NEW CGC COMICS FOR SALE

[metropoliscomics]

Hi Bob, sure, I'll be happy to redirect my wife's frustration at you.... You have been warned.

 

In this particular instance I think she was unhappy that Metropolis didn't get back to her until the absolute last minute, the day of our anniversary. After putting in the order and not hearing anything to the contrary from them for a number of days she was under the impression that the sale had gone through. She had used photoshop to create a custom card of the comic cover with a bunch of text edited over the images, which she had to scrap at the last minute because they called and said the book wasn't available. She also had made a cool "coupon" redeemable for that book. Had they let her know earlier that there was a problem with the book, she wouldn't have been so upset. She spent the rest of the day scrambling to get another book ordered and make up a different card and "coupon" based on the cover of that book. The happy ending is that she did so successfully, and we had a very happy anniversary, and needless to say I'm quite pleased with the book that she DID manage to purchase.

 

And yes, you should have let them know you sold the book. But if they are going to rely on third party consignment then they need to be able to provide better response time when there's a problem.

 

As far as punishing Metropolis, CGC should punish them for repeatedly breaking the rules on these boards by posting the type of spam that they posted above (which is also posted in the Gold and Bronze sections too).

 

 

After responding to your post I asked my shiping manager exactly what happened with your wife's order so that we could avoid this happening in the future.

This is what happened according to Zac (Shipping and Inventory Manager):

On Thursday, Ed asked me to help a customer because he had another call to deal with. I picked up the phone and took Beth Welch's information. She told me that Ed had promised to try to get a scan of the Tales to Astonish book from Bob because she planned to make a special card for her husband with the image. She was going to make the card because she knew that she probably would not be able to get the books in time being that she had waiting until the 14th to finally place an order. She then asked me about another book (NOT a co-owned book), which I put on her invoice.

I told her, as Ed had also done, that the Tales to Astonish was not in our office. I told her that there was a very SLIGHT chance that Bob could bring the book that day, but that I was not making any promises. In fact, I told her that there was not a very good chance of it at all. If Bob had brought the book that day (Thursday), I would have overnighted the book for Friday delivery. I specifically asked her if it was acceptable that the book would probably not be shipped until a later date, and she said that that was fine.

Thursday afternoon came and went, and Bob didn't respond to Ed's request for the book (Bob has a day job). On Friday, Ed told me that Bob e-mailed us to say that the book had been sold. I immediately called Beth Welch to tell her this. I was extremely apologetic as she seemed very upset. She said that she had spent several hours making a card for her husband with images of the comic books. I made no mention of the fact that she had waited until the very last minute to try to find these comics. I simply apologized and agreed to cancel the order.

 

Rhino-

This sounds a bit different than the description you posted yesterday.

Vincent Zurzolo

[Silver Surfer]

I was blown away that she went to all the work she did. Really touched me. Made me feel like a million bucks.

 

Sounds like a good birthday all around. Does she have a sister?

[Sharkey]

So now we should get into a "he said, she said" situation? Great.

 

I don't think the stories are that different, and you should be careful about implying that they are because it sounds condescending and accusatory. Look at the facts again. The description is pretty much correct.

 

The time frame is mostly what's in question. I was under the impression that it had been a few days in between, not one day. If that's not correct, then I definitely apologize for the erroneous info.

 

However, the facts and frustration over what happened are still the same. She was searching for books for me for a while and the TTA 22 is a book I need and that we both like the cover to, and she was pretty excited to see a 9.0 because she knows I like nice books, especially nice pre-hero books that are tough to find in high grades. And she is not a comic book purchasing expert, so as a general customer going to your web site to buy a comic book, her expectation was that a book advertised for sale on your web site would actually be available. Not an unrealistic expectation.

 

There is also a big difference between "the owner might or might not be able to bring the book to the store today" vs "the owner might not even still own the book that you are trying to purchase." If she had been told the latter statement up front, I dont' think she would have been so frustrated when she found out it was not available.

 

She was under the impression that the book would be available for sale and she did get a scan of the book and made a card based on the TTA 22 cover image. The issue was not whether it would be available in time for our anniversary; that's why she made the card and the coupon. The issue was more that she didn't think it was communicated to her that the book would possibly not be available at all and had she known that up front, she would not have done the card. And in fact, she did add another book to the list because she was going to get me more than one book. But she ended up canceling the order completely when the TTA 22 was not available.

 

And when I saw that you had posted a list yesterday that included the book that wasn't available last week needless to say that took me by surprise. We've gone over all the whys and wherefore's on that already so we don't need to again.

[metropoliscomics]

The time frame was my main concern and my point is that we acted in as responsible a manner as we could within a a very short period of time. Inherent in co-owning inventory with another dealer is the chance the book was sold by the other party-however this is a seldom occurrence. Once again I feel horrible that this happened but did not appreciate the incorrect content of your post. It sounds like you have a truly loving and caring wife. I know if my wife had this type of experience I would be upset too. I do hope there is some way to resolve this situation. I have PMed you and also left a message on your answering machine today. Perhaps we can get this behind us and move forward. If you would like to pursue this please contact me at your leisure 800-229-6387.

 

Sincerely,

 

Vincent

[Sharkey]

The time frame was my main concern and my point is that we acted in as responsible a manner as we could within a a very short period of time. Inherent in co-owning inventory with another dealer is the chance the book was sold by the other party-however this is a seldom occurrence. Once again I feel horrible that this happened but did not appreciate the incorrect content of your post. It sounds like you have a truly loving and caring wife. I know if my wife had this type of experience I would be upset too. I do hope there is some way to resolve this situation. I have PMed you and also left a message on your answering machine today. Perhaps we can get this behind us and move forward. If you would like to pursue this please contact me at your leisure 800-229-6387.

Sincerely,

Vincent

 

Well, at this time I have not received a PM from you. But I am really NOT interested in pursuing this. The book is no longer available, end of story. Unless you have another 9.0 sitting around then there's not much to do about it.

 

As far as the "incorrect information" in my original post, although my time frame was off slightly, it wasn't off by much. My wife made her first call to Metropolis on Tuesday and was told the person she needed to talk to about that particular book was not there and she should call back tomorrow. Over the course of the next couple days she had multiple conversations with your staff about the book until finding out on Friday that it was actually not available after all. There were also a number of other customer service gaffes that I didn't originally mention, such as her being transferred to several people without finding someone who could help her, being told the owner might be bringing the book in later that day (when in fact the book was no longer even available), and so on. I'm not saying they didn't try to help her, because they definitely did. But the overall experience was not a good one from the customer service standpoint.

 

Bottom line is she was led to believe the book was available and it wasn't. Granted, your staff didn't know that at the time. But at the same time, it was longer than a 24 hour situation, so your staff may be playing some CYA with you to save face. Their story does not match hers. Again, "he said, she said." We could do this all day. I don't have time for it, and you probably don't either.

 

Here's the deal: it didn't work out. You don't have the book. And you've agreed to post for sale lists in Marketplace not in the other forums.

 

Let's drop it and move on.

[metropoliscomics]

fine. My Pm didn't get to you because I didn't notice your _ in your name. I basically wanted to see if we could move forward in a positive way. If you would like to speak to me about this please feel free to call me at 800-229-6387.

Sincerely,

 

Vincent