Dean H.
1/5
Seems someone else had a similar experience to myself a few months ago and others as well over the years which makes sense for the 3.4 star review on Google and declining at that.
5 months ago in November 2024, I wanted to pre-order 1-2 prismatic evolutions ETBs for my collection and found this site had them listed for $50 which is retail. They had a quantity limit of 2 which I respected and even realized that this shop was 30 min from my house so placed the order for pickup. Thought I got lucky and I was SOOOO WRONG.
Fast forward to the first week of January 2025. The owner Gabe sends me an email that was quite frankly worded pretty unprofessionally stating that their distributor messed up somehow and that they aren't getting any of the prismatic product they were supposed to and that I have the option to either wait or get a refund. I told him I prefer to wait because of course at this point the price of the ETB has already sky-rocketed and I simply wanted 1-2 of them at retail for my own collection. Worth noting that from the time I pre-ordered, Gabe listed the ETB in stock again for pre-order a few weeks later at $60 which sold out and a few weeks after that again for $75 which also sold out.
One month later in mid-February 2025, I followed up with Gabe to receive status since the set has been released for 1 month now. He responds that he still does not have an update from his distributor. Now in mid-March I follow up again. He takes a little longer to get back to me but again says that he's waiting to hear back from his distributor. I am now getting pretty frustrated as you could imagine. I decide that I'm going to go to the store in person. Before I go, I check his site out and realize he has prismatic evolution booster bundles in stock. That surprised me a little because if you're "waiting to hear back from your distributor" how do you have the bundles in stock? That means you would have an answer on the ETBs right? Anyways, I show up in store and did not mention my pre-order at all. Simply showed Gabe my phone and asked if he has bundles in stock, he says yes. I said great, clarified I'm the person with the pre-order from the emails and asked for 3 bundles instead of my 2 ETBs to receive equivalent packs and we'll be even. He says, no, sorry, I can only do 2 because I only have 2 and I told him that I can add more than 2 to my checkout on his site and then he snarkily said it would automatically be rejected and then quickly said nevermind I'll just give you the refund. I said absolutely not, please give me the 2 bundles so I can be done with all of this. He then says oh, I don't have them in store, they should be coming with UPS today. I said okay I'll wait and he said they may come later by 6 pm so told him I'd come tomorrow instead. Today rolls around, I email him that I'm stopping by later in the afternoon and he says they're actually not in yet, his distributor messed up and they may come in Monday or Tuesday instead.
I'll stop this right there because at this point if you've been following all of this you realize that the owner is a dick that has been stringing me along for 5 months. Firstly, you have your own business. Stop blaming others for your shitty customer service. Don't blame your distributor for the way you manage your business. A more reputable game shop would've either never put up the pre-orders at retail without being sure they're receiving their allocations OR would've just processed the refund from the beginning instead of lying and stringing their customer along for months when they've clearly had communication with their distributor. Stop blaming your distributor when you're the one that manages your business poorly. Secondly, I know people who received their prismatic ETB from this shop in the 2nd or 3rd round at the higher price. Owner left mine and likely others out on purpose who purchased it earlier on because he knew he'd be making less profit off of them.
All in all, STAY AWAY IF YOU VALUE YOUR TIME. Terrible customer service and the owner has shady business practices.
