I've only emerged from my dark ages around a year ago, and in that time I've made around 16-18 bricklink orders ranging in size from small handfulls of pieces, to boxes packed with hundreds of bricks.

I have yet to have ONE package arrive at my house containing exactly what I ordered. Every time I am emailing sellers to let them know they sent me three of this instead of the four I ordered; or they sent me this brick in black when I ordered it in blue; or they sent me this red slope when I ordered an inverted slope, etc. It never fails! Every order has a small problem!

Now I also have to say, every time the seller is also quick to correct it, apologizing, sending me the correct bricks or giving me a refund or what have you. But this always takes extra time and I feel bad for having to pester these sellers.

I'm not complaining. I know picking through thousands of bricks must be tedious and mistakes happen. I totally understand. And I'd rather have Bricklink exist with small problems than not have that amazing resource at all!

I'm just wondering if this happens to other buyers too, or is it just a coincidence that I've had this unusual run of problem orders.

Hi Jones,

I've probably made around the same number of purchases as you, some quite large, never had a single problem

hope your luck improves!

cheers,

timbutnice

I've only made a couple of orders, one of which contained a broken piece. But the seller sent me a replacement part free of charge and even let me keep the squished piece.

I do hope your luck improves though. That's one annoying coincidence.

~Peace

I always look at the seller's ratings and EB's Trusted Seller List to see if the seller has made many mistakes. Other than this, I'm not sure what to say, I've never really had many problems. Good luck on having some luck!

I have never had any problems with missing pieces, but I do find it annoying to have to wait a day or sometimes longer for the invoice to arrive, and it seems like most orders take a few days before they are even shipped after payment.

I've had a fairly good run and I've made about 30 orders.

I find that once you find a seller that packs parts / sets well and ships quickly you tend to go back, even if they may be a little more expensive.

I did buy a MISB set a few weeks ago which came squashed, as it came shipped only in bubblewrap and a large department store shopping bag! I couldn't believe somebody would send a set like that, especially as it wouldn't have been too hard to box it and that's fairly standard practice for sets across ebay and bricklink. That just reinforced my positive preferences for sellers that I know well.

The other thing to do is do a small test order with a new seller; if you are happy with the service then you can always make a larger one!

I do VERY few orders each year, yet I run into the same thing.

With like 2 in 5 orders, it's almost guaranteed there's going to be:

--broken part

--missing part

--wrong quantity

--switcheroos with different color

It really is frustrating, time consuming to correct.

Then you get that seller every few orders that you have to ASK to leave feedback.

Ugh.

I have had these issues before but they have been rare, with only two cases out of the 40-odd orders I've placed over the years. One caused me a fair amount of hassle (the guy was friendly but very slow at dealing with these issues) while the other seller just refunded me quickly. For very large orders, I tend to stick with a few specific sellers who I know handle such orders quickly and accurately.

The other thing to do is do a small test order with a new seller; if you are happy with the service then you can always make a larger one!

This is something I occasionally do just to see what kinds of parts they have in stock. In recent times, I have often wanted to avoid bricks manufactured in 2007 in certain colors, due to the differences in color saturation. If it's hard to tell what kind a seller is carrying, a small sample order usually clears it up. The same thing can be done to test the quality of used parts.

Edited November 19, 200816 yr by CP5670

I've had a couple of problems:

1. Several of my orders have contained a small barrel instead of the larger ones. I never addressed this since, its not really worth the while.

2. One of my orders contained a baseplate twice the size of the one I ordered. I told the seller, and they were so nice to not only send me the correct one, but to let me keep the first bigger one!

3. Only one of my orders has never made it to me. Both I and the seller knew it was noone's fault (Post office ) and yet the seller gave me €10 to spend in their shop. That was such a great offer, but I had a problem. The order I had made (which got lost) had a fig's head which was the only one the shop had. But soon enough, they got some in.

It sounds like you have awfully bad luck there. I agree, it is very annoying, to have to be 'that person' who wants everything perfect in their order, but sometimes it must be done. I hope future orders aren't as bad for you.

Once I got some 2x3 slopes in bley, though I wanted 2x4 slopes in old grey. I complained and the seller sent me the wanted ones and I could even keep the bley ones. Once or twice it has happened that I got one part to many. I informed the seller - though some people wouldn't - and I could keep the additional brick. But my orders are usually not that big. I think it is more likely that sellers make mistakes with bigger orders.

I ordered twice on BL.

And I had no problems at all.

* I only buy from sellers of my own country, easier communication and cheap shipping costs.

I never bought on bricklink but I was planning to do, so I'll check carefully my orders^^ thanks Jones for the info, if you didn't say so, I'll never have check :P

I never bought on bricklink but I was planning to do, so I'll check carefully my orders^^ thanks Jones for the info, if you didn't say so, I'll never have check :P

After the first couple of orders I now check every order thoroughly against my original invoice. If I didn't, I know some of these small mistakes would slip through my attention. Just like it no doubt does when the seller packs them. We're all human ...

