Gameplay + Not arrived = How long?! J's now on a mini-rant!

[Jei]

Has anyone ever had an order go missing from Gameplay?

I ordered a game from there as a present earlier in April (10th) with their free delivery. By the 24th I still hadn't received anything but they told me I hadn't waited long enough and to contact them today (28th).

It still hasn't arrived but now they won't send a replacement out until they've had a Claim Form back, verified, and signed off. Just how long am I going to have to wait??

Luckily the only other thing I've had go missing in the past 12 months was a package from CDwow which they sent a replacement straight away.

I think from now on i'm just gonna pre-order and buy elsewhere. I understand its not their fault its gone missing but surely a mail order company shouldn't keep their customer waiting for what looks like well over a month. I'm so glad my GTA4 hasn't come from there!

[egparadigm]

I hate the way shops make you wait for some arbitrary amount of time to prove your package is not going to arrive. I've sent and received stuff from all over the world and with standard packing it usually takes no longer than a week. If it's inland UK, it really should be with them within 48 hours.

The only time I lost something was last year. I sent an eBay item to Ireland and the lazy-arse courier couldn't find the address. It took much phoning and writing of letters to finally get the thing back (it was sat in their Cork depot). Why I needed to wait a month when the thing was sat in their possession...

Anyway, give 'em hell. If you can afford to, buy a copy somewhere else, while you wait for a refund from GP.

[Jei]

What really frustrates me is how other online retailers don't make it this difficult...

Mini-Rant Warning

"I don't have a printer, can I email the Claims form to you signing digitally with my tablet?" - No it has to be a hand-written signature.

"Oh, well I've got a scan of my hand-written signature, Can I use that?" - No, it has to be hand-written onto the form then scanned back in.

"Right, well I don't have a printer so can you send me a form out in the post?" - Yes but you'l have to pay postage to return it.

WHAT? Sorry I'm not usually one for ranting and like I've said I do sympathise they need to cover their losses etc but it's not MY FAULT!! and now I've got to pay to send the form back to them!! (I know it's only 30 something p but principle my friends!)


EDIT : - Forgot to mention that the person on online help then said that I agreed to go through these procedures when accepting the terms and conditions on the site. So I pointed him to the part they make you accept...

http://shop.gameplay.co.uk/webstore/helpfiles/termsandconditions.asp

and politely asked where it stated it all. Fair enough it does say on the website help tabs but not in the actual terms and conditions.

[dazzx]

cant you download the claim form & cut and paste your scanned signature onto it and send it back to them?

[Jei]

Nope thats what I asked them and they won't accept it.

They want the entire claim form hand-written with a hand-written signature. I already tried to cut and paste method to be told it isn't being accepted as the rest of the form was typed.

[dazzx]

fill it in with a painting program using the mouse to write it

[Rossco]

Just paste your signature on and print it, then scan it again. It won't look any different than if you wrote it and scanned it.

[Welrain]

erm...he doesn't have a printer, that's kinda the point.

[Jei]

hehe Thanks Believeddog

Well I've got my stamp ready, now just gotta wait for the form to arrive. Hopefully the replacement will turn up, although I've still no idea how long it takes for the form to get "Verified" as they've said.

Ho hum...../me goes back to GTA4

[ascender]

Is the problem not that the Royal Mail make you wait x amount of days before accepting something's been lost in the post?

[angelox]

I stopped ordering with Gameplay and Amazon for day1 release. Now - both companies DID get what I wanted to my door step the day of release, but it was the needless pandering that put me off both companies.

With gameplay - the last day1 order I made was burning crusade, which they canceled the order of the day of shipment - after 4 hours of phone calls later, they finally picked up and sorted the issue about 30mins from the post-deadline.

Amazon - I ordered a Wii for day1, got called up a week before and was confirmed to get one, but every single day they would call to confirm I still wanted it and that all the details were correct. On day of release, they got it too me but a company should require their customers be on call if they have issues every day of the week :\

[Jei]

Ascender - Yup Royal Mail do make you wait before claiming but whilst as a Customer I am more than willing to assist Gameplay I don't see why I should have to suffer as a result....ie being more out of pocket and having to wait until they're subsidised/satisfied they'l get their money back.

I guess its a case of big companies vs smaller retailers. The bigger companies will never actually care about the customers and simply the takings.

[Dazzyman]

They used to do this with me so I binned em and left after 10years and went to Shopto. Fantastic at Leeds if it went missing on rare occasion would phone up send it back but they would get another one straight out. Went it became part of game it went belly up major, I kept getting charged and no order sent as they would tell me I hadnt paid when I had so of course miss release day and not get it till Tuesday week after (big deal for me) or oddly they started to send me wrong items (ie a DVD disc for PS2 for multiregion and not Tiger woods on 360!) or what happened quite alot off the spool and damaged.

I would phone em up and tell em and they would refuse from then on as part of game to send another one out till the wrong order got back. The only way I could get around this was each time to pay yet again for another copy and wait over 10working days (usually two weeks) for someone to get it back and authorise the funds. It happened so many times I ended up getting £40 of vouchers not once but twice and 5% discount on all orders (and bah god was that hard to sort out on the phone for the discount each time with staff as noone knew how to do them). They also state free postage for returns but they tell you to send it back recorded so thats also a load of rubbish from my own personal experience. Dont get me started on their policy of lost items, your better off buying it locally again and getting money back in 3weeks time to card as it takes forever with them as they make you wait the max days with RM policy.

I used to talk to the staff on phone at Leeds they where great. When I talked to em at Basingstoke when it all moved down thier I would get told time and again the IT staff got majorely slashed and thats why I always had issues with my orders.

I lost faith when it happened 3 weeks in a row about Jan-Feb last year and moved to Shopto waringly as my first order. Never loooked back since. Its never happened yet with Shopto but I know if it goes missing with them they will just get me to sign a form and have another one out in 3days after sending first one!