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Titan Games needs YOUR help
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Improv
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Posted: Sun May 28, 2006 5:17 pm

Titan Games Owner wrote: ... Last evening our store was broken into, and we lost about $10,000 worth of merchandise.

... we are desperately in need of money at the moment, so gimme a call: 877-542-6377 or 269-963-3773 or email me at [email protected]
...

and on the website ....

Titan Games Website wrote:
We buy collections from $10 to over $100,000.00 - and we pay fast, and reliably by Money Order or PayPal - or even CASH if you bring your collection to us!!

Contact Marcus King for further details: 877-542-6377 toll free in the US [email protected]

So you have $100,000 cash to buy a collection but not $10,000 to ride out the loss?

RedBeard
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Posted: Sun May 28, 2006 5:59 pm

I guess karma DOES come around. When a company continously screws and rips its customers off. I guess they are trying to recoup some of thier theft loss which is maybe why my last shipment from them was missing items... Niether I, nor my very large gaming group will ever buy products from Titan_Games again... Say goodbye to possible Hundreds$$$ of dollars of future purchases from multiple collectors... :(

Badmike
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Posted: Sun May 28, 2006 6:20 pm

improvstone wrote:
Titan Games Owner wrote: ... Last evening our store was broken into, and we lost about $10,000 worth of merchandise.

... we are desperately in need of money at the moment, so gimme a call: 877-542-6377 or 269-963-3773 or email me at [email protected]
...

and on the website ....

Titan Games Website wrote:
We buy collections from $10 to over $100,000.00 - and we pay fast, and reliably by Money Order or PayPal - or even CASH if you bring your collection to us!!

Contact Marcus King for further details: 877-542-6377 toll free in the US [email protected]

So you have $100,000 cash to buy a collection but not $10,000 to ride out the loss?

I would take their cries of poverty with a grain of salt. I think this falls under the heading of "marketing magic" rather than any genuine crisis. Kind of like the furniture stores that are "going out of business" every couple of months or so. Titan has played up this sort of marketing before. A few years back, I got an email (sent with their weekly updates) that a tragedy had occured, their van containing all their convention stock had caught fire and burned up. Not only did they lose their transportation, but supposedly all their convention stock was now gone and they needed lots of stuff to sell as Origins and Gencon were coming up in a few weeks. They were buying NOW and paying whatever it took to stock up, the email made them sound desperate to get their hands on any gaming so they wouldn't have empty booths at the conventions.
Well, as my stuff at the time was uniformly half or less than the prices they offered (for example, a T1-4 I sold for $40 in my store was $90 on their website), I figured I could make some money and help them out at the same time. I sent whoever was in charge of buying items a link to my website (at the time I maintained a large amount of stock there instead of in my store) and also a link to my Ebay store. I told them my stuff was priced at half of what they were selling the same stuff for, so even paying my prices they could make a large profit, and I had no problem cutting them a huge deal for bulk.
I got back a very curt, short note that said basically "Sorry, but there is nothing on your list we an use, and besides your prices are much too expensive for us to make any sort of profit on" Included was something along the lines of they only pay a couple of dollars a module (I am going by memory I don't remember the exact price). Apparantly, despite the email they weren't in that dire a need for stock after all, at least not unless it was at a steal (not that desperate I assumed).
Odd that a couple of years later, in the wake of a break in and theft, they issue pretty much the same plea, and I'm sure they also turned down any buys that weren't a steal. A very cynical man might wonder at a fire and robbery where lots of stock was gone and presumably covered by insurance, and it would be interesting to know what exactly was in the stock that caught fire and the stock that got stolen (cases of 3.0 crap for instance that wouldn't sell?). Luckily I'm not that cynical and suspicious a guy..... :twisted:

Mike B.

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obiter
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Posted: Sun May 28, 2006 7:06 pm

I suppose i've missed something obvious here

but...

If the loss was $14,000 at sale prices ... (including loss of profit)

and on past form there had been a refusal to buy in replacement stock with a potential 100% mark-up ...(see BadMike)

and we assume a mark up of say 200%

then the store would only have spent $4,666 on the goods stolen (about £2500). Harsh, but not going to break the bank.

However, if the company makes a sizeable part of its profit on handling and shipping charges this presumably would not be recoverable from the insurance ... since such items are presumably to cover the "cost" involved ..

then the loss of stock would hit the all the harder

did someone earlier mention karma????

