Bandai DX VF-31

[CharlesXavier]

11 minutes ago, IXTL said:

So far, there has been no indication that this shortage of 31A has anything to do with Bandai. If Bandai needed more runs to fill demand for orders received, they would have announced different shipping batches as they have for other high demand Webshop Exclusives (e.g. GFF Wing Gundam EW etc).

Also, if Bandai had really delayed shipping to webshop customers, surely they would have announced a new date, either through the webshop page or directly to customers that ordered. The fact that NY don't seem to know when they can expect stock to come in seems very odd.

 

Have you asked for a refund already?

So far mykombini has downright refunded its customers. I am not sure what NY is doing. Are they waiting for us to run out of patience and then put up the cancelled stocks at a high premium?

I recall my YF-29 Ozma from NY was sent out 2 weeks after the launch date but that was the longest it took for me. And during then the YF-29 Ozma's price was rocketing as well.

I too feel that this is not a Bandai issue. Only NY knows the truth behind their delay and they just refuse to come clean with us.

[IXTL]

3 minutes ago, Chronocidal said:

It is entirely possible that Bandai just had no clue how popular the design would be, and just weren't prepared for it in terms of factory output.

Doubt it. They would have had an idea of the maximum number of units they could produce and stop accepting pre-orders on their webshop if they hit that number.

[Chronocidal]

Just now, IXTL said:

Doubt it. They would have had an idea of the maximum number of units they could produce and stop accepting pre-orders on their webshop if they hit that number.

See, that would make sense, but again, I'm thinking Bandai just had no idea how popular the design was going to be, and might be rushing to capitalize on that by rearranging production lines to make more. 

I'd love an update, but that's why we need someone in Japan who can actually check on this stuff for us.

[IXTL]

1 minute ago, CharlesXavier said:

Have you asked for a refund already?

So far mykombini has downright refunded its customers. I am not sure what NY is doing. Are they waiting for us to run out of patience and then put up the cancelled stocks at a high premium?

I recall my YF-29 Ozma from NY was sent out 2 weeks after the launch date but that was the longest it took for me. And during then the YF-29 Ozma's price was rocketing as well.

I too feel that this is not a Bandai issue. Only NY knows the truth behind their delay and they just refuse to come clean with us.

Still corresponding with them on the type of refund they are giving. I don't want to accept blindly and suddenly find out they've given me store credit. Even if they miraculously come through and ship out my 31A today, it would still be my final piece of business with them.

Given my experience with how NY operates, it would not surprise me that they are holding out on customers only to relist cancelled items for a higher premium later on.

[IXTL]

Just now, Chronocidal said:

See, that would make sense, but again, I'm thinking Bandai just had no idea how popular the design was going to be, and might be rushing to capitalize on that by rearranging production lines to make more. 

I'd love an update, but that's why we need someone in Japan who can actually check on this stuff for us.

Even so, Bandai would have explained this to customers that pre-ordered (that includes Mykombini and NY who used personal accounts to place orders on the webshop). Bandai would not leave them in the dark.

[Mommar]

26 minutes ago, IXTL said:

So far, there has been no indication that this shortage of 31A has anything to do with Bandai. If Bandai needed more runs to fill demand for orders received, they would have announced different shipping batches as they have for other high demand Webshop Exclusives (e.g. GFF Wing Gundam EW etc).

Also, if Bandai had really delayed shipping to webshop customers, surely they would have announced a new date, either through the webshop page or directly to customers that ordered. The fact that NY don't seem to know when they can expect stock to come in seems very odd.

 

Except they’re the ones who make them so a shortage would absolutely be their fault.

[Chronocidal]

2 minutes ago, IXTL said:

Even so, Bandai would have explained this to customers that pre-ordered (that includes Mykombini and NY who used personal accounts to place orders on the webshop). Bandai would not leave them in the dark.

See, again, I would hope so, but we don't know what real method these shops are using.  Given the scalper market in the past, and how NY used to acquire items, it would not surprise me if they cancelled when they realized they would have to actually get their stock from third party sellers at a loss, because the prices spiked so fast.

