Be careful in dealing with Mycomicshop.com !!!

[Badger]

Regarding the second order with the bundles with the smashed corner--we occasionally hear reports like this. Not frequently, but more often than we think can be attributable to somebody on our packing team dropping a bundle of books on their corner.

 

When a customer sees corner damage without obvious damage to the box, they think we dropped the books before packing them up, and then shipped them anyway. We don't think that's what's happening. We believe that it's sometimes possible for books to incur this kind of corner damage due to being banged around during shipping, even when the impact doesn't crunch the outer box itself. We are investigating the best ways to address this, including custom packaging options and/or shipping everything bagged/boarded.

I know this happens without a doubt; I've seen on International orders a few times. The last International order I shipped, I went nuts on the packing material trying to make sure this would not happen. It was a rather fragile book to begin with and I did not want it shifting in transit.

[Boba]

I just gave them a recommendation and I've never used them. Based on the majority of respondents it seemed like a good fit. Hope they take care of him.

[Doktor]

I figured it was simply a mistake or oversight, but the repeated brush-offs were unacceptable. The order never reached UPS mail innovations and after nearly 2 weeks of not reaching them, and placing a 2nd order that came in before the first one did, while being essentially brushed off with both of my previous polite requests to look into the matter, I was justifiably upset.

 

I probably should have been a little more polite in my 3rd e-mail on the matter, but hey... I'd done that twice and been essentially told to just wait until the shipping window had passed before you guys would even look into it. If I see that my tracking shows it in Russia, should I see if it comes back to the US first? Or just wait until it gets delivered to the Kremlin before you'll look into it. When I can see something's wrong early, I'm going to ask for it to get looked into. Whether that's cool with you or not, it's a very reasonable way to deal with a problem you can see coming from a mile away. I saw a problem & would have appreciated you guys even looking into it instead of brushing it off twice.

 

I understand tracking info not always updating but you DO provide tracking. Maybe not "down to the minute, where is it at this very moment" tracking, but the tracking you provide tells me when it hits UPS Mail Innovations and when it then gets to USPS. After that, it's a -shoot. I get that, but it never reached UPS, much less USPS. And each time I brought this to the attention of your ebay rep, I was brushed off with a "we don't provide tracking" while I'm staring at tracking that you provided.

 

And just to clarify, the original shipping label was on the package, covered by an overnight shipping label. So I don't know who put on the new shipping label, but it's there. I can even take a picture of it for you if you'd like. But someone somewhere realized they screwed up & it just so happened to be right after my not-so-polite 3rd request on the same issue. Coincidence? Possibly. But hey, it magically got overnighted.

 

It probably got lost in your move. It's cool. I get that..

 

But hey, it's fine. No big deal. You guys still do good work. It was unfortunate timing & circumstances. Stuff happens. I won't stop buying from someone for a screw up or 2.

 

And I really do appreciate that someone would even bother to look into my minor complaint that's pretty much a non-issue to begin with. Thanks, man.

[bababooey]

This policy to block buyers is ridiculous and the very reason I won't do business with MCS.

I don't have a problem dealing with a company who will block customers based on limiting the amount of abuse their customer service people are required to tolerate.

 

The policy would never affect me & I don't really have much sympathy, nor do I relate, to those it does affect.

 

 

[01TheDude]

a few things stand out to me after reading these back and forths with MCS and Doktor.

 

1) I disagree with the block immediately as soon as someone complains about anything. That assumes the buyer will be a problem buyer without doing any investigation of the matter first. If that is their policy, perhaps it should be taken on a case by case basis-- especially when dealing with a repeat buyer who has good feedback.

 

2) moving your business during the holidays seems really strange and terrible timing. Hopefully that was mentioned on your website.

 

3) no matter how an item is damaged during shipping, returns should be hassle free. If the same customer repeatedly complains about similar issues, that might raise the awareness level. Hard to believe insides get damaged with no outside damage is present.

 

4) Having some experience with antsy buyers who send messages while something is still in the shipping phase is tedious occasionally *.

 

* side note- sometimes in ridiculous fashion-- like the day I print out the shipping postage "where is the tracking for this?" -- umm it isn't even at the post office yet-- not the case here, but representative of newer buyers I've dealt with).

