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...

I hope Toyrocket doesn't screw me over.

I wrote a while ago about a great sale going on at toyrocket.com, where everything was at least 50% off.  Deals on this site seemed too good to be true!  And like the old saying goes, when something seems too good to be true, ignore it and spend your money anyway!  Wait, maybe it's a little different.

After placing my order at the site, I quickly received the two Thing figures I paid for, but everything else, including two Toynami Futurama sets and a Jerome Bettis McFarlane figure, was marked as either a preorder (Futurama) or backorder (Bettis).

I will admit that I am not always patient when it comes to things like this, but years of buying stuff from eBay has taught me to put purchases in the back of my mind while waiting for them so I can keep from checking their shipping status a hundred times a day.  I couldn't take it anymore so a few days ago I went to the Toyrocket website and, to my dismay, found the image you see above with the following text attached:

Puzzlezoo is not responsible for any order placed and shipped or canceled before 12/23. Please do not contact Puzzle Zoo regarding a Toyrocket order as they have no information at all regarding any Toyrocket customers. If you placed an order before 12/23 it will have either shipped or been canceled/refunded. If you have not received a refund for a canceled order, please contact your credit card company.

Well, this sucks.  After clicking on a "more info" link, the news might not be as bad, or perhaps I will instead be strung along for a longer ride, as the site elaborated:

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.

So, all hope is not lost, but I'm feeling pretty antsy, especially since Futurama series 7 AND 8 are out already.  My shelf is missing the likes of Mom, Nibbler, Hermes...crap!  Puzzle Zoo, you had better get up and running quickly.

Random updates

...get it? The image is of the character "Random" from X-Force...or X-Factor...one of those X-Men spinoff teams. Whatever. Anyway, a few updates to pass along, none big enough to warrant a long rant:

- I've updated this blog site just a bit by adding a few widgets to the side bar over on the right. Now you can search all posts (just like you've always wanted!), and wander through the maze that is the largest, most incomprehensible tag cloud with all the many, many labels I've used in the past.

You want to know how many times I've used "The Thing" as a tag? Four! (well, now it's five.) How about "Pittsburgh"? Take a peek on the right...and you just might find out! I've even tagged Sarah Palin once, for who knows what reason.

- Todd Nauck has agreed to do an interview for Teddy and the Yeti issue #2. As you'll recall (YOU WILL!), Todd drew the Mr. Massive cover to the same issue. Phil Hester was kind enough to do the same for issue #1 - a cover and an interview. I wasn't sure if I could get a hold of Todd, but I was able to a few days ago.

- They're having a ridiculous sale over at Toyrocket.com, the place I preorder most of my Futurama toys from. I'm not sure how long the sale - 50-90% off their entire stock - will last, but I moved on it as soon as I got the e-mail: among a few other things, I got the Marvel Legends 1st Appearance Thing figure for five bucks!

- I got an e-mail from Pat Olliffe on Thursday saying that his Teddy and the Yeti cover is done. He both penciled and inked it, and I'll be getting it in the mail in a few days. This is theoretically the cover to issue #4, though Duane and I may take some time off after #3...so we'll see what eventually happens.

- Teddy and the Yeti #1 is officially on its way from Brenner Printing to my house. I should get all 2,000 issues by Tuesday, at which time I'll have to figure out where to put them between now and when I ship the orders off to Diamond's various warehouses.

- Teddy and the Yeti #1 is currently number 40 on Exclamation Comics' top 100 best selling comic books of the day, outranking Dark Reign: Hawkeye #5, Haunt #1 and Deadpool Team-Up #899. I have no idea what this means in any real context.

- Artist Nick Acs has a new blog with art from a backup story that will be featured in a future issue of Teddy and the Yeti. It was posted on October 25th, and as of now it's very much the only post on the site. Which is awesome.

That's all I've got! And a great time was had by all.