I’m never buying from you again! You reject my credit card when i have more than enough money on it, then you take over a week to process my order with my paypal. Then you tell me some of my order is out of stock and you cancel my order? I’ve never had such horrible service from an online retailer! How dare you tell me that all of the figures I’ve ordered are out of stock, I can plainly see that Miyako is still in stock. I’m so insulted by your actions, I’ve e-mailed you countless times asking why you took this action, yet i still have no reply! How Dare you treat me, a customer, this way! Thats no way to do business!
3:15 pm on February 20th, 2008 1
Ah, I had trouble with them a long time ago. I wanted to order Da Capo on the PS2 because they had it listed as being in stock and then I get an e-mail a few days later saying they don’t have it in stock. I was like, “WTF?”
5:35 pm on February 20th, 2008 2
You’re not alone in this. I ordered several listed as “in stock” CDs from them and received an e-mail saying they’re out of stock. Furthermore, they followed up with another message saying that they’re unlikely to replenish new stocks for the product (maybe out of print or something like that). Yet, they STILL list those products as “in stock” more than a week after I received the e-mail. Keh, probably to sucker more people into buying from them or something but how would that profit them? :/
9:50 pm on February 20th, 2008 3
WTF?!
All I can say is: thanks for the protip.
11:38 pm on February 20th, 2008 4
I’m one of their regular customers and I haven’t had any stumbles with them (yet).
Still, that is some bad customer service they are giving and I thought they keep all of their customers happy given by the feedback elsewhere. I usually get a reply within 24hrs and no later than that.
Thanks for the heads up. I will keep this incident in mind.
1:09 am on February 21st, 2008 5
Meh, they had me waiting for an “in stock” CD for 2 months, and I never once got any email. After I emailed them and finally got a refund, it still took them about 2 or 3 weeks before they finally changed it to out of stock.
1:57 am on February 21st, 2008 6
I had a similar problem with Animebooks, so I’ll definitely not be buying from them ever again.
4:53 am on February 21st, 2008 7
My experience recently:
Got one figure on back-order.. place my order.. they changed the status to “preparing order” even before they got the stock.. at this stage I can’t change my order..
Figure was restocked.. And it got sale price! But mine was still the old price.. I wanted to change/cancel order but can’t! How can they put “preparing order” when they even haven’t get the stock before that!
I am pretty pissed and emailed them.. but they replied wanting me to be reasonable.. lol
5:28 am on February 21st, 2008 8
i have only done online shopping once. my CC rejected by yes-asia, then i try play-asia and received the ordered CD in 2 days.. lucky me, eh? ^^
11:36 pm on February 26th, 2008 9
Haha, at least you were just rejected, I ordered from anime-kingdom.com or somesuch (that’s prolly now long defunct) a long time ago and they charged me the full amount, sent me a bootleg One Piece flag that bled in the washer, got about 3/4 of what I ordered and never got the final part of my money back (they refunded the rest partially, saying that they were going to get the rest in stock, I waited a month and requested a refund again and got no reply), and then the real kicker is that, for as long as they were around after that they kept sending me “SALE SALE SALE!” e-mails. >< I’ve had minor problems with Play-Asia, too, they sent me a Goku DB figure that was flying on a cloud that was supposed to talk and I can read quite a bit of Japanese, nowhere on the packaging did it say it talked at all, and they INSISTED that he talked. That and with things that are opened like keychains that you can see in the capsule or whatever, if I order a few I always get dubs. I got 2 Hitsugayas in the last order I got from them, in the same box. But I’d have to say the largest perpetrator for me has to be HLJ, or Hobby Link Japan, I’ve ordered stuff time and time again from them only to get the runaround. They don’t have a form to pay Paypal as a transaction, just billing you through Paypal, which they never do. I pre-ordered the Claymore Clare figure that was super-hard to find even before the pre-orders ended and was assured one, then I go on the site to find out that it’s “Discontinued” with the skull and crossbones icon, much to my dismay. I recommend http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/ , Hobby Search, they’re reputable and fast and I’ve never once had a problem with them, however they only ship EMS, so it can get pricey. Oh, also, there’s a newish site named Anime Xing, I have a preorder in with them now as my first order with them, and it said free shipping and I was charged for shipping and it said in their faq “We don’t charge for preorders till 24 hours prior to shipping” and I was charged well over 2 weeks ago, when asked why they replied that they changed their preordering process and they were sorry for any inconvenience. Trust me, I wouldn’t be ordering from them unless I absolutely knew I wouldn’t find this item anywhere else (which I haven’t and won’t). I hope this helps anyone else avoid potential landmines, or and sorry for the book ^^;
