Hornby spares

QUOTE its my first time on here.
Hi and welcome

QUOTE Please tell me if i have posted this in the right place
I think you will get more replies in this Forum.

David

QUOTE (royalpython @ 16 Feb 2009, 23:49) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Thanks for the replies sounds like this guy Tim is having major problems somewhere, looks like he is telling everybody the same thing. He is taking the money from people but not delivering the goods, where do we go from here.

I should know the answer to this as a retired banker but I think if you have paid by credit card and not had the goods or service you have paid for and/or if the company concerned becomes insolvent you have a claim on the credit card company for a refund. Certainly a friend said to me last night that was also his understanding of such incidents. I must dig out the literature from the Credit Card Company and see what it says.

This was the text of an automated response I received from them to my email to Modelspares on Sunday 15th February.

"Please note that BT has recently informed us of a fault with our communication system. As a result of this fault we have found that some customers have had difficulty contacting us by phone and email. BT assures us that they are working to fix the problem as quickly as possible. We will continue to endeavour to respond to all messages within 48 hours, but due to this fault this may not be possible. Thank you for your patience and understanding."

I have had no further response and do not accept that 5 days later this is a BT problem in a town the size of St.Albans.

I am now sending an email and cancelling the order and will reorder from Hornby Spares who did not have the part in stock in December but do now. The amount involved is not large, about pounds 22, but nevertheless I don't see why I or anyone else should loose out.

I am having similar problems with this Company, I placed an order on the 20 March 2009. I have phoned several times and get a pre-recorded message which states that they are busy at the moment and advises to send an e-mail to their address. Several e-mails have been sent with out any reply from Modelspares. The last mail I sent I cancelled the order and asked for a refund..............I'm still waiting.

ChasT

PS the last phone call was made at 13.00 22/4/09

My experience with Modelspares goes back to the original owner, who was always courteous and very knowledgable. I have been repairing Hornby Tri-ang loco's since the early sixties and had built up a considerable stock of the bread and butter spares to service loco and tender drive loco's up to the end of the Margate era. I decided about five years ago to cut back to just servicing a few loco's for close friends and fixing up loco's bought at swapmeets for resale on the internet.

Recently a friend brought a loco to me that had been donated to his club by an older member which was in dire need of some TLC, so I got the Servicing Sheets out and started making a list of the parts required to return the loco, a Stanier 8F, to its former glory, I had brushes and springs, but needed one set of valve gear for the right hand side plus the cylinders and motion brackets. I looked on the Modelspares site, found the Part No's I wanted and proceeded to put them in the shopping basket. The parts came to just over a tenner so I proceeded to checkout, once I began to input my details the screen froze and I could not proceed any further. As I was doing the order from work during my lunch hour (no, really!) I thought I'd have another go that evening when I returned home.

A second go with the same part no's didn't get any further than I'd got at lunchtime, so I tried to order the same spares from Abbiegails, unfortunately they didn't have all the parts I needed so I was stymied.

Then I remembered East Kent Models whom I have also dealt with over the years and enjoyed very good service, both by mail order and in the shop in Whitstable. So looking at the clock (we were 9 hours behind GMT due to having a trial of daylight wasting time) I rang EKM and got Ian Robertson straight away, I didn't have an up to date price list from them, but as I reeled off the Part No's Ian completed them for me and told me he could do them all from stock, but when it came to me giving my CC details there was a problem, my order didn't meet the shops minimum requirement of 5 pounds per order! Frankly I was dismayed because on the other two sites I visited the parts came to over a tenner plus post and packing, I remembered that I needed some buffers and and some other bits and managed to get the order over the five pound hurdle! The parts turned up a week later and the loco has been returned to as near as dammit, it's original condition.

The moral of the story, look around, get a copy of EKM current spares lists and have a look at the pricing, try their old fashioned service, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.

A word of caution however, supplies of spares for the Margate produced loco's are now running very low, so some parts may be very hard to find, so don't hesitate if you want that old Hornby Tri-ang loco that you had since before puberty to run again, buy your parts soon. They may not be around for much longer.

Usual disclaimer - no connection to anyone mentioned here - just a very satisfied customer.

It is sad that this Company is still giving problems. This is what I did. After my post of 20th February I sent them a message as follows:-

I am disappointed that you have not had the courtesy to respond to my email (dated 15th February)

In the circumstances I am now cancelling the order. Please refund me the sum of 21.86 without delay and ensure this is done no later than 23rd February.

Failure to do this will result in details being forwarded to Model Railway forums and being reported to Visa for abusing the dealer credit card agreement in debiting credit cards without providing goods ordered.

Please ensure this message is responded to without delay.

There was no response.

On 15th March I sent this further message:-

My earlier messages refer. I note to date that you have not refunded these funds to my credit card.

Please do so now without further delay. I am now reporting the matter to Visa.

On 17th March they responded as follows:- (complete with their spelling and grammar mistakes!)

I'm sorry to learn that you wish to cancel your order. Where ever possible we aim to ship all orders from stock within 24 hours. (I ordered back in December 2008) We were unable to do this with your order because it include an item that we have had to order from Hornby.

At the time of ordering this items was listed on our website with a delivery time of approximately 14 days. This is because we did not have stock and Hornby typically take 2 weeks to deliver them to us. This items was ordered from Hornby on 15 December immediately after your order was placed. Hornby subsequently informed is that they we're out of stock and that they were awaiting delivery.

