I hate to make this my first post, as I should have already posted on this thread before Michael started in with all the emails back and forth from Red Frog. As a result this is huge, and tells my experience with TZD during their 'sale'. My apologies for the length before hand, but it is pretty in depth.
Most of you already know who I am here. I'm the 'quoth' or Eric that Michael talks about occasionally.
Either way, enough introduction.
For those wondering if Michael is telling the truth, yeah he may be very verbose and quite detailed about everything here, but it's all true. Red Frog are asses and I will never deal with them after seeing his experience, not to mention my second hand view of the whole situation, especially since I am the one that has been having to take care of the Paypal claim on the items he didn't receive (it was paid for through my Paypal account). Them buying TZD won't impact me much, as I never attempted to deal with them or dealt with them until their sale that all of you know about, back in November, and I definitely won't be now.
I don't appreciate the prior owner of TZD's handling of the situation, nor do I appreciate them lying to people to make sales (which they did), or changing both mine and Michael's order that I submitted combined without at least notifying me that they even did so. They also lied about shipping out our order, and told both of us different things when we called up separately. They also charged my card, and then sent a check out as a refund for a credit card payment. I don't know if any of you know anything about refund policies, but that is not considered professional in any sense. That also doesn't fly with credit card companies when you don't receive the check, and the company argues with you about the situation. Also, they would have ended up ripping off Michael if he ordered separately like he was originally going to, via Money Order. They told him when he originally asked that they had Lords of Thunder in stock. They were sold out before a money order would have even arrived (he doesn't have a credit card).
I also don't appreciate the previous owner holding back stock from all of us. I don't care if it was 1 copy or 1000. What kind of business holds back stock that they could sell and make money off of? And that sale that was mentioned before, where the owner sold off the first 2 letters of the Alphabet of rare titles he had back stocked is a joke as well. That is probably around the time that talks started for selling off the business.
Now look where the stuff is. Up on eBay. Going for too much, and possibly more since the last time I looked. The new owner of TZD (Red Frog) can say all day long that those games are from his 'collection', but I don't believe it for one minute. The timing is just a little bit too coincidental for me to believe that. I really doubt that those 5 will be the end of this either.
Either way, enough about Red Fog, er I mean Red Frog. They are not TZD and never will be whatever TZD was.
This post is about my issue and experience with the previous TZD so you people can see their BS. My credit card company is still doing an investigation on the refund, and TZD has not bothered even cooperating with them. Wondering why that is a big deal? They said they would accept the charge back, that's why. They also told me that my order was shipped when I called them, but when Michael called them maybe 15 minutes later, they told him that it wasn't. This was about the time that everyone on here was posting, saying they were out of Forgotten Worlds. I called them prior to making an order, and they said they had them in, I then made my order quickly after that, and ironically, when all was said and done, I didn't have one in my order.
So here are the details:
Keep in mind, that I threw away my original confirmation emails from when I made my order, after I canceled my order because I was urked about the whole thing. Plus I wasn't worried about it because I knew I was covered by my Credit Card company if they tried to pull something.
I made my order on November 2nd online, and got a confirmation back either the same day or next day. I had called them prior to ask if certain items were in stock, which they told me they were.
Then I started hearing about items being pulled from orders on Monday the 5th from Michael and all of you talking about the situation on here. So I called them up, asked them if my order had shipped. Told me Yes, order shipped already. I said Ok, Thanks, hung up the phone. Then me and Michael started talking, and he was reading other stuff on here, and he decided to call them up, after all of it. He asked them if the order had shipped off yet, They said no. That wasn't even 30 minutes after they told me it had shipped. Not sure what else they told him, but then the whole thing about them pulling items out of the orders without telling people was going on, and he had been reading that as well. So I called them back up, asked them about it, asked them what had been pulled out of the order. They told me both copies of Forgotten Worlds, and a few other items were pulled. I immediately told them, 'I will call you back' and hung up on them. I did that because Michael wasn't even wanting to place an order unless he could get a copy of Forgotten Worlds. He only ordered the additional items he wanted, because of the shipping being combined and such a cheap rate with my stuff. It was only worth it to him if he could get a copy of Forgotten Worlds in the deal, as the stuff was cheaper elsewhere, which I agreed with him. Same kinda fell on my stuff as well, and the stuff they removed made the rest of the order not worth it to me. So I talked to Michael immediately about it, told him what they told me, and he told me just to go ahead and cancel the stuff on his side. So I called them back up with Michael on 3-way, and told them to cancel my order (note without me even saying who I was, or anything), and he instantly said, 'OK done.' I just hung up after that, and whiled annoyed, it gave me money to spend on other stuff, because originally I wasn't even going to make an order if it hadn't been for the sale.