11:49 pm on February 26th, 2008 10
@ Karasu-kun
see i’ve never had any problems with HLJ, they are my main provider of figures. I’ve yet to buy anything form hobby search but i do like how they have not only the promotional pictures of the figures, but their own. It helps me decide if i want a particular figure and to see if the quality matches that of the promotional photos. I was just astounded at play-asia’s customer service, i’ve never had any problems with other online retailer. I think for now i’m sticking with HLJ, what i love about them the most is that pre-ordering and canceling pre-orders is quite simple; I tend to pre-order every figure I like the moment it’s up for sale, then cancel the few that I just really don’t want. With HLJ they keep it simple and I’ve never had a problem canceling an order. I have been trying to broaden my horizens and use other sites, but so far i’m not really satisfied with other sites, the only other site that i’ve purchased form that didn’t give me any problems at all was Entertainment Earth. They have a giant markup on figures normally but that had a sale a while back and i was able to get the Max Factory Kotori for only $20. So they are really amazing when they have a sale, but other than that i’d stay away since they tend to overcharge…
4:56 pm on February 27th, 2008 11
Yeah, as a rule of thumb, most domestic (if you’re in the US) companies charge more because a lot are comic shops or whatever and they still are stuck on the “exotic factor” of Japanese imports. That’s my take on it anyway, all the places around the area here that carry even basics like Naruto and Bleach stuff overcharge because of this (I’ve asked, lol). btw, ironically enough I found your blog when I was too lazy to type play-asia’s addy into the bar and just Googled it -_-;.
8:29 am on February 28th, 2008 12
[...] and when disaster struck and I lot my job I wasn’t going to be able to get her for December. When play-asia canceled my order I decided that maybe I’ll just use that money and get my Fauna instead. But when I calculated [...]
5:35 am on March 24th, 2008 13
Fuck Play Asia!!!!!!!, I have use my credit card to buy PSP UMD Title at Play Asia, but hasn’t receive it ’till now, come-on guys!!!!!! you promise me 15 days……it Already 4 weeks for God sake,….Screw you, and what the fuck is “Free delivery”!!!! The Hell with it, “Free Delivery and never receive your items!!!!!THATS IT!!!!!!OK guys SPREAD THE NEWS!!!!!!!
11:40 pm on March 26th, 2008 14
I’ve had 3 orders thus far & had no issues yet. They ship it right away as long as it is in stock I believe so. Sometimes the shipping gets stuck in the post office in your area or in customs. Every business, big or small, come across flawed instances.
12:10 pm on March 29th, 2008 15
I think the problem with the credit card was not play-asia’s fault, it could probably be your bank that has problem sending them money. I had a similar problem with HLJ some weeks ago, I changed my credit card at least four times (I use virtual credit cards), what they told was that there were some banks that were denying sending money to asian shops because they were afraid of frauds (banks).
Well thankfully I managed to purchase my Kotona ^^ besides all this problem.
4:23 pm on April 9th, 2008 16
screw u guys play asia is god they have god service
7:17 pm on April 9th, 2008 17
@ROb:
god service? they have “God” service? if you’re going to sit here and try to defend a horrible online retailer then you might want to speak English correctly…
8:24 pm on April 9th, 2008 18
The only thing that you will order in play-asia with ease are video games. I am a regular in play-asia with buying their video games and they always reply within 24 hours with me and I never had a problem with them.
11:15 am on April 29th, 2008 19
Play-Asia have an awful customer service when things doesn’t go their way, you can easily write 10 emails and still you don’t get an answer for what you asked for, they use some custom made answers that they just copy/paste, it drives me insane, sometimes I just go WHAT?, I had to give up on 2 orders that they kept changing (stock/no stock).
9:30 am on May 14th, 2008 20
I had big problems with them too, I posted my page so you can see my story. I can tell you it involves a very unhappy little boy.
I posted a link on my site to your blog and this story.
10:53 am on May 24th, 2008 21
Ive been ordering from play-asia for 3 years now and i have never had a problem with them ( i order stuff using fed-ex) that free shipping thing usually takes time…
4:01 am on July 11th, 2008 22
I have problems with playasia, too.
