At least there's another forwarding service that'll combine shipping now...

Up until now, I've kinda begrudgingly used Celga when I needed to get stuff from multiple places at once. Their commission fees I find a little excessive, their packages take a while to get to you, and their website isn't the best in the world. Despite that, all that matters is that stuff gets to me in the end, right? Well...

The last two things I've attempted to get from them both involved limited editions. Not only that, they've both involved failure, and over the last eight or nine months, I'm zero for two, forcing me to use alternate means.

So, I don't know what the deal was with the first limited edition I ordered. I put in my request before it was released in April. First thing that was strange: my deposit estimated 13 dollars domestic shipping when it was supposed to be free. Second, I didn't hear anything back about it for a while after release. So, a few weeks after the release date, I was getting nervous they'd sell out, and asked them how things were going.

The reply I got was that their system said the release date was in August (not April) and to check back at that time. Right away, I knew something was odd, because the store's site said that they were selling out (and that the release date was April). Not only that, I was able to find a blog with unboxing pics. I even went so far to tell them this and provide links, but the response I got was the same: Celga has a release date of August for it, check back then.

So, I don't even know what's going on at this point. Has the order even been placed? Is it just slow to ship? How was it determined that the release date was in August, in clear conflict with store's own site? None of these questions were being answered, even when I blatantly asked. They didn't even offer to look into things any further on their end in case something was wrong. If they did, they certainly didn't tell me.

So, I just went back to my other forwarding service. I was able to snag an LE and get it to me. Thus armed with a receipt and the actual item, I decided to get into contact with them again. By the way they replied to me, they obviously remembered who I was.

This time, however, I told them to get me in contact with Hyla, who as I understand it, owns and runs the place. Her explanation was a little better (she said they could be sold out, and August was the reprint date), but when I explained everything to her - a link to the product page clearly showing its release date, the fact that I ended up getting it to me on my own, and that domestic shipping was free - she gave me a full refund. I was a little afraid of winding up with two of those (one from Celga, the other from JShoppers), but after a lot of wrangling and almost too much trouble, it ended up working out in the end.

Fast forward to December. The only thing I wanted here was a manga from the Animate store, since it had some store specials I could get. Previous experience with the Animate Online Store tells me it can take up to a month to send something out. I know I'm going to be on vacation, and I don't want packages to arrive when I'm out... and Celga holds your packages for you until you tell them to send them. So, I decided to give them another shot. I figured I had store credit already (from the previous refund), and I thought they'd check and use it without me having to make a deposit.

Well, first thing was that they didn't use any of my credit automatically, and sent me an e-mail asking for a deposit. At the very least, it was sent pretty fast, but to speed things up, I just slapped down the cash via Paypal and told them the transaction ID like they asked for.

Then I get back from vacation. I haven't heard anything, but that could just be the Animate Online Store being slow. Just in case, I decided to ask them what was up.

The response I got was that they missed my e-mail, and no order was placed... meaning that I missed out on the store special. When I received that e-mail, I immediately asked them to return all the store credit I had with them to my Paypal account.

At least they got that part right, and all that money (from both incidents) is accounted for and back in my hands now. All the same, I can't help but wonder if they were trying to get rid of me or what. Do they just simply not want to deal with me because I called them on a past mistake? Am I just unlucky and this stuff doesn't happen that often?

I dunno. My experiences with Celga have always been tolerable at best. Now they're just plain bad.

One major takeaway is that the regular customer service people either aren't allowed or just won't bother with anything that requires discretion - if everything lines up in their system (or with what they're allowed to access of it), they won't do anything even when given evidence that something could be amiss. There will be no clear explanation, only their conclusion and nothing as to why. This also has the side effect of leaving some questions unanswered, even when you explicitly ask them. Heck, I even had to convince them to investigate my order further, and I'm not sure it was given more than a cursory check. I don't know, since I they didn't tell me how they looked into it and I got the exact same "check back in August" response every time.

The other takeaway is that, when you are convinced they are wrong and can back it up, you have to be the one to request someone higher on the food chain to look into it. It was only when I searched on the net for people with similar experiences did I find out - yes, you can explicitly request Hyla (the owner) to look into incidents like these for you. But once again, you have to be the one to request this. I don't even know if they handed this off to someone higher on the ladder between them and Hyla without me telling them, but there was no indication of it until I asked for the owner by name.

Well, the other forwarding service I use started combining shipping and doesn't charge as much, so I guess the matter of which forwarding service to use will just naturally resolve itself...