Kinda pissed off at AOW

I told DirectDK about this last night but there is more now

I got my Armored Berserk Exclusive 2 yesterday. Yea, it rocks, looks gorgeous and stunning, etc.

Anyhow, it is composed of a few pieces; the body, the cape, the lower "jaw" part of the armor, the Dragonslayer, and the top part of the head and helmet.

Anyhow, everything arrives perfectly fine in good condition. I got number 395 out of 400.
The pieces are attatched with metal rods that fit into the body. The jaw part, being small, has a metal rod, however, when I got mine, there was no metal rod. It fits in with a plug, but it is not tight fitting, it's supposed to be held to the body via the metal rod.

So I email AOW about this, I didn't do anything to damage it etc
They said sorry, etc. I asked them to send me either the metal rod, or a new jaw. They said they would send the jaw, but it will be packed in my next order (they assume I will order again, or something)
I ask them if they can send the jaw piece as standalone, but they said I need to pay.

Seriously.
WTF.
I didn't do anything wrong, it arrived messed up like this. I didn't break anything. Shouldn't their quality control be better? Why should I pay extra for a damaged part from their behalf? (It wasn't damaged from the mail)

This is SO WEAK.

What would you guys do?

And mind you, shipping or whateverthehell would cost me at least another 40 bucks, and i honestly DON'T know if I have anything to buy off them any time soon, they just assume I will.

I dunno, this sucks.
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
EndLeSS8 said:
They said they would send the jaw, but it will be packed in my next order (they assume I will order again, or something)

Typical Art of War bullshit. They fail at calculating how much an item costs and you send them too much money? No problem! They keep it in mind for the next time you buy something! You'd better remember it though, because they might not.

Sending the money back isn't an option of course, because they would need to pay to transfer the money. That's because they don't take credit cards, since they would need to pay (OH NO!!1!) a special bank service to be able to accept them.

EndLeSS8 said:
I ask them if they can send the jaw piece as standalone, but they said I need to pay.

Yeah, did you expect them to ship it for free or something? Do you think they have too much money? ::) They already sell all their products to such low prices man... And what company would ship for free after recognizing their own error? Every company you say? So what?

EndLeSS8 said:
Shouldn't their quality control be better? Why should I pay extra for a damaged part from their behalf? (It wasn't damaged from the mail)

Cheapskates.

EndLeSS8 said:
This is SO WEAK.

Indeed...

EndLeSS8 said:
And mind you, shipping or whateverthehell would cost me at least another 40 bucks, and i honestly DON'T know if I have anything to buy off them any time soon, they just assume I will.

Yeah, that's part of their "you're fucked no matter what you do" policy.

EndLeSS8 said:
What would you guys do?

Being quite the stubborn bastard myself, and since they made it clear they weren't going to hear your case, I'd spam them with mails to begin with (there are programs that do that very efficiently), you start with 25, then 50, then 100, etc. Tell them you're going to give them the worst advertisement ever in the Berserk community (it starts now), I know Japanese fans don't like the way they handle that kind of stuff either, I'll see if I can post about it on a Japanese site.

The prospect of losing potential clients as well as getting a bad reputation plus having some guy they can't do anything about being a pain in the ass should help them reconsider their positions.
 

TheSkyTraveller

Monster adventures on the high seas!
Aazealh said:
Typical Art of War bullshit. They fail at calculating how much an item cost and you send them too much money? No problem! They keep it in mind for the next time you buy something! You'd better remember it though, because they might not.

Oh, so is that what that weird thing was about $25 of the money I sent them going to my "next order" in the e-mail they sent me?  That's annoying.  I probably will order from them again because I'm a sucker, but it still kinda sucks considering it cost me $40 just to transfer the money in the first place.

Weird.  Other than high prices, so far I've had the impression they had good customer service.  Their PR lady is really nice and polite, and for my situation she's been very helpful. I'm having to move out of state in the  middle of my order, so they're going to hold and ship my Armored Berserk to me in a few days at my new place.

Should I start to worry?  :'(
 
yea, I got the "extra $25" dollar thing as well. I thought it was just me. And yes, it did cost me also $40 for the wire transfer fee. That was wierd to me, I always thought I sent the correct amount. It was also wierd, and funny when DirectDK told me that he was missing 1 yen, and they gave him shit for it. Anyhow...

thx for the heads up to both of you.
I emailed AOW again this morning, I told Kaon Chin that I was VERY dissappointed in the company, etc etc. I can't blame her, cuz none of this is her fault, it's ART OF WAR's fault, so I couldn't really throw down all my bitching.