Afterwards of that, I looked on my credit card status online. I noticed that they had charged me on the 4th, as the image shows (scanned from my statement I received later that month):
So I kept on checking it...kinda forgot about it for a week or so, figured it would take care of itself. So I checked it again, still nothing changed. So I finally wrote them at bonk@tzd.com on November 19th:
Hello, I placed my order on the 1st or 2nd of
November, and then canceled it on the 5th, as a result
of all of the items not being in stock, and my order
being modified without my notification. I was told at
that time of canceling, that the items had not shipped
yet.
My credit card was charged on the 4th, but I have yet
to see a credit posted to my account. It has been 15
days today. I don't know my order # off hand, as I
deleted the emails after I canceled my order.
The name would be under **** ****. The shipping
address would have been:
** *** ****
*********, ** *****-****
The billing address would be:
** ******** **** ***
*********, ** *****-****
The order was charged on a Discover Card in the amount
of $136.50; the last 4 digits of the card # is ****.
Please let me know the status of the credit back to my
account. If you need anymore information, please feel
free to email me.
Thank you.
I then get a reply back the next day (November 20th):
Our refund check #16772 in the amount of $136.50 was cut November 8. It
is not to be posted to your Discover card, it is a refund check.
So I write them back the same day:
I have not received anything like that in my mailbox,
nor have I ever heard of any company that did a charge
on a credit card, issuing a credit or refund in the
form of a check. It is common policy to credit the
account back in the full amount.
I would appreciate it if the amount in question was
simply refunded back to my card. It has already been
15 days.
Please let me know, Thank you.
So then, here in the story is where I get ignored and they start getting rude. I waited until the 26th (6 days after the last email that they didn't reply back to), and wrote them again with the last email attached to the bottom of it as well:
I wrote the reply below on the same day that I
received the first response, on November 20th. I have
not received anything in my mailbox in the form of a
check, a refund back to my credit card, or a reply to
my email.
Since you apparently just want to ignore me, I am done
dealing with you people. My credit card statement will
be coming sometime in the next few days, and I will be
filing a charge back since you people apparently
refuse to refund me my money to my account. You can
deal with my credit card company since you don't want
to deal with me. Have fun telling them that you sent a
check, as that is not normal business practice when
dealing with credit cards, not to mention it won't fly
since I have not received anything. I will also be
filing with the BBB in your area, and the IFC as well.
You people lied about what you have in stock to get
people to make orders for other stuff, then attempt to
pull a quick one on them, by not telling them that you
changed their order. It's really sad that you guys
decide to close up shop and do this to not only
myself, but several other customers that have been
supporting you for years. Also, selling items that are
used, and stating them as new, is a fast way to get in
trouble as well.
Good riddance.
I was going to file with the BBB and IFC, like I mentioned, but I got lazy :-P. It definitely wouldn't do any good now anyway other than making Red Frog have a mark on their name. I also threw in there what I had been reading about on here as well about a few of you getting used items and damaged things. I can't remember off hand if i knew about Keranu's TV Tuner incident. Either way, I get this response back the next day (November 27th):
We do not lie to customers, we made an honest mistake. When you called we believed that we had another unopened box. You took an innocent mistake and blew it beyond all sense of proportion. We said in the initial offer that we would run out of some titles. A sealed box was mis-marked, it was actually 24 pieces of Splash Lake inside. It was no one's fault. You did not ask us to communicate anything to you, if you had we would have told you a title was missing. Dozens of other customers that day were happy to get a great deal on games even if they couldn't get everything they wanted.
