Strange I just emailed Scott about a large MTH locomotive I bought from Trainz last week. the packaging was a disgrace. Two rubber bands were supposed to hold the box together, The styfoam was in poor condition, the tender was not wrapped, the locomotive was only wrapped in plastic and loose on the box. The styfoam top was loose and the locomotive was just moving freely. I didn't look close and didn't notice any damage but will look closer. $1000.00 for a locomotive with poor packing leaves much to be desired.
This is sad news. I bought two items from Trainz about a year ago, and they were both well packed.
Here is what is happening. Nobody in America can get anyone to show up at work, least of all the Gen Z kids. And when they do show up, they don't give a rat's butt about anything. It's all "whatever" while they laugh, type and giggle on their Smart Phones at work.
Throw in the fact that a used toy packer is perhaps being paid not much more than minimum wage, and there you have it. Incredibly lousy packing.
Believe it or not, last Saturday I went to the local Burger King at 2:30 in the afternoon. The front door was locked. There was a sign on it that said "Sorry, but due to lack of staff we have no in-store service after 2:00 pm. Window Service only."
Personally, if I received an order from Trainz packed as badly as folks have described, I would simply mail it straight back, addressed to the owner of the company, with an explanation and demanding my money back.
Mannyrock
This is all old news - Trainz has had a long history of poor packing that has periodically improved and then lapses into terrible again.
Only way it will change is if you stop wasting your time and money buying from them.
Settling for a partial refund as a reward for your aggravation and money is not what you should be striving for - return anything damaged for the full fare and walk away.
I have only had two purchases from Trainz (that I remember), the first was shortly after I moved here. It was four PRR EMUs from ebay; the shipping came to about sixty dollars. I emailed and ask if I could pick-up in person; yes, so I had a nice outing to Buford with a good Subway lunch thrown in. When I got there and paid*, i also bought a couple of items for sale on a wall display.
The second one was the problem one. I won a Max Gray PRR boxcab P-5 electric in excellent shape in the auction photos. When i I received it, it had packed in the original MG box with the original (mostly decomposed) MG excelsior. Due to the P-5's ability to dance around in the box, all of the roof detail (pans, insulators, etc) were sheared off of the roof so it has lived in its box ever since. One day, I may try to repair it.
*There was a wall display with some K-Line detail parts that appealed to my; a vending machine, cable reel, etc.
I've made at least 20 purchases from them and never had an issue with packaging. The only issue, if you want to call it one, was the old shipping service they were using where your package would languish in Braselton Ga for about 4 or 5 days before moving. They seem to have remedied that.
SLOW Shipping BUYER BEWARE!
As stated earlier I have over 20 shipments from Trainz in the last year (see my Previous reply). Anyhow, unless it has been changed in the last 2 weeks, the "SLOW" shipping problem is if YOU "select" FedEx Smart Post (smart my a**). Read on.
I stated, and others have noted on the forum in previous threads, that option should be eliminated. I talked to a couple of long term employees and they said it wasn't going to happen, because on small items (Parts and told even a couple of HO cars) it can be significantly less expensive than FedEx Ground. Most of us haven't experienced this due to the size of boxes for even a single O car. I have seen it on single cars, it is about $15 vs $18 to my address. It defaulted to this a couple of times and I didn't notice! In one case a "default" order was 6 days before one where I "caught it". The second order arrived 2 days BEFORE the first order!
The GGD depot articulated car story. Hate to say, it but I am not surprised. I experience a very similar issue.
Val/All,
I apologize greatly for the recent damages to your trains that were incurred by shipping. Our shipping department has suffered along with everyone with finding the right people which has led to a higher-than-normal turnover in our shipping department, and we have been short-staffed way too often. Two of our senior packers (husband and wife) both experienced severe sickness and Covid with multiple weeks on and off earlier this year and summer being out. The good news they are back full-time now. We had several students helping us over the summer and we now know we didn’t do as good of a job training them as we thought we had.
Normally our senior packers and our team lead (we have 5), pack all the unboxed and expensive items, but we had to rely on junior people during some periods this year and we had some issues as some of you point out here. Our plan going forward to help mitigate damages is to control more tightly who packs unboxed expensive items and to enhance our training program especially around unboxed items.
We do have a QA (Quality Assurance) system that tracks all the mistakes and errors from our customer service department and those are fed back to our various departments for our managers and team leads to use for training and disciplinary action as warranted. This feedback also helps us to improve our packing methods as we have done over the years. For example, we were using plastic bubble wrap directly against plastic cars and on some occasions that was melting and was leaving imprints behind, so we switched to just paper, well that caused more damage, so now we use a combination of both.
