Sjcm

I've got something for sale on eBay that ends tomorrow. Gonna take the hit and send it first class tracked but at the moment I'm praying someone from abroad buys it because then it becomes Ebay's problem😂

If you click on Kirk or mailcoach then there's nothing, but the others they have left up the sub-section picture menus which may mean they intend to use them? Could just be a coincidence and I don't know what it was like before they took over. Also they made a point of mentioning the products they haven't bought so you think they would have mentioned blacksmith maybe?

I could be reading far too much into this but the stuff they don't own like the Kirk and mailcoach products have been totally deleted from the website but the blacksmith products are still on there so y'know...

Yeah, I can't imagine the new owners aren't aware of the back story, so they won't be making any promises they can't keep or re-launching until they know they can supply. The rest will be word of mouth once the stuff gets to the retailers

Dunno. It took a long time for oldcoopercraft to wreck it's reputation with a drip drip effect over the years, and you can still see it on here with other manufacturers, with people gradually becoming aware of problems and new people getting caught out, because with the best will in the world a lot of people don't read these forums. Anyway let's hope the new owners restore its reputation whatever the name

Yeah I suppose it's an argument really about the worth of a failed brand name. I would imagine those people who pay a fortune on eBay will soon cotton onto the fact that a hopefully reliable manufacturer has these kits , and if they manage to reintroduce everything, the eBay prices will go through the floor and then you have to ask do they need the old name and it's negative baggage? My feeling is many people see the name coopercraft and automatically associate it with the old firm despite the "by Cambrian models" bit, and that it will take time for that to change. After all, they have god knows how many years of bad press to reverse.

Hah, good thinking. No I get the original product is valued but it's name has become synonymous with dodgyness. Personally I would have gone with " Definitely Not Coopercraft or anything to do with Paul Dunn injection molded kits and you will receive them. Honest! Ltd", but perhaps they couldn't fit it on the packaging. 😉

Not sure why they bought and are keeping the name really. Can't imagine that name has any positive rep left and you are going to get confusion between this company and the last however clear you make it.

I haven't bought from Hattons for years. At one stage it was quite obvious they didn't do much more than plonk items on the track and turn the power on so it was quite easy to pick up bargain non-runners that just needed a service. I think they cottoned on to this and started charging more so I moved on. I used to buy on the "working" premium that a lot of buyers were unable/reluctant to try and fix a non-runner, thus less desirable. This still works very well for me on ebay where I recently picked up two non-working locos and a power bogie for 20 pounds, fixed and sold the bogie for 30 pounds and got 2 working loco's for a 10 pound profit 👍 obvious!y none of these were mint in box 😉 If they're selling "new" stock bought from deceased hoarders then it's buyer beware I guess if you're not a box collector. For all they know it came broke from the manufacturer, and as someone who had to sell their dad's collection (probably ran once and then stored while he built his lay-out) for every one that ran well, there was another 'mint in box' that 25 years in storage had taken its toll on. To me, if you don't know the provenance then relying on a visual inspection in the box is asking for problems and probably a false economy, but maybe box collectors prefer the reputational guarantee they get with Hattons rather than buying from someone's relative?

He's a trading business and the same rules apply to everyone whether that's a one-man band or a multi-national. Pop into your local cafe, order a breakfast and see if you're happy if your still sitting there 3 hours later while the owner tells you they're waiting for the eggs to be delivered. I'm guessing you would expect them to tell you they had no eggs when you ordered? 😉

Yes, it's just the frustration that even if he can't change the availability status of products on his site (and I don't believe that for a second personally), he can a) alter his home page and b) send out emails. Just a message saying "some items may have longer delivery estimates - please enquire for availability before ordering". Won't stop everyone waiting months but will lower customer expectations and therefore disappointment and complaints if it takes 6+ months to arrive

And yet if you're lucky enough to speak to him he's well aware your item isn't available, waiting on delivery from suppliers or being prepared. In fact he doesn't even pretend he had the item in stock when you ordered. If he works on the basis of getting the orders first and then placing orders with his suppliers then he should say so on his home page and delete the frankly dishonest delivery estimates, rather than customers facing a game of Russian roulette that they've picked an item that is actually "available now".

Hmmm..... loads of info on their new presumably expensive, super fast servers and methods to pay, but still seemingly unable to add a simple "out of stock" message to those items unavailable. I love to know how he ended up with a e-commerce site that doesn't supply the most basic of standard features, and how the suppliers of it are still in business in 2022 - maybe they do his answer phone service as well?

From memory it was a Hornby B12 and a number of the YouTube types bought them and all found the same problem with the motor (massive voltage pull and then gradually dies). Not sure if the story has moved on since but I think one of them asked Hornby about them and if was there a reason they were cheap!

