Post by oldmuley on Feb 11, 2018 16:10:25 GMT -8
OK, I know this is a long shot, but did anyone here ever sign up for JMD Plastics "Dealer Pricing for Life" program? JMD Plastics was a train shop that was mostly a train show vendor until about 2 or 3 years ago when they opened a physical store in Green Bay, Wisconsin. In the fall of 2015 they started offering a program called "dealer pricing for life", which in exchange for for a donation to the Motorcycle and Model Railroad Museum of Wisconsin you would get anything you order through them at dealer pricing. (The train store was described as the revenue arm of the museum.) Initially the donation they wanted was over $900, but this past summer they dropped it to $100. The nearly $1k donation seemed more than outrageous, but the $100 didn't seem too bad, especially since I was considering replacing my Digitrax system and there were a boatload of locomotives coming out that I'd be pre-ordering. So I ponied up and was excited about saving money on all my future orders.
This past summer, the shop moved to a new location. Initially it was in an industrial building south of town, but then it moved way out of town to what to all appearances was a private residence. When I stopped by the new location, there was no signage, and no indication that is was business. I took a chance and wandered in, and in a converted attached garage was a makeshift store. This seemed a bit odd, but still I had hopes and assumed this was a temporary move.
In mid December, I received an e-mail from JMD Plastics saying they were going to be closing for the rest of December and most of January since they would be attending several out-of-town train shows and some of the employees were dealing with some health issues. This really struck me as odd, since you'd think December/January would be prime shopping season, especially for what is for a lot of us a winter hobby. December came and went, and then as January was nearly over I received an email saying they were closing and not reopening due to health concerns of the staff. All preorders were cancelled, any deposits that were made were being returned as checks, but those checks needed to be cashed within 7 days since their checking account was going to close. I questioned what was happening to those of us who had signed up for "dealer pricing" and was told a new hobby store about 30 minutes south of us would be taking over. Subsequent attempts to e-mail have been unsuccessful and the JMD Plastics website is now gone, they just seem to have vanished.
So needless to say I wasn't very happy about this. I'd never really had a chance to use my "dealer pricing" and that "donation" seems to be gone. This started me doing some digging and I'm finding some questionable information about the whole venture. For example, the "Motorcycle and Model Railroad Museum of Wisconsin" does not appear to physically exist as a real place. A web search reveals that it is a 501c3 charity, which I knew, but all Google searches either go to a generic placeholder website with no information, or circle back to JMD Plastics website (which is now gone). So what did I donate my money too? If there is no physical museum, clearly we didn't donate to keep the lights. I don't know if I want to go as far as to call this a questionable practice, but I really am feeling like I, and others, might have gotten taken advantage of.
If anyone else here was part of this, I'd love to hear about it. I'm feel like I'm on an island of frustration and wonder if there are others out there like me. Maybe my desire to get a good deal on my hobby clouded my rationality and skepticism.
This past summer, the shop moved to a new location. Initially it was in an industrial building south of town, but then it moved way out of town to what to all appearances was a private residence. When I stopped by the new location, there was no signage, and no indication that is was business. I took a chance and wandered in, and in a converted attached garage was a makeshift store. This seemed a bit odd, but still I had hopes and assumed this was a temporary move.
In mid December, I received an e-mail from JMD Plastics saying they were going to be closing for the rest of December and most of January since they would be attending several out-of-town train shows and some of the employees were dealing with some health issues. This really struck me as odd, since you'd think December/January would be prime shopping season, especially for what is for a lot of us a winter hobby. December came and went, and then as January was nearly over I received an email saying they were closing and not reopening due to health concerns of the staff. All preorders were cancelled, any deposits that were made were being returned as checks, but those checks needed to be cashed within 7 days since their checking account was going to close. I questioned what was happening to those of us who had signed up for "dealer pricing" and was told a new hobby store about 30 minutes south of us would be taking over. Subsequent attempts to e-mail have been unsuccessful and the JMD Plastics website is now gone, they just seem to have vanished.
So needless to say I wasn't very happy about this. I'd never really had a chance to use my "dealer pricing" and that "donation" seems to be gone. This started me doing some digging and I'm finding some questionable information about the whole venture. For example, the "Motorcycle and Model Railroad Museum of Wisconsin" does not appear to physically exist as a real place. A web search reveals that it is a 501c3 charity, which I knew, but all Google searches either go to a generic placeholder website with no information, or circle back to JMD Plastics website (which is now gone). So what did I donate my money too? If there is no physical museum, clearly we didn't donate to keep the lights. I don't know if I want to go as far as to call this a questionable practice, but I really am feeling like I, and others, might have gotten taken advantage of.
If anyone else here was part of this, I'd love to hear about it. I'm feel like I'm on an island of frustration and wonder if there are others out there like me. Maybe my desire to get a good deal on my hobby clouded my rationality and skepticism.
