41999 from shop.lego.com - problems, concerns, questions, answers

[Lucien70001]

Received mine a few hours ago via FedEx. EK 02766 of 20000

[Burned_Alive]

I placed an order for the 41999 set and the delorean set (and some other power functions bits) actually on 31st July here (UK) around 23:45, but never received any order confirmation email despite order going into the system fine (I got some other related emails around 00:16). My order stayed on "Customer Service" for 2 days until 2nd Aug 14:33 when I get an email saying I need to contact customer service to verify payment details and my order status changed to "Please contact customer service" on the site. I then verified my payment details, but now both the delorean and 41999 are listed as backordered with no date. My order number for reference is Y451626794 and this is my first order on the site.

So now apparently I have to wait and may not even receive one of these kits despite waiting up and getting my order in very quickly. I am really disappointed with how LEGO have handled this and particularly when I see people who ordered way after me (8 hours+) are receiving the crawler? This is really poor sales practice. And I still have received an order confirmation email or an email to say that my order is backordered.

Edited August 3, 2013 by Burned_Alive

[Alldarker]

(...)

Speaking of which, I once ordered a new set through BL or eBay (don't remember which one) because the seller was offering it at a lower price than S@H with shipping and all. One week later the set showed up shipped from S@H to my surprise. Nobody ever contacted me to follow up on that set from S@H, but now I wonder if I wasn't used as part of a scam scheme. Do you know if S@H has a tier pricing schema for different customers (i.e. they would sell a set at discounts to high volume customers) that could explain this?

Sounds like you got "drop-shipped". The person you bought the item from on e-Bay/Bricklink received your money, then used a stolen credit card (i.e. not his own money) to buy the item on S@H and have it forwarded it to you. That's bad for you, because now Lego thinks that YOU (as the receiver of the set) paid for it with a stolen credit-card. That will probably mean you will get blacklisted, just like some other people were blacklisted through only partial fault of their own.

Anyhow, I had no problems at ALL with getting this set from S@H. Made the order around 11 a.m. on August 1st, after reading about it on my local LUG board. Received confirmation e-mail soon after, and shipping notice yesterday evening. Received the set at 1 p.m. this afternoon! I applaud Lego S@H for being so efficient: they are just amazing!

Now all I need to do is wait for the invoice, so I can get around to paying for it .

[bp10030]

I have received my order today. The box is so different, so beautiful. It's even smeels, but it is a wounderful smell. Fresh printed. I'm lucky wih my one ;)

[Stephan]

I got my Crawler when I came home this afternoon. I was on vacation in Germany and called LEGO Direct at August 1 at 09:30. The woman said that the crawlers they've received were already sold out. They would receive new crawlers at August 5. But when I came home it was already there (August 2nd)!!! Now just need to find the time to get to the post office to get the Technic Mobile Crane Mk II with the free Backhoe Loader... Lovely days!!!

[dr_spock]

I saw a couple of boxes of 41999 on the shelf at my local Lego store today. I saw a couple guys pick up the box, look at it and put it back on the shelf.

[bsze]

I saw a couple of boxes of 41999 on the shelf at my local Lego store today. I saw a couple guys pick up the box, look at it and put it back on the shelf.

wow, cant believe your local store still got stock. from whatsw been reported on here, i think most of the store sold out on the first or second day.

[squizz]

Hi all, first of all let me say this is my fisrt purchase direct through lego, i live in Australia too. So i perchased this truck and the large crane together...i think....i say this because ever since i put the order through(which was on the 1st of August), everytime i check "my order status" it just says "customer service"??? Once again being new to all of this,can someone tell me if i even have purchased anything yet??Of course nothing has shown up on my credit card yet. I was also interested to read about buying new sets outside of the lego shop and when they are delivered, they have come from the lego shop direct. What is interesting is that the "place" that i've had this happen to me is still selling today...does this mean there is something "not right about this guy"?? Thanks for your help, Pete.

[Doc_Brown]

Mine has gone from Backordered to customer service now. Ordered 15 mins to midnight London time (GMT)

[paul_delahaye]

It's here, delivered on a Satuday! Well impressed with the service, now for the grand opening of that lovely box

[The_Skirrid]

Well, some guy is selling five [item 171094559722] on evilbay UK at £100 markup. Le sigh. One or two per buyer seems fair enough, but five?

[Alternator]

Sadly Lego only has limited control over how many sets some people are able to acquire, too bad those that are bypassing are not sparing a thought for their fellow person.

Edited August 4, 2013 by Alternator

[BigTonka]

Well, the 41999 is available now through "retailers" at Amazon US as well... with similar prices than those on eBay... not fair (at least for me) >: /

[legotechnicblue]

Well, some guy is selling five [item 171094559722] on evilbay UK at £100 markup. Le sigh. One or two per buyer seems fair enough, but five?

Ya I really hate those people that outsmart lego, just for their advantage.

