Bandai DX Chogokin 1/48 VF-1

[sh9000]

Just checked and I got the NY Happy Holidays email earlier in the morning.  I would have been surprised if I didn’t get it since I’m one of their long-standing customers.

Edited December 24, 2019 by sh9000

[Slave IV]

Yep, that was a welcome message from NY but ironic if the people who appreciate them didn't get it. I wonder if that note has an underlying intent towards some people, lol! NY saved me at least hundreds of dollars this year and has served me well!

[DYRL VF-1S]

1 minute ago, Slave IV said:

Yep, that was a welcome message from NY but ironic if the people who appreciate them didn't get it. I wonder if that note has an underlying intent towards some people, lol! NY saved me at least hundreds of dollars this year and has served me well!

Saving the best for last brother!

[Lolicon]

Finally satisfied with my DX 1S and the last of the hobby work for the year.

Have a good Christmas everyone! 

[DWN013]

1 hour ago, Lolicon said:

Finally satisfied with my DX 1S and the last of the hobby work for the year.

Have a good Christmas everyone! 

[snip] 

Tail modex, white landing gear, ejection triangle, panel lines(?), anything else on this one?  (looks fantastic BTW, great job!!)

Edited December 25, 2019 by DWN013

[scand]

I Ordered overpriced SSPs from Buyee.com (Yahoo JP). They have already shipped and will hopefully be here early next week.

[pengbuzz]

On 12/21/2019 at 3:51 PM, Chronocidal said:

Oy.. I feel like the packs need to be stripped down, and have every tampo reapplied at 50% size..  Bandai just cannot do subtle markings, can they?  

Yeah, they may as well just put a neon sign that says "DANGEROUS END HERE, STAY CLEAR A-HOLES!!"

[tjdetweiler]

I just emailed AE and asked on when the strike packs will get shipped, then I received an email saying request shipment of items, just waiting to pay for them and get it shipped. yey!

 

*Edit* just paid for shipping

Merry Christmas everyone!!

Edited December 25, 2019 by tjdetweiler

[Lolicon]

2 hours ago, DWN013 said:

Tail modex, white landing gear, ejection triangle, panel lines(?), anything else on this one?  (looks fantastic BTW, great job!!)

Thanks! Added the skull emblems behind the cockpit and a few more miscellaneous markings, including some additional lift and jack points above and below the aircraft.

17 minutes ago, tjdetweiler said:

I just emailed AE and asked on when the strike packs will get shipped, then I received an email saying request shipment of items, just waiting to pay for them and get it shipped. yey!

 

*Edit* just paid for shipping

Merry Christmas everyone!!

Whoa! I checked my AE account and all my SSPs were ready to ship! Went ahead and requested shipping on all mine. AE never sends me notices when stuff is in stock and ready to be shipped.

[DYRL VF-1S]

Badass guys. Glad AE pulled through for some of you!

[Ignacio Ocamica]

My AE set is showing April release. Oh well, my 1S will stay naked till then.

[RIBFIR]

I was one of the last, if not the last order placed for Stike Parts @ AE before they were closed and before the April batch being announced.  I just emailed them the status of my order and here was the response:

Quote

this was one of the last order, so your batch will be in april

 Sadly I'm stuck paying scalper prices this Christmas 

Edited December 25, 2019 by RIBFIR

[ps99042]

NY just informed me that my strike parts are now coming with the second release even though I bought and paid for it during the initial pre-order.  And this was only a few hours after getting the email about how my trust is the foundation of their success.  Sigh...

Edited December 25, 2019 by ps99042

[jenius]

Ha, I ordered from NY within hours of the listing and also got bumped to April. Not a fan of what they do with my trust over there.

[VF-Zer0S]

1 hour ago, jenius said:

Ha, I ordered from NY within hours of the listing and also got bumped to April. Not a fan of what they do with my trust over there.

Same and what a shame. I need to use a proxy now. Does FromJapan work well as a proxy for TWE items?

[Grey728]

I also ordered first night from AE. No confirmation email or anything but i got three sitting in stock (along with a couple of other items) waiting to ship. Woohoo!

 

However, now that I’ve requested shipment all of the items I’ve ordered, history, etc, have disappeared. Is this normal? Seems kinda scary that their service works this way. 

[ErikElvis]

Yeah got bumped to April. Not to happy with NY this time. I’ll try to be patient. 

