Anovos not giving refunds only store credit

Got Maul specifically states that they stand by refunds:
you are certainly entitled to a full refund
Yes, they seem to have issues with replying in a timely fashion to some (but certainly not all) queries, but they're not stealing anyone's money the way some seem to be insinuating.

The exception is when ANOVOS is the one canceling a pre-order. It's in the fine print. See post #7.
That was an oddly worded e-mail, as admitted by GM. There is nothing on the website, fine print or otherwise, that states they will only give store credit during cancellations . (If you find something, please show it to us 'cause I can 't find anything in neither the terms& conditions or the FAQ.)

If we are going to complain, we should criticize them for their occasional lapse in quality; criticize them for their slow handling of queries and criticize them for setting inadequate time estimates or other legitimate issues. We should not criticize them for (or spread on social media) things that aren't true.
 
That was an oddly worded e-mail, as admitted by GM. There is nothing on the website, fine print or otherwise, that states they will only give store credit during cancellations . (If you find something, please show it to us 'cause I can 't find anything in neither the terms& conditions or the FAQ.)

If we are going to complain, we should criticize them for their occasional lapse in quality; criticize them for their slow handling of queries and criticize them for setting inadequate time estimates or other legitimate issues. We should not criticize them for (or spread on social media) things that aren't true.

Interesting. It would appear we're both right. The clause I was referring was indeed in the TOS page before, but the TOS page has been recently updated with new language, so the language I was referencing no longer exists.

Here's how it used to read, as quoted by another member here on page 1 of this thread:

"If a product becomes unavailable following a transaction or if technical problems prevent delivery of a product, a credit will be issued or refund of the price paid, as determined by ANOVOS Productions LLC.".

This can be confirmed in the way back archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20160416100900/http://www.anovos.com/pages/terms-and-conditions/ (see the text at the end of the first block in section A)

And here's how it reads now:

"If a product becomes unavailable following a transaction or if technical problems prevent delivery of a product, customer is eligible for a full refund prior to the time a product ships."

Source: https://www.anovos.com/pages/terms-and-conditions (as of 9/15/2016, at least)

So as of whenever the clause was edited, my statement has become moot.
 
Thanks to this thread a classless money grab has been rescinded by them, a shame they did'nt as far as I know offer Alley his Money back
 
Hello Again, my travels had kept me away but let me attempt to answer some of these questions. First and foremost, I need to reiterate this so that there is no confusion over this policy : In the event of pre-order, you have the full, complete, choice of refunding at any point up until the time of shipment. There are no strings attached or justifications you have to "prove". We may offer you alternatives and we will survey (for research) why or what you are refunding. You are entitled to your own money and we do not assume control of it until your item is shipped and recognize your rights to take back your money at any point in the relationship, up until the time your item ships. This is our Golden Refund policy that we've upheld since the start of the company and will not ever rebuke it.

Yes, we have more bodies and systems in place since the beginning and this might lead to a longer lead time to process, but we will refund your money, have done so consistently and will continue to honor your right as long as the company stands.

Now , onto some questions.

I definitely feel for them. Mauls posts especially make me think they are good people just trying to make it work. He seems like a good guy to me for posting here. Tough business, no question about it.


At the same time...I just keep seeing "2+ years"

Thats just brutal. I think we all understand that things happen, but...that's brutal. I don't think I would be so patient myself.


Also, you do have to communicate and do right by people. I think we all understand that stuff happens and sometimes takes longer than you thought (although again...2+ years....dayumn), but when it does the first answer should always be: let people know whats up.




At the end of the day...I REALLY hope they make it. We all need companies like this to succeed so we get more, but I'd be climbing the walls if I'd been waiting that long. I really don't think you can blame the customers for being a little peeved. I'm reasonably sure that I'd be WAY less reasonable than they are being after 2 years.

