Deepcut Studio - Bad customer service

[potatocrusader]

I am sharing this for anybody in the market for a mat. I bought a double sided gaming mat from deepcut studio and the color was completely different from the pictures on the website. I contacted the seller which is very slow to respond and this was their response: "The colors might look different than on the screen and that is explained in terms and conditions, but to keep things simple my initial offer is a 20% refund for this mat and you get to keep it as is. Let me know if that solves the question." instead of offering a replacement or refund. Currently escalated a claim in paypal as this should have been easily solved and I do not want this to stretch out further.

 

Pictures of what I order and what I got: https://imgur.com/a/fatR1De

I am at a very stressful crossroad in my life, I purchased this mat to have some friends over and play boardgames and relax as I currently can't walk too far from my home. I did not want to get stressed over having been stuck with a product I do not want. I would advise everyone to stay away from them.

[Craig]

Seems like they offered a fair resolution and asked if this was acceptable to you. I can't see the issue. Have you asked for a refund or just gone straight to publicly slating them?

[Lord_Ikka]

The company offered you what seems to be a fairly reasonable solution that saves on shipping for both parties- aside from getting the proper color mat and returning the incorrect one what solution do you want?

 

[Noserenda]

Yeah that's not screen differences that's gone from a yellow to a red, seems fair to get a refund at that point, they haven't provided what you ordered.

[potatocrusader]

1 hour ago, Craig said:

Seems like they offered a fair resolution and asked if this was acceptable to you. I can't see the issue. Have you asked for a refund or just gone straight to publicly slating them?

If you had read what I wrote you would know I had not "gone straight to publicly slating them". Second how is it fair to order an item , receive an obviously different one and then be stuck with when you do not want it ? They know what color the mat is and they saw what color the mat they packed to ship to me. 

I asked for a refund or replacement and they are very slow to respond and are dragging on something that has a simple solution. Stress is not ideal for my health condition at the moment.

If this is acceptable to you, by all means you have every right. 

Edited March 21, 2023 by potatocrusader
clarity

[potatocrusader]

32 minutes ago, Lord_Ikka said:

The company offered you what seems to be a fairly reasonable solution that saves on shipping for both parties- aside from getting the proper color mat and returning the incorrect one what solution do you want?

 

It is not a fairly reasonable solution. As I am stuck with a product I did not order nor wanted. They didn't offer the latter to have it returned and refunded, mind you being from the EU means they are obligated to pay for the return shipping if the item doesn't correspond to what you purchase.

I was civil and didn't make demands of them, the right thing to do was either offer a replacement or a full refund not haggle. I am sorry I do not understand how you could agree to such a thing.

 

Edited March 21, 2023 by potatocrusader
spelling

[WARMASTER_]

5 hours ago, potatocrusader said:

If you had read what I wrote you would know I had not "gone straight to publicly slating them". Second how is it fair to order an item , receive an obviously different one and then be stuck with when you do not want it ? They know what color the mat is and they saw what color the mat they packed to ship to me. 

If this is acceptable to you, by all means you have every right. 

I mean their email seemed more than reasonable to me, you’re also not stuck with the Mat? The customer service agent email made an initial offer that definitely didn’t sound like a final offer by any metric!

6 hours ago, potatocrusader said:

but to keep things simple my initial offer is a 20% refund for this mat and you get to keep it as is. Let me know if that solves the question

Surely you can just reply you’re not happy with the offer and ask for an exchange or refund after sending back the mat? 

 

While it’s obviously an inconvenience for you I don’t think it’s something to publicly slate them over

Edited March 21, 2023 by WARMASTER_
Spelling

[potatocrusader]

4 minutes ago, WARMASTER_ said:

I mean their email seemed more than reasonable to me, you’re also not stuck with the Mat? The customer service email made an initial offer that definitely didn’t sound like a final offer by any metric!

Surely you can just reply you’re not happy with the offer and ask for an exchange or refund after sending back the mat? 

 

While it’s obviously an inconvenience for you I don’t think it’s something to publicly announce 

Maybe I am odd, but if you are selling a product and make a mistake, you do not make "offers". You give a solution. Second I had asked for a full refund or exchange of the mat and waited. I waited for a response which I didn't get then I eventually made a paypal claim (without dragging paypal into it yet). I received an email from Deepcut Studio that they will respond on the paypal claim. I waited and there was no response yet again, as I do not have the state of mind and time to deal with this I escalated for paypal to resolve it. To add i've waited a week for this to be solved before doing so.