I apologize again for these issues. I feel your pain. I know what it is like to search for that one train you have been looking for forever and you finally find it and then it shows up damaged, and the worst kind is the kind that could have been prevented. Arrggh! We really want to do everything we can to make your experience with us a prefect one, and when it is not to fix it quickly as best as we can to your satisfaction.
I’ll also give you an update on FedEx Ellenwood while I am writing. I escalated that to the FedEx manager in charge of the state of Georgia and sent him several of your complaints and examples. That resulted in having our FedEx trailer picked up and sent directly to Ellenwood as a priority. Then FedEx sends a box truck to pick up our ground shipments that go through Athens. It seems that has improved that bottleneck there significantly, although there are occasional problems, but nothing like before.
Thank you all for all your business and support! Myself and our team of 80+ strong rely on you. We will continue to do our best and improve how we serve you with an enormous selection of trains and accessories most shipped next day and received in the condition you expect.
I received a couple of damaged passenger cars a couple weeks ago. However, I'm not sure it was because of poor packaging. I want to say they were already damaged, and whoever takes the photos and lists the items just didn't note it in the title/description. I have come across a few items with incorrect product ID’S and unclear descriptions. For example, there are some O72 fastrack switches that were just listed. They all have the SAME product ID in the title, but some are labeled only remote and others command/remote. But after inspecting the product images, none of them have the button used to program.
I'm a satisfied customer. I think Trainz has an exceptional customer service team, that has made unpleasant purchases like these, where you think you're buying one item and you get something different, right. But I live three states away, and it often takes 4-5 days to get a package.
June 2023
A friend just bought a number of items including a heavy steam engine. The steam engine was loose in the box. While in transit, it smashed a 256 station and wrecked a metal passenger car.
Does not sound like progress has been made. How hard can this be??
@CPF3 posted:How hard can this be??
Clearly it's impossible.
We all apparently have a choice to make:
- Follow this thread, the one you're presently reading
- Or, follow another, related thread: Compliments to trainz (6/23/2023) | Dave Warburton
Are they not mutually exclusive?
Which will it be?
Mike
The last time I purchased something from Trainz, I enclosed a message detailing how I would like the stuff packed. Worked out VERY well. got the items, no damage. Sometimes folks just don't think! Try it! What have you got to lose!
ECI
I am afraid broken and trashed items speak for themselves.
Attachments
Images (1)
I just received a built-up Atlas bridge from Trainz, ie: a large & fragile piece. It arrived in good shape as have my other shipments from them.
Rich in WV
Nobody's perfect, and Trainz is no exception. I've gotten plenty of stuff from them in perfect condition. I also got a few things that were very poorly packet and as a result were destroyed in shipment. I never had a problem getting a full refund and a return shipping label, so while it's disappointing, I can certainly happen to anyone. It only takes one Monday Morning packer to screw a few shipments up. 
I have never had a problem wit Trainz. Cheers Jim
Never had a problem with their customer service. Have bought a lot from Trainz. Has every shipment been perfect? No. Were there times the product I purchased was not as described? Yes. But, 100% of the time Trainz has always offered a few choices:
Return items with a return label
Send the item back and they'll repair it at no additional cost to me.
Make a fair price adjustment.
I can't see how you could ever define better customer service. They've never played games with me, unlike some fleabay sellers and buyers.
My opinion, Trainz is right up there with Amazon when it comes to returns and customer service.
Customer Service from Trainz has been excellent, in my experience. I recently returned an item for a full refund that had been damaged in transit because of inadequate packing, and it was all handled quickly and very politely.
@Donnie Kennedy posted:I can't see how you could ever define better customer service. They've never played games with me, unlike some fleabay sellers and buyers.
Exactly, I just had a seller on eBay try to stiff me, fortunately eBay looked at the facts and quickly sided with me and I got a full refund. I never had that experience with Trainz, they'll make it as right as they can without any hassle.
@gunrunnerjohn posted:Exactly, I just had a seller on eBay try to stiff me, fortunately eBay looked at the facts and quickly sided with me and I got a full refund. I never had that experience with Trainz, they'll make it as right as they can without any hassle.
Just had that from an ebay seller myself. Poorly shipped brass engine. Came to me in pieces. Took pictures immediately and, I returned it for that reason. They fought me and said I returned it in pieces. Tried to only give me half a refund. Ebay stepped in and made it right. It was a hassle, and time consuming. I'll NEVER buy from them again.
Now with Trainz,just got some k-line heavyweights with scratches on them. Trainz issued full refund. I am currently hunting on their site for something else! 😂
They've got a customer for life!
TRAINZ = great customer service!!! That has always been my experience!!
always had good experience with trainz
I have bought many items, many times in the last 2 years from Trainz. Poor packing, many times, Yes! However their Customer Service is first rate.
