Very disappointed with MB Klein


Wow, ten pages. Has the OP cried "uncle" yet?

I've ordered from MB Klein more times than I can remember and they've always came through with great service and among the best discount prices. AND, to top it off, on the few occasions I've had a defective or difficient item, they cheerfully emailed me a shipping lable and either refunded me or sent a replacement.

Is life perfect? For most no, but it's about as good as it can be with MB Klein. You choice of course.

Happy Curmudgeon said:
If you want instant gratification, buy local, if you want a headache, buy mail order.
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Easy for you to say, but won't work for a large percentage of hobbyists. And I'll point out that even when I did have a local LHS, usually the prices were near MRSP and with my meager budget I had resorted to mail order, which most of the time worked out fine.
 
Wow, ten pages. Has the OP cried "uncle" yet?
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Yeah, the original post was from June of last year, essentially ending in September. It was resurrected two days ago and we have had 25+ posts since then!
Willie
 
Hmm. I'm on day five of my order that still hasn't shipped yet. One thing I found a little ominous, actually, was that when I looked at their FAQ they no longer commit to any shipping timeframe. They used to state that orders would be shipped out within 3-4 business days, and now they say absolutely nothing about any shipping timeframe whatsoever. I'm wondering if they've downsized their staff or something and have decided the savings are worth the extra delivery lag to the customer?

That's pure speculation on my part, but on day 5 and with that being removed from the FAQ I'm having to wonder. Guess we'll see if this new trend is something that's here to stay or if Klein will once again return to prompt service.

I don't do business with Klein much anymore, actually, since they tend to run out of stock on everything within just a few days. Every once in a while they'll come up with something I want at the same time I have the extra cash, but most time I end up browsing Klein and then a week or two later buying from someone else that still actually has it for sale. Got tired of trying to shuffle money back and forth out of and back into my savings account just because I knew the item wouldn't be there tomorrow. If you look around you can find other places to buy that don't make buying the item such an emergency.
 
What's the weather like in Chicago at the moment and how has it been during the Christmas/New year season? (which is where all of my stuff comes through).
 
tootnkumin said:
What's the weather like in Chicago at the moment and how has it been during the Christmas/New year season? (which is where all of my stuff comes through).
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This has been the most snow free winter I can remember in almost my whole life around Chicago,,,,,,52yrs. I placed 2 orders last weekend and still waiting on them to ship. It doesn't bother me at all because the other thing I noticed, is their website has been slow as dialup in the evening and fast as lightening at 4am when I wake up. They are just busy as hell by my guess. I can deal with it.
 
I agree about the speed of their website. The first time I experienced a slowdown I thought it was just my Kindle, so I tried it on the laptop........same result. Next morning, no problems.
 
Probably also find there isn't enough room or space on packing tables to fit more staff in. Soon after I first started shopping with them several years ago, I had occasion to phone a question to them about a product (nothing faulty), the lady on the other end passed it on to others and one of them came up with an answer. I asked afterwards whether they were busy then, she said she was run off her feet. I jokingly offered to come over and help. She replied, "Come on over, but they'd probably steal me for the packing department".

I haven't noticed any slow down with the site, but then, I'm about 15 hours out of skew with you lot, so the place is closed mostly. I did have a disappointment just before Christmas when I knew the latest round of Genesis "ACe's" were due. I was after the MRL #4312 with the new logo. Waited till after midnight, 1:00 am I think, without them appearing on the website, got up at 6:00am and found them all sold out. Luckily got one a week later from an ebay seller who had only just got 2 in. Second one went a few minutes later. Was delivered in a cardboard box with no other packaging, just as well the Athearn box protected it.
 
roofintrash said:
This has been the most snow free winter I can remember in almost my whole life around Chicago,,,,,,52yrs. I placed 2 orders last weekend and still waiting on them to ship. It doesn't bother me at all because the other thing I noticed, is their website has been slow as dialup in the evening and fast as lightening at 4am when I wake up. They are just busy as hell by my guess. I can deal with it.
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It's not all about them being busy. When they redesigned their website (about a year ago maybe?), they apparently also switched servers or software. Overnight their website slowed down dramatically. Before the switch I never noticed any significant lag at any time, and that was when I was still doing a lot more business with them and on their site all the time. Then suddenly there's periods where the website barely works it's so slow. Again, this happened overnight, and I'm pretty sure they didn't gain that many customers in one day.

