My ongoing struggle with Toyrocket/PuzzleZoo: why I hate them.

Back in November I briefly mentioned that I had placed an online order with the toy company Toyrocket: they were having a great sale in which everything on the site was between 50-90% off.  This was destined to be too good to be true as the sale was more a result of the company going out of business and trying to sell off as much of its stock before it closed up shop.  This unfortunately had the added consequence of screwing me over and taking my money.  Okay - that's not entirely true.  The store did ship the things I ordered that were in stock, but the two preorders and one backorder I placed never did arrive, and as I expected, they now never will.

I won't say that I'm completely surprised to learn this - once Toyrocket was taken over by PuzzleZoo I realized that my chances of ever seeing the items I ordered or the $35 I paid for them were pretty slim, but my one glimmer of hope came from the greeting on PuzzleZoo's "transition" page:

If you have an order backorder or preorder, this order will remain open for fulfillment by Puzzlezoo.com. Unless you choose to cancel the preorder or backorder, Puzzlezoo.com will still honor and fill those orders as they come in as a service to Toyrocket’s loyal customers.

After Puzzle Zoo opened its new site and some time had passed, I contacted them regarding my order.  This is the response I got from one of their representatives:

Thank you for contacting PUzzleZoo. We are sorry that we are not able to help you with your Toyrocket order. Toyrocket's estate is being administered by a consulting group called Broadway Advisors, LLC. You can find information about Broadway at www.broadwayadvisors.com. Tell them you need information about how to submit an admin claim against the Toyrocket estate for a refund. They should be able to direct you. 

We apologize for the confusion and hassle and hope that this information helps. Although we purchased Toyrocket's assets, we are not Toyrocket and hope you will give us the opportunity to serve you one day. Thank you again for contacting us.

This, of course, goes pretty directly against what they had previous said, but it's not like I had many high hopes for them to come through for me.  I wrote back asking what they meant by the first quote and did not receive any further response.  I did try to contact Broadway Advisors, but - surprise! - they haven't returned any of my correspondence to this date, either.  This is why I (naturally) won't be buying anything from PuzzleZoo, and I hope that this "buyer beware" warning might cause others to think twice before doing so as well.  I realize that not all of this mess is PuzzleZoo's fault, but they shouldn't be making promiseds they couldn't keep if that were the case.

And besides, don't they realize that the backorder I placed included a McFarlane Jerome Bettis figure?  Ack, the pain of coming so close to owning one...