From the limited examples I've seen, the retailers seem to package their items well, probably from painful experience. When they come direct from the manufacturer less so. I saw one person receive a model from Hornby just loose in a oversize cardboard box with no packaging, while another manufacturer's model came just in its normal shelf packaging, no box 😮so you do wonder what the retailers receive. With the best will in the world a retailer can only check it's running somewhat - Not much they can do about a motor that fails after 2 hours of running or have the time to realise the valve gear is bent from a bang in the post and binds round curves - they'd be employing their entire workforce testing them. I did see a batch of Hornby locos on YouTube where they were sold by the retailer as 'bargains' where the motors self destructed soon after arrival, so whether the retailer realised they were lemons from customer returns and wanted rid. I imagine the retailers have to accept the loco as okay from Hornby and then it's a contract between the retailer and the buyer. if it fails on arrival, the retailer then has to prove to Hornby it was bad when they got it? Certainly Hornby were denying there was anything wrong with that batch of motors unsurprisingly😉

Yes of course, but I think most people buying a RTR model are expecting it to be erm....ready to run. If Hornby/Bachmann/whoever launch a "Do our job" Range where you get parts, CAD software and a 3D printer bundled into the price then I will acknowledge there is a market for fixing brand new models

Well I enjoy buying non runners and getting them working, but if I'm going to be spending 150+ pounds on a new loco one of the reasons to do that is it's actually supposed to be going to work properly in the first place. Completely dismantling it because of a fault, or hacking parts off it because of a design flaw seems to rather defeat the purpose

Personally I think there's more bad retailers currently than there ever has been, certainly as far as RTR is concerned. Barely 6 months passes without a manufacturer launching a new model and judging from the reviews half of them come with faulty motors, wheels out of gauge, arrive with parts broken off/poorly built or just can't stay on the tracks, and of course a top notch price. The baffling thing is the new owners then try to 'fix' them without sending them back😂 I can't think of anyone buying say a new car where it won't go above 50mph and the front wheels randomly point in the wrong direction and the owner putting up with it, so perhaps our tolerance of these issues in the hobby encourages them to keep doing it?

Well I think you have to keep it updated persona!ly just as a warning. I had no idea before I did a Google search and indeed would have probably let my refund ability lapse as others have without coming across a similar thread on here when the alarm bells first started ringing. The problem is many people don't hang around the model shop guide thread on here or indeed are signed up for RMWeb so the complaints will continue to trickle in, and understandably a lot of them will be very annoyed. If anything this thread stops more people getting annoyed with him because they won't order if they have any sense. I have no idea if he has dementia but he is obviously still "with it" enough to take orders when he knows he hasn't the ability to supply them - in fact his own website mentions items are out of stock so he clearly knows what he's doing.

He was at one point selling on eBay which was probably the only way of guaranteeing some sort of reasonable delivery time but that seems to have died a death and you can guess why. I can only imagine his horror when eBay insisted he a) actually had the items to sell and b) had to get it to the customer within the current decade. 😂

Yes. I read Engineshed's experience and asking for friends and family as a trading company seems to me to be "iffy". To clarify I think he always intends to deliver the items ordered, but I'm guessing an order that has no chargeback is much preferable if you have no idea when you will be able to deliver! My feeling is while you get the occasional awkward customer in our hobby, the vast majority are glad someone supplies what they want and as such are more than willing to make allowances like EngineShed. Which comes back to him manufacturing his own problems. No-one is going to throw a hissy fit if the item you want is out of stock for 6 months. Most of us have a myriad of projects we can get on with on the meantime, and will either accept the delay and order anyway or place an order when it's in stock. What does annoy people is being given untrue information on delivery times, while his site insists the item are in stock and in some cases announces discounts to new potential customers on items you've been waiting months for! My own personal opinion is he has cash flow problems and uses paid orders as pre-orders before buying from his suppliers. That's fine if he's waiting for 20 orders and you are No.22, but if your No.1 and it's taken 3 months to get to 20.....Obviously I'm sure he suffers from unforeseen delays like every other company but getting that information out and supplying a realistic delivery date is where he falls down. Again, if you can't actually supply the item currently then tell the customer - most people will understand and still order.

I was one of those who wasn't aware of the problems discussed on this and other threads, so who had the delays and total radio silence when I chased my order up. Luckily I claimed a refund just before my ability to do that ran out. It seems to me 99% of the hassle for him and us could be avoided by simply putting a "out of stock, please enquire/pre-order" message on those items not available, but seemingly the cost/hassle of this is more than the bad press/lost orders? As he won't help himself/us, it falls on us to help ourselves. 1. If you can get the parts elsewhere and your project is reasonably urgent then I strongly recommend you do. 2. If you have no alternative then prepare yourself for a 6 month wait. If you're lucky and he actually has the items then you may get good prompt service. If you're the type of person who chases items up, believes delivery dates and expects customer service then MM is not for you. 3. Order with PayPal or credit card and keep a note of when you ordered and when your refund ability runs out. Do not pay with any other nonrefundable method. 4. Refund your payment before your cover runs out. Don't swallow the "just arrived from the suppliers/I'm just sending them out" excuses because you're a nice person. There are loads of nice people who have waited years/given up. I hope he gets his act together eventually because the products are good, but until he does (and it's been years now) you're really gambling on getting anything delivered and is it worth the hassle of 6 months of unanswered phone calls and staking out at the letterbox?