A Bone to Pick with Walthers!


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Trussrod

Well-Known Member
Hello Forum members,

I'd like your reaction if this happened to you?

On 10-15-07, I posted a thread about some Model Poiwer 4-6-0 Casey Jones Loco's Walthers was having a clearance on or so they alleged for $39.99/ reg $79.99. A good deal and they looked very nice, at least to me, if you like Steam like I do!

Casey_Jones_4-6-0_by_MP-Walthers_close-out.jpg


At around 11:45 PM I ordered two of them from Walthers site and was given the option to have them delivered from one of their participating dealers, I live in Calif so I chose a dealer in Portland Oregon who was in turn suppose to contact me for my credit card # etc. I actually sent the dealer an email shortly thereafter myself to give them a heads-up about the order. I also was able to print out a receipt for the two loco's along with a couple of other items I had ordered through Walthers, I still have the receipt.

About thirty minutes later or 12:15 AM I figured a buddy of mine would like one of these too and went through the same process and ordered a third for him again choosing the same dealer to take delivery through and again aprised them of the additional Loco. Walthers later confirmed all this to me!

About two or three days go by and I get an email from the dealer that there were no more of these Loco's available!! WHAT?? :eek: I had the printed receipt from Walthers site stating I had purchased these Loco's how could that be? Doesn't Walthers keep tract of how many they are selling to individuals such as myself or are they just taking orders blindly not knowing whether they can fulfill them or not?? Doesn't sound logical to me.

*Now the very interesting part of all of this is that even after Walthers stated they no longer had these loco's available for the above sale price they did have them available at the full list price and the only difference was in the last digit of the part #6585 rather than the sale #6586, that last digit could be any slight difference such as with Kadee's rather than the Horn Hooks the sale one came with!?

So what would you guys and gals think if that happened to you and you were really planning on getting one of these loco's ?
 
Well, Walther's cannot guarantee a dealer's stock. Walther's can ONLY guarantee THEIR stock, and THEIR sale price. They cannot force a dealer to have it in stock, nor even honor the sale price (if you read the fliers, they should say something about dealer stock and prices).

If its on sale, order it direct.
 
I agree. David, you know enough about the business to know that a dealer is independent from the distributor and can cancel orders you placed even without your consent or knowledge. I've never ordered anything on sale through Walthers directly that was on sale and listed as in stock and not had it delivered just as advertised. I'm confused about why you would order through Walthers and then have it shipped to a hobby shop in Oregon. If it was to save sales tax, that may be an issue in California but I never pay sales tax on orders shipped to Alabama. If you wanted to make sure you got it through the Oregon shop, why didn't you order it through that shop? You'd then at least have a contract with them for delivery. I don't think Walthers is the villain here.

As far as having an item at a sale price and then being out of the sale priced item while a similar item is available at full price, that's business. Although the model number may have only been slightly different, Walthers may have had 50 of the sale priced item they wanted to move and 25 of the regular priced item that didn't exceed their normal stocking levels.

I think you are assuming a lot of facts that aren't in evidence here.
 
This dealer as well as many others are associated with Walthers as part of Walthers network, that is why Walthers can offer the product through them.
If Walthers cannot guarantee a dealers stock when that dealer is associated with them then how is it that Walthers can claim the product is abailable through them??

That's just what they did and I firmly believe it's wrong!

Btw the dealer never said or tried to make any claim as your implying, he was most helpful even to the extent of inquiring with the Walthers rep as to the difference in the two #'s and even the rep could answer what the difference was!

Well, Walther's cannot guarantee a dealer's stock. Walther's can ONLY guarantee THEIR stock, and THEIR sale price. They cannot force a dealer to have it in stock, nor even honor the sale price (if you read the fliers, they should say something about dealer stock and prices).

If its on sale, order it direct.
 
This dealer as well as many others are associated with Walthers as part of Walthers network, that is why Walthers can offer the product through them.
If Walthers cannot guarantee a dealers stock when that dealer is associated with them then how is it that Walthers can claim the product is abailable through them??