So yes, it does slow down when it's busy, but it's not because they're suddenly so much more busy than they were a year or two ago. They just now have a website that doesn't handle load as well as the old one used to.
 
When I called them to find out the status on my order. I expressed I was very dissapointed with their service, and that I've been a customer of them for a long time. And all they said was "sorry bout that".

If they are busy, HIRE MORE PEOPLE! If their website is jacked, FIX IT! Its not rocket science.

If they continue with this kind of thing, they will lose customers. Like me!
 
You guys need to come over here, where it can take 2 weeks to get to a port of entry and another week to actually get delivered (and that's also been from my hometown international airport, 45mins drive away).
 
tootnkumin said:
You guys need to come over here, where it can take 2 weeks to get to a port of entry and another week to actually get delivered (and that's also been from my hometown international airport, 45mins drive away).
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...and if I had ordered something from Australia, I'd be fine with it taking 2-3 weeks to get here. It's not about how long the normal workings of the postal service and shipping company take. It's about the fact that they're adding, it appears, at least a week (and apparently more) to the normal shipping times by simply not even getting it out the door. For a domestic package in the US, I honestly can't remember the last time it took more than a week to receive a package after it was ordered, and they're not even managing to get it into the system within that week time frame.
 
If you are really tired of waiting and paying high shipping you might resort to ebay. The transactions are stacked in the buyers favor. There are many hobby shops represented and it is pretty easy to compare prices of several vendors.

To me, the biggest drawback is how much time it takes to pick something out.

A lot of the stuff I buy is free shipping or less than 6.00 and gets out the door in 3 days or less.
 
I am aware that many hobby shops are selling on ebay and I have checked them out and in general didn't find any great deals. The majority of the time I found the prices weren't discounted at all, or if they were, not by much.
 
montanan said:
I am aware that many hobby shops are selling on ebay and I have checked them out and in general didn't find any great deals. The majority of the time I found the prices weren't discounted at all, or if they were, not by much.
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If you put the item on your watch list then it will give you a choice to "compare". I have found that I can get retail prices and free shipping. In some cases I have gotten even more savings.

MB klein is getting 9.95 for shipping, for small items a very poor value. Better getting them off ebay. Unless you are making a large order and that is a small percent of the total.
 
Before ordering anything, I keep a list of what I want and usually put in a fairly large order which lessens the shipping. I can't see putting an order in for only one or two items. Years ago I looked at ebay quite a lot but after seeing clowns bid items way over retail I lost interest to a point. I don't have the time to sit in front of a computer trying to put in a last second bid. I also find it easier putting an order into MBK, Train World, Internet trains and the likes a bit easier. It's easier to find what I want or need.
 
logandsawman said:
If you put the item on your watch list then it will give you a choice to "compare". I have found that I can get retail prices and free shipping. In some cases I have gotten even more savings.

MB klein is getting 9.95 for shipping, for small items a very poor value. Better getting them off ebay. Unless you are making a large order and that is a small percent of the total.
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I use eBay all the time. For rolling stock it's hit or miss as to whether you can get a good deal, just depending on who's listing what. Of course, as has been discussed, it's not like Klein keeps those things in stock reliably either. For decoders, scenery, etc., though, you absolutely can't beat eBay. I would generally have to buy at least five or six decoders in one order from Klein just to break even on their added shipping costs, and of course if I only need one or two decoders eBay ends up being much, MUCH cheaper. You can easily save $7-10 over what Klein would charge to ship one decoder. My last ballast and scenic cement purchases on eBay saved me close to $30 total over what Klein would have charged me.

