Questions regarding Official Transformers Collectors Club

About 5 years ago I was a member of TCC, but let it lapse after a year since I really didn't think it was worth the money.

Now with the price dropped somewhat and the strong Aussie dollar, for just under $80 I thought it might be worth it again so joined up on Saturday morning. I was surprised at the following:

* No acknowledgement email or greeting email from TCC to confirm my membership application has been through.

* No figure toystore that I remember. In fact the only figures I could find (besides a clearance on Bot Shots) were a $52 animated Cheetor and a $54 Runabout! Everything else was old issues and empty boxes.

* A Figure Subscription Service that went entered said 'this has ended'.


So have I not been entered onto their system properly, and thus am missing out on all the good stuff? Or am I navigating the site incorrectly? Or has it simply gone downhill big time in the 5 years since I was last a member and just wasted my cash?

Sounds bout right. Most of their exclusives have sold out (bar the two you found which are at their regular expected prices) and over the past few years until I quit they never had much regular Hasbro product (and definitely not anything that wouldn't be cheaper through BBTS or similar once you dd shipping).

Im curious What else or what "good stuff" were you expecting?

You'll get your six issues of magazine and you should be within the deadline toget the free Depth Charge figure. Their new messageboard might be up soon if not already. You'll get a cheaper rate for the Machine Wars BotCon set.

(I don't see the membership being worth it myself.)

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Originally Posted by Paulbot

Sounds bout right. Most of their exclusives have sold out (bar the two you found which are at their regular expected prices) and over the past few years until I quit they never had much regular Hasbro product (and definitely not anything that wouldn't be cheaper through BBTS or similar once you dd shipping).

Im curious What else or what "good stuff" were you expecting?

You'll get your six issues of magazine and you should be within the deadline toget the free Depth Charge figure. Their new messageboard might be up soon if not already. You'll get a cheaper rate for the Machine Wars BotCon set.

(I don't see the membership being worth it myself.)

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Yeah, knew about the 6 issues and Depth Charge, last time I was a member I got Dion (which tells you how long ago I was a member). I'm guessing I was expecting more figures for a start, when I first joined there was tons to choose from, got a Timelines Astrotrain & Airazor pretty cheap. $54 for a Runabout?! Thats disgraceful if that is member prices.

What I'm most annoyed about is you need to be a member first to log into the Figure Subscription Service. And then you log in and they say 'this has closed'! I call shenannigans on that! They should have had a notation on their front screen about it, instead I feel kind of suckered, was looking forward to getting a Jackpot & Slipstream. Hence I was hoping that there was 'more than meets the eye' (sorry, i couldn''t resist :p) to the site and it was due to my own incompetence that I wasn't finding it.

The member exclusives over the past few years have all been around the $50 mark plus postage. They kept doing deals to rid themselves of their old exclusives like Astrotrain and Airazor.

The subscription figures are about the same too but yeah they sold out their subscriptions last year. I recall there might be leftovers/returns made available in the store over the year. I want a couple but not enough to deal with the club.

From here - The Subscription cut-off was a few months ago, so the only place you'll be able to get them now is BBTS, or ebay when they are released.


It'd be disappointing if their main pages don't give some details about their member-only products before you join.
Perhaps send a message through their contact page to ask these things, or to make those suggestions. Sometimes they listen, sometimes they don't.

I'm pretty sure the original prices for all the exclusive figures, like the astrotrain you have mentioned were at least $50, but I wasn't a member of the club then. In the last couple years they've clearanced a lot of stuff to move it out of their store.

you may have heard of a big issue with credit card detail theft last year. Their site got hacked! They have since completely rebuilt the site, so they say, and moved it to a new provider along with whats left of their shop. I recall that the shop isn't fully reinstated yet, as they need to re-enter everything in the new system/software. I don't think the store is very populated yet.

like Paulbot said all their retail offerings were never worth it to Australia just because of their over the top shipping charges, though it looks like they may be moving towards a much more international friendly shipping service in the future, starting with the subscription service.