That's just what they did and I firmly believe it's wrong!

Btw the dealer never said or tried to make any claim as your implying, he was most helpful even to the extent of inquiring with the Walthers rep as to the difference in the two #'s and even the rep could answer what the difference was!

Thanks for your reply Josh

Well, Walther's cannot guarantee a dealer's stock. Walther's can ONLY guarantee THEIR stock, and THEIR sale price. They cannot force a dealer to have it in stock, nor even honor the sale price (if you read the fliers, they should say something about dealer stock and prices).

If its on sale, order it direct.
 
Jim,
Take a look under the 'Wanted & For Sale' your decals are in' and I given you and others a very good price on them as you can see. I will require a check in advance once I get the shipping charges figured in so that I can send them to you.

My reply:
I do know that when a distributor like Walthers states the product is available through a more local dealer, such as the one they offered and I chose, it should be there or Walthers should ensure that it is delivered there as their printed receipt proclaims right down to the dealers name and address so I feel it only reasonable to assume that WKW was going to ship the product to that dealer if it wasn't there already as this whole transactionl transpired over WKW's site and they most certainly had record of it as one of the upper people there confirmed to me.

Now if it were an independent dealer with no connection to WKW then I would agree with you but not the way WKW's network stands.

I don't see how my choice of a dealer in Oregon as I was directed too by WKW's site as one of their network dealers should make a difference as to why I chose them. Why does anyone choose to deal with any dealer, because it their choice whom they deal with. Yes sales was part of the reason with the dealer being out of state the same as occurres between you and WKW when they ship into AL.

WKW's site is the place that offered the dealer as one of the many choices I had to receive the product through PER WKW as one of their network dealers.

I think your missunderstanding Jim as WKW is responsible for the whole transaction as well as not making sure their dealer had stock to supply me with when they made the sales transaction with me and allowed me to have the product shipped through one of about 25 or more dealers. They WKW made the offer to go through one of their network dealers and I accepted. I'm not sure how you cannot see it was none of my doing other than accetping what was being offered to me by WKW just as I accepted their offer to purchase the 4-6-0 loco's from them, I was told they were available and would be delivered through their Oregon network dealer as WKW's own generated sales receipt shows right down to model # and price. So how is it you feel WKW is not to blame??

I'm not sure how I can make it any clearer.


Anyway I look forward to supplying you with your Police, Fire & Ambulance decals.

I agree. David, you know enough about the business to know that a dealer is independent from the distributor and can cancel orders you placed even without your consent or knowledge. I've never ordered anything on sale through Walthers directly that was on sale and listed as in stock and not had it delivered just as advertised. I'm confused about why you would order through Walthers and then have it shipped to a hobby shop in Oregon. If it was to save sales tax, that may be an issue in California but I never pay sales tax on orders shipped to Alabama. If you wanted to make sure you got it through the Oregon shop, why didn't you order it through that shop? You'd then at least have a contract with them for delivery. I don't think Walthers is the villain here.



As far as having an item at a sale price and then being out of the sale priced item while a similar item is available at full price, that's business.

>>It is illegal to advertise a product as being on, make the sale only to then say sorry we're out of stock and offer the customer the same product at a higher price. That's a form of 'Bate and Switch'. The merchant is generally obligated to offer a replacement item of equal or greater value or provide a rain check to supply the product at a later date, common practice at any of your local stores, at least here in Calif.


Although the model number may have only been slightly different, Walthers may have had 50 of the sale priced item they wanted to move and 25 of the regular priced item that didn't exceed their normal stocking levels.

I think you are assuming a lot of facts that aren't in evidence here.
 
I had something similar happen when I ordered 2 2-packs of Walthers Trinity Cement Hoppers at the sale price, directly from WKW. I got a confirmation email the following day saying the order had been shipped. So I waited. And waited. And waited.

Finally 3 weeks later, I called their customer service # and they "checked into it", said their records showed it was shipped and I shouldv'e gotten them.

