Well this is a turn up for the books – I have a complaint about the delivery of some items and it doesn’t involve Home Delivery Network… will wonders never cease? This delivery was in fact down to Royal Mail, but alas they’re not actually to blame either. No, the fault lies with Play.com and the amateurish way in which they’ve packaged two ‘collectible’ (as it says on their website) Michael Jackson dolls.
The dolls, one with the Thriller outfit and one with the Billie Jean outfit, have just been released as a more affordable alternative to the £250 Sideshow Collectibles figures. Even so, they’re still £30 each (so £60 on two dolls is a sizable chunk).
You would expect something branded as a collectible, and coming in a presentation box, would be dispatched in a carefully packaged box, filled with either bubble wrap or polystyrene chips – however you would be wrong. Instead Play.com decided that these dolls would be perfectly fine sent through the post wrapped in nothing more than a plastic postage bag. No protection, no padding, nothing.
I missed the delivery on Monday so collected them from the Post Office today, only to find they were somewhat worse for ware. The Thriller doll in particular had been crushed on the bottom section, and isn’t exactly in the condition I would describe as collectible. The Billie Jean was slightly better, but both have damage to the tops of the boxes as well.
Now I have complained to Play.com and I’m awaiting their response – so I’ll update with their comments here. I am hoping however that they’ll admit some sort of mistake in the way they’ve posted these as you cannot expect to sell collectible figures and post them in plastic bags. You wouldn’t accept that from an eBay seller, never mind a retail website with almost a decade’s worth of experience in selling online.
Darren Jamieson, aka MrDaz, is the Technical Director and co-founder of Engage Web and has been working online in a career spanning two decades. His first website was built in 1998 and is still live today.
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