Thanks man, really appreciate the kind words at the end. But, as an owner of this company, it breaks my heart that items took 2+ years. I know exactly which ones and I personally own the Vader, Han Solo, ESB Luke and Classics that we've delayed as a result. There really is no excuse for it and I assure you, it will never happen again. I literally get daily updates on these and am happy to report we are so very close to finishing them and getting them out to you. The first launch was ESB Luke and soon the rest within this and next month. There were some minor hick ups that caused the delay of the IO's but they are well on their way to the finish line.

Make no mistake though, as happy as we are to see these come home, we've learned many lessons along the way.


The major problem is the PRE-ORDER where you have to pay for something and then wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and never hear what is going on. I love some of their products and am really looking forward to the Star Trek props, not uniforms or badges, that they mentioned a year or two ago, but I will never pre-order anything from them. That seems to be what has caused most of the problems recently. As has already been mentioned by me and others MR didn't take any money from you until the product was ready to be shipped and until the end when Corgi was running them into the ground they were pretty good.

I can cede that pre-orders did lead to some of the problem but the root was we came into the process green and carried a false sense of assuredness because of the lessons we learned from the other brands in the past...which ended up not applying. But in the case of pre-orders, what I can tell you is that we are shifting business models. While I do honor the MR system and miss them as a company, our model is different and so is our community, focusing on cosplaying /costumes and not collectors. Because cosplayers value accessibility to costumes within a community, we intend to stock our core items and bring them out again and again through the life of our contracts. This means stepping away from the pre-order model and stepping more into a stock runs for certain items. We've learned what we could from pre-orders and despite even the Golden Refund policy realize that all things must change or slightly shift.

View attachment 663703 @Got Maul It might beneficial if someone would check on trouble tickets and try to respond because it doesn't seem to be taking place. At least in my case.

Daniel, please email me directly your email account that you use in our system . We have a new set of live chat representatives who also handle the tickets now. I can make sure to bump you to the top brass in CS ..my email : joe@anovos.com

Still not a peep from ANOVOS re: my request for a refund for the Imperial Officer uniform that is now a year and a half overdue. Perhaps not surprisingly, the co-founder of ANOVOS, who posted to this thread previously, has now fallen silent.


I, for one, would support such an effort 100%.

Carson, same for you as above .Please email directly your email and will get your refund handled or at least put it priority Queue. I didn't go anywhere, I just don't have as much time as I used to. Believe it or not, despite the ups and downs of these threads (and we are experiencing a definite down time) I enjoy talking to you all - its family and we all know how that goes sometimes.

Still no reply from anovos. Their chat system shows them as "online" but when I post something I get no response at all. It feels like the lights are on, but nobodies home.

7:03pm Update: After sending the chat message again I got a response to say they are looking into it and to wait a moment, I am waiting.
7:15pm I am still waiting "a moment" on the chat.
7:16pm RX message "I am still here don't worry"
7:23pm They said it is setup and should be refunded tomorrow.

Sep. 15 12:30am Got word from Partial.ly that they will refund the money.

I will post once the funds are back in my bank. It looks like you can indeed get a refund and cancel a preorder.
You have to jump through some hoops and stay after them which is not ideal but it is what it is. Maybe they are simply understaffed?
So anyway I don't think I would sign up for another pre-order at this point but if the product was in stock I think could do that without reservation.

If you have any issues with the refund, please let me know. My email is above.

I don't have the time or effort to get involved in a lawsuit over a prop release..

But, if you can get them to start giving REFUNDS rather than store credit, considering the amount of money these things cost....

I'll support it in what way I can.

If i had known they where doing mostly or all store credit, i'd have never bit in the first place. who'd want to take the risk?

People should be plastering this all over their facebook page too. just to help out future customers who are not so informed.

maybe that would get something going as they probably would not appreciate that much.

As I said earlier, store credit was a suggestion. We first and foremost honor your rights on your money. We do not consider it our money until your item is shipped. Please let me know immediately if you have any issues getting your refund.

Thanks to this thread a classless money grab has been rescinded by them, a shame they did'nt as far as I know offer Alley his Money back

Who is Alley ? Have him/her email me immediately with their order, I will be sure to get their money back.
 