I'm a little surprised you didn't even get an automated email, you might want to check your junk mail.

the subscription service had a 2 or 3 month pre-order window on it last year. unfortunately you've missed out on getting it directly but some of the less popular items are at very reasonable prices at BBTS.

I hope that helps, discounting the Credit card event. I don't think they have gone "down hill" they haven't necessarily gone up hill either though, it depends who you ask.

As a business it isn't in their best interests to have stock unsold for extended periods of time, just in case someone new joins up a couple months or years later. They've stated at BotCon (either 2011 or 2012) that once an item is released, the remaining units barely move... so they try to sell-out their items now during pre-order.

Contacted them yesterday, asking if I would recieve any kind of confirmation email, and bringing up my issue regarding how you have to join the club to access the Figure Subscription Service, but then when you do so it states the offer has ended, and how this is unfair to people who are joining specifically for the Figure Subscription Service, and how it should be listed on their front page, otherwise they are just suckering people. It's the equivalent of going to a restaurant and paying upfront for your meal, then getting told after handing over your cash they have been out of food since yesterday.

I recieved an Admin email from 'Brian' who addressed none of my concerns or indeed conversed in any way. He had simply put links to all the current figures they have on offer, none of which you couldn't buy either in the shops or with cheaper shipping from another online store. I suspected this was just an automated email that everyone recieves, but looking at the format of it I think it may just been an email to placate me - could be wrong though.

Very dissapointing overall. I have the feeling unless I get another follow up email addressing my specific concerns that like 5 years ago, I will let my 12 month subscription run it's course and then be done with them.

Be aware that others are currently reporting that the Club will auto renew your membership, so if you want out make sure you tell them.

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Originally Posted by BigTransformerTrev

Contacted them yesterday, asking if I would recieve any kind of confirmation email, and bringing up my issue regarding how you have to join the club to access the Figure Subscription Service, but then when you do so it states the offer has ended, and how this is unfair to people who are joining specifically for the Figure Subscription Service, and how it should be listed on their front page, otherwise they are just suckering people. It's the equivalent of going to a restaurant and paying upfront for your meal, then getting told after handing over your cash they have been out of food since yesterday.

I recieved an Admin email from 'Brian' who addressed none of my concerns or indeed conversed in any way. He had simply put links to all the current figures they have on offer, none of which you couldn't buy either in the shops or with cheaper shipping from another online store. I suspected this was just an automated email that everyone recieves, but looking at the format of it I think it may just been an email to placate me - could be wrong though.

Very dissapointing overall. I have the feeling unless I get another follow up email addressing my specific concerns that like 5 years ago, I will let my 12 month subscription run it's course and then be done with them.

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I also got this email, I think it was one of their occasional reach out to the club emails. If you're american, as most of their members probably are, the prices wouldn't be too bad with local shipping.

I've always found it takes them at least a couple days to get a reply to a direct request out. don't forget that we are 10 hours in front so if you send an email at 9am here it's after 5pm there the day before so they won't even get it till their next business day.

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Originally Posted by UltraMarginal

I also got this email, I think it was one of their occasional reach out to the club emails. If you're american, as most of their members probably are, the prices wouldn't be too bad with local shipping.

I've always found it takes them at least a couple days to get a reply to a direct request out. don't forget that we are 10 hours in front so if you send an email at 9am here it's after 5pm there the day before so they won't even get it till their next business day.

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Ah, that answered my question then - cheers for that :). Will keep an eye out for their response to my questions

Here is the current to-and-fro between me and TCC:


ME

Hi, I just had a couple of questions:

I have just joined as an 'international subscriber', will I recieve any email notifications to know that my application is approved or when my figure is mailed next month?

Also, with your Figure Subscription Service, you cannot go into it without first becoming a member. So I joined, went in and it subsequently said 'this has ended'. I am highly dissapointed that the main reason I joined is no longer available, but I could only find that out by joining in the first place. Can you offer any clarification on this, because otherwise I just feel suckered.