I don't see this guys early messages as too out of line. The last one should not have been sent even if the buyer thought something was wrong and that the message corrected it. The nasty language should never be used from either party as it tends to tick off the other side (blocked etc). On the other hand, a simple "sorry - we will look into this and get back to you" from the seller would be courteous.

 

5. Nice touch addressing the concerns here on the forum. That is good customer service.

 

With any luck, they have removed the block by now.

[Mark 1]

This policy to block buyers is ridiculous and the very reason I won't do business with MCS.

 

I know you aren't losing sleep over that fact but I can't be alone in my thinking.

 

I've never heard of a service company treat customers like that.

Um, what? Have you seen the eBay blocked buyer list maintained on these boards? With eBay rules, sellers have to block potential bad customers or they risk being almost arbitrarily being put out of business. Its nuts but it is a fact of eBay.

 

Now, with MCS's business web site I would hope they would handle it a little differently as there is no "Big Brother" looking over their shoulder. If he had sent a nasty email to customer service about an order being late, an order placed form their MCS website, then I would hope they would just write it off to holiday frustration and wait and see if it escalated after the 30th.

 

 

This policy to block buyers is ridiculous and the very reason I won't do business with MCS.

I don't have a problem dealing with a company who will block customers based on limiting the amount of abuse their customer service people are required to tolerate.

 

The policy would never affect me & I don't really have much sympathy, nor do I relate, to those it does affect.

 

 

I don't think you guys understand. We all have the right to block someone from doing business with us. However, blocking somoene should be a last resort. All other avenues should be made to make the customer happy. If someone sends me a nasty gram on ebay but they want to still buy from me...why would I block them? I'd try to fulfil their request and do my best. IF after all my efforts have failed, then I would decide not to do business with that person and would "block" them.

 

In this case, the guy sent one email that was strong in tone and they block him? How about fulfilling the customers order by standing behind your service and address it with the customer???

 

Who knows, you could make it right and have a customer for life.

 

It seems MCS must have an over abundance of business if they can just throw away clients who happen to have a bad word to say (once).

 

If I did that to my clients, i'd be out of business. it's about customer service...but that idea has gone out the window for most businesses in the USA today.

 

As I said, I won't buy squat from MCS and I spend money. So keep on blocking those people. I'm sure it's a great and sound business model.

[Doktor]

Yeah. I regret getting as agitated as I did (or rather, letting it show) in my 3rd e-mail. I was just kind of tired of getting the brush-off when I could tell something was wrong with the shipment but was being essentially ignored. But the reps probably get a dozen messages a day asking about stupid trivial stuff or from buyers that are antsy about shipping. I definitely could have handled that one more politely.

 

My philosophy has always been to deal with an issue nicely at first and if that doesn't work after a few tries, then it's OK to let the angry side out. I let it out a little too far. Not cool on my part.

 

I just hope in the future, they're more willing to look into issues when a customer asks them to look into something they believe to be a problem if they still believe it to be a problem after a few messages on the same issue.

[RockMyAmadeus]

The key to avoiding corner damage in shipping is this: no movement, against a soft barrier. Mostly, this means several layers of bubble wrap, firmly wrapped around the contents, in a solid box (or, alternately, a tight cardboard sandwich with the items immovably secured to the center.)

 

The principle is a simple one, basic physics at work: whatever is more sturdy will win in a head to head contest of direct force. Something must give. The goal is to make the comics the "sturdier" item, so that what they encounter gives and displaces the force exerted, rather than the books themselves. When the books encounter a sturdier boundary (say, the inside corner of a box), they, being less sturdy, must give and absorb the impact...and thus, the damage.

 

If the contents can move inside a package....at all....the potential for damage inside the package exists.

 

[01TheDude]

Yeah. I regret getting as agitated as I did (or rather, letting it show) in my 3rd e-mail. I was just kind of tired of getting the brush-off when I could tell something was wrong with the shipment but was being essentially ignored. But the reps probably get a dozen messages a day asking about stupid trivial stuff or from buyers that are antsy about shipping. I definitely could have handled that one more politely.