[dr_spock]

wow, cant believe your local store still got stock. from whatsw been reported on here, i think most of the store sold out on the first or second day.

They were sold out of Back to the Future. I guess their customers are the non-Technic crowd.

Well, some guy is selling five [item 171094559722] on evilbay UK at £100 markup. Le sigh. One or two per buyer seems fair enough, but five?

Not that hard to get five of your friends or relatives to buy for you.

[Dorino]

Some answers from Lego Customer Service.

The reason why some people have already received their sets even though

they ordered later than you is that when all orders were placed over the

first few days they 'fell' into the same folder and then were and still are

manually checked by an administrator. That happens in a random order. We

need to make sure that there are no orders for more sets that would be

appropriate for personal use. We want to stop people buying many sets and

then reselling them at much higher prices. I hope you can understand our

reasons for this situation and all the security checks.

[DrFrankenstein]

That will probably mean you will get blacklisted, just like some other people were blacklisted through only partial fault of their own.

This was more than 1 year ago and I haven't experienced any issues with S@H. But I rummaged through my eBay history and found the seller's account. He is no longer registered, but his feedback history is quite extensive (spanning 6 years) and looks clean. I don't think that someone paying with stolen cards would last long on eBay. So, chances are that this transaction was legitimate in some weird way. In any case, in the future, I will think twice before purchasing a set that is still at S@H from not well known retailers now that I am aware of these scams.

[Zerobricks]

Seeing bricklink and ebay situation I dont think TLG handed situation that good... There are cca 16 sets on bricklink and another cca 11 sets on ebay meaning total of costumers got ripped is somewhere arround 27, not counting those already sold on BL and ebay, or parted out?

[DrFrankenstein]

all orders were placed over the first few days they 'fell' into the same folder and then were and still are manually checked by an administrator. That happens in a random order. We need to make sure that there are no orders for more sets that would be appropriate for personal use.

It would have been much more efficient for them to implement an automatic limit of 2 crawler sets per account in their system instead of going through the orders manually. I guess that they either didn't plan this one out very well or because of some limitation of their e-store system it's very hard for them to implement an automatically enforced rule like this. They will probably handle it better next time, should they do something like this again.

Seeing bricklink and ebay situation I dont think TLG handed situation that good...

Yes, but what could they do to make things fair at a scale? How do you distinguish a fan from someone purchasing for profit? To be fair to LEGO, this is a nearly intractable problem.

The only thing they could have done better was to limit to one set per customer for S@H orders to reduce the temptation for people to buy a second set "for investment" without any effort. Those who needed a second set badly would simply have to invest more time and energy to hunt it down in a LEGO store or have a friend order it for them. This with some preferential acceptance of order from non first time S@H customers (which they seem to be doing already) could put a dent at the practice of flipping, although not a lasting one.

[N-4K0]

rm8 as the creator of the set should be allowed to get 2 sets anyway, but otherwise it would have been the most fair to have a limit of 1 set per customer.

And the idea of an automatic limit could work well.

[doriansdad]

Are they going to track where the exclusive crawlers are around the world like they have with the Mr Gold minifig? Would be interesting to see if all 20'000 really have sold out in under 24 hours

All 20k have not been sold. You can still purchase it at S@H but you will be waiting for 2-3 weeks for the next batch to be produced. Maybe 10k have been sold so far? Once they hit 20k they will no longer take orders on S@H.

[doriansdad]

The set is still available to buy at S@H at RRP. If people cannot wait 3 weeks and want to pay a premium on auction sites to have it shipped now I don't see a problem with that.

[czl663]

I ordered 2X and they have been shipped. Hope everything will be fine.

[RunSub]

Got to say congrats to rm8. I've been following the progress of the Boss on Eurobricks & you've got to be so proud, it's a really beautiful model.

FWIW I just picked up my 41999 in Liverpool today, I rang them and was told they had 'loads'. There were two left on the shelves after my purchase.

BTW: Hello! I've been lurking since January after coming out of my dark ages, maybe now I'm finally registered I might post

[SheepEater]

What has happened with re-sellers just now has been the bane of concert movie goers for 15 years: eBay ticket scalpers, so I'm not too surprised this happened. 20000 is nothing - some big arena concerts I went to hold almost as much and for some of more popular acts, (Iron Maiden, Rammstein) sold out in a few hours - for one city. The 20000 sets we get is worldwide!

And yes, Lego re-sellers and ticket scalpers are the same thing. That's why I stopped watching Brickshow on youtube since they freely admit to buying in big quantities (especially limited polybags) in the hope of making a profit later.

But this time it's MUCH WORSE than usual. Usually, people have ample opportunity to buy the Lego sets they want at MSRP. As long as you're not in your dark ages when it's for sale, you shoud be fine, even for sets which were sold for a notoriously short time such as the 8275 bulldozer.

This time the window of opportunity was drastically reduced.. BECAUSE of scalpers.

Edited August 4, 2013 by SheepEater