Bottom line: All they could do was credit my account, and buy the same item at the regular price which was almost double the original - NO THANX! :mad: ($23 per hopper car is too rich for my blood)
 
Good confirmation!

Say Ken,
At least I hadn't actually payed any money yet but their idea of conducting business seems to leave a lot to be desired!! If fact between what happened to me and you it more than seems to be a case of, 'Bate and Switch'!

I've been in MRR for the last 55 years on & off and I never did care much for Walthers and our experiences more than seem to substantiate that.

Thanks for your sharing your experience, sure lends creedance to what happened to me! :mad:


David


I had something similar happen when I ordered 2 2-packs of Walthers Trinity Cement Hoppers at the sale price, directly from WKW. I got a confirmation email the following day saying the order had been shipped. So I waited. And waited. And waited.

Finally 3 weeks later, I called their customer service # and they "checked into it", said their records showed it was shipped and I shouldv'e gotten them.

Bottom line: All they could do was credit my account, and buy the same item at the regular price which was almost double the original - NO THANX! :mad: ($23 per hopper car is too rich for my blood)
 
Never EVER had problems with Walthers, sadly, so I cannot side with you. :(

As I said before, Walther's cannot FORCE a dealer to have it in stock. All Walther's can do, is confirm that the deal received on in the past, and at that I've noticed that they're not correct (emailed a few dealers and they claimed they never got the items). Walther's does not own the dealers. Now had you ordered something from, say Hobby Town USA, and requested it delivered, they CAN force a Hobby Town USA store to have it. I dunno how much more clear I can be then that, the dealer may be a Walther's dealer, but they are a separate entity.

As for the stock numbers, that blows my mind. Odd that they have two like that, I wonder is one is an old release and one a new?

Bottom line, as I see it, and as I said before, if its on sale, order it direct.

Now on to bait & switch... I just got ripped off on a camera I bought for my wife, never will I order from fotoconnection.com again. I bought a $159 camera, and got an extra battery, which cost me $120!! I'm half tempted to send it all back, get my money back, and order it elsewhere.
 
Well never mind my complaint, seems the salesman i talked to upgraded me to express shipping, and they're refunding all the shipping I paid, $35!
 
David,
In reading over your original post, it appears that you ordered the locomotives directly from Wathers to be shipped to this dealer in Portland? How were you able to do this without paying for the locomotives? It sounds like you requested Walthers to ship the locomotives to the Portland dealer, where you would presumably pay for them. Since no money had changed hands, you essentially made a reservation. In the meantime, the locomotives could have sold out to paying customers, leaving people like you in the lurch. Not only would I expect but I think it's legally required that you fulfill contracts where money has changed hands. What evidence did Walthers have that you would ever actually pay for these locomotives if and when they showed up in the Portland Hobby Shop? Does your receipt show you paid for something or only that you placed an order to have something dropped shipped? The latter is completely different than the former.

The other thing to consider is this hobby shop is actually the one that treated you unfairly. It sounds suspicious that they would wait two or three days to get a credit card from you for material they would have been committing to buy. It would be unethical but not unheard of that the locomotives actually got sold to one of their regular local customers.
 
I can sense your dismay, David. Still, it seems to have been a matter of timing, looking at it from my third-party and hopefully objective position. Leaving out for now whether the Walthers site actually could offer you a sale because they had three to sell you as of midnight, it could be that the dealer didn't actually place the firm offer until after those three locos were snapped up by someone who wanted them directly from Walthers, and actually typed in his card info.

It surely does suck for you, no doubt about it, but I think, in hindsight, you might be able to accept that the as-much-as 24 hours that went by before the dealer actually got around to dealing with Walthers was your undoing.

-Crandell
 
I'm sorry to hear about your problem, and understand your frustration, but I think there is some confusion here as to how the Walthers system works. This is direct from their website:

Browse the Walthers warehouse for the products you want, then place an order on-line. Your selected dealer can fill this order from stock or through our Expres system. If the item you want is out of stock at Walthers, contact these Dealers via e-mail, and find out if any of them have the product you want.