I may try the small test order thing, but with so many bricks you never know what you get. It's been great to hear about others' experiences!

Edited November 24, 200816 yr by Jones

I have probably made the same number of orders as you but only two had problems and both were resolved. One quickly and with much goodwill and the other took a loooong time but was worked out eventually. Otherwise all fine and dandy from my point of view.

Things have generally been fine for me. I've only made about 7 orders from Bricklink since I joined years ago, but they've all been done right. The only exception is when one of my orders had a few round lego trees - when I got the order, I found two real lego trees inside and one from a CLONE toy that looked fairly different. I'm not normally against clone brands, but in this case I specifically ordered LEGO, which accounts to false advertising.

Still, I like bricklink. It's often far cheaper than the online lego Pick a Brick, and you can find just about anything lego related on there. I got 234 1x1 yellow bricks for half a cent each in my last order, which is 12 times cheaper than what they are priced for on the official lego site.

Edited November 25, 200816 yr by Grevious

I've made about 100 orders on Bricklink and I am very satisfied with the experience. I usually buy from a few sellers and I have had some errors in my orders. There is a seller who always confuses 4 x 1 hinge tiles with 4 x 1 hinge plates, so, when I have to order this kind of pieces, I choose another seller. I've also received some bley pieces among light gray ones and a couple of really scratched bricks (never bought again from those sellers), specially when it comes to transparent pieces. In total, I've bought around 20.000 pieces... so, having 10 to 20 erros in that amount isn't too much.

I've done about six transactions and have been pleased. Never a missing part. I did get scammed (he had 30 positive feedback and no negatives) by one person, though, but that is a risk on all private online transactions.

Edited November 26, 200816 yr by dj2005

I know what you mean about feeling bad about pestering sellers for order corrections. Fortunately however, I only had to do this once and the seller was very forthcoming with the process and I got the parts I requested for in the end. I have made about 30 or so orders over 3 years and have only been dupped once (good thing it was a small order though).

You do get the odd error on BL, mostly in good faith to be fair. I personally allow 1% of large orders for error, only complaining if an expensive/rare piece is missing...

God Bless,

Nathan

I've never had a problem so far, but then I only tend to check of against the invoice minfigs and weapons sheilds etc and rare pieces I've ordered bulk bricks don't worry me as much unless I needed exactly 12 for something.

Having been on BL for about 3 years now I've placed about 300 orders as a buyer (from pretty much every continent) I now generally expect about 20% of orders to have at least some issue with it: either a missing part, wrong part, wrong colour etc. but it's almost always just a silly little mistake on the sellers side & I've never had one not fixed when I've taken the time to report it. those are all forgiveable in my opinion... It's the poor packaging, used maierials and worst of all the jumbled mixing of parts all togeather in a "just collect em & push em out the door" mess that I really hate!

As a seller I know how easy it is to find yourself in the "goof-up" trap...

- it's soo easy to find yourself reading an order sheet for what you think you've read but perhaps not really what is there.

- another good one is to catch yourself looking at the part's picture & missing the text entirely... ohh those new reddish brown parts who's picture is still a generic white piece! soo many times I've been hunting for a white part, given up only to find I didn't read the colour text!

- missing the details in the text is a good one too - reading something like a 3x3 inverted dish but picking out a more common & familiar 2x2

- then there's the size/quantity inversion - the order says & you read "black brick 2x8 qty 6" as you repeat this in your head as you go over to the bin shelf somewhere in the 20 foot trip it somehow turns into 8 2x6 instead!

- then there's the mis-inventoried parts in the catalogue that are soo close in description they just get misinterpreted. not to mention the constantly changeing of part-out inventories after the fact, that always catchup to you much later!

As a seller I appreciate any & all goofs being reported no matter how small - it's the communication that is of the most importance - most sellers want you back & the presentation of the order to you is the best form of an introduction & example of what can be done for you... alternatively haveing the opratunity to fix the inventory is worth it's weight not to have a future order goofed up for someone else as well - even an off-count of a single missing part can cause aingst when that next order comes in & is being fulfilled & you just can't find it! I've spent an hour trying to find something I no longer have - worst case is a trip out the the locals to buy a set that has it at full retail (an $80 set for an 8 cent part - but if the customer is happy - besides so long as there's no deay they never know & you can usually recoup your investment as the other parts sell ... eventually)

I myself count everything twice, as it's being pulled from inventory & again as it's packed into the order, even check off the distinguishing text on the order sheet but mistakes still happen when you are trying to push out 8-10 orders a day in the few hours after your real-life job & midnight. (I'm getting better but still miss something every now & then, maybe 1 in 50 orders, but thats all part of the hobby of buying & selling such a diverse inventory) :-)