Last week, before I knew MB Klein had Atlas code 83 flex I bought 10 pieces on Ebay from trainz.com. Their Ebay ID is just trainz. The price was a little high at almost $6 a piece. 6 pieces were in fact Atlas but the floating rail was tighter than normal. I had to check the underside to make sure and indeed it said Atlas, made in China. The other 4 were crafted simuliar to Micro Engineering but the underside said made in Italy. I know ME is made in the US unless they have factories in the old country. I don’t know. I emailed them with a suggestion of just credit me roughly $24 for the track. And guess what? They did. They took a wrong and made it a big right. So hats off to Trainz.com for being so helpful in a not so good transaction.
I often come across Trainz.com while perusing eBay but their ‘standard’ shipping cost of $36.00 to ship ANYTHING to Canada kiboshes any interest I may have had in their item.
Besides - they fulfill one of the top rules of eBay sites to avoid, in that there’s twice as much information on their shipping, payment & return policies as there is on the item. Run, don’t walk past these ones - and avoid eye contact…
The first Atlas Code 83 track was made by someone else - Roco maybe? I don’t remember them having flex though, just sectional pieces and turnouts. And that’s an Austrian company, not Italian, anyway.
I avoid Trainz as much as possible. I’m in Ebay a lot, and have had two bad experiences with them. Just like with you, it was a “switch” of products, and I had to call them, as they did not answer my email response, when my shippments arrived, and only half the items I bid on and won, were there. The first time, ok, it got worked out, but to have it twice? no thanks. They are not as big as what their web site seems ti imply. When I finally got my call answered, they were like yelling across the room at each other. My worst situation was over signals I won on an auction. That turned out to be a fiascal, and got my money back. They begged me for weeks to change my feed back on them, then they finally made an offer that I would accept.
Funny, never had a problem with the few times I have used them but then I only go for rarer items, not likely they could find a substitute and they would have to have it on hand as there is no way they could go buy and reship. How about a listing # so we can see if it was indeed them?
I’ve bought numerous H0 and G scale items for Trainz via eBay over the years, and on the rare occiasion there was any sort of problem, they have sorted it out promptly.
They run a “trouble ticket” type system of dealing with any enquiry or complaint to them, so the tracking/handling of corresepondance with them is generally quite transparent.
Ya know, I asked and they were very understanding. But I told them I will send the track back and pay for the shipping. Because hey that’s the kind of guy I should be.
Ok, did the research, you got 4 pieces of MP track which I am told is not like the MP track of old, much, much better (I used to avoid there stuff like the plague). The track lines up exactly with the Atlas. I’m thinking they just made a mistake. I don’t know if you ever deal with large quantities of track but sometimes even those who know their stuff get confused if the stuff is similar and in a retail setting, I doubt someone checks the back. I remember once myself I thought I had all Atlas track in a bundle and some ended up being NP (Nickel Plate), a brand long gone. Glad they are giving you a refund for the 4 pieces that were wrong.
I am very warry of anything anybody claims on Ebay, and hence stay away for this reason.
Sometimes they don’t know what they’ve got, sometimes, they may try a fast one. Some times its a mistake. SOmetimes they “talk up” and item to garner More money out of the saps who peruse their wares.
If the track is indeed so close, and you only noticed it because “the floating rail was stiff” or whatever, you yourself might not have looked at the back and noticed the difference.
I DO agree, though that if you want credit for something, their fault or yours, it should be sent back.
Apparently EBAY should come with [color=red]HUGE RED WARNING SiGNS: “BUYER BEWARE” [/color] because enough people complain about ebay dealings, that they apparently need to be warned.
Yea, That was my bad. But is not like I wasn’t checking the retail sites. It was literally 2days after I bought it on Ebay that Modeltrainstuff.com got more track in.
Please read more carefully!!! I said that the track that was indeed Atlas had a stiffer floating rail than usual. The track that was NOT Atlas was crafted like Micro Engineering flex track. Ya know, a stiff kind of molding of the track when you bend it. I did not have to look at the back of the non Atlas track to know that in wasn’t Atlas. And since I did pay more than the usual price, I did not want to lose more money. Let’s put it this way, if they would of insisted that I return the track that I did not want, to get a refund, I probably would have eaten the $24 and given a negitive feedback. But instead it worked out, I saved time and money and will give the business a positive feedback. This is called negotiating. Try it some time it might work for you too.