Walthers is NOT saying the dealer has it in stock, they are saying that if you, for whatever reason, want to purchase it from a specific dealer instead of directly from Walthers, you can go through the online form, which is then sent to the dealer, and then the dealer can order it from Walthers for you. Yes, the dealer 'might' have it in stock already, but that would just be by chance, and doesn't happen very often.

Walthers has no information about an individual dealer's inventory. The only thing they can tell you is that the dealer has ordered the item in the past. Having thousands of dealers keep real-time inventory and then having Walthers compile that would be a logistical nightmare. Lots of smaller train shops don't even use computers to keep track of their inventories, Walthers dealer or not.

The pricing is Walthers pricing, and Walthers pricing only. Some dealers choose to honor Walthers' sale prices, and are usually listed at the back of the sale flyers as 'participating dealers,' but just because a dealer orders items from Walthers, that in no way, shape, or form REQUIRES them to honor Walthers pricing. That wouldn't be fair to the dealers, as Walthers sometimes has items on sale at or below dealer cost. Unless you contact a dealer for confirmation, the dealer is listed in the sale flyer, or the dealer is advertising the sale price elsewhere, assume they are not participating in the sale.

There really isn't a 'Walthers Network' per say. Walthers lists all of the dealers they sell to as a courtesy to both the dealer (who gains some exposure) and the customer (who may wish to visit a nearby store, or contact dealers to find an item that Walthers no longer has). A listing on the Walthers site only means that dealer orders from Walthers, it does not imply that they have certain items in stock, honor sale prices, or will be willing to obtain a given item that Walthers handles.

If you want a Walthers sale item, your best bet is to order it directly from Walthers. In fact, the only things I ever order from Walthers are sale items, and I have never had a problem.

(By the way, please don't think I am a lawyer for Walthers. Personally, I'm not a big fan of the company, but I won't get into that...)
 
David,
In reading over your original post, it appears that you ordered the locomotives directly from Wathers to be shipped to this dealer in Portland? How were you able to do this without paying for the locomotives? It sounds like you requested Walthers to ship the locomotives to the Portland dealer, where you would presumably pay for them. Since no money had changed hands, you essentially made a reservation. In the meantime, the locomotives could have sold out to paying customers, leaving people like you in the lurch. Not only would I expect but I think it's legally required that you fulfill contracts where money has changed hands. What evidence did Walthers have that you would ever actually pay for these locomotives if and when they showed up in the Portland Hobby Shop? Does your receipt show you paid for something or only that you placed an order to have something dropped shipped? The latter is completely different than the former.

The other thing to consider is this hobby shop is actually the one that treated you unfairly. It sounds suspicious that they would wait two or three days to get a credit card from you for material they would have been committing to buy. It would be unethical but not unheard of that the locomotives actually got sold to one of their regular local customers.
Hummm, I just re-read it, I missed that myself. David, is this true? If so, it might change my replies a bit, in a sort.
 
Your Reply.

Hi Nate,
Thanks for your post.
I'm not sure just where your info comes from but I don't read it that way or agree with what you've stated in all respects. You and I are both involved in trying to supply potential customers with product and if someone requested to purchase an item from us it is only ethicle to allow that individual the chance, for a reasonable amount of time to fullfill their offer to buy the product, and of course that means that we should insure that the product is available for them to take delivery of, again for a reasonable amount of time, before we sell it out from under them as appears may have happened to me, but in reviewing CSX RS post it more than verify's in my mind that Walthers is really pulling some highly questionable business practices if not devious.

As stated prior the Loco's were ordered from Walther's via their site and they [Walthers] are the one that made the offer I could take delivery through one of their participating dealers and provided a list of dealers to choose from as I did.

So just how is it that everyone seems to want to aleviate Walthers from any blame or wrong doing when the whole issue originated through them and transpired through them per their offer!!!!

Walthers is totally responsible, PEROID!!!!!!

I've been in business far to long to not know where a problem stems from!




