I am never going to use AnimeXing to pre-order figures again. Not only do they charge you right away (rather than when the item is ready to be shipped to you) but now they are telling me there is an issue with their distributer that might take “from a week to months” for the figure to come in, or even it might not come in at all! The stupid thing is that people already have this figure and I’ve seen it at another site too! The only reason I didn’t get it from the other site was because I had already put in my order from AnimeXing and I didn’t want to deal with changing it. I am so mad, because I’ve been waiting since the beginning of December and I really want this figure!!!
I’m waiting for this Shakugan no Shana one:
https://www.animexing.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=4545784040867
If anybody knows of other stores I can get it at, please comment and let me know. I really want this figure and I’m really annoyed at AnimeXing and don’t really want to do business with them after all this trouble…
Distributer problems happen, though, so I wouldn’t knock them for that. However, charging you up front isn’t good, since the competition doesn’t. Twin Moons has it in stock. I’ve shopped there before a few times. Been smooth each time:
http://www.tmpanime.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=2030
Yeah…I was just whining since I COULD have gotten it somewhere else lol. I was also a little annoyed that they said “This may take a week, or months” and that they don’t know WHY “There are two possibilities, one, it may be canceled or two, there is a problem with the licensing.”! I just wanted to make sure I found somewhere trustworthy before I cancel my order. They’d better refund me though, because I don’t want to pay for a figure twice.
But yeah the definite, unwhining reason, #1 I am never using AnimeXing to order again is because they charge up front. This is exactly why you don’t do that. Not because people might flake out, but because if there is a problem with a figure you have to deal with even more annoyed people because they have already paid. That’s why I only use Kid Nemo for pre-orders (or Hobby Search if they don’t have it) to pre-order. Kid Nemo are very nice and they don’t charge up front for pre-orders.
Thank you for the recommendation for Twin Moons. I’ll order it from them and then cancel my order at AnimeXing and have them refund my money.
@Super Rats
I ordered it from Twin Moons just now…they are located in SoCal so it should arrive soon after shipping yay
Now wish me luck to get my refund in a timely manner!
From what I know most don’t charge upfront, they only charge when your item is ready to ship, so it’s kind of strange for AnimeXing to do that. I hope you get your refund soon and also your figure
I agree…that was the first pre-order (actually order in general) when I got into Figures so I didn’t know anything…I thought it was weird myself, but I didn’t know like I do now how unusual that is. I know I will get my figure soon ’cause I ordered it from Twin Moons like Super Rats suggested, so I just need luck for the refund!
Could you post if Animexing gives you trouble with the refund? I’ve got two figures on pre-order and I haven’t ordered from them before. My credit card was already charged (like you) and I’m starting to question how reliable a store they actually are.
From my perspective, they’ve got my money and have estimated arrival dates so they can string me along for a long time. I’ve never been able to edit my order since it’s always been at “processing” and I’m expecting to have to fight them when my order hasn’t shipped months after they were supposed to arrive.
Ed – They refunded me…I think they are reliable, but they have a stupid pre-order practice. Just email them if you want out of the order.
OMG! I am NEVER going to use AnimeXing again. It has been over 2 weeks since they charged me. One item I finally received yesterday….and it wasn’t even my order! It was another guys order inside of my box and his order is worth less than my order. I have emailed them 3 times already with no response. You are lucky to have received a refund. There is no direct number to contact or anything. I am going to go through my credit card company to refute the charges soon if I don’t hear from them. I ordered over $300 worth of figures from them also. The wait/anguish is not worth their prices.
How long did it take for them to finally give you a response and the refund to show up on your credit statement?
@ Eetaku – Apparenly the in-stock figure I ordered that was delivered correctly was a fluke then. I thought it was just their pre-order policy etc. that sucked.
Here is their number 310-801-4401, good luck having somebody pick up though. I left them several messages before getting a response.
It took quite a few heavily worded emails but eventually they gave me a refund. I pre-ordered from them in the beginning of December thinking it would arrive in January. I think that this figure was already in stock other places, and I didn’t realize that it was a pre-order on animexing until after I didn’t get it for a couple weeks, but I decided to save myself the trouble (lol) and just be patient. In February they emailed me saying that it would be any time from weeks to months to never that they’d get this figure in (let it be known that I got it in stock a couple days before I got the refund, so I don’t know what their problem was). Of course the whole time they had my money, and who knows until when right?
I thought it was very shady to being with that they charge for pre-orders and this is exactly why. I would have had nothing to complain about if they hadn’t have charged me.
Anyhow, it took about a week from when they said they’d refund me until the refund showed up on my credit statement.