 

My philosophy has always been to deal with an issue nicely at first and if that doesn't work after a few tries, then it's OK to let the angry side out. I let it out a little too far. Not cool on my part.

 

I just hope in the future, they're more willing to look into issues when a customer asks them to look into something they believe to be a problem if they still believe it to be a problem after a few messages on the same issue.

 

years ago, I worked in IT at a business that had a huge call center. The managers had various ways of dealing with callers and generally would give what they could to people who escalated the call to a supervisor. We called that going into customer mode when dealing with our own problems and other call centers. I know this type of stuff exists because I designed a cost plus bonus system that incorporated statistics into the bonus pay formula. It kept track of escalations and other phone service related things like Call-wait times, Call-make-busy etc.

 

that was for a major magazine company

[RockMyAmadeus]

 

The policy would never affect me & I don't really have much sympathy, nor do I relate, to those it does affect.

 

 

No, you really don't, do you?

 

 

That's quite possibly the clearest and most revealing thing you've ever said on these boards.

 

However, you are quite wrong to think that such a policy would never affect you. You have no idea what you might say or do that might annoy someone else, to the point where they would find it necessary to block you.

 

In fact, you may not do anything at all directly, but a friend, partner, or confidante of the party with the policy may ask that you be blocked, and for entirely non-personal reasons.

 

Would you have done anything to deserve it? Not from your view, no.

 

Perspective is a funny, funny thing.

[Mark 1]

I like the Bababooey's!

 

[bababooey]

 

The policy would never affect me & I don't really have much sympathy, nor do I relate, to those it does affect.

 

 

No, you really don't, do you?

 

 

That's quite possibly the clearest and most revealing thing you've ever said on these boards.

 

However, you are quite wrong to think that such a policy would never affect you. You have no idea what you might say or do that might annoy someone else, to the point where they would find it necessary to block you.

 

In fact, you may not do anything at all directly, but a friend, partner, or confidante of the party with the policy may ask that you be blocked, and for entirely non-personal reasons.

 

Would you have done anything to deserve it? Not from your view, no.

 

Perspective is a funny, funny thing.

What did I reveal?

 

Putting it back into context, I was speaking specifically on the act of being rude to a customer service rep over a comic book order. In any customer service role the person is human, I try to be polite & respectful of people when they are simply doing their job...the higher people are on the career ladder the more I'd expect.

 

On the larger point of not knowing a general cause?

I know I've done & said many things that may have gotten me on other people's *spoon* lists here - whether it be for comments in the PL discussion, someone in CG or whatever might put me on someone's 'do not deal' list or just getting placed on ignore by someone. I can live with that.

 

I am just a comic dork here for amusement and entertainment, I figure I have plenty in common with lots of people here. I try more now to avoid taking this place too seriously & wish some others would too.

I also admit that I can be an insufficiently_thoughtful_person but it's intentional shtick most of the time.

 

[RockMyAmadeus]

Putting it back into context, I was speaking specifically on the act of being rude to a customer service rep over a comic book order. In any customer service role the person is human, I try to be polite & respectful of people when they are simply doing their job...the higher people are on the career ladder the more I'd expect.

 

But what is "rude"? Your definition may, or may not, jive with others.

 

There is rude...and there is firm. Where's the line? Oh, anyone can come up with obvious examples way over the line...but where is the actual line, itself? Is there even a line, or is it much more of a zone? If I give someone a very stern dressing down because they have arrogantly overstepped their authority, am I being "rude"? Or am I potentially saving them from disastrous consequences down the road?

 

How about this: when talking to a customer service rep in the Philippines about a buyer on eBay who complained that an order took "too long to ship" (paid on a holiday, 1/20/14, rec'd the next Saturday, 1/25/14), she began to lecture me about shipping my items within my stated handling time because the USPS tracking showed the first "scan point" was on the 25th, at the recipient's post office (a physical impossibility), and she didn't understand that the USPS doesn't always update their tracking properly, despite that being a critical function of her job TO understand.