It is not just an inconvenience and it is something that should be publicly announced if a company which sells a product is not doing the right thing. It's freedom of speech, I did not call them names or made any accusations. I do not wish for others to suffer the same predicament. If you think these kind of business practices are okay, I will not argue with you.

 

 

 

[spafe]

1 hour ago, potatocrusader said:

If you had read what I wrote

1 hour ago, potatocrusader said:

I asked for a refund or replacement

TBF, you didnt say in your initial post that you had requested a refund or replacement, so following your first post, I would also have said their response seems reasonable (I'd assume if that was their comeback then the initial complaint raised was 'this is nothing like the picture, what can you do to rectify it?' or similar).

 

However, with the extra info that you did request the refund or replacement, yeah thats a proper rubbish response, esp if its taken a while to get them to say anything!

 

Also, wow, thats not a slight colour variation is it!

 

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

I can understand why you’re unhappy and glad you have shared your experience here.

[MadGreek]

Obviously the color seems way off. I think the partial refund is a good resolution - but if you're not happy you should be able to return it for a full refund. if they balk at that I would also e upset. I guess I am curious what the other side looks like? You said it was double sided - was the other side "As Advertised?"

[potatocrusader]

29 minutes ago, MadGreek said:

Obviously the color seems way off. I think the partial refund is a good resolution - but if you're not happy you should be able to return it for a full refund. if they balk at that I would also e upset. I guess I am curious what the other side looks like? You said it was double sided - was the other side "As Advertised?"

The other side can be seen in the photo I posted, it is just slightly darker than the picture on the site which didn't bother me. As for a partial refund being a good resolution I would agree, but I was not offered one. They wanted to give me only 20% off and tried to haggle which is kind of insulting given that I paid 140 euros for that mat on top of downplaying it as colors may appear different than photo. For the money this thing costs I would expect right off the bat a reasonable "we are sorry for the faulty product, we can offer you a replacement, a full refund but you have to return the mat or we can offer to refund you 50% of the value for the side that is flawed and you can keep it".

I was expecting this to be their response and not a poor market haggle attempt. In my initial mail I simply stated what the problem was and I asked how they wish to proceed concerning the matter as I did not want to sound like a disgruntled customer making demands. The fact of the matter is that I have no fault in this and the options for me should be laid out respectfully from the get go. 


 

[Lysimachus]

It does look very red, doesn't it? Looks like their printer was running out of yellow ink? I mean I get a bit of colour variation, but that is totally different.

 

Quite surprised that it got dispatched like that, poor quality control.

[WARMASTER_]

 

5 hours ago, potatocrusader said:

Second I had asked for a full refund or exchange of the mat and waited. I waited for a response which I didn't get then I eventually made a paypal claim

I feel like this should have been in your original post as this is where the customer service has definitely let you down, so now yes agree that’s really bad service

 

I hope it gets resolved for you 

Edited March 21, 2023 by WARMASTER_

[Urauloth]

So they offered to refund you 20%, you said "no, I want a full refund" and they ghosted you?

[potatocrusader]

55 minutes ago, WARMASTER_ said:

 

I feel like this should have been in your original post as this is where the customer service has definitely let you down, so now yes agree that’s really bad service

 

I hope it gets resolved for you 

Yes that is on me, I should have been more detailed in my post. I initially wanted to write a more detailed read but I thought the pictures would speak for themselves and didn't want to waste people's time to read a block of text.

[potatocrusader]

1 hour ago, Urauloth said:

So they offered to refund you 20%, you said "no, I want a full refund" and they ghosted you?

Yes, I asked for a full refund or replacement and didn't get a response till I filled a paypal claim and they responded via mail email : "looks like you raised a paypal case or us regarding this order. Let's continue to solve this question there then." and then I waited another day and got no response or resolution on the paypal claim from the seller. So I escalated  aftewards.

I want to go into more detail as to why I escalated the claim after 1 week for those that think I am being unreasonable.

I live in the EU, the consumer protection law states clearly I can return a product (shipping is paid by me in this case) for no reason whatsoever within 14 days of purchase and get a refund, the seller is very slow to respond to my mails and already 1 week from that window has passed. I checked their website and cannot find anything related to their return policy so I cannot simply send the item back as I need them to give me a way to return the product. 

Of course I am covered by law to get a refund for a faulty product where I return the product (seller has to pay for return label as they were the ones who shipped a faulty item).