The only real tragedy is, in one case, on a very hard to come by item, the damaged/missing part is no longer available. The item looked fine in the photo, which in this case was NOT a stock photo. I'm sure the packer hid the part, or if unaware, it got swept-up and thrown away at the end of the shift. I kept the item and still hope to find a replacement part by some miracle.
BTW the big rubber band(s) around items has done some real damage to them. I did mention this about 6 months back, but on subsequent shipments they are still doing it.
What is furustating is, they don't seem to learn from their mistakes!
I have purchased many things from Trainz and never been disappointed, as a matter of fact, I found Trainz packing to be better than just about anybody else. But three thing bugs me. One, they use the same photos many times for different things, meaning a series of pictures of a loco, is the same series used on another sale item(if it is the same loco and number) . In the worded description is where you have to find the real condition, and it can be vague. Again, even with that, what I received was better than the described. Number 2 puzzlement. Trainz sells the same thing sometimes at the same time on ebay and on their website. Everytime, the ebay shipping will be a little to a lot less that buying direct from their website. This makes no sense to me, especially when they sell something from the website, they are not paying ebay 17% or so, in fees. You would think they would encourage folks to buy direct from their website by having shipping and prices lower in an amount that approaches maybe 1/2 of that 17% they would lost when they had to pay ebay. Number three, a biggie, for the most part they do not test locos for operation, it is possible you will get a dud you have to send back. Has not been the case here, but I asked them about an engine and they said it was as is, untested, but that was not in the item description. The email responder continued on and said the seldom test any electrical item. I hope that is not an accurate report.
Hello CALNNC.
First of all thank you for all your business and support.
I would like to address the three points that you raised.
1. Reusing photos - Yes, we maintain a database of hundreds of thousands of photos. The SOP is to use these pictures when the item that we are working on is in LN or MT condition and the photos of the current item would be indistinguishable from the saved photos. Occasionally our team members miss something. This is not intentional.
2. Shipping Charge differences between eBay and Trainz.com - Our goal is actually to have the shipping charges slightly less on our website. If eBay offered more flexibility in how they accept shipping charges we could do that, but they are eBay. Both of our shipping algorithms are complicated and a lot depends on the distance from us and the package size. This gets really hairy with multiple item shipments. (If you can PM me some examples I'll have our IT guys make sure nothing is broken.)
As far as offering incentives to buy on our website, we do a lot of that. The prices are 1% less, you get up to 5% back in rewards points, free shipping over $500, and access to all the sales and special offers we do only on the website. We also list almost everything first on our website for 2 weeks, before we replicate them on eBay - so everything you see on eBay, except auction listings are also on the website, plus actually quite a bit more. And thousands of people use our Wishlist function on the website if you really want the first crack at anything.
3. Locomotive not Tested - We test pretty much test all analog (Postwar, Prewar, MPC, DC) locomotives and have several test tracks for that purpose. We do not test most of the modern digital locomotives. There are several reasons for this.
- First is the manpower requirement. We already have 7 full time and part time repair technicians to just keep up with the known defective items.
- Based on personally being in hundreds of basements, train rooms, and storage units, over 50% of people that buy trains never run them. There are a lot of people that operation is just not important to them.
- The defect rate is very low for modern items - under 5%.
- So based on all of the locomotives we sell and don't test, the chance that you get a defective engine from us is somewhere around 2.5% if you are an operator, or a just a take it out and test it person.
So based on all this we made a business decision not to test everything and to balance that with our guarantee to take it back with a full refund and shipping both ways, to fix it for you, or to exchange it if we can. Personally I think this policy is way more customer friendly than the auction houses that sell everything as-is with no returns. We do everything we can to make you whole.
I hope this sheds some light on how we operate.
My experience with Trainz:
During the past two years, I've purchased three Lionel scale-sized steam locomotives with TMCC that Trainz listed as "like new." In my opinion, each of these models was rated correctly and looked and ran as expected. Also, packing has been satisfactory with no damage in transit. My most recent purchase made it from Georgia to Connecticut in two days for a charge of less than $17. It all seems satisfactory to me.
MELGAR
Just saw this thread. Like Melgar, I am a happy Trainz camper over many years and purchases. Quality people and organization!
Since the thread is already revived:
Just another honest opinion from someone that spends thousands a year with Trainz:
I've been buying from them for 5+ years, a lot of my orders hitting the $500+ mark for the free shipping incentive. Prior to covid and during it, I would always have to contact them for something damaged or the wrong repair part sent by mistake, especially on my larger size orders. Ive NEVER had a problem either getting a partial refund, correct item/part, or sending the item back via prepaid label. Of course we don't want to deal with broken parts, or have to send anything back etc. But they 100% stand behind what they sell, vs most places giving you a headache, trying to have you dispute it with the shipping company or seller etc. I will say, since early fall of 2022 to recently, I've noticed shipments have been packaged extremely well. Unboxed cars have layers of bubble wrap, then bubble wrapped to other unboxed cars. I literally pulled over 30ft+ of brown packing paper stuffed between everything the last two+ shipments. I save it for my fleabay packing lol. Even small parts orders with a few rolling stock, have been packed with bubble wrap and brown paper.