 

I told her, in no uncertain terms, that she didn't understand her job, the USPS postal system, or that it was impossible for me to deliver an item to a recipient's post office on the same day it is delivered to them, and from 2,000 miles away.

 

She would listen to none of it, arrogantly insisting that I was wrong for not honoring my stated shipping time because all she saw was "arrival at post office, Jan 25th." It didn't matter to her that that was to the recipient's post office, and the item had already been in the postal system for several days; she was, in that moment, completely unteachable.

 

This woman not only didn't know how to do her job, fundamentally, she was arrogantly hostile about it, presuming she had all the answers, that she knew "what was what", when she could not possibly have been more wrong.

 

Not knowing how to do your job is forgivable, provided you're willing to learn and be corrected. But not knowing how to do your job, while arrogantly lecturing a customer about the issue at the same time...?

 

 

That woman should have been fired immediately. You should never, ever talk to customers like that, for any reason, ever. Was she fired? I doubt it.

 

It all comes down to attitude and motive. If someone doesn't know what they're doing, and they are actively harming you in the process. at what point do you step up and say something? Is all conflict or confrontation necessarily rude? There is hardly a soul alive that can be challenged and not consider it rude. That's just human nature.

 

Should everyone be treated professionally? Of course, and there's no place, for any reason, for things like name calling, racism, sexism, vulgarity, or the like. But beyond those things...what does it really mean to be "rude"?

 

I suspect, in the Grand Courtroom of Life, that a lot of things that a lot of people thought were "rude" will be found out to be, when all the details become known, not rude at all, and vice versa. It really does depend on perspective, which is, of course, a funny thing.

 

And I sound just like Roy.

 

[VintageComics]

And I sound just like Roy.

 

 

[bababooey]

Putting it back into context, I was speaking specifically on the act of being rude to a customer service rep over a comic book order. In any customer service role the person is human, I try to be polite & respectful of people when they are simply doing their job...the higher people are on the career ladder the more I'd expect.

 

But what is "rude"? Your definition may, or may not, jive with others.

 

There is rude...and there is firm. Where's the line? Oh, anyone can come up with obvious examples way over the line...but where is the actual line, itself? Is there even a line, or is it much more of a zone? If I give someone a very stern dressing down because they have arrogantly overstepped their authority, am I being "rude"? Or am I potentially saving them from disastrous consequences down the road?

 

 

How about this: when talking to a customer service rep in the Philippines about a buyer on eBay who complained that an order took "too long to ship" (paid on a holiday, 1/20/14, rec'd the next Saturday, 1/25/14), she began to lecture me about shipping my items within my stated handling time because the USPS tracking showed the first "scan point" was on the 25th, at the recipient's post office (a physical impossibility), and she didn't understand that the USPS doesn't always update their tracking properly, despite that being a critical function of her job TO understand.

 

I told her, in no uncertain terms, that she didn't understand her job, the USPS postal system, or that it was impossible for me to deliver an item to a recipient's post office on the same day it is delivered to them, and from 2,000 miles away.

 

She would listen to none of it, arrogantly insisting that I was wrong for not honoring my stated shipping time because all she saw was "arrival at post office, Jan 25th." It didn't matter to her that that was to the recipient's post office, and the item had already been in the postal system for several days; she was, in that moment, completely unteachable.

 

This woman not only didn't know how to do her job, fundamentally, she was arrogantly hostile about it, presuming she had all the answers, that she knew "what was what", when she could not possibly have been more wrong.

 

Not knowing how to do your job is forgivable, provided you're willing to learn and be corrected. But not knowing how to do your job, while arrogantly lecturing a customer about the issue at the same time...?

 

 

That woman should have been fired immediately. You should never, ever talk to customers like that, for any reason, ever. Was she fired? I doubt it.

 

It all comes down to attitude and motive. If someone doesn't know what they're doing, and they are actively harming you in the process. at what point do you step up and say something? Is all conflict or confrontation necessarily rude? There is hardly a soul alive that can be challenged and not consider it rude. That's just human nature.

 

Should everyone be treated professionally? Of course, and there's no place, for any reason, for things like name calling, racism, sexism, vulgarity, or the like. But beyond those things...what does it really mean to be "rude"?