It's why I'm holding onto my order.  If they're bluffing about the supply, and waiting for people to cancel so they can relist them, I'm calling their bluff.

[CharlesXavier]

http://p-bandai.jp/item/item-1000118008/?_ga=2.59542637.1782072702.1522899755-1158855271.1482390283

There is nothing in the PO link from Bandai that states there's any production delay whatsoever.

And the official release date is 15 march. So we are coming close to 1 month of delay from NY.

something fishy is going on.

[IXTL]

Just now, Chronocidal said:

See, again, I would hope so, but we don't know what real method these shops are using.  Given the scalper market in the past, and how NY used to acquire items, it would not surprise me if they cancelled when they realized they would have to actually get their stock from third party sellers at a loss, because the prices spiked so fast.

My take is NY didn't place as many orders with the webshop as they  received on their own store. Hence the shortage at their end. They took people's money upfront, couldn't deliver and can't give any assurances. Again, this is my take on the situation.

Just now, Chronocidal said:

It's why I'm holding onto my order.  If they're bluffing about the supply, and waiting for people to cancel so they can relist them, I'm calling their bluff.

This hobby is supposed be fun. But so much about collecting DX valks just isn't. And I wonder why I should want to go through all this just to buy a toy.

 

[Slave IV]

I really hope no one cancels their NY order for even the hint of the chance they will repost for more. As I keep saying, if you are so fed up with NY, please don't cancel your order, just give it to me. 

[chyll2]

But NY has been seen to carry more stock of web exclusive after shipping their PO. They hoard these stuff and Scalp. Most of the web exclusives are available after release date. I would be mad if NY dont ship my order while making the 31A available in their store at mark up price.

 

Collecting Macross has never been fun to me since these items are only made for Japan market.

[chyll2]

1 minute ago, Slave IV said:

I really hope no one cancels their NY order for even the hint of the chance they will repost for more. As I keep saying, if you are so fed up with NY, please don't cancel your order, just give it to me. 

I am surprised that no one has taken on your offer. I am waiting on mine though.

[seti88]

Hmm N-Y is taking a big hit to their reputation and also taking on risks of holding stock instead of clearing, if all above are true.
The 31a is hot potatoes granted, but there will always be hot potatoes one time of the other. 

Doesn't quite add up.
 

[Slave IV]

9 minutes ago, chyll2 said:

I am surprised that no one has taken on your offer. I am waiting on mine though.

Yeah, with all the complaints and people constantly swearing off NY, you'd think someone would take this easy out. 

Bottom line is I do enjoy collecting and a part that helps me is I don't worry about stuff. Shops are in business to take our money in exchange for toys. I sit back and let them do their thing. These toys are extremely hard to get and technically illegal to sell outside the Japanese market so any store going out of their way to help foreigners get something they would normally have to travel to Japan themselves to get is doing us a great service! How about we cut them some slack, kick back and enjoy all the toys they already got us? Worst thing that could happen is you don't get a toy you wanted or possibly lose some money. 

[PsYcHoDyNaMiX]

Hmm... so I just contacted them via the chat and here was Phoebe's response:
"I see, thank you for the information. It seems though that you have paid for your order. Unfortunately, we do not allow cancelling orders that are already paid for.
You can still try to submit a ticket here to request the cancelation of an order > https://www.nippon-yasan.com/contact/new-ticket "

EDIT: I really don't understand what they mean by "not allowing cancellations of orders that have already been paid for". I even informed her that I do not want store credit and proceed to ask her if I should open a Paypal dispute for the return of my money.

2x EDIT:
'Sadly, our Terms & Services are in compliance with Japanese law: We do not offer refunds.' - Phoebe

OH boy! Here goes the shitfest!

3x EDIT:
uhh in accordance with what Japanese Law that there are no refunds allowed?

Yes, there are no refunds for paid orders. Sorry.

Edited April 5, 2018 by PsYcHoDyNaMiX

[Charles_Xavier]

So you should ask them. Does that mean that you will definitely 100% receive your item?