THEM

Yes, we send e-mail notifications to all members.

The ordering time for the FSS was back in August/September and then we cut it off so that we could place our order with the manufacturer. News about all this was posted on our website, including the deadline date to order. We will probably have some single figures left over after we ship to all the people who subscribed. If so, these will be placed on our online store and you can order them there since you missed the subscription.

Karen


ME

Hi Karen, thank you for your response,

As a person looking at new membership, all I was able to see on your main page in regards to the Figure Subscription Service was news from January about a delay of the Figure Subscription Service toys getting posted. As a potential new member, was I expected to trawl through the old news archive looking for an article I didn't even know existed about the Figure Subscription Service ending? I have just done this now and the message was posted way back in August of last year. There was no mention on your main page or your link to your Figure Subscription Service that it had now ended, and indeed as I mentioned in my original email, the only way you could find out that it had ended (except apparently trawling back through old news archives from six months ago) was to become a paying member in the first place. I equate this to being required to pay before you to go into a restaurant, and then upon entering being told that they had run out of food the week before and had gotten no more in.

I do not mean to attack your company, I spend thousands of dollars on Transformers every year and have been very loyal to Hasbro and indeed Transformers brand since 1984 so naturally I am a big fan. But I am still very disappointed that I paid to become a club member primarily for the Figure Subscription Service, only to find out that it is not available, and that seemingly the answer to my original query was that I should have known about a message that had been posted 6 months before I ever looked at your site and now resides in a news archive. I think perhaps you can understand why I find this level of customer service unsatisfactory. It should be made very clear to potential new members that this service is not available before they lay down their hard earned money. If I am mistaken in my evaluation of this situation, I am happy to be corrected and would appreciate further clarification.

I suppose the most I can hope for is that you will make new members like myself aware when these figures will become available in the store. I would appreciate it if you could let me know if there will be any significant difference in price between buying them individually now compared to when the Figure Subscription Service was still available, and what these prices will be.

Regards, Trevor Hopkins



The ball is in your court TCC

I'll be interested to hear what they say.

I had the email regarding my renewal rock up and after chatting to Valkyrie_76 decided to log in to my account, which I hadn't done since the shop came back up... No reason to really. And there was the renewal in my cart apparently. Luckily they didn't have my CC details to charge me.

They'd been stolen you see:rolleyes:

Nevertheless, before that when the renewal email came, I emailed them this:

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Hi,

I don't want to renew my membership for another year.

I don't even recall authorising an option for automatic renewal of my club membership. when did this happen?

Thanks
Tets

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and got a curt reply the likes of this:

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These emails are sent out automatically by the new system regardless if you are set up for the automatic processing or not. In order to be set up for this processing you the customer would set this up on your end. I do NOT show you have a credit card on file therefore I show your membership will expire on xx/xx/xx. Thank you.

Angie

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Not a "why do you want to leave the club" or even a hello for that matter...

And I've been a member of the TFCC since they took over...

no love from them.

I logged in to see if they were gonna subscribe me again. Nothing in my cart, so seem I am all good with that. Kept getting those damn emails saying your subscription will expire and I just ignored them. The figure this year does not interest me at all, so I don't need to subscribe for it.

I looked into it last year and truthfully cannot understand why people join. :confused: You pay $82US for the privilege of:

-Poor communication,
-Six issues of a magazine/comic which I bet is mediocre at best
-Exclusive news and interviews that would be up at TFW no more than 5 minutes after they are released
-A repaint of a figure that is more often than not underwhelming.
-And the exclusive chance to pay for another set of underwhelming figures when one, maybe two at most are mildly appealing.

Bit of a discount on BotCon sets plus the bonus figure is why I joined. The above is why I quit.

That plus all their emails back when I complained of fradulent use of my credit card where I was told that it was definitely my fault and nothing to do with them or their online store.

I think this ranty piece I put on my Blog covers why I joined and why I am leaving.