[Knightdramon]

Grrrr. Ordered and paid on the 7th of June, yet my order has been moved to April as well. It could be Bandai messing around with their allocation but honestly, WTF. 

I would have felt better about it had I not paid money for something I won't essentially get until 10 months down the line. 

[Alphahorizon]

Ordered from AE 3 sets on the 6th at mid-morning / afternoon. I also inquired when to expect them and was told April.

 

More then anything I just want to dress up my valks. I dont blame the retailers as much as the manufacturer. For all I know those retailers may be being told they will have enough, disbt get enough and had to split the first orders recieved and push the rest back.

More reasons to drop extra on scalper pricing and just be done with it. Merry Christmas everyone.

[sqidd]

1 hour ago, Knightdramon said:

Grrrr. Ordered and paid on the 7th of June, yet my order has been moved to April as well. It could be Bandai messing around with their allocation but honestly, WTF. 

I would have felt better about it had I not paid money for something I won't essentially get until 10 months down the line. 

I would be interested if this trend was the same for Japanese customers.

Baseless speculation here, but I suspect that US customers are getting bumped to April because they don't care as much about the US customer and know most of us will keep buying anyway.

I had a couple members here kindly sell me their extra Strike Packs at PO or very close to PO pricing (thanks guys!!!!). And I purchased a couple more sets at "scalper" pricing so I had plenty on the shelf for future VF-1 re;eases and a couple customs (Come on Focker!!!). The price I paid for the scalper units was not THAT much higher than PO pricing. 

This is not the first time I have waited until something was released to get one/some recently. I'm not paying much of a premium at all. And in a lot of cases getting my units faster than people who PO'd them. I'm not saying I won't try and PO stuff in the future. I will when I can. But I'm no longer stressed about getting PO's on PO night anymore. If I get them I get them, if I don't, I don't. I certainly have places I will not be PO'ing from that's for sure. AE and NY being two of them.

[Guyffon]

After all the emails to and fro with AE about why I was bumped to april, now when I check my account its now there. Not sure how to feel about this. by the way I ordered on the 6th of june for a single unit, so I should have been told that mine is in dec, so why they whole April thing, plus not so friendly emails.

Edited December 25, 2019 by Guyffon

[HardlyNever]

Same situation with NY. I ordered the SS parents June 7, also got the email that they "just found out" the release date changed (lol). I wonder if any of us are going to get December/January shipments, or they are just going to scalp most of their first wave for more profit.

Either way, NY just went from "not my first choice" to "absolute last resort only" for me.

[Duymon]

*Rage Intensifies*

[Toonz]

WTF nyp WTF?!

did you run out of stocks?

[crackpot]

That sucks that NY wasn't forthcoming initially with this. I can't say this is Bandai's fault like the 31A situation. Demand just exceeded supply just like any initial round TWE PO and NY should have anticipated this, have been ready to place the TWE orders when it went live but didn't. They never placed orders for the December release is the likely scenario unless somebody here is able to show otherwise.

The question is will you guys just wait it out or try to get your money back?

[Corrinald]

I just got the NY notification that my Super/Strike order got bumped to April too. I ordered a full set of 5 of them almost immediately. Pretty shady of NY, but not unexpected. This may make me pause before ordering anything from them again. Luckily I got a spare set on the way from a different source so my Hikaru 1S can be decked out. Not like I need the rest of them until they release all the rest of the DYRL figures but I am still irked. Might as well wait it out at this point.

Bandai's stuff is neat, but I much prefer collecting Arcadia's stuff to be honest. All of this nonsense is unnecessary. 

 

[beatsing]

On 12/22/2019 at 7:47 PM, DYRL VF-1S said:

Speaking of backups, here’s my HS “freebie”. This will never be transformed but at least I can throw some supers on it and still looks good in fighter mode. 

@DYRL VF-1S, so asking again, HS didn't ban you after going to Paypal

23 hours ago, Matt Random said:

Funny, I just got this from NY...

Your trust is the foundation of our success.
It is wonderful to express our highest and sincere regards to you.

NY does certainly test my patience, but I think this time it is more due to Bandai underestimating demand. The retailers probably were waiting until close to the close of the ordering window to submit their orders. This time that backfired and resulted in their orders going to the April batch.

If this wasn't the last Macross purchase in my foreseeable future I'd finally take the plunge and set up an address forwarding proxy account. Seem like the best bet for TWE stuff.

I got this message from NY even though I'm banned 

17 hours ago, sh9000 said:

Just checked and I got the NY Happy Holidays email earlier in the morning.  I would have been surprised if I didn’t get it since I’m one of their long-standing customers.