[PsYcHoDyNaMiX]

3 minutes ago, Charles_Xavier said:

So you should ask them. Does that mean that you will definitely 100% receive your item?

Sorry I'm not playing those games with a dishonest company who likes to turn over items after lying to already paid loyal customers that their items are awaiting fulfillment. My deadline for a Paypal dispute is today and I just filed one. I also had paid for 2x Mirage super pack sets and I will file a dispute with them on that as well. I don't care that NY closes my account at this point. I've already given them enough of my business.

EDIT: especially for their nonsensical answers such as 'according to Japanese law we do not offer refunds for paid orders".

Edited April 5, 2018 by PsYcHoDyNaMiX

[technoblue]

26 minutes ago, chyll2 said:

But NY has been seen to carry more stock of web exclusive after shipping their PO. They hoard these stuff and Scalp. Most of the web exclusives are available after release date. I would be mad if NY dont ship my order while making the 31A available in their store at mark up price.

I'm in the same place. I'd be more annoyed at myself if I made an emotional decision and joined the refund crowd, only to learn later that NY was able to fill my order.

I've had to wait over a month for orders to arrive for other logistical reasons: because of post office delays, customs delays, or because of something else that I wasn't privy to. This doesn't feel that different to me. I understand those who need refunds because they are fed up with NY's poor customer service or who need to funnel the funds back somewhere more important. I don't get the conspiracy stuff. I don't buy into the idea that NY is intentionally holding stock back to scalp it.

[Lolicon]

Sorry to interrupt, but there's another Kai available. Looks like the price has gone up to 35k.

https://order.mandarake.co.jp/order/detailPage/item?itemCode=1086009586&ref=list

Alright, back to the NY stuff. 

[Charles_Xavier]

12 minutes ago, Lolicon said:

Sorry to interrupt, but there's another Kai available. Looks like the price has gone up to 35k.

https://order.mandarake.co.jp/order/detailPage/item?itemCode=1086009586&ref=list

Alright, back to the NY stuff. 

Wow just when I thought the April release batch will lead to a price dip. Glad I got my 31J Kai from YJP below 30k

[PsYcHoDyNaMiX]

Not sure how much good it will do, but I listed the three previous chat conversations with their customer reps, Phoebe, Hanna and Robin; also included was the ticket which was looped back around to their (Fabrice's) initial response. Not once in the 15+ years since I've started using Paypal have I ever had to file a dispute. After that last conversation with Phoebe I felt so much 'unease' that I felt compelled to file a dispute. Coincidentally my internet went out and I lost that transcript for that conversation... I was only able to salvage what I corresponded here on the forum, lol.

I honestly informed NY that if they could fulfill my order then I would gladly close the dispute. While the 180 day Paypal purchase protection plan as was still available to me I opened the dispute in fear of 1) not having my order filled and 2) not having my money returned.

 

EDIT: Just leaving this here for reference. My Paypal Purchase Protection window was for today April 4th, but it seems since the dispute was opened I now have until April the 24th to escalate the problem to Paypal:
Message sent to 株式会社NIPPONーYASAN.COM on Wednesday, April 4, 2018 at 10:32:31 PM. Allow time for the seller to respond. If you need to escalate this problem to PayPal, you must do so before Tuesday, April 24, 2018. See the Purchase Protection Policy for more information.

Edited April 5, 2018 by PsYcHoDyNaMiX

[CharlesXavier]

9 minutes ago, PsYcHoDyNaMiX said:

Not sure how much good it will do, but I listed the three previous chat conversations with their customer reps, Phoebe, Hanna and Robin; also included was the ticket which was looped back around to their (Fabrice's) initial response. Not once in the 15+ years since I've started using Paypal have I ever had to file a dispute. After that last conversation with Phoebe I felt so much 'unease' that I felt compelled to file a dispute. Coincidentally my internet went out and I lost that transcript for that conversation... I was only able to salvage what I corresponded here on the forum, lol.

I honestly informed NY that if they could fulfill my order then I would gladly close the dispute. While the 180 day Paypal purchase protection plan as was still available to me I opened the dispute in fear of 1) not having my order filled and 2) not having my money returned.