I'm sorry to hear about your problem, and understand your frustration, but I think there is some confusion here as to how the Walthers system works. This is direct from their website:

Walthers is NOT saying the dealer has it in stock, they are saying that if you, for whatever reason, want to purchase it from a specific dealer instead of directly from Walthers, you can go through the online form, which is then sent to the dealer, and then the dealer can order it from Walthers for you. Yes, the dealer 'might' have it in stock already, but that would just be by chance, and doesn't happen very often.

Walthers has no information about an individual dealer's inventory. The only thing they can tell you is that the dealer has ordered the item in the past. Having thousands of dealers keep real-time inventory and then having Walthers compile that would be a logistical nightmare. Lots of smaller train shops don't even use computers to keep track of their inventories, Walthers dealer or not.

The pricing is Walthers pricing, and Walthers pricing only. Some dealers choose to honor Walthers' sale prices, and are usually listed at the back of the sale flyers as 'participating dealers,' but just because a dealer orders items from Walthers, that in no way, shape, or form REQUIRES them to honor Walthers pricing. That wouldn't be fair to the dealers, as Walthers sometimes has items on sale at or below dealer cost. Unless you contact a dealer for confirmation, the dealer is listed in the sale flyer, or the dealer is advertising the sale price elsewhere, assume they are not participating in the sale.

There really isn't a 'Walthers Network' per say. Walthers lists all of the dealers they sell to as a courtesy to both the dealer (who gains some exposure) and the customer (who may wish to visit a nearby store, or contact dealers to find an item that Walthers no longer has). A listing on the Walthers site only means that dealer orders from Walthers, it does not imply that they have certain items in stock, honor sale prices, or will be willing to obtain a given item that Walthers handles.

If you want a Walthers sale item, your best bet is to order it directly from Walthers. In fact, the only things I ever order from Walthers are sale items, and I have never had a problem.

(By the way, please don't think I am a lawyer for Walthers. Personally, I'm not a big fan of the company, but I won't get into that...)
 
Hi Nate,
Thanks for your post.
I'm not sure just where your info comes from but I don't read it that way or agree with what you've stated in all respects. You and I are both involved in trying to supply potential customers with product and if someone requested to purchase an item from us it is only ethicle to allow that individual the chance, for a reasonable amount of time to fullfill their offer to buy the product, and of course that means that we should insure that the product is available for them to take delivery of, again for a reasonable amount of time, before we sell it out from under them as appears may have happened to me, but in reviewing CSX RS post it more than verify's in my mind that Walthers is really pulling some highly questionable business practices if not devious.

As stated prior the Loco's were ordered from Walther's via their site and they [Walthers] are the one that made the offer I could take delivery through one of their participating dealers and provided a list of dealers to choose from as I did.

So just how is it that everyone seems to want to aleviate Walthers from any blame or wrong doing when the whole issue originated through them and transpired through them per their offer!!!!

Walthers is totally responsible, PEROID!!!!!!

I've been in business far to long to not know where a problem stems from!

I certainly don't mean to alleviate Walthers of any wrongdoing. As I mentioned, I'm not a big fan of the company. Among other reasons, they won't sell to me as a dealer because I don't have a brick-and-mortar store (I'm a full-time college student, so my business is 99.9% online). I've had much better luck with smaller distributors and companies who understand the one-man-show type of businesses. I have other gripes with Walthers, but all that said, I still feel that this was a misunderstanding, probably the result of poor wording on the Walthers site.

My point (or perhaps my misunderstanding) is that you say you ordered from Walthers and chose to accept delivery at a local store. If this is indeed the case, you would have to pay Walthers directly (provide a credit card on the site), and they would ship it to the hobby shop of your choice for pick-up. In my experience, this simply is not an option on the Walthers site. It has always been either 1) order directly from Walthers, or 2) order through a dealer. When you choose to order through a dealer, you are ordering from that dealer and that dealer alone, you are not ordering from Walthers. In the second case, all of my previous comments apply. I just went through the Walthers site and couldn't find anything different. If you indeed found an option to order from Walthers and have it delivered to a dealer, please let us know where you found it.
 