Our records show that we initially attempted to contact you by email on 17 December and then provided an update every 14 days. On each email we would have provided the option to cancel the order. I apologise if you have not received our emails. ( I never received any emails from them until this one!) We had experienced some technical problems with our communication system which have now been resolved, it may be possible that our emails to you were affected by this problem.

As requested I have cancelled your order and issued a full refund for £21.86 to the card used for payment. (I have received the refund) I'm sorry that your experience of Modelspares has been less then ideal on this occasion and I hope that you will give us a future opportunity to show you that we can get it right for you. Regards
Jane Mackie
Modelspares Customer Service

Well it seems they are not getting it right for anyone! I subsequently ordered the part from Abigail's which has now been received.

I would suggest that those who are still having problems take the action that T14Paddlebox has taken and/or send them a final demand email as I did and failing that report them to your Credit Card Company.

Some years ago, nothing to do with model railways, I got a company banned by Visa for abuse of customer credit cards. In that particularly case the company fraudulently altered the slip, (it was in the days when they were manual). The principal is still the same and if your card has been debited and goods not supplied you should be able to claim from the Card Company who may well in turn cancel Modelspares as merchants which will make it very difficult for them to trade.

Modelspares is certainly not a company to be dealing with thanks for all the advice on here. As T14Paddlebox suggested I have reported them now to Trading standards at St Albans and as i paid by Paypal have registered a dispute with them for non delivery of goods.
This on Wednesday I ordered the same parts from Abbigails Hornby Spares and they were delivered this afternoon.
Thats service for you!!

Avoid Modelspares

Just an update since my last posting.

Firstly, thanks for the advice Peter re the credit card agreement, I am speaking to Matercard on Tuesday.

In the May addition of BRM this Company carried a full page advert. I suspect many of the items listed were not in stock and it is only since around 14 April they have started marking items with 'expected in 14 days' or 'phone (joke) for a delivery date'. As BRM readers may have been misled I have emailed BRM. This has been passed on to the Editor,Advertising Manager and Publishers and they will get back to me. I have drawn their attention to this thread but you may still wish to complain in person about this Company's trading practices

A note of caution. The term and conditions of this Company (which you agree to when ordering) state that their contractural obligations are at an end once the goods are dispatched (i.e. the goods travel at your risk). After my letter/email of 24 April my account was marked 'shipped' but (yes you've guessed it) no goods have been received. This has happened to someone else who became persistent. I am not a lawyer, but under the Consumer Protection (Direct Selling) Regulations 2000 and Sale of Goods Regulations 2002 the goods remain at the sellers risk until they are received and accepted by the consumer. What's more, their terms and conditions cannot overide these statutory rights. I only mention this because I think they may try to rebut claims for refunds on the basis that they have dispatched the goods and completed their contractural obligations. To attempt to exclude these statutory rights is in itself an offence. Now who can I complain to!

I am pleased that others are complaining to Trading Standards as the activities of this this Company are questionable and need to be investigated. The more people that complain to third parties rather than wasting time with the Company the quicker we will get a permanent resoultion to this thorn in our side. Remember that the Website is still trading and I dread to think the number of unsuspecting customers who are going down the same route as us. I will keep you posted.

Hi all,

Below is what I have just added to another part of this site where Jinty3F is looking for Lima spares but feel that it is worth repeating here!!!

Don't know if it's any use to you but Ihave just found an advert for M.B. Models, 32 Conery Gardens, Whatton, Notts, NG13 9FD Tel/Fax 01949850063.

They claim to have a large stock of spares for most Lima models available, also for Hornby and Bachmann. They stock bodies, chassis, motor bogies, wheels, exhaust sets, tyres, brushes & springs.

In light of some of the comments about other spares suppliers in other parts of this forum I thought that I give them a go. Having telephoned to see if they had the bits (and they did), I have placed my order....

The only things to note is
1) The lady that answered the telephone did not give the bussiness name - it was like phoning a private house, and my well be - But she was very helpful
2) Thay do not take payment by card

Having sent my first order on Friday, if all gose well I'll be ordering more..

They also say that you can have a compleat list if you send a stamped addressed envelope.

Ian

Sorry Ian but I think your post is out of order.

This thread is concerned with www.modelspares.com and those members who have experienced problems with them. You have now dragged an apparently innocent company into it by implying some sort of connection or similarity in the way the two companies deal with customers and their orders - 'guilt by association'

At some time in the future a member may recall the name of the company you mention but not the exact details of your post and therefore, refrain from placing an order or, worse still, tell someone on a forum, "they once heard" etc etc.

I've dealt with many companies who only announce their phone number when answering the telephone. This is how you start out in life and gradually build up trade so you can afford to have a separate telephone dedicated to the company name, the same is true of credit card transactions which traders have to pay a considerable sum to use - it's called 'cost cutting'.

I hope your order with the Nottingham company goes well and you receive the goods ordered, at which time, I would hope you will post again in this thread to say as much, and with it an apology to them withdrawing any association you may have implied.

Mike

ps. Although living within stone throwing distance of the company mentioned, I have no connection with it, indeed I had never heard of them until I read this thread.....