I told them that because of this I don't know whether or not I will buy from them in the future, and it's not my fault at all, and that it is not very fair for me. If it was damaged in the mail, ok, but it wasn't even properly finished, so it's entirely their fault.

I really didn't want to...well say that "oh, you're losing a customer and imma email ALL of my BERSERK friends as well!!!!1". That's why I posted here. I wanted people's opinion before I tell them. That's how I feel, but I still have respect for the company because they make good statues. I feel that Kaon sincerely tries her best, but they have a shitty attitude when it comes to money.

I will keep you all posted on this as emails come back.
It's not to spook you, but this crap could happen to you as well.
 
EndLeSS8 said:
yea, I got the "extra $25" dollar thing as well. I thought it was just me. And yes, it did cost me also $40 for the wire transfer fee. That was wierd to me, I always thought I sent the correct amount. It was also wierd, and funny when DirectDK told me that he was missing 1 yen, and they gave him shit for it. Anyhow...

Yeah, when I ordered the Maken, Magun, and Puck Behelit statues several months ago, they emailed me afterwards and said they charged me $60 too much for shipping. So they said they will credit that to me in my next order (which was Grunbeld and the Berserker piece). Now, after sending them 68,000 yen (almost $200 for shipping), they email me telling me I only sent them 67,999 yen and that they will add the extra 1 yen to my next order... that's like a penny...

Anyhow, since I do have the Puck Fishing statues on order with them, I guess it's acceptable for them to carryover over/under payments to the next order, but for those like EndLeSS8 and TheSkyTraveller who don't have anything else preordered, it's pretty devious of them to do that. I wonder if it's possible for them to refund you instead, if you ask them to?

And shipping for a little pin... if they stick it between a little piece of carboard and send it as a "letter", it can't be THAT expensive. I'm assuming it'll be less than $5. It's a shame that they are that unwilling to do that for you when you just dropped $300 on a statue.

:-\
 
Update: April 27 11:00pm California time

Thanks in advance for all who gave me advice, I sincerely appreciate it.

First, thought about what Aazealh said, and i realized fully that this is entirely their fault, and they shouldn't give me shit.

I emailed them a pretty serious email stating that I am VERY dissappointed at how they are handling this, and I probably will not buy anything in the future because they are assuming that I will, and that they are going against the principles in their objective statement (you know "Our fine arts are well reputed and we take pride in providing the world best quality." and "Therefore we take time to complete interviews and research before designing for our customers´ full satisfaction."
I said that I will not pay for fees because it is not my fault, nor the postal office, just theirs. I gave them a vague statement saying that I am familiar with the BERSERK community, and that I want to fix all of this quickly and quietly.

So this is their reply:

Dear xxxxx,

Thank you for your support to ART OF WAR.

In reply to your matter, we would like to follow your case.

Firstly, would you please send the image of the jaw to us?

We would confirm the image and will consider if we send the extra part to you.

As our practice, we could not provide replacement service for overseas orders. Instead, we execute thorough checking procedure on every item in order to avoid any damage. As you mentioned in your email on 26 April, `The "jaw part" is missing the metal piece to connect to the body`.We hope we could confirm the image and reflect the case to our customer service centre. This is our policy to ensure that opinions and comments of customers could be reflected in order to prevent the same mistake in the future.

Customers are suggested to pay extra insurance charge against any damage throughout delivery process. Customers could apply from us directly and we would inform them the total delivery charge in which insurance charge is included.

ART OF WAR always pursue top level of products and services to our customers. Mission of ART OF WAR remains unchanged.

In order to follow the case smoothly please send us the image to us as soon as possible.

We deeply apologize for inconvenience caused to you.

We are looking forward to receiving your image soon.

Thank you for your attention.

Yours sincerely,
Kaon Chin (F)


I haven't made a reply yet, but I will need to borrow a coworkers dcam for this.
I'm still annoyed that they say that I should pay insurance for shipping, when it wasn't shipping's fault at all.

Any or all relevant thoughts on this is appreciated.
 

Lithrael

Remember, always hold your apple tight
I'm guessing they keep mentioning insurance because they are assuming it's shipping damage until you show them for sure that they messed up, just because shipping damage *is* usually what they would run into with stuff like this. Hopefully once you send them the picture they'll shut up and fix it.