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Originally Posted by Tetsuwan Convoy

and got a curt reply the likes of this:
These emails are sent out automatically by the new system regardless if you are set up for the automatic processing or not. In order to be set up for this processing you the customer would set this up on your end. I do NOT show you have a credit card on file therefore I show your membership will expire on xx/xx/xx. Thank you.

Angie

Not a "why do you want to leave the club" or even a hello for that matter...

And I've been a member of the TFCC since they took over...

no love from them.

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Originally Posted by Trent

I looked into it last year and truthfully cannot understand why people join. :confused: You pay $82US for the privilege of:

-Poor communication,

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Originally Posted by Paulbot

Bit of a discount on BotCon sets plus the bonus figure is why I joined. The above is why I quit.

That plus all their emails back when I complained of fradulent use of my credit card where I was told that it was definitely my fault and nothing to do with them or their online store.

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Well it seems that their inherent rudeness to their customers is across the board, I thought that perhaps I had simply gotten a particularly rude one, but nope - they are all like that. I don't see how they expect to keep customers or indeed their club going with that kind of service.

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Originally Posted by Tetsuwan Convoy

I think this ranty piece I put on my Blog covers why I joined and why I am leaving.

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Just read it - wish I had done so before I joined up again after all these years - but it was my wife's Valentines Day gift (I got for me on her behalf) so will just ride the year out and then not re-register like last time. Annoyed though I chose the year that I am not particularly interested in the club exclusive figure (would have much preferred Runamuck from last year) or the Botcon toys they are releasing (have zero interest in Machine Wars Hoist).

Will see when I get home tonight if I have gotten a half decent response to my latest email, or just another curt reply. Will post it here either way.

Don't expect good customer service from an organization that doesn't value it. They almost treat international club members as a nuisance rather than paying customers.

Here is the latest correspondence. Rather more civil on their part than the last:


THEM

Hi Trevor,

Yes, the posting was in August about the deadline, because that is when we took the orders. When we have new products to order, it is posted in the current information. For example, it would have said something like "Now taking pre-orders for the FSS". I don't know of anything on our website at this time that should have led you to believe that we were still taking orders for the FSS. I am very sorry that you were under that impression. I don't know yet what the prices will be on the single extra figures, but it will be higher than what the subscribers paid.

If you would like for us to refund your membership money, I will be happy to do that since you only joined to get the FSS. Just let me know. Thanks.

Karen


ME

Hi Karen,

It was the large shiny logo on this page: http://www.transformersclub.com/TCC_logins.cfm advertising the FSS that lead me to believe that it was an option for those that join, otherwise why would the link be there? Nowhere on the page does it indicate that this service is no longer available, it may perhaps be a good idea to put up a notation explaining this . However I do believe one should stick to their commitments and I appreciate the time you took to respond to my email, so I will remain a member of the TCC, though I may have to revisit that decision in a years time when it is time to renew my subscription.

Thanking you, Trevor Hopkins




Perhaps I should of bailed while I had the chance, but I made the decision to join so I figure I should live with it. Sucks that the individual figures will cost more than the FCC when they come out in the shop though, will prob not end up getting them considering how much postage is. :(

I admire your ethics but if it was me I would have backed out of the club like a bat out of hell.

yeah Likewise. I am surprised as this could be easily solved by them offering you the subscription figures. I could almost guarantee they'd have spares and yet they haven't bothered.

The answer to a happy customer is so obvious...:rolleyes:

Anyway, good luck BTT.

If you don't want the Depthcharge, I'll buy it off you. :)

You're a much more optimistic man than me Trev.:)

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Originally Posted by BigTransformerTrev

Perhaps I should of bailed while I had the chance, but I made the decision to join so I figure I should live with it. Sucks that the individual figures will cost more than the FCC when they come out in the shop though, will prob not end up getting them considering how much postage is. :(

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If you are only after a couple of the less popular figures, it will be much cheaper for you to buy them from BBTS, or if you know someone building up a Pile of Loot, who is happy to add them to their POL. that would save a tonne on shipping.

