Maelstrom Games review - Poor Customer Service

I placed an order in December from a website called Maelstrom games, which operates out of the UK. Since I am in the US, it might seem strange that I would order from them, but they did sell the combination of products from different companies that I wanted to purchase. So I could get the few different things I wanted from one place, and since they have free shipping, the fact that it was being shipped from the UK wouldn't make much difference, except taking a little longer. Also, their prices are decent, and that combined with the exchange rate made what I was ordering a little cheaper than ordering it from any US websites I could find.

Well, that turned out to be a mistake. I placed my order, and my credit card was charged for the order, on December 22nd. Everything I ordered was listed as in stock at the time I ordered it, but I didn't hear anything from them for several days about my order. On their website, it said the following:

"Orders placed before noon will be processed and (stock willing) sent out the same day; orders placed after noon will be processed and sent the day after."
"However, it is inevitable that some items could be out of stock when you place your order. In such cases we will order your item from the relevant manufacturer on the same day, which will usually take 2-3 working days to fulfil"
"Whatever happens, we will keep you informed by e-mail as to what is happening with your order. "

Well, I did order right before Christmas, and figured they must be pretty busy, and would take time off for the holidays and everything. So I waited the whole week after Christmas, and still had heard nothing from them about my order. If there was some kind of delay, according to their website, they should have informed me by e-mail, so I knew what was happening with my order.

So, a little impatient, on January 3rd I sent an e-mail to them asking why I hadn't heard anything about my order and why it was being delayed, especially since I had already been charged for the order almost 2 weeks before. I much prefer websites that only charge you when they actually send you the order. It turns out some of the items I ordered actually were out of stock, even though the website did not indicate that when I ordered. And they were having trouble getting them back in stock with the UK mail and the supplier being shut down for Christmas, and with Maelstrom having a backlog of orders to get through because they were closed for the holidays.

Okay, that's fine, but I should have been told sooner that the items were out of stock and that they would be delayed. Actually, they should have shown up as out of stock on the website when I ordered to begin with, but I can understand having some technical glitches sometimes. They did show up as out of stock when I checked back at this point, so there's probably just a delay in updating. So I waited a little longer and checked back on their website every few days to check my order status.

One day I checked the status, and happened to notice that all of the items in my order were now showing up as in stock again, with specific numbers available being listed. That seemed like a good sign, but my order status still had not changed. This was three weeks since they had taken my payment for this order. So I wrote another e-mail to ask why there was still a delay if everything was in stock. I was told my order would ship in the next couple of days.

It shipped five days later. They must have still had quite a backlog to work through for it to take that long to pack up three items, but still they should have been honest about how long it would take. Incredibly, the package arrived only two days later, so I am quite impressed with the speed of the Royal Mail. But in the end, it took a month from when I ordered and paid for the merchandise to when I received it. Of course, a large part of that is no doubt due to the holidays and people taking time off combined with an increased number of orders around the same time.

Still, I was not impressed with the customer service given by Maelstrom games in not at all living up to the claims on their own website of the service they provide. Perhaps if their site hadn't claimed such good customer service, I wouldn't be so disappointed, but clearly they do not live up to their claims. I did save some money, but the extra time and hassle was probably not worth the few bucks I saved on the free shipping.

The other thing that really grates is that a few days after I placed the order, and over 3 weeks before it shipped, they sent me their e-mail newsletter announcing a 15% off sale. Had I known that some of the items were out of stock when I ordered, I could have waited a couple days to place the order and saved some money, and it wouldn't have taken any longer. Or if I'd known it was still going to take so long, I could have canceled the order and placed it again later, but my credit card had already been charged, and I'd probably be out the currency conversion fee. So that was pretty annoying.

Anyway, if any of you out there have had dealings with Maelstrom games and their customer service, let me know what your experience was like.