Of course you're right. Shipping insurance doesn't pay out for manufacturer's defects. Hell, a lot of the time they don't pay out for stuff that they do break, if it wasn't packaged in heavy armor.
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
Re: Update: April 27 11:00pm California time

Well, they seem to be backing up on their ridiculous policy already, that's a good start. Send them as much pictures as you can, all showing that a part is missing and clearly indicate it, even circle it in red with an editing tool if needed (people usually play dumb in cases like these, so act like they are). Also make sure to take pictures of the box and all the stuff inside, and even the package it came in if you still have it, to show them that there is no damage, only a missing item.

EndLeSS8 said:
I'm still annoyed that they say that I should pay insurance for shipping, when it wasn't shipping's fault at all.

Any or all relevant thoughts on this is appreciated.

Well, did you have the choice of taking an insurance? Their shipping options are EMS and Airmail as far as I remember, so what's that BS again? They're the ones choosing an insurance or not, and if you took the EMS shipping, they really have no half-assed excuse.

In your reply, don't forget to tell them that since they created the statue themselves, they shouldn't have any problem figuring out which piece is missing, again in case they play dumb. Now about the "not providing remplacement to overseas orders", make it clear again that this isn't a replacement, but the original order, and that not providing it is considered theft in your country (bluff never hurts 8)).
 
Re: Update: April 27 11:00pm California time

Aazealh said:
Well, did you have the choice of taking an insurance? Their shipping options are EMS and Airmail as far as I remember, so what's that BS again? They're the ones choosing an insurance or not, and if you took the EMS shipping, they really have no half-assed excuse.

Actually, their shipping options are EMS or Seamail. Which reminds me of something...

Originally, when AOW first opened up their site to overseas customers, I remembered they ONLY offered Seamail. When I found this out, I automatically emailed them asking if Seamail had an insurance option, or if they could just ship my orders via EMS, because Seamail is butt slow, and packages have a higher tendency to get damaged anyways. I also told them, that EMS offers insurance and is much quicker, so I would prefer that method. They replied and told me that Seamail doens't offer insurance (I'm 99% positive that's what they said, but not entirely sure) but it would be no problem to ship via EMS to fit my needs.

However, according to their policy, and as Kaon stated above, they don't have any replacement services for overseas customers. So I guess there's no real use for adding insurance on the package if sent by EMS because AOW won't do anything anyways. :-\

Strange... but just to be completely thorough, I don't specifically recall whether or not Kaon said they will ship my packages via EMS BECAUSE of the insurance option (but maybe solely because of the speed and safety difference).

I think AOW needs to revise some of their overseas policies. The bank-wire transfer, the shipping/insurance policies, the return policies... they are pretty inconvenient to say the least. But, I guess if anything, it's cool that AOW is at least offering service to overseas customers. Remember back last year when the only way was through auctions??? I guess there are both + and -'s.

Anyways, I hope everything works out for you EndLeSS8. Definitely keep us posted.
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
Re: Update: April 27 11:00pm California time

DirectDK said:
Actually, their shipping options are EMS or Seamail.

Yeah, actually I thought it was Seamail, but that's so bad a transportation service that I convinced myself I must have confused it with Airmail. Way to go, AOW, I don't even want to imagine the hecatomb if all packages were delivered through Seamail.

DirectDK said:
Originally, when AOW first opened up their site to overseas customers, I remembered they ONLY offered Seamail.

Heh, funny, I thought I remembered that on my first order they only offered EMS shipping. Maybe they replaced Seamail by EMS after your enquiry, and then added it again as an alternative.

DirectDK said:
I think AOW needs to revise some of their overseas policies.  The bank-wire transfer, the shipping/insurance policies, the return policies... they are pretty inconvenient to say the least.

My thoughts exactly. Whoever wrote that just threw in random ideas as they came, without giving them a second thought. Some stuff is actually quite fantasist in terms of customer service, and most likely would get them in trouble if someone went as far as suing them. Their own "rules" actually contradict each other (i.e. no cancellation allowed once you confirm your order, but if you don't pay within 2 weeks after receiving the mail indicating your order is ready to ship, it will be cancelled automatically).

DirectDK said:
But, I guess if anything, it's cool that AOW is at least offering service to overseas customers.

Of course, that's a given, but a little effort wouldn't hurt them either. I bet they sell a lot of things to overseas customers too, so it's not like they do it out of pure and charitable benevolence.
 
