Sjcm

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?