 

EDIT: Just leaving this here for reference. My Paypal Purchase Protection window was for today April 4th, but it seems since the dispute was opened I now have until April the 24th to escalate the problem to Paypal:
Message sent to 株式会社NIPPONーYASAN.COM on Wednesday, April 4, 2018 at 10:32:31 PM. Allow time for the seller to respond. If you need to escalate this problem to PayPal, you must do so before Tuesday, April 24, 2018. See the Purchase Protection Policy for more information.

Perhaps this will prompt NY to find your order, pack it and ship it. And if that works, they can be prepared to be bombarded with a chain of dispute notifications from paypal.

But it could also go all the way south. NY could take the easy way out by refunding you, which you don't mind either.

[PsYcHoDyNaMiX]

5 minutes ago, CharlesXavier said:

Perhaps this will prompt NY to find your order, pack it and ship it. And if that works, they can be prepared to be bombarded with a chain of dispute notifications from paypal.

But it could also go all the way south. NY could take the easy way out by refunding you, which you don't mind either.

At this point I wouldn't mind a refund either and they could lose my future business. I'll just shop elsewhere. Hell I'll even order from Mykombi as well with the possibility that my order can be cancelled. At least MK will be upfront with me and refund my money and not state some fraudulent crap about Japanese Law not allowing refunds.

EDIT: even with the conversation I had with Robin on Monday I already mentioned my concerns about their company fulfilling orders not chronologically for the 3rd time (I've heard) and that I would go to Paypal to dispute. That already should've been an alarm to get their crap together and not give half ass responses.

Edited April 5, 2018 by PsYcHoDyNaMiX

[PsYcHoDyNaMiX]

So when I went to look at my order history on NY's site I saw that the order went from 'Pre-Order OK' to 'Paypal New Dispute'. I looked further into the date and status of the order and the following was listed:

2018-04-05 13:41:41	Paypal New Dispute
2018-04-05 13:40:40	Paypal Dispute Resolved L
2017-10-06 21:23:37	Pre-order - Payment OK
2017-10-06 21:23:27	Processing Payment
2017-10-06 21:22:09	Order created

 

I'm not sure what their 'Paypal Dispute Resolved L' means, but the Paypal claim is not resolved, lol. Looks like I'll be calling Paypal in the morning to see what's going on since I've never done a dispute before.

Edited April 5, 2018 by PsYcHoDyNaMiX

[jenius]

It would be so great to hear the behind the scenes of this debacle. Sadly, the drama is probably something really mundane like the toys are in a warehouse that is locked up because an employee is on vacation or a tax lien or something. I wonder if NY and the other resellers got some warning from Bandai they ignored like "P-bandai items are not for resale, please discontinue your purchases, existing orders are cancelled." At my work those are the emails that always get stuck in the spam filter

[Scyla]

12 minutes ago, jenius said:

It would be so great to hear the behind the scenes of this debacle. Sadly, the drama is probably something really mundane like the toys are in a warehouse that is locked up because an employee is on vacation or a tax lien or something. I wonder if NY and the other resellers got some warning from Bandai they ignored like "P-bandai items are not for resale, please discontinue your purchases, existing orders are cancelled." At my work those are the emails that always get stuck in the spam filter

 It might be a left hand right hans issue. The customer service staff probably don‘t know what a TWE item is. They can just see that the stock is not in their system thus a generic reply.

It is a bad customer service for sure but you can find the same issue all over the place when dealing with help desks.

NY is to blame here though.

[seti88]

 

29 minutes ago, PsYcHoDyNaMiX said:

At this point I wouldn't mind a refund either and they could lose my future business. I'll just shop elsewhere. Hell I'll even order from Mykombi as well with the possibility that my order can be cancelled. At least MK will be upfront with me and refund my money and not state some fraudulent crap about Japanese Law not allowing refunds.

EDIT: even with the conversation I had with Robin on Monday I already mentioned my concerns about their company fulfilling orders not chronologically for the 3rd time (I've heard) and that I would go to Paypal to dispute. That already should've been an alarm to get their crap together and not give half ass responses.