Overall I honestly think Trainz has significantly upgraded their shipping game. (Could imagine it was hurting them). I would absolutely give them another try or even your first try, there is always a coupon floating around too!
Ah, the world of e-tail! The good, the bad, the ugly. The 'gorillas' and the 'koalas' in the mix. The tales of horror, the tales of success. And just like M*A*S*H, every so often the tales get a dusting and are run again...or so it seems.
Lots of examples of how-not-to-pack-it. Too bad somebody in this hobby hasn't gained stardom in the world of YouTube by compiling 'best practices' of this topic. Like, retrieving a delivered package...in your bathrobe and bunny slippers...from wherever your delivery service left it for you, showing it's external condition upon arrival, showing the dissection of the package to reveal the method of packing, the condition of the purchased item, ...the good, the bad, the ugly.
I'd love to see a compilation of successful packaging for shipping survival.
Of course, I'd also like to understand the due diligence process some e-tail buyers go through in making the purchase choice from an e-tail seller.
There's a current on-line auction item...a brass engine... of interest to me being offered by a seller. Lots of pictures. Very honest and frank words of description. Reasonable starting price...'Make and Offer' option, too. Even "Free Shipping"The seller has been active for 12 years, has sold 47,000 items in that time, has 1,500 'followers', and an overall positive feedback record of 99.5%.
But, there are some concerns. First of all, the seller is clearly not a member of this hobby. The variety of items they're selling is wide-ranging...some large, some small, some bric-a-brac, some robust, etc. The photos of the item in question show a possible misaligned part...could be from handling, could be misinterpreted by moi. Sent an inquiry, got an immediate response...that shed no light whatsoever on the specific item in the specific photo in question...repeated the original description and its apologetic caveats.
But, to the point of this thread, there's another concern in this brass engine auction. Whereas many items this seller is auctioning...even the most 'mundane' (to me, anyway)...have a projected shipping price, that this brass engine is offered with "Free Shipping" is...maybe?...NOT a good thing. I mean, this puppy would have a 600+ mile journey to reach me. It shouldn't be an insignificant cost, should it??!!!! So we check the feedback records of the seller to find out how things-fragile fare/survive.
Lo and behold!...What's this?? Within the past month, the seller sold another brass engine. The buyer posted a 'neutral' feedback with the following comment: "ITEM SUSTAINED A FAIR AMOUNT OF DAMAGE IN SHIPPING. PACKAGED TOO LOOSELY WAS FREE TO BANG FROM END TO END IN THE BOX."
So, is this a seller you'd roll the dice with to make an offer or participate in bidding (no bids to date)??
That's what I've been asking myself. Trainz has an o/a feedback record of 99.7% through more than a half-million feedbacks!...the good, the bad, the ugly. We do what we can with what we're given...and what we get for a response when we ask further...and then we make a choice. If our experience with a seller has a troubling history, or our due diligence concerns are unresolved, walk away. Or, consider the efforts a seller makes to amend, rectify, satisfy...weighed against the (rare? unique?) opportunity they present with their offering.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch...watching another M*A*S*H episodic re-run...
KD
Scott@Trainz writes:
“Personally I think this policy is way more customer friendly than the auction houses that sell everything as-is with no returns. We do everything we can to make you whole.”
Amen to that, Scott. My one and only experience with an “as is” auction house was an expensive mistake I won't repeat. Thankfully, Pat (Harmonyards) graciously stepped up, and bailed me out!
I've had my share of problems with them, but packing isn't a problem I can ever recall with anything I bought from them.
the problem is not packing in general. The problem is when you buy older items (postwar,prewar) and one of the items is a heavy steam engine, for example. That heavy object then becomes a threat to all the other items inside the box as it can move around and trash them. That was a problem last Fall and still is a problem, it seems.
Those of you buying new items that come in their own factory packaging . . . this is not an issue.
Getting money back for something you tried to buy because you wanted it is not an answer. It just puts you back to square One plus some old item(s) are now gone .
This, then , is not some broad complaint about Trainz in general (a valuable part of the hobby) but the packing skills (lack of) for one particular type of order. The many positive comments about Trainz are fine but provide no reason to believe that the packing problem described has been addressed.
The good news: Trainz should be able to fix this. Which is then a win for both future customers and the Trainz CS people.
Everything I’ve bought from them has arrived in good shape.
Jeff C
