I'm not really sure where to post this, but since it's somewhat ARF related and some of you might be interested (or perhaps had a similar experience), I thought that I would post it in here.

I ordered two Global ARF AT-6 Texan's from hobbypeople.net on Feb. 1st since they were on sale. They were backordered and I didn't think anything of it since there was still snow outside anyways. A few weeks later and nothing; no phone calls, no emails, nothing. So I give them a call and they say that they don't have any more in the warehouse, but they have some in the stores that they will have shipped to me and that I should get them in a week or two. The time goes by and still nothing, so I give them another call and the guy says that my order was cancelled because my credit card expired and that I'm out of luck. It expired on 3-20-07. So over a month and a half after I placed my order I still didn't get the planes, let alone an email explaining what had happened. There wasn't even an apology, more of a that's too bad, better luck next time kind of attitude. This isn't a lottery; if I order something, I expect to get it.

I'm not impressed with hobbypeople.net's customer service what-so-ever. I can understand that the plane was no longer going to be made so it might take a little longer to get, but this is just unacceptable. Ever since my order I hadn't even recieved one email from them about my order, not even a confirmation for the order itself; and this is after they state, right on order page, that I will be sent emails updating me on the progress of my order throughout the transaction. When I asked hobbypeople why I hadn't recieved any emails informing me of the status of my order, or anything else for that matter, he just shrugged it off as "there must have been something wrong with our server" and didn't even offer to make up for their mistake, but asked if I would like to buy anything else. You got to be kidding; like I would order anything else from them now.

To be honest, I think that they screwed up and sold more planes than they had and to cover themselves they played it off by delaying as much as possible until my credit card had expired so that they could use that as an excuse to cancel my order (even though I have the same exact card still, just renewed). I think that it's much better to admit a mistake than to try and cover it up, passing it off as an "oh well" incident and placing the blame on someone else. I didn't even recieve an email or phone call that my order had been cancelled, I had to call them to find if I wanted to find out anything. It's like waiting for a table at a restaurant and they don't tell you that they won't have a table for you after all, you have to figure this out yourself. That's just poor service.

So in the end I don't get the planes that I was really looking forward to, and had already bought the equipment to fly, and I have a bitter taste about hobbypeople.net[sm=angry.gif]. I am sooo bummed out right now; not so much from the hassle of dealing with hobbypeople (although that wasn't exactly a positive ordeal), but that I was really excited about getting these planes, already having had everything planned out for them.

Do you think I am justified to be mad about this or is this something that is run of the mill and I shouldn't be upset? I've ordered things from many other companies and have never had any problems that weren't soon fixed. I just feel that a company should not be so careless and disorganized and when they screw something up they make things right. I guess hobbypeople doesn't care about repeat customers.