Frankly, I would rather avoid MK because of MK's track record of missing out of pre-orders and giving false hope that an order could be fulfilled.
N-Y's refusal to refund you at this time may mean that its in stock but they don't want to lose your order at this time.

However i would be crying fraud if N-Y seems to be hinting that they will give you store credit instead. And that is wrong, regardless of any lapse in paypal limits, as the seller did not give you the goods in the first place.  

[CharlesXavier]

50 minutes ago, PsYcHoDyNaMiX said:

So when I went to look at my order history on NY's site I saw that the order went from 'Pre-Order OK' to 'Paypal New Dispute'. I looked further into the date and status of the order and the following was listed:

2018-04-05 13:41:41	Paypal New Dispute
2018-04-05 13:40:40	Paypal Dispute Resolved L
2017-10-06 21:23:37	Pre-order - Payment OK
2017-10-06 21:23:27	Processing Payment
2017-10-06 21:22:09	Order created

 

I'm not sure what their 'Paypal Dispute Resolved L' means, but the Paypal claim is not resolved, lol. Looks like I'll be calling Paypal in the morning to see what's going on since I've never done a dispute before.

Do be so kind to share with us the outcome of this episode.

It's interesting to know that they jump right into action once paypal is activated.

[orindlt]

Wouldn't NY have had to forward payment to Bandai for these items back in October when the order window was open? I've always assumed that was the reason we had to pay up front for these exclusives, we paid them, then to secure the pre-order they paid Bandai. 

[jenius]

I don't know, I assumed that also. Another possibility though is that TWE don't allow cancellations so NY makes you pay up front to avoid anyone trying to cancel their order. Either way, if Bandai didn't deliver then NY should be getting a huge refund and it's possible NY is just sitting on its hands while it waits to receive its refund at which point they'll send out an email to everyone with a refund and "Blame Bandai!"

Edited April 5, 2018 by jenius

[CharlesXavier]

24 minutes ago, orindlt said:

Wouldn't NY have had to forward payment to Bandai for these items back in October when the order window was open? I've always assumed that was the reason we had to pay up front for these exclusives, we paid them, then to secure the pre-order they paid Bandai. 

 

21 minutes ago, jenius said:

I don't know, I assumed that also. Another possibility though is that TWE don't allow cancellations so NY makes you pay up front to avoid anyone trying to cancel their order. Either way, if Bandai didn't deliver then NY should be getting a huge refund and it's possible NY is just sitting on its hands while it waits to receive its refund at which point they'll send out an email to everyone with a refund and "Blame Bandai!"

In Japan, Bandai only charges the buyer when the item is ready for delivery. So NY probably paid only during the point of delivery.

NY charges upfront because they have too many cases of buyers not honoring their orders hence resulting in them being stuck with a lot of TWEs.

i recall when I first bought TWEs from NY, they had the "pay later" option. It was only in the recent 2-3 years that they removed that option for TWEs.

Edited April 5, 2018 by CharlesXavier

[jenius]

Okay, so if Bandai had their order cancelled, they should have found out about it a couple days before the delivery date when they received a "Sorry" email instead of a "Please remit money" email. So... they wouldn't be waiting for a huge refund then...

[Scyla]

As @jenius said it could be an issue of NY employee Bob handles TWE orders and he is sick/on vacation. So you get a generic waiting for stock reply from customer service until Bob returns to collect all the items and bring them to the warehouse.

Were other TWE items released at the same time and did NY ship those alteady?

[CharlesXavier]

4 minutes ago, Scyla said:

As @jenius said it could be an issue of NY employee Bob handles TWE orders and he is sick/on vacation. So you get a generic waiting for stock reply from customer service until Bob returns to collect all the items and bring them to the warehouse.

Were other TWE items released at the same time and did NY ship those alteady?

All other March 2018 TWE items are already in stock or sold out on NY. The only "ghost" item is the 31A. Sheer luck? Hmm..

[chyll2]

All the more to believe that the story about 31A being limited is true. They always delivered on their TWE items