Does anyone else have repeated issues getting their monthly shipments? I feel like every month there's a problem that requires some contact with customer support (which isn't awesome, let's be honest). Darbyvet on the forums here does stellar work trying to sort our issues but I'm just losing patience at this point.

1st Shipment - was billed yet not shipped for several weeks
2nd Shipment - missing two issues, fixed eventually with the help of Darbyvet.
3rd Shipment - actually no real issue aside from 1 broken part
4th Shipment - MIA now for 3 weeks since the shipping email.

I know I live in Canada but this shouldn't explain all these problems.

Anyone else suffering through this?

I live in Quebec and I've received flawless service. I recently received my package up to issue #20.

Best,
Dave

Actually we'd be ordering from the U.S. Into canada.

Although I will agree Canada Post stinks. I'd challenge anyone to find a slower postal service in the developed world. Lol

I had a problem with the first shipment, it never showed up. But, I got ahold of CS and they resent it. It and shipment 2 were shipped on the same day, and I just got the binder and shipment 2 today. Still waiting on #1, LOL! But I'm sure it'll be here in a couple of days (it's only been 4 days since it shipped), but I still just can't help but laugh that I got the second shipment before the first.

As i said, more of a moan more towards the company hired to deliver the package than Deagostini themselves (although a few extra pieces of tape wouldn't have gone amiss). Although I'm beginning to believe the shoddy packaging and the UPS/Canada Post goons are a lot of the reason stuff goes missing. You don't know how lucky you are having a professional, efficient postal service (I'm an ex-pat, so can I speak to that fact! lol)

My ongoing complaint though is the overall experience of subscribing to this build. This is a premium product at a relativity hefty price each month. For Canadians especially (and USA subscribers too in some regards) we pay a sizeable exchange rate markup, a decent amount each month for shipping and don't get many of the bonus items UK subscribers get. So to have such god awful problems getting stuff shipped out correctly each month and then when stuff does eventually arrive (often 2-3 weeks after it supposedly ships) seeing this beaten up piece of crap on the doorstep hardly fills you with confidence. Especially when I know every time I havedeal with customer service they generally proceed to beggar something else up. Frankly without Darbyvet's assistance I'd have likely cancelled a couple of months ago.

[/rant over]

my first 2 shipments arrived in 3 & 4 days after being shipped
2nd shipment box was a little damaged but everything inside was just fine , so the box did its job

And of course 3 hours after canceling I receive the bill for month 6! Grrrrrrrr!!!!!

Well, two things.

I'm sorry about your credit card mix up, but I'm not sure they actually charged your card twice. If you used a debit card to place your order, a temporary hold is put on your account which can last up to a week, but usually drops off after a few days. To your bank account, it does look like an actual transaction, but it's really not. It's just one of those problems that bank debit cards have when they are tied to a company like Visa, MasterCard, etc. The funds have to be held and guaranteed. Whenever I get billed, it ALWAYS looks the same, because for some reason, they always do a pre-authorization, and then they finalize the authorization, but the pre-auth usually hangs around for a few days. Inconvenient? Yea, but that's part of ordering online these days.

Second thing. Shipping times. Yes, I agree that their shipping times are incredibly strange. I just ordered some extra binders for my Millennium Falcon build issues last week. I got billed last week, but still haven't gotten any shipping notice. I was also told last month that I would be billed somewhere around this time for Month #6, but still have not been billed, while other people have been billed already and have received shipping notices.

It was explained to be that because the model kits are on a subscription basis, things work a little bit differently than we're used to. I guess subscriptions are shipped out in batches, which is why when you place an order, it doesn't instantly ship the same day (or next) like it would if you were buying something through a company like Amazon. It's not ideal, of course. Heck, I'd LOVE to have every issues shipped to me right now, but then again, that's not what this is. It's a subscription.

I don't know how old you are, but thing back to the 80's or 90's when you used to have magazine subscriptions. I remember going to the store as a kid a buying a money order to send off to a magazine company, then waiting for 45 days for my issues to arrive. That's just the way things were back then, but with the internet, it's a lot different now!

I would recommend sticking to the build for now. I'm up to issue 20, and it really is an exceptional build! Hope your issues get sorted out.

I think he means you WON'T regret making the plunge! I did a lot of back and forth too, but this kit is flippin awesome!