This is not the first time I had an experience like this, i've had 2 in the last 5 years. One was an ebay purchase where I bought a miniature that was extremely poorly packaged and it arrived broken beyond repair and the seller insisted that I only get a partial refund and keep the item or I have to return the item on my own money to receive a refund (ebay policy says otherwise regarding faulty products). This back and forth took 3 weeks and it was only resolved once I had involved ebay directly. The second time I had purchased an item that was different from what I bought and again the seller delayed replies and tried to haggle, this time around after 5 days I involved the 3rd party and the issue was resolved. So I have learned my lesson in this regard.

I paid 140 euro for that mat, it's quite a bit of money and I at the very least expected the item to be quality checked. When printing the mat they had the photo of the mat cause they needed to pick it when printing and they saw how it came out and it was nothing like the photo, it was insulting in itself to have it sent fully knowing it was not what was advertised and ordered. Could have also been solved with a simple mail to me saying, look our machine is broken and the mat looks like this. If this isnt acceptable we can send you a different mat of same size and you can pick which one. This was more or less a bait and switch, they dropped it on my lap and said enjoy hopping I would be content with something I had not chosen and then proceeded to justify that it may look different on my screen than what I purchased and to top it off offered a meager 20% refund for a 140 euro mat that I did not order. I did not insult them at any point, made any accusations or threats. 

Overall I feel there were 3 points in time where this could be resolved without me having to vent:
1. Mat turned out red, was not like picture. They contact me to discuss a solution, it would be solved on the spot. I would be very greatful for them coming forward and would recommend them.

2. Mat arrived in the state it's in, they see I am not happy with it and they clearly see that it's a completely different color and offer a replacement or refund. Again, would recommend them even more in this case as the issue that I had was solved quickly and promptly which I value.

3. Knowing there was an ongoing issue with a product they sold and the customer is not happy they would respond in a timely manner for my request of a replacement or refund. Again I would recommend them because they still solved the issue albeit they tried to haggle. And don't get me wrong, I understand that you don't check your email 24/7 but I cannot imagine they had soo many ongoing issues they couldn't be bothered to respond to a client that has a legitimate complaint. I mean if it was something that was my own fault or I was being nitpicky I could understand not wanting to stress out and deal with a difficult customer.

 

Edited March 21, 2023 by potatocrusader
spelling, I am bad, sorry

[Lord_Ikka]

Here's the problem I think most of those that were thinking this wasn't an issue, including me, had- you didn't fully explain the situation. Without context, i.e.- your and their actions/lack of action, the initial post has the company's actions seemingly fair and balanced. Unfortunately, due to the preponderance of false claims/narratives that are easily relayed via the internet due to online anonymity, just posting a picture of something without the full context of the story does not give any weight to one side or the other. You need to give that extra information so that the audience can get a full understanding of the situation. With the full context, yes, you had reason to be upset and indeed the customer service from the company seems lacking. 

[tychobi]

I might provide a little perspective on this.

 

You used PayPal to claw back your payment during what seems like a normal fair negotiation regarding your game mat which while unsatisfactory is in working order.  Instead of responding to the offer of recompense you used PayPal to claw back your entire payment.  So now you have a free game mat. 

 

This is a small producer with limited resources who delivered a product in good faith. Now an upset customer has taken back payment and is continuing to make demands after taking the nuclear option. I figure the options were weighed and acceptance  of the expensive lesson to not do any more business with you was the easiest choice.  

 

It really sucks you got a miscolored game mat. it is regrettable that you are not able to enjoy it the way you expected to. The evidence presented seems clear that effort was made on both sides to rectify the situation until the negotiation was ended.  

 

While their customer service was obviously unsatisfactory the evidence provided would not deter me from doing business with Deepcut.

[potatocrusader]

4 hours ago, tychobi said:

I might provide a little perspective on this.

 

You used PayPal to claw back your payment during what seems like a normal fair negotiation regarding your game mat which while unsatisfactory is in working order.  Instead of responding to the offer of recompense you used PayPal to claw back your entire payment.  So now you have a free game mat. 

 

This is a small producer with limited resources who delivered a product in good faith. Now an upset customer has taken back payment and is continuing to make demands after taking the nuclear option. I figure the options were weighed and acceptance  of the expensive lesson to not do any more business with you was the easiest choice.  

 

It really sucks you got a miscolored game mat. it is regrettable that you are not able to enjoy it the way you expected to. The evidence presented seems clear that effort was made on both sides to rectify the situation until the negotiation was ended.  

 

While their customer service was obviously unsatisfactory the evidence provided would not deter me from doing business with Deepcut.

This is really tiresome and probably will be my last reply here as I see some have the mentality that it's okay to not receive what you ordered and not be offered an replacement or money back from the get go when it's the seller's fault.

