Footloose, carded Footloose and signed carded Footloose membership figures.
You are limited to ONE of each (per membership account) until we see how the demand goes. We can track exactly how many of each are ordered by account. If you place more than one order, we WILL CANCEL all of your orders and charge you a 25% administration fee. Please do not try this as we want as many members as possible to get these figures at the offering price. Quantities are limited.
In addition, we are still adding items to both stores, so it will take approximately another week to get all of our inventory back in the new stores.
Thanks to both groups for your patience and the two great conventions this year!
Brian”
Soooooo maybe they should have defined “approximately.”
Just went up for a few seconds and then went down again. What the hell?
So far nothing…
INFURIATING! Read the last few comments of the most recent post on @The_GIJoe_Club FB. Supposedly they sent an email. http://on.fb.me/QA16Av
As it is common this year, the Cub LIES again to all of us. That’s incredible!! It is an outrage, how about if NO ONE renews for the club next year? This is the only thing we can do, because they continue with their errors. Are they professionals or amateurs? :(((
Or instead of applying some ridiculous sinister motive to this, they could have just had technical difficulties. Nobody is perfect and they certainly don’t claim to be.
They have screwed up a ton this year though and they really can’t apologize enough for it in my opinion:
* The credit card mess (their handling of that really pissed me off)
* Continued FSS delay (some people joined the Club this year just to sign up for this)
* MCAX (DOA after like a decade build-up)
* Selling out of Con sets before most members even received the e-mail notification that ordering was live
* Inexcusable continued tech incompetence.
To their credit the newsletter shows up every month. It’s sure as hell not $40+ worth of content though.
I’m not renewing next year.
The problems with the store and the FSS are all tied to the credit card mess. Had they had an up to date web store front instead of what they had, that may not have happened. Unfortunately it did and they had to completely start over from scratch. On top of that they also had two conventions they had to do. Which do you think was the priority? Stuff like this takes time and there’s bound to be hickups along the way. They’ve got to familiarize themselves with the new store too and I don’t know about you, but I’d rather they take their time and make sure it’s up and running correctly before going live with it so that the credit card mess doesn’t happen all over again. They very well can’t go live with the FSS either until the store is sorted out. As for the sold out con sets, that’s a stupid thing to be getting upset at them over. They can’t control when people get their e-mails. All they can do is send them out and hope everyone gets them. If the sets sold out before you were notified that they were available to order, then that’s on you for not checking your e-mails consistently or checking the site consistently. I don’t think anyone really cared about MCAX either. I sure didn’t. I never cared about the magazine version to begin with.
Before anouncing that something will be open, they have to test it. It is not my fault if all in the club are completelly incompetents.
How do you know they didn’t? Did you stop and think that maybe something else might have went wrong that they didn’t anticipate? Maybe you should stop and take a breath and wait to see what they say before you start ranting about how evil they are.
The problems with the store and the FSS are all tied into the fact Fun Publications clearly doesn’t know how to build a website and they should hire a professional firm to handle that side of their business already.
The credit card mess happened because they don’t know how to build a website and they should’ve hired a professional firm to handle that side of their business so customer info wasn’t stored unencrypted and left exposed due to their outdated software and sheer incompetence. And they damn sure shouldn’t have left the backdoor open for a month while blaming the customers for their obvious mistakes.
You want to give them time to familiarize themselves with a web store? I swear MCAX was being advertised in the old Master Collector publications in like ’96, so it was more like over 15 years instead of 10 like I stated earlier. It took them over 15 years to build a rudimentary auction site. You’ll have to forgive me if I just don’t have any confidence in their ability to build a stable and safe web store in a timely manner. And their technological shortcomings garner no sympathy from me since I’ve already paid a membership fee which I’m fairly certain advertised such perks as having the ability to purchase exclusive merchandise and granted access to a new auction site.
They handled non-attendee registration poorly. Me checking my e-mail more wasn’t going to correct that since their initial e-mail wasn’t even received until like 2 hours after registration already went live. Members should have been granted at least a day’s head start on non-members instead of the Club Tweeting and Facebooking the same time as they e-mailed members with their no doubt flawless e-mail system. I didn’t even want this year’s set but one of the advertised perks of the membership I paid for is a discount on Con packages and I didn’t even have a chance at purchasing a non-attendee package.
Look, my dealings with the Club have always been good up until the credit card situation and that’s where they completely lost all of the goodwill they built up with me over the years. The Club’s sold a bill of goods that they’ve shown they just don’t have the capabilities to fulfill. I paid my membership fee. They’ve got my money. Hell, some other people had my money for a few weeks because of them. I’ve more than fulfilled my end of the deal and I’m just not willing to give them the benefit of the doubt anymore.