Update April 30, 1:00am California time

Got an email from Kaon Chin today, regarding what I said that I need to borrow a coworker's dcam for this. This is their reply:

-----------------------------------------------------

Dear xxxxxxxx,

Thank you for your email on 29 April.

Please do not be worried. We would confirm the image after we have received the picture from you. Thank you for your patience to let us to follow your case.

General postal service is the most cost effective way to send packages overseas. This is beneficial to customers because it costs high if we deliver the item through other international delivery service (such as Federal Express etc).

Since the package is delivered overseas, the risk of damage exsits in each package. We ART OF WAR of course hope all packages sent to overseas could arrive safely during the delivery process.

Therefore, we suggest customers to pay for insurance charge if they are afraid of being sent with packages with problems. In view of ART OF WAR, we ensure each item should be in complete condition and with no damage. That is why we execute checking procedure in each item.

Now that we could not confirm the actual broken part, we hope xxxxxx could send the image to us for confirmation. If it is found or believed as our fault we would undoubtedly follow the case to the end.We hope you could understand our situation and we are looking forward to receiving your image soon.

ART OF WAR will be on holiday from 1 May to 5 May. We will confirm your image and follow your case as soon as possible after receiving your email of image confirmation.

Should you have further queries please send email to us today.

Thank you for your attention.

Yours sincerely,
Kaon Chin (F)

-----------------------------------------------


So I finally took photos with my coworkers dcam tonight, and this is my reply to ART OF WAR (as well as photos...i'm pretty sure you guys dun wanna see lame photos of the jaw piece, so it's just my letter to them)

--------------------------------------------------

Hello Kaon Chin,

Attatched are all of the photos I took.

It is VERY difficult to focus on such a small piece, but you can CLEARLY see that it is NOT broken, and that it is missing the original metal rod to attatch to the body. Included are photos of the actual box, in case ART OF WAR does not believe me that that the box was NOT DAMAGED during shipping.

All of the photos are of how it ARRIVED TO ME. It is EXACTLY the same as it was when I opened the box. I am NOT LYING.

As I have already said in my previous email, even if I did buy extra insurance, it is useless, because ART OF WAR does NOT provide replacement of broken parts to overseas customers. I would be wasting money because ART OF WAR does not replace broken parts. As I have already said, EMS shipping itself is insured, so double insurance is a waste of money.

I hope that ART OF WAR understands that 22000yen is not a small amount of money, therefore as a customer, I expect the highest quality and service. I was VERY dissappointed when ART OF WAR stated that I would need to pay for a piece that was not checked correctly from quality control. All of the photos attatched prove that it arrived like this, and it was NOT broken by me, nor was it broken by shipping.

This is frustrating for me because I need to defend myself when I did not do anything wrong. It is such a small piece, and there is so much trouble to fix it all up. I hope all of the photos prove to you that it did arrive like this, and I hope that ART OF WAR understands that it is very upsetting for me as a customer who paid 22000yen on a product, and needs to do SO MANY things to prove myself. Even if I was lying (which I am definitely NOT; my time is too valuable to waste, and this is taking up a LOT of my time) I believe that as a customer, the any company should trust their customer. Any other regular company, on such a small thing, would send it to their customer without any hassle or question at all. Unfortunately, this is not the case with ART OF WAR. I am seriously unsure whether or not I want to do business with ART OF WAR in the future, due to the lack of trust in the customer.

Attatched are all of the photos of the jaw piece for Armored Berserk Exclusive 2. Also attatched are photos of the box for Armored Berserk Exclusive 2, to prove to ART OF WAR that it was not shipping damage.

I hope that this matter will be concluded soon, and I expect a reply as soon as possible.

-xxxxxxxx

-------------------------------

They better send me that jaw thing now. Jeebus. I mean, come on, what other hoops do they want me to jump through?
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
Re: Update April 30, 1:00am California time

EndLeSS8 said:
They better send me that jaw thing now. Jeebus. I mean, come on, what other hoops do they want me to jump through?

Well, I hope everything goes fine from now on, but as I thought, they're playing dumb and you might notice that Kaon Chin is barely even mentioning the possibility of them making an error, no matter what you say.
 
last post until they reply back to me on May 6th

-------------------------------------------------------------

Dear xxxxxxx,

Thank you for your support to ART OF WAR.

Your image had been confirmed by us.
Thank you very much.

We will contact you to follow your matter with customer service centre on 6 May.

We apologize for all inconvenience caused you.

Thank you for your attention.

Yours sincerely,
Kaon Chin (F)

--------------------------

Well this is retarded and dandy. Time to wait.
 