The first launch was ESB Luke and soon the rest within this and next month. There were some minor hick ups that caused the delay of the IO's but they are well on their way to the finish line.

Make no mistake though, as happy as we are to see these come home, we've learned many lessons along the way.

Well, if it helps, I've been hearing only good things from people who got their ESB Luke about the quality. Apparently, what finally shipped is pretty nice and worth a wait.

I think most here would actually agree that waiting for quality is better than fast crap. Just hard to stay patient during the wait.

I repeat what I said before though: you seem like a stand up guy for posting here. It can't be easy to face the masses, but it goes a long way towards making people like me want to trust a company.
 
Alley's posts are in this thread and why it came about, he said he was happy with his store credit but from what I got was that he was just too tired and disapointed to fight with you anymore.

I know you have done the right thing before and have gone above and beyond on some things so I think it would really be a nice gesture to refund his money instead of his current store credit.

Once again thanks for coming on and clearing things up for the Family! :thumbsup


Who is Alley ? Have him/her email me immediately with their order, I will be sure to get their money back.
 
Tell me about it! We get enough orders on etsy to keep us busy and still don't make much off of it at the end of the day. :)

That would be my guess, which is why they're slow to respond. There's simply not enough money in replica costumes right now to support a lot of people (though Anovos did mention they had just hired more people that were still getting into things). You do have to chase them a bit sometimes, but they're not defrauding people. I've gotten everything I've ever ordered (three uniforms, two of which were delayed by about 6-12 months) as well as refunds whenwanted them . I went into my latest pre-order (another uniform) knowing what to expect, so we'll see how that goes. I do like the fact that they're posting more detailed status updates now.

Something to keep in mind regarding companies posting on message boards (not limited or necessarily specific to Anovos):
Given the choice of posting on message boards (which takes an enormous amount of time) and simply digging in and trying to finish/ship product, the latter is probably preferable to many companies because it's easier to manage and get results. The more you try to communicate with the customer/fanbase, the more (and faster) they will usually expect answers, to an escalating number of questions. This is something I've seen and experienced firsthand many times working in the games industry. When things get heated, people get angry and start firing off questions faster than they can be answered, because while the customer has little to lose by posting angry messages in haste, the company needs to consider their words very carefully to not incite more anger or misunderstanding, as is evident with the "goodbye" comment earlier, written no doubt in haste on-the-go, misunderstood and a catalyst to more anger. Sometimes, a simple paragraph like this one can take an hour for a company to write, even if you're not giving bad news, because you have to consider so many factors and do your best to make sure that it can't be misconstrued. (Just trying to make sure that non-native English speakers don't misunderstand can be a nightmare.) I've seen innocent, well-meaning comments turn into flame wars against people.
 
Might not be a bad idea to update the OP (and/or thread title?) so we don't get too many people who don't read through to discover that the situation is fully resolved and the terms and conditions changed, so this is truly no longer any issue.
 
No problem all and my apologies for the confusion.

I know this is probably not the correct place to ask this but can you tell us what is happening with the TNG Phasers that were announced last year? I've searched your website and can't find any mention of them.
 
To be honest, I did consider canceling both my TNG premiere and Monster Maroon when they were delayed. I'm glad I didn't. I just checked the website update pages. Seems they've started listing more detailed information on all the items- moreso than many other high-end manufacturers. (Try getting ANY info from places like Hot Toys... their GotG Drax figure was in limbo/AWOL for ages without any news before it was re-announced. People were worried they'd have "incomplete" collections, like HT have done before.)

Looks like the Vaders are at least getting close and are in the hands of the Mouse right now:
"*Darth Vader Premier Line Ensemble: Production completed. Awaiting final approval. Current estimated delivery: Q4 2016"

Just in case you missed the good news: https://www.facebook.com/ANOVOS/pos...if_t=notify_me_page&notif_id=1475329267711284

Vader is shipping and arriving in people's houses!
 
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