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Originally Posted by Tetsuwan Convoy

yeah Likewise. I am surprised as this could be easily solved by them offering you the subscription figures. I could almost guarantee they'd have spares and yet they haven't bothered.

The answer to a happy customer is so obvious...:rolleyes:

Anyway, good luck BTT.

If you don't want the Depthcharge, I'll buy it off you. :)

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I think the club said the right thing here, they've previously stated broadly that purchasing the figures after the pre-order window closed would be more expensive, I realise this was to promote people getting in on the pre-order, and they surely be ordered many more than the pre-order amount but if they start selling them for the same amount as the pre-order amount, people who went to the trouble of joining up during the pre-order period will feel ripped off. If stuff isn't selling 12 months after it's actually released, that's a different story.

they do need to work on the layout of the site though, the page BTT linked to is rather misleading.

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Originally Posted by UltraMarginal

I think the club said the right thing here, they've previously stated broadly that purchasing the figures after the pre-order window closed would be more expensive, I realise this was to promote people getting in on the pre-order, and they surely be ordered many more than the pre-order amount but if they start selling them for the same amount as the pre-order amount, people who went to the trouble of joining up during the pre-order period will feel ripped off. If stuff isn't selling 12 months after it's actually released, that's a different story.

they do need to work on the layout of the site though, the page BTT linked to is rather misleading.

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Yeah, I guess you have a point there. But (and this comes down to how rubbish the club is) they only had the ordering window open for a couple of months or so. Sure the figures might be more expensive individually, but BTT is interested in the subscription, so you'd think they'd be a bit more open to allowing people in on it.

I bet they could probably get some sales up if they had the subscription open after the first couple of figs started floating about too. That's why I don't really understand this sub business, all it does is add exclusivity to toys and limits your customer base (as well as pissing off people who missed out because of your shoddy website ;) )

TCC's reaction to my last message:

Hi Trevor,

Okay. Thanks for sending the link. I see what you are referring to. That is the FSS Log-in so that the people who ordered the FSS on the installment plan can log in and change their address, credit card information etc. so that when the next shipment or the next installment payment is due they will have the correct information on file. Sorry it was misleading to you.

As mentioned, you may be able to buy some or all of the figures when we put our extras online after we ship to the subscribers. Also, there is a possibility that we may have a second FSS in the future with different figures. If so, you will receive an e-mail when it is time to sign up.

Karen


To be honest I'm not sure I really care anymore. I'm just bummed that I joined in a year where the FCC's not working (Note: still no admission that they need to make changes), the club figure isn't that appealing and I'm not that interested in the BotCon figures. But on the other hand there are a ton of great looking Generations toys coming out this year so I'm sure my TF budget wont go wanting for lack of figures to be spent on ;)

That's the point of club toys though, exclusive. There were multiple emails to all (current at the time) club members and every news site had multiple listings at different stages of the campaign. There was a lot of opportunity to pre-order if you had the money.

if they are made widely available the exclusivity reduces. At least with the subscription service, anyone that wanted the set could pre-order, even pay in installments.

It is their business model, sell a limited number of an item for a set profit margin (which has got to be pretty high). they need to keep that exclusivity otherwise in the future, when they try to sell more "exclusive" figures, people will say "why bother, I'll just pick them up later, cheaper" and eventually the club will either go out of business or need to look for a different revenue stream, that probably wouldn't involve new exclusive cool figures, which would suck.

The club does do a fair few things that don't make a lot of sense or aren't necessarily what "everyone" wants. but when it comes down to it, they are a business there to make a profit from selling toys and memberships and making choices that satisfy the majority.

it's unfortunate that BTT missed out on the pre-order window, but there are still avenues to get hold of the figures, and there are probably people around who ordered the set who might be willing to sell the 1 or 2 they aren't particularly interested in for a reasonable price.