I honestly don't understand why so many seem to down on eBay. The few times I've had problems with orders, the seller generally makes it right immediately with no hassle. The couple of times the seller has given me attitude, eBay has stepped in and made it right. eBay usually makes it more right that I even had expectations of, honestly, and the sellers would have ended up better off just working it out with me to begin with. You can get into some messes dealing with individual sellers who think they can rip people off or just don't know enough to accurately list their items, but even with those I've never gotten ripped off in the end. Worst case is that I have to spend five or ten minutes of my time typing and clicking, and then wait for eBay to resolve the issue.
 
montanan said:
Before ordering anything, I keep a list of what I want and usually put in a fairly large order which lessens the shipping. I can't see putting an order in for only one or two items. Years ago I looked at ebay quite a lot but after seeing clowns bid items way over retail I lost interest to a point. I don't have the time to sit in front of a computer trying to put in a last second bid. I also find it easier putting an order into MBK, Train World, Internet trains and the likes a bit easier. It's easier to find what I want or need.
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Pfft. I rarely ever bother with bidding on eBay. For one thing, if I wanted to wait a week to finally get an order processed I'd order from Klein (badum-bum). The majority of listings, especially from established retailers, these days are "buy it now" rather than auction. And of course, making a list and combining things works great for Klein, with the one huge caveat that by the time you get around to ordering what you wanted there's a really good chance that they'll have sold out of at least part of what you wanted to buy.

And listen, I'm not trying to just bash Klein. Just discussing options and of course pointing out advantages and disadvantages. I'll admit I'm a little annoyed that I'm a full week into an order and they haven't even managed to get it out the door yet, but luckily I'm not actually in a time crunch for what I ordered. I tend to, these days, think of Klein kind of like Wal-Mart. I'm not particularly fond of them, and would rather do business elsewhere if it's a good option, but I'm not opposed to buying something there from time to time. I'm definitely not sitting around saying I'll never do business with them again or anything like that. I know I will.
 
MikeOwnby said:
And listen, I'm not trying to just bash Klein. Just discussing options and of course pointing out advantages and disadvantages. I'll admit I'm a little annoyed that I'm a full week into an order and they haven't even managed to get it out the door yet, but luckily I'm not actually in a time crunch for what I ordered.
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Mike: FWIW, I don't take your criticism (or anyone else's criticism of MBK), to be other than a discussion. I'm not pleased with their limited availability of hot new items, as I'm not always ready to order. They don't do pre orders either, and their advance notice feature is hit or miss. Yet, there are times where their pricing is unbeatable. I find my self using Trainworld more than before, for the aforementioned reasons.

Yet, on the other hand, MBK is far from being the worst dealer around. The local Troll who wants full price, and won't accept returns if the seal on the package is broken , is much worse. Trainworld's inventory is sometimes out of date. I never see anything on the auction site that makes me want to place a bid.

Since I'm building a new layout, at some point I will run out of my stash of track components. If I plan effectively, I will probably order from where ever I get the best price.
Otherwise I will scramble over to the other nearby LHS, and pay his going rate for whatever I need.
 
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WJLI26 said:
Yet, on the other hand, MBK is far from being the worst dealer around. The local Troll who wants full price, and won't accept returns if the seal on the package is broken , is much worse. Trainworld's inventory is sometimes out of date. I never see anything on the auction site that makes me want to place a bid.

Since I'm building a new layout, at some point I will run out of my stash of track components. If I plan effectively, I will probably order from where ever I get the best price.
Otherwise I will scramble over to the other nearby LHS, and pay his going rate for whatever I need.
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You're absolutely right. I'm lucky enough to have a LHS (well, if local is an hour's drive away) that's pretty great. They don't have the best prices on most things, but I do still buy from them. A few pieces of rolling stock here and there, and honestly I can't find prices that are any better for flex track and cork once the shipping is added in. The shipping on those long boxes of those items is pretty brutal.

In fact, here's why I LOVE my LHS, to be honest. I wanted a piece of rolling stock, but it was pretty obvious that the couplers/trucks were a mess. Can't even remember specifically which piece it was, but the point is this: The LHS discounted the price of the item to cover the Micro-Trains trucks I would have to replace the mess with. I've gotten that sort of service from eBay sellers, but never from internet stores like Klein. Or Trainworld or BLW. I sort of understand why such service would put a huge load on their personnel, but it's definitely hard to deal with their "just return it" attitude when things COULD be fixed in another way. Especially when they've (of course) sold out of the item and can't even offer a replacement.
 
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