We did issue the refund check as stated. That has been our policy for 14 years, we set policy not you. We will accept the chargeback after we have put a stop-payment order in with our bank. We're sorry you have made this so unpleasant. Happily for us the vast majority of our customers appreciate our support of this platform.
TZD
www.tzd.com
When I received this, my immediate reaction was, WTF is he talking about? Splash Lake? What? I ended up asking Michael about that later on to find out what they were even talking about. Either way, I have bought from several other companies in the past, and ALL of them either indicated that items were out of stock prior to sending my order, or when my order was shipped in the form of an email or calling me. I never had to tell ANY of them that I needed to know this. They do it as a courtesy, and don't assume the customer doesn't want to know what they won't be getting until it is too late. I don't care if a sale is going on or not, that's a piss poor excuse. As for others being happy, there is an old phrase that goes 'If momma ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.' Stupid phrase I know, but none the less, it basically means that it shouldn't matter if everyone else is happy, I'm the customer at hand.
'we set policy not you.'
No, that's not rude at all. That type of refund is not any kind of policy that any other kind of company I can think of off hand does. Check around, they will probably look at you dumbfounded if you even mention it.
'We're sorry you have made this so unpleasant.'
They are sorry that I (as in ME) have made this so unpleasant? Wow, great way to say that we don't care about you as a customer there. I think the only thing that made this unpleasant was their lies, and the fact that I canceled my order with no refund after 22 days of being charged, not to mention their email replies.
Either way, so I write them back on the same day:
I'm not sure what this crap about Splash Lake is, but
that is not even close to what I am talking about,
which further more proves what I said before.
Actually, you have pissed off a lot of customers more
than anything, and even if you were staying in
business, a large majority won't be dealing with you
again. So, I'm not sure where you get off saying
'Dozens of other customers that day were happy', when
I have heard far more than that, NOT HAPPY.
Regardless of what you issued, I didn't receive
anything. Also, when I pay with a credit card, MY
CREDIT CARD COMPANY sets policy, not you. You can sit
and think in dream land that you are in control, but
that is nothing but a thought when it comes to this
kind of thing.
'Happily for us the vast majority of our customers
appreciate our support of this platform.'
Yeah, well I know of several that aren't appreciative
of your service, lack of communication, and overall
wouldn't deal with you ever again, even if you were
the last dealer on earth.
Regardless of how you care to address it, your
business practices since all of this sale has started
is unacceptable, not to mention left a bad taste in a
large amount of customer's mouths. Further more not
even apparently caring to clear up the situations
makes it even worse. Selling USED items as NEW is a
sure chance to never have to worry about getting
business with someone else again as well. I'm also
glad that I opted to combine an order with my friend
and pay by credit card, because you lied to him as
well, and he would have been screwed over, as he would
have been paying by Money Order.
Send in your stop payment, or whatever you have to do.
I received no check, nor would I have accepted such a
payment, so if it has been cashed or whatever, go
looking for someone else. All I know is that if I
haven't received my refund back in the full amount of
my total by the time that I receive my statement, that
I will be calling to file.
I never received a reply back. I ended up filing a charge back with my credit card company, and received a temporary credit pending investigation on December 2nd for the full amount that TZD charged me on the order that was canceled, and I have never received any type of refund back on:
Also note during the whole thing, they never once offered to refund the account back, or send out a 2nd check.
I know a lot of you may have fond memories of them back before the internet, but somewhere along the way, things apparently changed. I heard nothing but good things about them prior to this deal, and I was always impressed with their flyers that I received in the mail and saw elsewhere. This whole thing was disappointing to me, and the fact that some company has bought them out that cares about nothing but making a high dollar by ripping people off over shipping rates and then blaming it on an ex-employee, makes it even worse. If that is TZD now, I want nothing to do with them. I don't really care that much about the U.S. games anyway, as I already have most of them that I want, not to mention the JP variants are usually cheaper.
Once again, sorry this is so long, and I'm sorry that this had to be my first post.