 

 

I suspect, in the Grand Courtroom of Life, that a lot of things that a lot of people thought were "rude" will be found out to be, when all the details become known, not rude at all, and vice versa. It really does depend on perspective, which is, of course, a funny thing.

 

And I sound just like Roy.

 

Maybe it's about what you do to not be perceived as rude in a customer service situation, empathy, humour etc..being candid, personable and imperfect. It's a tough thing to do especially when you get a special case like this, just sigh & move on...being cold, precise and correct won't win the day when you're dealing with the wrong person & fixing everyone is too much damn work.

 

I'm not telling you anything you don't know, you did all the right stuff I mention at the end of your post - I just needed to spoiler the noise (ie-facts) to not miss it.

 

Back to schticky posts now & a contest bump.

 

 

 

[roach04]

I am a very regular customer at MCS and can share a couple of what I think are exceptional customer service stories. (And for god's sake OP - get both a US$ account and a US$ credit card...it's the only way to 'beat' the banks...and with the Bank of Canada cutting the rates today, we're all on the hook for +20% unless you deal solely in currency of origin...US$)

 

(1) Just this past summer I decided I needed a box of stuff before heading to the cottage. I don't buy a lot of "new" comics so I'd missed the entire Rick Remender X-Force and bought the whole run from MCS. Books arrived and I left them in the box and headed up north. When I opened and started reading, I got as far as issue #16 (or 17...can't recall) and realized it was the wrong X-Force (newer series). I figured, they're busy, it happens (stupid Marvel and their constant renumbering...). Wrote an email and the customer service rep very politely told me it was their mistake but because I hadn't reported the issue within 7 days of receiving my order, they could only refund the price of the books and not the shipping. That seemed like a reasonable policy to me - it had taken me probably 5 weeks to tell them. Where it gets better -- I sent those books back in...heck...October? - as part of a larger sale and they still quite happily game me a refund.

 

(2) This one - is my 2nd greatest internet comics story. Probably...7 or 8 years ago, MCS had a great raw Tomb of Dracula #1 that they'd graded ~8.5. I bought thing, looked at it (it was brilliant) and sent to CGC.

 

It came back a 6.5. (No way that book was a 6.5...no way...) So, MCS had a policy of their grades being within a certain range of CGC (don't know if that's still the case, but it was then.). I wrote in - Buddy said "send it back". MCS covered the return shipping, refunded the total cost of the book AND paid the CGC grading fees. I'm not sure I'd even say they made a mistake - but they sure made it great afterwards.

 

 

[bababooey]

they could only refund the price of the books and not the shipping. That seemed like a reasonable policy to me -

I think that is reasonable also.

 

 

[jimbo_707]

Let me explain:

 

I apologize if I wasn't very clear in my previous post but I will attempt to clarify the issue that has upset me very much. This has nothing to do with the 3 percent premium that the company makes. It's only reasonable that they need to make money and I'm all for that.

 

I bought two books that came out to about $750 US. I paid for them in Canadian funds which came out to about $900. But that was not the problem. The problem was that I called customer service and told the lady who picked up the phone that I did not realize I had the money in US funds and realized this only after I paid with my credit card. I simply asked her if I could send a certified check/money order for the same amount and once she would receive it only then would the Visa transaction be reimbursed back to me.This would not cost the company anything but would have saved me the 20% exchange rate which would have been about 150 Canadian. She refused and told me that there was nothing the company could do to help me .

It wouldn't have saved you much of anything. You must still have the $750 in US funds, right? So you can either buy something else with those funds at another time or convert them into Canadian funds, so you'll end up with close to $900 in Canadian funds, minus a nominal fee (much less than 20% unless you're planning to change the funds at an airport).

[romanheart]

Without starting a new thread, can mycomicshop tell me if it's possible to buy comics on their site (commission or not) with time payments?

[Doktor]

Without starting a new thread, can mycomicshop tell me if it's possible to buy comics on their site (commission or not) with time payments?

 

You can pay with paypal & if you have PayPal Credit (formerly Bill Me Later), you can use that to & have 6 months to pay for anything over $99. Assuming that's what you mean for "time payments".