There is nothing to negotiate here, there are 2 options. Replacement or refund, if you would have bothered to look at the photos you would see that I am not being irrational and nitpicky. If it was just a slight color brightness difference or a small spot on the mat where it didn't print properly than I would not even be here cause I can find that acceptable.

First of all I did not ask them to start a business so their financial status and situation is none of my concern, my concern as a consumer is to receive the product I buy as described. Furthermore it was not delivered in good faith, if you consider printing the mat, looking at the photo you clicked to print and shipping it anyway and saying this is fine good faith than I wish this type of situation to occur to you each time you purchase anything. 

I have not taken payment back, I have to wait for paypal resolution. Paypal has to 2 stages, the first you and the other person are put in a room where you talk to each other to solve the issue without paypal being there with you, I talked and waited for a reply from the seller. They didn't reply so I asked paypal to come into the room and talk to them, now I am waiting for them to talk. If you do not know how paypal functions I suggest checking it out before commenting on an absolute that never happens.

I did not make any demands or continued to make any demands whatsoever, my first email was "the color of the mat is different from the website, in the photo it's a desert/cream color and I received a red one, how do you wish to resolve this". Again you are speaking as I if am in the wrong and at fault, blaming the client while defending the company with no evidence I really don't get, I can only assume this is the common practice where you live or you would do this to your client if you owned a business.

And no I do not want a free game mat, I want this issue to be resolved without hassle and it would not have gotten to the point where we are now if they had done the right thing from the start. Acting like they are the ones who shouldn't do business with me when it's the other way around is an extreme take.

A lot of people will probably read this post and still purchase and have no issues with replacements or returns or better yet they will receive exactly what they purchased. This will probably be because some customers don't cave when they are treated this way thus the company knows what happens if they do not deal with a situation such as this fairly and swiftly. Usually companies start to change their ways, even it's for a little while when they can't get away with it and it causes more problems then bring them profit.

A company acts the way it does cause there are people who would accept receiving something they don't want just for a little money back and most people don't know their rights under consumer law (EU only?) where if product is delivered faulty the seller is the one who has to rectify it with a replacement or refund and if they want the product back they are the ones who have to pay for return shipping, the buyer fulfilled his end of the contract by paying for the product there is no further obligation needed to be fulfilled whilst the seller did not as they did not provide what was purchased.

A final note to add, searching online I had found that I am not the only one who had these type of dealings with them. I also had a few people that purchase the same mat print I had and it was the exact same color like on the website soo there is that as well.

[Special Officer Doofy]

Regardless of how it was handled, that mat is way off of the advertised color. Brown to pink/light red. That's bad. The only hole to poke would be the timetable, from when you clearly told them you don't want the 20% discount or a replacement and you want a full refund to the time you escalated it at PayPal. How long was that? Only 24 hours? This forum frowns upon character or company "attacks" (unless it's a dog pile on GW for wanting to make money) which is why you were met with scepticism and pushback. Next time plot the timetable and full details in the original post and you would get better responses. Sorry the mat was not as advertised and hopefully you get it resolved!

[Firedrake Cordova]

I'm sorry to hear of your experience @potatocrusader.  EU law is pretty clear that what the remedies to the consumer are, so if you asked for a replacement, they should comply with that.

 

For what it's worth, I've seen similar threads on other fora (e.g. DakkaDakka), which has put me off buying their products (the mats do look lovely on their site).

[Emperor Ming]

I got a matt from gamematt eu with the deployment dimensions on, that's been great if your looking for alternatives in future

[spafe]

I can 2nd gamemat EU, Matthias from there has been great for me in the past. I've bought my own 4x4 necromunda mat and love it, and he has also provided mats for several necromunda tournies I've run so would love for him to get support as he has certainly supported the necormunda community in UK.

 

for balance, my local group have a few deepcut ones and they are also lovely, but they were bought in person at conventions so could see them before buying.

Edited March 22, 2023 by spafe

[Kastor Krieg]

OP is absolutely and fully in his rights as a EU citizen to demand and expect immediate and full refund or replacement, which one of those being the OP's choice.

 

The lack of quick response and offers of partial refunds are a well known stalling tactic, aimed at allowing the 14 day return/refund window pass unnoticed. It's a scummy merchant trick and OP is rightfully indignated by it, as well as the general lack of QC, misinformation and misdirection from the company.

And 140 EUR for a 6'x4' mat? Even double sided? Ludicrous on its own, it ought to be top tier product for this price.