May 6 update

Just woke up litterally. Here is the email from them:

----------------------------------------------------------------

Dear xxxxxxxxxx,

Thank you for your support to ART OF WAR.

We are going to send you the part of jaw as soon as possible. The jaw is tiny that we are going to send the part by general post in envelope.

If you are willing to accept the practice please reply this email directly.

We hope you will be satisfied with our services and products. As our general practice we would not provide exchange or replacement (it is also applicable for sending broken part as well).

Due to the experience of Mr. xxxxxxxxxx, we are going to execute stricter checking procedures throughout all parts of statues.

We ART OF WAR apologize for all inconvenience caused you once again.

We are looking forward to receiving your reply.

Thank you for your attention.

Yours sincerely,
Kaon Chin (F)

-------------------------------------------------------------------

ghetto envelope. I haven't replied yet. It better be ok. At least they're sending it though.

Thanks again to everyone, much appreciated VERY much.

Final thoughts?
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
Re: May 6 update

Hehe, looks like the classic aggressive intimidation technique worked well enough. 8)

EndLeSS8 said:
ghetto envelope. I haven't replied yet. It better be ok.

With enough bubble wrap, it shouldn't be much of a problem.

EndLeSS8 said:
Final thoughts?

All is well that ends well, let's hope so at least.
 

conan

Until next time...
I hope they wrap it well so it gets to you in one piece too.

I spoke w/ a rep from Yamato the other day and he said they'd experianced A LOT of breaks from the factory to the USA w/ the Berserk statues they were importing.

Surprising, I'd think they'd learn to pack them better....

glad you got your piece coming...
 
Closure

I got my replacement of the jaw today, and an apology letter. Things were packed well, it was sent via airmail. It was marked very clearly on the huge envelope "DON'T BEND THANK YOU" in both Japanese and English.

The jaw was in perfect condition, with the usual thin paper wrapping, then bubble wrap, then more paper wrap, in a small but tough cardboard box.

The paper letter is as follows (word for word):

----------------------------------------------

Dear xxxxxxx,

Apologize

Thank you for your support to ART OF WAR.

We feel deeply sorry for the broken part of statue Armored Berserk.

Enclosed is the part of jaw (that of Exclusive II). For your information, please attach the part with care for it is highly breakable part. You are advised to attach the parts (mantle, head, jaw) step by step. SHould you have further queries please do no hesitate to contact us immediately.

We hope you will continue to support us and we ART OF WAR will continue to strive for top quality of services and products in order to satisfy customer's expectation.

Thank you for your support once again and we hope you could continue to support us in the future.

Thank you for your attention.

Yours sincerely,
Kaon Chin

-------------------------------------

Ok, I'm glad things worked out well and everyone is happy. I guess I will continue to support them in the future, I just hope it will be less of a hassle and they have better quality control. I am satisfied.

Thanks to everyone for their help and opinion on all of this, I appreciate all of it very very much. Have a good one.
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
Re: Closure

Glad to know everything went well. Now you've got to take pictures of the statue and post them here! ;D
 

conan

Until next time...
Yeah...pics please! :D

Glad you got it all worked out!

I sure hope the PVC looks like the resin...I love that pose...

Anyone have any idea when AOW will release pics of the PVC Berserker Armor statue? June at the latest right?
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
conan said:
Anyone have any idea when AOW will release pics of the PVC Berserker Armor statue? June at the latest right?

Yep, pre-orders will start in June from what AOW announced.

Also, in the next Young Animal (May 27th), it will be possible to apply for 2 exclusive "Armored Berserk" figures by Art of War (all the appliances will be accepted/granted). One will be the classic Beast-helm armor (height: 74mm, weight: 50g), and the other the Skull-helm armor, before it was transformed (height: 120mm, weight: 65g). The Beast one is smaller because of its position, crouching (I guess that in spite of being figures they can't be moved too much :-\).
 
Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure the retail price of the Skull Helm figure is more than $50.

As requested, these pictures of my Armored Berserk Exclusive 2 #395. Enjoy.

And yes, my backgrounds suck. They are of my kitchen, my university degree, and the box of Armored Berserk. Unfortunately I can't take any more photos cuz I just borrowed a coworkers dcam for the jaw photoshoot. These were just random photos afterwards.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v255/vinz8/1.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v255/vinz8/2.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v255/vinz8/3.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v255/vinz8/4.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v255/vinz8/5.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v255/vinz8/6.jpg
 
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