Getting back to you.

Hi Josh,
One thing you and the other folks here on the forum need to realize about me is that what I've stated here is as factual as it can get, I don't make statements that aren't true and factual. Indeed if they weren't I could be in for one hell of a defermation law suit, but because they are factual there is no slander or defermation under the law in the truth.

I will always be forthright and truthful in my dealings or statements to all of you.

So in answer to your question Josh, if your reading my posts word for word and I stated something rest assured that's exactly what happened!
As Jim relates in his first line below, which is exactly true as I stated in my many posts that exactly what happened, 'Walthers web site offered these Loco's on a close-out basis, I ordered two of them about Midnight and a third about 30 minutes later, all to be shipped to a dealer that Walthers made available to me to take delivery through and pay for the product through, the whole transaction originated and stemed through Walthers. Except for my contacting the dealer in Oregon to arrange payment through as a Walthers Network dealer! How else would I know which hobby shop to contact in Oregon if Walthers didn't list them on their site??

Jim doesn't seem to understand that I was able to do this as that exactly what Walthers offered when I ordered or you order, they don't state, to the best of my knowledge, that if you don't order through them directly there's no guarantee of product being available.

What Jim also says is true in that I was to pay for the items through the dealer in Oregon. So you see, in placing the order through Walthers initally it was therir obligation to ensure the Oregon dealer had the merchandise abailabe to make a sale!! Again this was all due to Walthers actions and inactions.

As stated in a prior post to Nate it is highly unethicle and highly questionable business practices to make merchandise abailable to anyone who places an order for it and then turn around and sell it out from under them!!!

Jim states:
>Not only would I expect but I think it's legally required that you fulfill contracts where money has changed hands. What evidence did Walthers have that you would ever actually pay for these locomotives if and when they showed up in the Portland Hobby Shop?<

When a person orders something from anybody that is offering that product for sale at a certain price, in this instant case as sale/close-out price, there is an implied contract that is created between the two parties, and offer to sell and an offer to buy. When the seller offer the individual buyer the choice of where to obtain the merchandise from, in this instant case the Oregon Walthers dealer, their is an implied contract created that the seller [Walthers] will furnish or at least make available to that dealer for a reasonable amount of time that product so the buyer can have the abiltiy to consumate the intial contract created when the order was placed. In essence, Walthers is in breach of contract even if nothing more than the implied contract as I hadn't yet given my credit card information to actually pay for the merchandise but none the less it's still a breach of contract on their part and shody business practices in the least.

So I hope this gives you Josh and others a more clear insight into what happened.


David Smith


David,
In reading over your original post, it appears that you ordered the locomotives directly from Wathers to be shipped to this dealer in Portland? How were you able to do this without paying for the locomotives? It sounds like you requested Walthers to ship the locomotives to the Portland dealer, where you would presumably pay for them. Since no money had changed hands, you essentially made a reservation. In the meantime, the locomotives could have sold out to paying customers, leaving people like you in the lurch. Not only would I expect but I think it's legally required that you fulfill contracts where money has changed hands. What evidence did Walthers have that you would ever actually pay for these locomotives if and when they showed up in the Portland Hobby Shop? Does your receipt show you paid for something or only that you placed an order to have something dropped shipped? The latter is completely different than the former.

The other thing to consider is this hobby shop is actually the one that treated you unfairly. It sounds suspicious that they would wait two or three days to get a credit card from you for material they would have been committing to buy. It would be unethical but not unheard of that the locomotives actually got sold to one of their regular local customers.

Hummm, I just re-read it, I missed that myself. David, is this true? If so, it might change my replies a bit, in a sort.
 
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Yes and No

Walthers has no information about an individual dealer's inventory. The only thing they can tell you is that the dealer has ordered the item in the past. Having thousands of dealers keep real-time inventory and then having Walthers compile that would be a logistical nightmare....)