Ps. If you have a blog, blog about your bad experience. I’ve noticed that quite a few (like 100 or so) people found this blog post by searching “animexing” or “animexing reviews” in a search engine. If you post about it too, then they will find more bad reviews about animexing and not use them.
Thanks for the response Figured.
Joshua from AnimeXing finally called me later that evening after 3 emails. He says I could return the items I got and he still send them out to me Priority as soon as he receives my items.
I sent them out Priority Overnight and the Tracking has shown the package reached his place this morning. So I guess it’s time to wait and see what happens.
I took your advice and made my own blog just to let other people know about vendors.
It is at http://www.eetaku.com
I have never made a blog or web page before but after this experience, I have to let other people know.
Thanks for sharing your experience with AnimeXing and I look forward to seeing more of your blog.
[...] thing where they charge you upfront and then MAYBE send you item weeks for months later. Check out Figured’s Blog and his experience with pre-ordering from [...]
[...] Hello to all who has stumbled upon my website. I have always wanted to start a blog to showcase my new obsession of Anime Figures, but I wasn’t really compelled to until I made a couple orders with AnimeXing. Thanks to Figured of Figured Figure’s I created this blog. You can check out his experiences and what started it all here. [...]
i got tired of waiting and put in my pre-order cancellation request to animexing. let’s see how long it takes for it to actually happen.
@ ed – Hopefully they do it soon. Good luck!
[...] thing where they charge you upfront and then MAYBE send you item weeks for months later. Check out Figured’s Blog and his experience with pre-ordering from [...]
I’ll throw my two cents in. I ordered a Char Rhouseman figure forever ago and I’m unsurprised to see that everyone else from back in December was talking about getting charged for preorders right away. This makes me think they are VERY shady, because…. people here posted that in it says, December right? Well their “preorder policy” on the site in January said they don’t charge until 48 hours before they ship your item(s). So they charged me and then told me they just changed their preorder policy a few days ago. Which is obviously false if they charged everyone that posted here in December or whenever and then told me “recently just a few days (or weeks, I forget) ago we changed our company policy, we have to charge your card to ensure that we have the item held from our supplier when it comes into stock.” I don’t even care that I got charged for it right away, but the item says “In Stock 2/28/08″ and the e-mail said “it might take till early March to get into stock. Fine, whatever, but here I am now the 22nd of March waiting still. And $94 is quite a bit of money for something that, if I would’ve had the foresight to preorder, could’ve gotten it for like $70-$80 or so even with EMS shipping from Japan. I think I’m going to ride it out, now that I see that this isn’t a scam (in total at least) because everyone’s been sold out of these since at least January. I have issues in the first place ordering stuff from anyone but Japanese vendors because of the risk of getting bootlegs, and it really struck me as odd that they have a “no bootleg policy” too, a reputable place shouldn’t need a “no bootleg policy” it should be assumed that if I’m dropping $94 on a figure that it’s going to be genuine.
@ Karasu-Kun – Yes, that’s very shady that they told you they just changed the policy. I was charged on 12/2/07 or something like that. They should just change the policy on the page, at least.
i actually had a satisfactory resolution to my order. i asked for a refund via e-mail and got a reply a couple of days later. a couple of days after that, my credit card was refunded in full.
i saw that they have a fairly big presence on ebay and look to be a reputable seller there. i suppose that can be faked if you try, but i’m thinking that they’re just bad at responding to orders and have a really dumb pre-order policy.
i’m not saying that they’re good and i doubt i’ll deal with them again in the future since it’s not worth the uncertainty for free shipping and/or slightly cheaper items. however, i guess i’m not sold that they’re deliberately ripping people off either.
@ ed – Well I also got my refund after a while, but I really didn’t like the way they handled it. I don’t think they are doing it on purpose, but I don’t think they have their sh*t together or something. It’s really bad that they charge for something before even they receive it though. Also, I think Kid Nemo is cheaper anyhow, so I’m pretty happy with my decision.
I’ve also had an issue with them. I pre-ordered a figure and months went by after the release date. I ended up having to find it elsewhere. It does seem like they’ve taken a step up in their customer service since the issue, but it was annoying none-the-less. I’d still order from them, but I’d ensure that the items I wanted were in stock or en-route ahead of time.
@flecom I don’t mind waiting, but I mind being charged for something & not knowing if/when I will get it!
Animexing charged my card right away for a pre-order. I’ve been waiting for about a year now. I’ve been trying to contact them at least 3 times now to cancel. I have yet to receive a reply. Now, I’m wondering if I can get my money back through my credit card company. I wish I had run across these comments before I ordered…