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Deadlord
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Posted: Sun May 28, 2006 11:17 pm

I recallled the "flaming van" incident when the latest ripoff was announced. I was pretty sure there was no break-in.
Perhaps capital is needed for Bupu's implants?

If you hit a Rowsdower, you get to keep it.

FormCritic
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Posted: Mon May 29, 2006 2:16 am

I acknowledge that the "desperate" plea was fishy, given the fact that they never stopped advertising to purchase new stock.

As I recall, much of their loss was in videos and video games...a substantial chunk of their business.

As for the prices offered for gaming publications......

I continually try to explain to my D&D gamers that just because a longsword costs 25gp does not mean that a swordsmith will pay 25gp for it. Swordsmiths sell swords. They don't buy them.

It has taken me years to explain to my gamers that jewelers sell jewelry for a living as opposed to buying jewelry. Jewelers buy from wholesalers and then mark up their products 50-100%. The wholesalers did the same with the products they got from their suppliers...and so on.

Sometimes people complain that markups on retail items are "ripoffs." However, the markups are necessary to make it worthwhile to even stay in business.

The same basic principle applies to Titan Games.

One could argue that the burned van and the looted store are false stories...but the markup on products is standard business. Actually, $2 per module is more than I expected they'd pay.

Mark

"But I have watched the dragons come, fire-eyed, across the world."

Improv
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Posted: Mon May 29, 2006 2:23 am

MShipley88 wrote:However, the markups are necessary to make it worthwhile to even stay in business.

Indeed ... but then this isn't the problem with Titan is it?

FormCritic
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Posted: Mon May 29, 2006 2:38 am

As far as I can tell, it's the shipping.

Any business with the volume that Titan and Tonya do is bound to have some garbled orders from time to time. They have a phone number and a storefront and they are present at convetions...so they are not hard to track down when problems occur.

I only buy from them if the product I want is worth the shipping cost. Often, it is...partly because they price slightly low.

I just think that some of the criticism of these two businesses is unfair.

Mark

"But I have watched the dragons come, fire-eyed, across the world."

Improv
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Posted: Mon May 29, 2006 2:44 am

MShipley88 wrote:As far as I can tell, it's the shipping.

Maybe in your case but clearly not for others on this forum.

MShipley88 wrote:I just think that some of the criticism of these two businesses is unfair.

Which criticism inparticular? Because from where I sit they clearly deserve the criticism.

killjoy32
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Posted: Mon May 29, 2006 3:26 am

i dont have problems re the cost of an item - if its what i want, i will pay the cost, simple as that.

its just a shipping issue.

a while back i wanted to get from them a JG journal 1 - which for anyone who has it, is like 1 sheet of ppaer . you can ship that airmail with a carded back for buttons....even GPM for appx $10?

so what do they charge... first off they said $23. when i complained to them, it was a little less.

next off just very recent, a JG instalment K booklet, which weighs next to nothing...shipping cost $13! crock of sh*t lemme tell you.

i could prb buy a dozen and have em shipped together and it wouldnt be this much.

THIS is how they are making a kill and i think they will continually get away with it, sadly.

THAT is why i will never ever purchase from them again.

if they had sensible combined shipping, then i buy lots from them all the time, but lets face it, you know thats not gonna happen in a month of sundays.

remember mark's "genius" thing a few weeks ago? low cost of item, massive shipping.

here is a perfect example of "genius" - right there in front of us.

Al

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FormCritic
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Posted: Mon May 29, 2006 3:51 am

I was talking about some of the personal attacks aired here in an earlier thread.

I still don't think they qualify as shady.

But then....I know how I felt when I got ripped off by an entirely different seller.

So, I guess I can retire as official defender of the Titan-Tonya axis. :lol:

Mark

"But I have watched the dragons come, fire-eyed, across the world."

Improv
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Posted: Mon May 29, 2006 4:03 am

MShipley88 wrote:I was talking about some of the personal attacks aired here in an earlier thread.

Cool .. I try and always leave personal attacks out of the discussion. Hopefully I have done so in this case.

MShipley88 wrote:I still don't think they qualify as shady.

I didn't think they were either. But given some of the other stories I have heard here and the reason this thread was started I am starting to reassess that opinion.

