Title: Mixed Opinions - Things MUST Be Fixed in Pennsylvania for US Subscribers!
I am extremely torn about giving Eaglemoss a 3-star rating.
I have been a subscriber of the Official Star Trek ships from the very beginning. It was slow at the start, but when operations were being run out of the UK, I knew I could rely on competent customer service and product distribution. In the past year and a half (particularly in the past 6 months) since regional United States operations switched over to their Pennsylvania office, sadly, the quality of their customer service has become almost literally non-existent for subscribers being riddled with missing issues and large gaps of time between shipments.
1) I have been missing issues 88 (Vahklass) and 89 (Enterprise-J) since they were due early 2017. Several phone calls I placed during the course of the year resulted in responses ranging from “it’s out of stock, we’ll send it to you when it arrives” to “It’s due out at the end of the month” (received that response I think in both May and July), back to “it’s out of stock, we’ll send it to you when it arrives”. Interestingly, they were both periodically available for purchase through the Eaglemoss store during that time. The E-J is out of stock now and the Vahlkass is missing from the store entirely, but it would appear that the subscription inventory has been frequently sacrificed in favor of replenishing the main online store’s stock shortfall, leaving loyal subscribers in the dust every time. Incidentally, this exact same back-and-forth of inventory problems happened with the magazine binders over a year ago, and all with the exact same responses from customer service and patterns of behavior.
2) Many subscribers, including myself, still have not received the USS Franklin Special Edition that many others have received months ago elsewhere around the globe, and in limited parts of the U.S. No notification has ever been sent as to when it should be released. Again, it was available for a time on the online store, but is now also out-of-stock.
3) On June 9, I received an email stating that, at the end of the month, I was to receive the oversized Original Series Enterprise as a special. This is where the greatest trouble started for me with Eaglemoss. The XL TOS-E was listed on their online shop as a “Shop Exclusive” (and still is, by the way). As such, I purchased it separately, as it was never to be a part of the subscription specials, which are clearly labeled “Special Edition” in the store, which I have regularly received, albeit after a great delay. The XL TOS-E was the first (and only) “Shop Exclusive” scheduled to be sent to me as a “Special Edition”. So, I called up to cancel that order (didn’t need 2 of them) and asked what was the difference, then, between the “Shop Exclusive” label and the “Special Edition” label. They said that, since I signed up for all specials, I would get them all. All “Shop Exclusives”, “Limited Editions” and “Special Editions”, I asked? “Yes”, they responded. Then I informed them that I’ve never gotten any other “Shop Exclusives” before until the XL TOS-E came up. For up until that point, there were predictable patterns that I could use to ascertain whether or not I should go ahead and get something for my collection that I wasn’t supposed to automatically get based on the online store label. The TOS-E blew that paradigm out of the water and they were unable to tell me why, then, I never received any prior “Shop Exclusives” and “Limited Editions” as “Specials” automatically - and there have been MANY. I talked to a Tier 1 phone answering droid who kept repeating the same illogical statements, and getting more frustrated and attitude-filled with every repetition. I then finally spoke to a “floor supervisor” who was definitely friendlier, yet still completely without any actionable knowledge as to what the difference is between “Shop Exclusives” and “Special Editions”. At the end of the conversation, she basically blamed the “warehouse” for the confusion, took my information and said they would get back to me with a clearer answer. This, of course, never happened.
4) Most recently, I tried to add my email address to receive a notification for when the Enterprise-J was to become available because I was tired of waiting. After hitting the “Submit” button, the site returned with an error: “I'm sorry there has been a problem processing your request, our network team have been notified. We apologise [sic] for any inconvenience this may have cause [sic]. If you believe there is a problem with the system please let us know using the Technical Support Form”. The link to the “Technical Support Form” was 404’d and redirected back to the main Eaglemoss homepage. Broken.
5) I then tried to pre-order the oversize Enterprise-E, which ALSO produced the same above error when I tried to enter my payment information. This happened when I tried to go down both the PayPal and credit card path. VERY broken.
For years, admittedly, I’ve been a bit of Eaglemoss apologist towards others who had been expressing some displeasure at the growing lack of quality of service in the U.S. market, because at the end of the day, the product was quite superior to others that have come before, in many ways. I could tolerate a few shortfalls in customer service if the models themselves continue to maintain a general level of excellence. To his credit, Ben Robinson and his team have done an exemplary job of achieving just that. The customer support and provisioning wings of Eaglemoss, however, particularly as they apply to the Pennsylvania office of customer support and distribution, should be swept away and sent back to the UK. They are, quite literally, next to useless and do a great disservice to the Eaglemoss brand and an active insult to the good people in Ben’s team who bend over backwards to produce such marvelous models. I can wait a few extra months to get it from England if I know I can rely on consistent provisioning, the way things were before. Keep using the Pennsylvania crew, the way things are being handled there, and I suspect you will start to lose business in your American market if drastic adjustments are not taken. PLEASE fix this! This product line is worthy of better service than what we’re seeing from your Pennsylvania employees.
