Post by valenciajim on Oct 12, 2015 9:45:09 GMT -8
I saw the excellent review of the Walthers UP Baggage car with the American flag in the HO Forum. I ordered one in May and was wondering why I did not receive it yet.
So I called Walthers. They told me I cancelled my order when I placed it. Wow—how did I do that?
In May I placed an order for the UP baggage car along with about five or six other items. I always mark my order, “do not backorder” because I don’t want a small shipment of a $2 item for which I have to pay a $10 shipping charge. That happened to me once before, but apparently, my Yardmaster Club membership expired before the item was shipped. I could have avoided the shipping charge by simply seeing to it that my Yardmaster Club membership did not expire.
Anyway, if you mark your order “Do not back order” you are cancelling all items that are not currently in stock at Walthers—including pre-orders. 
I was foolish because I thought that when you pre-order an item that has not been produced yet, it is a pre-production order not a back order of existing merchandise that happens to be out of stock. Obviously, when you pre-order merchandise it is by definition a back order. Walthers does not make this distinction. The order for any item, including pre-production items is cancelled it you indicate cancel backordered items on your order.
They also said that if you are a Yardmaster Club member, if your order was over $75, and you are ordering both pre-order items and items that have been in production, you should never select the “cancel back ordered items.” Instead you should request that items be held until there are $20 of back ordered items. (Presumably, if you never get to $20 of backordered items those items are held to your next order is shipped). Walthers won’t charge to ship the backordered items as long as you are a Yardmaster Club member.
The Walthers rep indicated that there has been a lot of customer confusion about this policy. Walthers apparently does this because they feel it is worse for someone to get shipped merchandise when they were not expecting it. In any event, the explanation on Walthers Website really needs clarification.
They told me that I needed to do two things if I wanted to combine, in a single order, the order of pre-production merchandise with the order of already produced merchandise:
1. Mark your order hold backordered items until they total $20.
2. Don’t let your Yardmaster Club membership expire before the backordered items are shipped or else you will be charged shipping for the back ordered items.
One other humorous statement by the Walthers rep–-alternatively I could order the item from “one of the hundreds of thriving local hobby shops that are served by Walthers.” I told her that the nearest local hobby shop is thirty miles from my house and I didn't think there were many thriving hobby shops.
On a positive note, the Walthers representative was courteous, she put up with my complaining and she was knowledgeable about Walthers products and procedures.