On March I ordered two DVD’s, and I received so far only ONE DVD in May!
The other DVD was shortly before the estimated shipping-date, cancelled! WTF? I mean, both articles had the status “in stock” and it took them more then one week to change the status after the refund. (I use moneybookers btw)
So, I gave it another shot and ordered another DVD in MAY … and until now it has not arrived yet, although it was confirmed an estimated shippingdate (17 JUN)…So when I looked up my orderdetails on June 17, it said only “preparing order” ..that’s just ridiculous… now we have the 11 of July and they still preparing my f**king order!??
What’s their problem, why can’t they simply say whether something is available or not, I contacted them of course, but I just receive those shitty computer-generated answers ” they have to wait for the restock blah..”
Restock?? I ordered an item that was supposed to be “in stock”?!
The uncertain waiting is the worst thing ’bout it…I bet in a few weeks my order will be cancelled, cause they finally find out that it’s out of stock or what?!! WORST SERVICE EVER!
(btw, sorry for my bad english, I’m from Germany)
9:42 pm on July 25th, 2008 23
I’m a regular customer at PlayAsia and have numerous orders (6 or 7) and I have never had a problem. It seems everyone is having trouble with CD’s and DVD’s while I personally order Import Japanese games. I usually get a confirmation E-Mail within 12 hours stating that my order has shipped and I usually get my merchandise on my front porch in 1-3 days. The problem is that the CDs and DVDs are not actually in their warehouse hence them having the tags “Ships within 1 week” or “Ships 5-15 days”. Some communication with their other suppliers may be so delayed sometimes that it causes unfortunate mistakes and/or delays to the customer.
4:52 am on August 6th, 2008 24
I’m really glad I haven’t tried ordering from them before. Nothing I want ever seems to be in stock anyways lol.
Glad your getting your Sumomo though!
8:47 pm on August 6th, 2008 25
That’s why you don’t order anything but games or consoles from Play-Asia. Go for HLJ or Hobby Search for figures, E2046 for resin kits, CDJapan and HMV for CDs and DVDs, bk1 for books, and Play-Asia or Himeya for games.
12:27 am on August 7th, 2008 26
I’ve been purchasing stuff from P-A for over 2 years now. Not once have I gotten a problem with them except when you buy posters. I purchased the LE (limited edition) beatmania IIDX14 Gold and they weren’t able to send the poster right away with the game. When I finally got it, it didn’t come in mint condition. There were noticeable wrinkles on the bottom left corner which pissed me off.
Another time I purchased a video game cd and the case cover was literally marked with a deep scratch right in the center. Good thing the cd inside was fine. Seems to me that they don’t give a crap about shipping their stuff with care even though they put them in bubble wraps.
Other than that I haven’t been dissatisfied with them. I have bought a figure from them before and it was delivered fine. A few trading figures/gashapons as well too with no problems. I recently placed an order for their Nendoroid Shana (which will be my first time getting such a thing esp from P-A) and hopefully I’ll be able to get it and not get the runaround like most people here experienced.
9:54 am on August 20th, 2008 27
I’ve been buying stuff from Play-A for over 2 years too.
Then it happened, I was in need of some old orange road cds and tried to find them online EVERYWHERE but it was a no go.
So I was looking up terms such as request, ask and japan, ask, etc… to ask someone to find me those items and bang i stumble across demandjapan.com
they have an ask ticket system, so i placed my query and the day after they had found my cds!
I bought them straight away and was very happy with their service, it seems they are in japan because they sent me the parcel with the Japanese post, it was blazing fast (and a bit expensive) but it was worth the money.
They only accept paypal at the moment so that might be a drawback, but it looks like they just got into business so hopefully they’ll figure more payment methods out soon.
My 2 cs
3:46 am on August 21st, 2008 28
Are the stuffs at Play-Asia bootlegged?? ‘Cause my friends tell me stuffs from Hong Kong are mostly fake & done unprofessionally; like the figurines & etc.
.-.
1:21 pm on September 16th, 2008 29
FUCK YOU U STUPID BITCH OF A CUNT WE AT PLAY-ASIA ARE VERY WELL RESPECTED SO STFU AND STOP MOANING LIKE A WHORE.
