Oct 6, 2012

Action figure Woes: Matty What the heck!?

Oh Matty! If it isn't one thing, you always find some other way to screw me over...

Mekaneck and Dragon Blaster Skeletor's road trip!
This is not a rant on how having the figures molded in one color (black) and painted in another color creates chipping that decreases the quality of the figures. This is not a rant on how Reversed limbs do not make characters "Pop" on the shelves... This is far worse.

This is a rant on How Mattel/Digital River have sucked the fun out of collecting MOTUC... well they've sucked out 75% of the fun...

After nearly 3 years of shopping on Matty Collector, they NOW DO NOT SHIP ITEMS TO PUERTO RICO... I'm surprised... This "issue" was not notified to any customers, it just happened.

So, I ordered my September order and was no Longer an International Customer. I tracked my order through Newgistics' tracking system and I "followed" The Package by using Google Maps... as shown on the Picture above.

Of course I'm providing the music for the Journey...
This is the other possible journey, assuming that the Ludlow, CA that they're speaking of is the one on San Jose
Here's the Journey:
-Package Leaves Ontario, California:
-It goes to Sparks, Nevada
-It goes to West Sacramento, California
-Kettleman City California is the next Stop. Package is heading South East.
-Ludlow, California: this next stop is tricky because it COULD BE one of two things:
a) it went to the Ludlow in San Bernardino (Which according to Wikipedia it's pretty much a Ghost Town) and that's moving Further East
b) it went to the Ludlow in San Jose which means that the package is heading West
- Flagstaff, Arizona is the package's next stop... We're eastbound! That's good!
-Albuquerque, New Mexico is the next stop.
-Amarillo and Bowie, Texas are the next two stops, cause everything is bigger in Texas or something.
-One quick visit to Shreveport, Louisiana (Hopefully without encountering Sookie and pals) was the next stop for Mekaneck and Skeletor
-Richland, Mississippi was the next stop, Everything is looking Fine and Dandy!
-Montgomery, Alabama came next and I was super stoked, cause the package was reaching Florida pretty fast!
-Valdosta, Georgia was next... I'll be honest, I was feeling a bit nervous, the package was so colse I could almost feel it, but something on the back of my head was gnawing at me, this is far too easy!
-Jacksonville, Florida, the home stretch!
-Opa-Locka, Florida: OK this is IT! I know that Opa-Locka's airport is used as a transport hub for packages and stuff... Next Stop, CataƱo, Puerto Rico (The location for the USPS Hub in Puerto Rico, IIRC)
Package was stuck 3 days in Opa-Locka... No updates... what's going on?
-Package was back in California, City of Industry to be precise... That's when I lost it... I was checking Matty every few hours to see if it was a returned order or if this is a weird turn that "international" packages take and I was unaware of it due to no tracking for "International" customers.
This morning, I check Matty and to my surprise, the package was returned.

I call Matty, where I was told that Matty DOES NOT SHIP ITEMS TO PUERTO RICO... Even though they have the info and have been shipping me MOTUC (and DCUC Figures) since 2009. I must assume that  Magical Flying Ponies were delivering me the MOTUC Figures I own (Aside the ones I've ordered from resellers, or received as a gift from friends and relatives bought at a con... most of the TGR contest items don't count since they were bought from Matty and sent to me straight from the Matty warehouse.) No notification about this change, but I DO get ALL the other "Buy XXXXXX Product on Matty" e-mails...

Now I have to wait and see IF The Escalations Department will help me or basically tell me that I'm NOT worthy of buying MOTUC from Mattycollector.

Hopefully I will be able to get my Mekaneck and Dragon Blaster Skeletor, but looks like this collector may have to go the Resseller route if I'm not "worthy" of buying straight from Mattel. The effect it will have on this page is less It Came from the Toy Chest reviews... or at least a LOT LESS MATTEL PRODUCT BEING REVIEWED... The theory that Mattel is the one that Kills MOTU and not the lack of support from fans seems more sensible with each passing day.

The worst of it all is that I campaigned to save He-Man both online (posting on FB, through the Council of the First Ones Podcast, etc.) and offline (Dropping over 2000 flyers with info on how to save the MOTUC line) and this is the thanks I get? Now I feel bad about the possible new customers I might have brought in that are in the same pickle as I am... It's things like this that suck the fun out of collecting MOTUC... A lot more than Reversed limbs or figures molded in black and painted in the appropriate colors.
How can I plead to people to save a line that keeps pushing me away!?
How can I be excited and happy about a line that I'm not able to buy through the normal channels?
How can I be stoked for a toyline where the costs have increased a lot, but the quality has decreased proportionally to the cost increase?
For a while I've been thinking that 2012 may be my Final year for MOTUC... Mattel seems to be hellbent  in making sure that I keep that promise.

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