Actually ..they do
Its based on the sales reps however,The WKW rep comes once a month and he is pretty cool, other times its done on the phone or direct email. He takes my friends sales and then enters it on his laptop to Walthers. Its part of the "package" of being an "authorized" dealer.
Some use paper some use a computer, it is of course up to the Dealer to decide if they want to carry a certain product or not based on turn over and etc etc etc.
My friend who owns our little town hobby shop here has had his " issues" with WKW many times in the past due to having to wait for that certain amount to be reached before the order can be placed and then hoping the item dont leave WKW inventory by the time its placed. Believe it or not we dont have to many train hobbiest around here so orders are slow.
Unfortunatly WKW has the Market and if you want the what I call Wal Mart selection of items you almost have to bow to WKW as now there established.
I am not taking sides on this post as I dont completely understand the situation.
I to am having a MAJOR issue like this for a part for my car soooo I know how you feel trus but hang in there. You part is for a model, mine is for my bread and butter.
 
Not to keep drawing this out, but, Walthers "shops page" says:
Combine your local hobby shop's personal service with the speed of the Internet!
Browse the Walthers warehouse for the products you want, then place an order on-line. Your selected dealer can fill this order from stock or through our Exprestm system. If the item you want is out of stock at Walthers, contact these Dealers via e-mail, and find out if any of them have the product you want.
http://www.walthers.com/exec/page/shops

Basically, what that does it send an order though to the dealer, to place the order for you. I'm assuming that what you did, as other people have said, I see no way to have it specifically shipped to the dealer. Walther's does not work like Wal*mart's Site-to-store (that I know of).

I think this is why it seems everyone is backing Walthers, not you, we're confused how you ordered and stated it would be delivered to a dealer, ect.

I am in no way accusing you of mis-representing the facts here! Please don't take this as me disliking you, ect. I'm just a 3rd party thats reviewing your facts, and, well the facts of business.

However, I myself, hate when people accuse a retail establishment of breach of contract because something happens to be out of stock. With any business, its pretty much first come first serve, as I'm sure you know. But, even though it may not be clearly stated (which I don't think it should), any business reserves the right to refuse and/or cancel orders, just as you have the right to not buy from them, ect. Now when we're talking eBay, however, the seller DOES have a contract to get you the item, as per eBay policy.

Though, from what it looks like, people don't like Walthers on various accounts. I myself have never had a problem. Though, seeing as they have the minimum order thing for dealers, it might explain why only one of 3 LHS's I got to, stock Walthers stuff. The other two order direct, and have nothing from the Walthers line.

In all, if you're dis-satisfied, contact Walthers, let them know what happened, ask for an explanation, and if its not satisfactory, stop shopping there.
 
Indeed, forward a copy of this thread to Walthers customer service and see what response you get. They should be able to give you the "company line" on their policies. From my reading of their website, Walthers is saying that so and so hobby shop ordered this item OR they can order the item through the Express system. No where does it say that because you asked Walthers to ship an order to a hobby shop, that shop has to either accept the order or even not sell the same order to someone who walks in the door. If you had already paid to have the items sent, I think you'd have a case. In this case, you asked Walthers to have the LHS place an order based on your reservation, desire, or whatever you want to call it. There can be no contract, either implied or otherwise, unless a promise is made to sell you something and money changes hands. I don't think either of these took place. By the LHS taking two or three days to contact you for payment, they may have missed the window of opportunity to get these locomotives while they were still on sale. When they did try to place the order, Walthers was sold out. I would sell to anyone who could pay immediately. It sounds like this LHS was slow about following up and you lost out - Walthers wouldn't hold on to sale items for days seeing if the LHS you said would order the items would, in fact, place an order.

What it comes down to is this. You placed a circuitous order through Walthers to ship to an LHS in Oregon because you wanted to save the California sales tax. You know, or should have known, that this type of transaction to evade California sales tax is illegal and a criminal offense. Was it worth it to risk, at minimum, a day with a Franchise Tax Board criminal investigator plus not getting the models you wanted, compared to just ordering directly from Wathers and paying the sales tax? Only you can answer this but it was your desire to save a little money that is at the base of this entire issue.
 
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