QUOTE (Zodou @ Nov 6 2009, 07:17 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
Agreed, my understanding is that DST does not have QC person on hand in the factory, too expensive. (In the short term, the # of free replacments would indicate a long term money loss.) When I receive a product that looks as though it was constructed by a Zombie Ray Charles, I think it is perfectly reasonable to expect a refund or replacment. Interestingly enough, the person I spoke to on the phone felt differently.
Wow, I didn't know that DST didn't even hire a QC person for their factories; if this really is the case I'm admittedly quite surprised, although it certainly seems within the realm of reality as of late. I think DST needs to go over their books again, because as you've pretty much noted yourself Zodou, it may be "too expensive" in the short-term, but in the long-term, these duds that they're paying to construct and ship from China to the USA and other parts of the world have to be costing them quite a bit of cash. I'd think the QC guy might be "expensive" at first, but would eventually save DST some money; even if it was a penny a day per ship, that'd add up pretty quickly overtime. (Remember, once McDonalds figured out that it was exactly one cent cheaper to outsource drive-thru orders, they did so because it saved money, and pennies add up when you're dealing with them in the thousands.)I'm still chuckling at that "Zombie Ray Charles" reference, but rest assured that you and I are in total agreement on this. Every time I look at my HD 1701 I think of Scotty's comment in The Final Frontier where he says something to the effect of "this ship looks like it was assembled by a bunch of monkeys," in reference to the 1701-A; (it's a scene on the bridge with the "red alert" system malfunctioning,) I'm pretty sure that the aforementioned comment could be applied to our HD 1701s. If my ship looks like my two-year-old neighbor finger-painted it when it arrives, I believe a replacement is in order, and if I wanted a "battle-damaged" edition, I'd have ordered said edition.
I hate to say it, but it sounds like DST's phone support doesn't know their buttocks from their elbow. There's no reason that I should have to pay shipping to send my defective ship back to Rick at NFCC if I can avoid it. There's no reason that Rick should have to take a profit hit because DST sold him defective merchandise, and the only blame here falls on DST's lack of QC. (Besides, if DST wants to move beyond TRU into the "big box" retailers, they're going to need to hire a QC guy now and pay for him later--big box retailers won't deal with companies that perpetually ship them defective merchandise--just something to consider.) At least you and I both heard from Chris Myers, and from what I understand, everyone whose dealt with him has had an excellent outcome when it comes to having their defective item replaced. I even saved the e-mail from Mr. Myers so that I have it in case I need it. DST seems to have far superior e-mail support than phone support, which is admittedly an oddity, (EA Games is the only other company I know of that seems to be like this,) and I have to admit that it's a little bothersome; when something's broken, I want to speak to a human to have it repaired/replaced, and I want to do so in real-time.
QUOTE (Zodou @ Nov 6 2009, 07:17 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
Already planned to. 
Suprisingly, I've had little trouble with DST's Trek ships and TEK. However, the recent issues with my AGT-D and my HD have prompted me to do buisness only with those online buisnesses that guarantee the product they sell; and then only with exclusives. Everything else, I'll pay the inflated prices my comic book guy charges to inspect the product personally.
Suprisingly, I've had little trouble with DST's Trek ships and TEK. However, the recent issues with my AGT-D and my HD have prompted me to do buisness only with those online buisnesses that guarantee the product they sell; and then only with exclusives. Everything else, I'll pay the inflated prices my comic book guy charges to inspect the product personally.Thanks for the heads-up;
I want to keep this thread going so that we can refer to it in the future if need be. Hopefully it can provide an accurate record of what it takes to get a DST ship replaced. As stated before, I'll post any updates if/when they occur; I'm still tripping over the box from my defective ship and believe me, if I had a tracking number for the replacement, the rank of "tracking number maniac" would take on a whole new meaning. (I feel like I'm a kid asking "are we there yet" on a long car ride, although the question now seems to be "is it here yet?")I too have had little trouble with DST's Trek ships and the Trek Tek I've ordered. Okay, one TOS Phaser from the Art Asylum days literally seemed to fry its batteries on the "overload" setting, and when I called Art Asylum and offered to return the defective "type I" piece, they just sent me a new phaser, so now I have a spare Type II "handle" if I need it. Every so often I come across one that has a targeting scanner that won't flip up, but that's only happened a couple of times. My Entertainment Earth Phaser/Communicator two-pack is perfect, my TOS tricorder is fine, and my ENT TEK set is fine, so aside from the one really screwy phaser I've had no problems with TEK. As far as ships go, I haven't had any real problems there either. My NX-01 had the "fly-off nacelles," but then all of the first run ships did before DST retooled the mold; I'd kill for one of the "second run" ships in MISB condition, because I know those don't have the nacelle issues that the early ones do, and that's because Art Asylum was following Playmates' mistake from the '90s. My TWOK 1701 is light-bleed central, but I've yet to meet anyone whose TWOK 1701 doesn't have this issue, now if the reissues have the same problem, then I'll be annoyed, although DSTChuck said they're fixing the light bleed problem on the reissues, so clearly DST is learning from their mistakes. My Enterprise-E's are all excellent, and the only ship that's really been problematic for me has been the TOS 1701 and its variants. My opened TOS 1701's stand is falling apart, my HD ship, well see previous posts, my first "The Cage" variant has the same paint app issues as the HD 1701, and I had to use genuine "krazy glue" to attach the deflector dish which wasn't glued onto the ship at all just to put the thing back in the box. My first WNMHGB 1701 had a DOA sound board in it, and I'm surprised that I didn't need to order two I.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701s to get one that worked given the TOS 1701's previous track record.
