Asmor's Geek Blog

Sigrun Ironhew: “Oh no, we’re out of beer! This is a catastrophe! Hey, you, draenei!”

Me: “…me?”

Sigrun: “Yes! You’re one ‘o them do-gooders, ain’tcha?”

Me: “Uh, yeah, I guess.”

Sigrun: “Great! There’s a bunch of evil dwarves over the ridge. You should go kill them.”

Me: “Evil dwarves? How do I know you’re not evil too?”

Sigrun: “Because their skin’s black as coal. Black skin equals evil. Just look at Drow.”

Me: “Umm, I think you’re reading from the wrong canon…”

Sigrun: “Yeah, yeah, whatever. I’m with the Alliance, I wouldn’t steer ya wrong. So anyways, go kill a bunch of them evil black dwarves.”

Me: “Well, ok…”

Sigrun: “Oh, and while you’re at it, they got them some beer. Why don’t you do me a favor and bring their beer back here. No sense letting good ale go to waste.”

Me: “Wait. Are you asking me to murder a bunch of people so you can steal their booze?”

Sigrun: “…”

Me: “…”

Sigrun: “…”

Me: “…”

Sigrun: “…no.”

Me: “Ok. You prefer cans or bottles?”

- 10 minutes later -

Me: “Ok, here’s your beer. You sure those guys were evil? They just seemed to be minding their own business over at their digsite.”

Sigrun: “Oh, yeah, irredeemably evil.” Sigrun takes a deep draw from a mug of the freshly-procured ale. “Mmm… yeah… that’s what daddy needed.”

Me: “So, did they, like, jump your claim or something?”

Sigrun: “No, they didn’t. Actually, they were here first. Bastards stole all the good loot from the ruins when they opened up!”

Me: “Wait, so then you’re the one jumping their–”

Sigrun: “I’ll give you more experience if you go steal the artifacts they found.”

Me: “So they were here first.”

Sigrun: “Yes.”

Me: “And they found the artifacts before you got here.”

Sigrun: “Mmhmm.” Sigrun nods.

Me: “And you want me to go steal the artifacts from them.”

Sigrun: “That’s about the long and short of it, yep.”

Me: “And it’s ok, because they’re evil dwarves.”

Sigrun: “Right.”

Me: “… God. Dammit.”

I head out to ‘liberate’ the artifact.

I’ve been thinking of getting into the WoW TCG, and saw someone on Amazon offering 500 assorted cards for just under $14, including shipping. Promised good variety from all of the sets, a few rares, lots of uncommons, and a good mix of all the card types, emphasizing that heroes were included.

The 500 cards I received, however, were all from the same set (Dark Portal). Interestingly, Amazon sells Dark Portal booster boxes for $40 (for reference, to pre-order a box of the latest set costs around $60), leading me to believe that Dark Portal is the WoW TCG’s ‘Fallen Empires.’ There were no heroes, there were no uncommons, and there was a clump of 5 rares from a raid deck treasure pack stuck in the middle of the stack of commons.

I’m used to having issues with online retailers. A shipment missing something, or something getting damaged in shipment, etc. In these sorts of cases, I try to work things out with the retailer and in pretty much every case everything is fixed and everyone walks away happy. Mistakes happen.

This, however, didn’t strike me as a mistake. If it was a mistake, it was grossly negligent. Rather, this seemed like an intentional attempt to offload a bunch of crud without even paying lip service to the item description. So rather than try to work it out with the seller, I went straight to Amazon to leave some feedback.

My negative feedback prompted the seller to contact me, sending me this email:

Ian,

We just noticed your feedback and we want to make you a happy customer i am sorry the cards you recevied were not what you were wanting but we did not see any emails that you had an issue with the shipment we can offer you a credit for the items and keep the cards or throw them away. Let me know what you think is fair. Sorry again about the cards

jason

I replied

Hi Jason,

I understand that mistakes happen. However, the fact of the matter is, this wasn’t a mistake. Whoever it is that packed this box grabbed 500 Dark Portal, threw a couple of trash rares in the middle, and decided to call it a day. I could even see a lack of uncommons or a lack of heroes being a combination of poor distribution and a lack of attention, but the idea that every single card came from the same set (again, except the 5 trash rares, which were all conspicuously grouped together) tells me that whoever packed the box had no regard for trying to fulfill what was promised.

I didn’t contact you about this for two reasons. First, it’s just plain not worth the effort. The product is cheap enough that I wouldn’t even blink twice about not getting much value from it, if not for the distinct and near-insulting lack effort on your part. And second, I shouldn’t have to contact you. And I can only imagine how many other people have had the same problem, but didn’t bother writing something negative on Amazon and so never got a ‘generous’ offer to make things right.

So this is the picture I have of you, as a seller: you offer decent deals, knowingly don’t deliver on a large portion of them, and then grease the rare squeaky wheel so that you can maintain a good reputation.

If you wish to fulfill what was offered, that would certainly be the right thing to do. I don’t expect you to do it, though, won’t ask you to, and will not rescind my negative comments. Ineptitude is forgivable, negligence is not.

Him:

Wow, only thing I can say is your seem to know nothing about any listing on amazon. Any person at any time can change the verbiage that is in the listing that the is reason why I item did not have the cards you THOUGHT you were suppose to. I guess you think that you should get tons of really good cards for a whopping 12.40. If you read what the add states you got what you were suppose but I guess you thought you should have received hundreds of dollars of cards for a whopping 7.00 after shipping you paid 1 cent a card what did you expect. Good luck with your negativity.

And BTW all others that have bought this realize it is 1 cent a card and understand you get what you pay for.

Me:

I’d have been perfectly happen to have gotten what I paid for. If the verbiage is so mercurial that you’re unable to keep up with it, then perhaps you shouldn’t be selling things in such a way. I know that, were I a retailer, I certainly wouldn’t feel comfortable committing to sell something that anyone could change the description of.

For the record, when I placed the order, when I received the cards, when I placed the negative comments, and as of right this moment, the description is:

“This item is for an assortment of 500 World of Warcraft cards. It contains a few rares and plenty of uncommons! The remaining cards are commons. Hero cards are also included. Cards come from Heroes of Azeroth up to the the most recent set! The majority of cards are in near mint/mint condition. There is a good mix of Horde, Alliance, Hero, Item, and other card types. Few cards have more than 4 copies.”

That’s what I paid for. That is not what I got. Let’s look at the description piece by piece.

• This item is for an assortment of 500 World of Warcraft cards. I didn’t actually count them, but it looked about right and I’m willing to give the benefit of the doubt.
• It contains a few rares and plenty of uncommons! It had no uncommons, so that’s an outright lie. I have reservations about the rares, but that part at least is accurate.
• The remaining cards are commons. This, at least, is completely true.
• Hero cards are also included. Outright lie. There were no hero cards.
• Cards come from Heroes of Azeroth up to the the most recent set! Bit of a grey area. Arguments could be made that technically you’re not guaranteeing anything, but again it’s strongly implied that there’s a variety of sets included, and you only sent me cards from the Dark Portal set.
• The majority of cards are in near mint/mint condition. Fair enough
• There is a good mix of Horde, Alliance, Hero, Item, and other card types. Again, there were no heroes. There were also only 5 items.
• Few cards have more than 4 copies. Many cards had 10 or more copies. Completely false.

So, no, I did *not* get what I paid for. I did not get any heroes. I did not get any uncommons. I did not get a variety of sets. I did not get a variety of cards.

So I realize I probably come out of this sounding petty and dickish… But c’est la vie. The Twisting Nether hath no fury like a nerd scorned.