MShipley88 wrote:But then....I know how I felt when I got ripped off by an entirely different seller. So, I guess I can retire as official defender of the Titan-Tonya axis.

Hey you are always entitled to your opinion .... and I try to listen to other points of view even if I don't agree. Plus how else are you going to ensure you reach 2000 posts quickly :lol:

We all bow to the master Al :wink:

killjoy32
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Posted: Mon May 29, 2006 4:40 am

improvstone wrote:We all bow to the master Al

hey i dont just try and waste a post you know...honest guv

or as corey would say, LOL!

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FormCritic
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Posted: Tue May 30, 2006 12:31 am

No way...I would never post a post and say nothing. I mean, I always have something to say, or some point to make. I would never just post something and then blather about nothing.

Never.

Mark

"But I have watched the dragons come, fire-eyed, across the world."

killjoy32
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Posted: Tue May 30, 2006 3:07 am

MShipley88 wrote:No way...I would never post a post and say nothing. I mean, I always have something to say, or some point to make. I would never just post something and then blather about nothing.

Never.

Mark

youre getting as good as me mark

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beasterbrook
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Posted: Tue Nov 07, 2006 6:45 am

killjoy32 wrote:i dont have problems re the cost of an item - if its what i want, i will pay the cost, simple as that.

its just a shipping issue.

a while back i wanted to get from them a JG journal 1 - which for anyone who has it, is like 1 sheet of ppaer . you can ship that airmail with a carded back for buttons....even GPM for appx $10?

so what do they charge... first off they said $23. when i complained to them, it was a little less.

next off just very recent, a JG instalment K booklet, which weighs next to nothing...shipping cost $13! crock of sh*t lemme tell you.

i could prb buy a dozen and have em shipped together and it wouldnt be this much.

THIS is how they are making a kill and i think they will continually get away with it, sadly.

THAT is why i will never ever purchase from them again.

if they had sensible combined shipping, then i buy lots from them all the time, but lets face it, you know thats not gonna happen in a month of sundays.

remember mark's "genius" thing a few weeks ago? low cost of item, massive shipping.

here is a perfect example of "genius" - right there in front of us.

Al

Grrr.. this is happening to me at the moment, usually they aren't that bad but $31 for sea mail is high-way robbery for 9 small mags! (quote: "I have a shipping department to pay for") That and they take about a WEEK to answer emails!! I've asked them to tell me exactly what the split up for the costs are and funny enought I haven't heard from them in a week.... I've even asked what the costs are going to be if shipped to a US address Irecon get air mail from there at less costs than sea mail to my place direct... if you are going to charge like a wounded bull for shipping at least say so (like their auctions ) Oh.. and no more M-bags by the way, aparently they have been charged back for loss of them or some such... (that doesn't overly worry me) They would get so many more sale if they didn't do this...

Slightly annoyed...

Brette:)

beasterbrook
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Posted: Tue Nov 07, 2006 6:52 am

Think I just may cut and paste his post in another thread and email the sucker to them!

Brette:)
__________________________________________
Tonya is now listing less, and her new assistant I think will turn things around.

However, of note: $13 is the usual price for any international item that is light (say a "Fighters Handbook" or less in size. $15 for a larger book, or a hardcover.

Part of this is the way eBay works. The seller gets to quote one rate for international airmail (and one for surface, if they want). You cannot quote by the destination (which is STUPID) so if you quote $9 cause you can ship it to Canada for $7, then you are screwed when a customer in China buys it.

Fortunately, most buyers don't argue about S&H fee's. Unfortunately, making a stupid mistake like saying an A1 module is $32 to ship internationally is careless mistake, but makes one look really stupid, or greedy. And, Tonya is not stupid (and not OVERLY greedy).

Anyway, I suspect that the new eBay seller Tonya is using will do a MUCH better job of keeping those stupid mistakes to a minimum.

_________________
Marcus King
Titan Games - OWNER
269-963-3773

killjoy32
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Posted: Tue Nov 07, 2006 7:54 am

beasterbrook wrote:And, Tonya is not stupid (and not OVERLY greedy).

Anyway, I suspect that the new eBay seller Tonya is using will do a MUCH better job of keeping those stupid mistakes to a minimum.

somehow dont think i agree with that one bit, but hey i aint dragging it all up again - everyone here knows the score one way or the other.

sorry to hear youre having probs with them Brette. bummer aint it?

Al

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