I take it that your AGT-D had the defective sound chip issue, right? Both of my Ent-Ds are fine, and my AGT-Ds also appear to be fine, so I can't complain there, but I know some people did get duds. As far as paying the local "comic book guy" (CBG) goes, I'd consider getting scalped by my local CBG if I actually had one anymore. I mean, if you have a local CBG, that's great, and one thing I will say about DST is that at least you can inspect their merchandise in the package before you open it; with Playmates' junk, it's pretty much a shot in the dark until you open the box. I hate to admit it, but I'd rather be able to see DST's defective items in the box than to grab a Playmates Trek XI 1701, only to have it wind up looking like Andy's ship in the Trektoy review, complete with the non-flush battery cover and the light bleed rivaling the TWOK 1701. Sure, I could wind up with a great ship, but that's true of DST's stuff as well, and I hate to admit it, but I've grown to like DST's window box packaging so I can see if the item is defective before I open it. I can't do that with Playmates' stuff. I admittedly purchase as much of my Trek stuff as possible from Rick; as a retailer I feel that he goes the extra mile to help his consumers, just as Chris Myers supposedly goes the extra mile as a DST rep to help those who've received defective DST merchandise.
QUOTE (Zodou @ Nov 6 2009, 07:17 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
I grow weary of this game...
That makes two of us Zodou, that makes two of us. For every defective ship that DST can't/won't replace from that TOS 1701 mold, I have to go on eBay to find a suitable replacement and essentially buy the same ship twice. That's money that I could be taking and putting towards "restoring/upgrading/tricking out" one of my ten-year-old iMac G3s that I grabbed off of eBay. An exclusive/limited run TOS 1701 variant costs about as much as a couple sticks of RAM, and that's only one example. It's bad enough Bandai has me playing "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego" with the "Full Throttle" Ranger Silver Power Rangers RPM action figure, but on top of that I have to deal with DST's defective starships, just as you seem to. I swear, at least I no longer have ton deal with Alienware's Tech Support/Customer Service, (the bane of my existence from 2001-2004,) which made DST's customer service seem like the gold standard. My brother used to tack Dilbert comic strips featuring "Dogbert's Tech Support" complete with the phrase, "How may we abuse you today" to my door. That's what I felt like when dealing with Alienware; at least DST seems to make an effort to try to care about the problems that their consumers have, and that's the first step in the right direction. (If you want to know about my issue with Alienware, PM me, but let me put it this way: I wound up going to a tech I trust after the third time my machine went back to the factory to have him check the CPU, which I knew was the problem despite Alienware insisting that it wasn't; my tech took three days, called me back, and told me I had an intermittent CPU problem and then proceeded to fix it.)
I really hope the people at DST are looking at the stuff that we post here, I shouldn't have to jump through hoops to get my ship replaced, and DST should have a return policy on their website in clear, understandable language, in an easily located section of said site. DST's employees should know this policy; if they don't, they should be able to look at their own website, and we should be able to find said policy without having to ask other people who've had problems how to get our stuff replaced. I love DST's ships, but I don't love when they're defective.
Finally, something dawned on me as I began to type this reply. If DST has no QC guy in the factory, then they have to know that they're going to release a bunch of defective ships "into the wild" so to speak, right? We all know that a lot of people around here do custom ships, right? So, why not have DST take the defective ones that they've produced, exchange them with retailers for non-defective ships, and then sell the defective ones on their websites as "customizers," for lack of a better term. What would a "customizer" be? Well, if an "opener" is a toy that has a lousy box but is perfect to open, a "customizer" would be a toy that's unsuitable to display/use in its current condition, but is suitable for someone to tear apart and customize as they see fit. Sub-categories could be used as well, such as "Customizer-dead electronics," and "Customizer-poor paint apps," to signify the exact problem. I figure this would A) save the people who are customizing ships some cash,
allow DST to maximize their profit, C) avoid causing people to have to tear apart a perfectly good toy to customize it. It's really sad that an idea like this seems like it could actually be feasible to me, but I digress...