I'm one of their banned customers for complaining to Paypal and they still spam me

13 hours ago, Lolicon said:

Finally satisfied with my DX 1S and the last of the hobby work for the year.

Have a good Christmas everyone! 

nice

[Duymon]

1 hour ago, crackpot said:

That sucks that NY wasn't forthcoming initially with this. I can't say this is Bandai's fault like the 31A situation. Demand just exceeded supply just like any initial round TWE PO and NY should have anticipated this, have been ready to place the TWE orders when it went live but didn't. They never placed orders for the December release is the likely scenario unless somebody here is able to show otherwise.

The question is will you guys just wait it out or try to get your money back?

Can't get my money back. it's past the 6-month paypal window already since I paid in early June. 

[Anasazi37]

11 hours ago, Lolicon said:

Whoa! I checked my AE account and all my SSPs were ready to ship! Went ahead and requested shipping on all mine. AE never sends me notices when stuff is in stock and ready to be shipped.

Thanks for the heads up, guys! I just checked my account and my set is ready to ship, too. Availability notices from them have been hit or miss for me over the past year.

[Anasazi37]

7 hours ago, jenius said:

Ha, I ordered from NY within hours of the listing and also got bumped to April. Not a fan of what they do with my trust over there.

Seems like they sent that message to everyone who ordered SSP sets from them, regardless of when the order was placed (mine was after P-Bandai started taking POs for the April batch)

[Alphahorizon]

15 minutes ago, Anasazi37 said:

Thanks for the heads up, guys! I just checked my account and my set is ready to ship, too. Availability notices from them have been hit or miss for me over the past year.

Just checked after reading this and sure enough, mine are now ready to ship (so I did) even though I was sent an email when I inquired about it a week ago. The email response didn't seem rude or mean, but I made sure on my initial inquiry that I was polite. However; I don't like walking on eggshells when that kind of money is on the line. I'll report back when I get an actual notice of them shipping since I still have to pay for that sets shipment.

[Anasazi37]

6 hours ago, VF-Zer0S said:

Same and what a shame. I need to use a proxy now. Does FromJapan work well as a proxy for TWE items?

I've had good experiences with them when ordering TWE items. Buyee is another option that MW members have talked about, and there are several more that all seem reasonable. Whichever proxy you go with, though, you should get your orders in early. Bandai enforces per-item purchasing limits. They might be higher for proxies than for individual customers, but there are limits. I've already had one order cancelled by FJ for that reason, but they were very professional about it. They explained why it happened and immediately refunded my payment.

5 hours ago, Grey728 said:

I also ordered first night from AE. No confirmation email or anything but i got three sitting in stock (along with a couple of other items) waiting to ship. Woohoo!

 

However, now that I’ve requested shipment all of the items I’ve ordered, history, etc, have disappeared. Is this normal? Seems kinda scary that their service works this way. 

You should see all of the items you've requested to ship in the "Pay Shipping" section and once they're shipped they'll show up in the "Shipped" section, which is as close as they get to giving you a list of past orders. Their system is not as elegant as HLJ's, but at least the items don't completely disappear.

[crackpot]

35 minutes ago, Duymon said:

Can't get my money back. it's past the 6-month paypal window already since I paid in early June. 

They do have a policy though for delayed goods/services or pre-orders that has to be delivered within a certain timeframe or else the seller cannot accept payment if they cannot meet the requirement. I've read some have successfully gotten their money back even past the 6 months. You just have to point that out do it ASAP.

[Matt Random]

Guess I should have went with my initial instinct and ordered from AE. Since I put my order in on 6/6 I probably would be one of the folks getting it now.

Looking at NY's order page I see the following. This is certainly not factual since I believe that many of us ordered in what would be considered the first window. Not to mention that the button on the page still says Preorder which would lead you to believe it is still the first bucket if you didn't know better.

Pre-order, Early Orders: December 2019

Late Orders: April 2020

[Roy Focker]

I got the same your order been moved to April email from NY.

Which is complete bull shit.  I was an early pre-order.   A few weeks ago they even sent me an email saying here's the new release date for December.  Why send us notices about a new December release date in the first place?

Can I share a word about how most of these companies suck with the whole customer satisfaction thing?   They all sell premium expensive collector items.  You go to any other business that sales luxury goods and you leave satisfied with the service.  They provide it because what they sell isn't cheap.