1:55 pm on September 16th, 2008 30
@dave:
if you did work at play-asia you wouldnt leave comments like this… and but if you do this just proves that your company doesn’t care about their customers. and that my post speaks the truth…
1:56 pm on September 16th, 2008 31
@BangBang:
not to my knowledge. they are based out of hong kong but from what i know they don’t deal with bootlegs
3:06 pm on September 22nd, 2008 32
My dad Pre-order me pokemon platinum in sept.12 it was released in the 13 and they sent me a email in the 16 that they sent it and it says it comes in 5 to 10 days and today is the 10 day and i though it will be here today.So im not sure how much long is it going to take to come so i can play it.And if i have to wait 3 more days i will included it as bad service!
3:08 pm on September 22nd, 2008 33
so im not sure if i can trust it.
11:54 pm on September 27th, 2008 34
I just posted a review at resellerratings (http://www.resellerratings.com/store/Play_Asia) and they said it will be up in 48 hours. Anyway, I’ve been their customer for about a year and a half and have had problems with them 3/24 times. The summary of my current problem is that I ordered a Capcom artbook, they missent me some hentai figure and they said that the artbook was now out of stock (even though until now it says “ships within 5-15 days”).
When I refused their store credit and just said that I’d be ok in keeping the figure, they changed what they originally said and claimed that they’d be able to send me my artbook.
Bad customer service and very inconsistent considering the fact that some people who were sent incorrect products were resent their orders and were allowed to keep the wrong items.
10:45 am on September 28th, 2008 35
I must say I should have checked this page first. I must write my experience now. Play-Asia is a disappointment, hands down.
First of all, they wrote on their main page that the game I was going to get “Taiko Drum Master” delivers 1-4 business days from time of order. Read, FROM TIME OF ORDER. Logically, that means as it is, right? So I gladly ordered going through the lengthy process of setting up my account and my details. Having ordered, I was suddenly greeted by a screen that says my order needs to be PREPARED until 26th September. That’s my first big shock. Note, I ordered on 10th September. This is my first shock but I had a glimmer of hope that they were just putting a date far back to protect their ass (meaning its a deadline that can definitely be met). I had several such experiences so I thought nothing much of it after. Days passed and i dont see any e-mail from Play-Asia except their weekly updates and then on the 27th (Saturday) I saw that my order is still being under “Preparing”. I tried their enquiry system only to be greeted that my enquiry will only be processed on working days (aka monday). So here I am, wasted. I’m expecting to see an e-mail reply by today and if I don’t, I’ll be more than glad to cancel the order. But seeing that even cancelling takes 2-3 weeks to process, I’m conclusive Play-Asia is disappointing. Even e-bay sellers do better.
11:29 am on September 28th, 2008 36
@somaxs:
well i hope you get your game, i hate when they tell you what days it’ll take and it ends up taking forever
@thecuriousgamer:
see when they screw up ordered that big if crazy, but they did the same, saying it was “out of stock” when their site says it’s in stock
@koreanano:
i’ve had more problems with Play-Asia than i’ve ever had problems with ebay
5:22 pm on September 28th, 2008 37
@Dancing Queen:
Yeah, it would help a lot if they were more honest with their customers. I feel like I was disrespected and that I have to be the one to make up for their mistake. Plus, they seem to randomly pick out who they’re nice to. Maybe so there would be people to defend them from unhappy customers.
5:00 am on October 11th, 2008 38
I’ve also had the typical ‘out of stock’ response and after many many weeks they still didn’t have it in stock (despite still advertising it as such). No other site takes that long.
And thanks to signing up with them to order I have got so much junk mail (I know it’s their site because it started suddenly when I registered with them and I hadn’t registered anywhere else for months). I also find it a little suspicious how, ever since I cancelled my order, my junk mail intake has actually doubled and I’m getting more of the scam junk mail.
From what I can tell, Play-Asia are only bothered where games are concerned…anything else and they don’t make an effort. Which begs the question ‘why on earth do they advertise this stuff if they have no intention of doing a good job of selling it (or selling it at all)?’.
7:22 am on November 8th, 2008 39
i never once had problems with them and i order like over 2k to 2.5k usd worth of item ,for my ps3 ,wii and xbox,
hmmm maybe u just bad luck,
ps: i live in asia
5:34 am on March 15th, 2009 40
have had terrible service from them, a bunch of morons that can’t run customer service to save their lives. Made me pay extra for shipping to receive some games, and only one of them came. Avoid like the plague unless you have credit card insurance. And now the games are getting more expensive.