After a year of staying away, I ordered the 21st Century reprint of the World of Greyhawk box set from T&T last week. What do I receive in the mail today? The "Greyhawk Adventures" mini book. Just sad.

My experience with T&T :

They had those 4E DCC books combined in a pack so I bought 2 packs.

First two copies of one of the books in the pack arrive. I sent an email and received a polite reply that they'd fix this.

Second shipment was indeed the two packs (including the books I already had) but completely banged up and bent all over the place. The books were placed in a box with just a small sheet of bubblewrap on top of them. So another email to their customer service. No reply but suddenly I receive one of those automated 'order shipped' emails.

And yes, some time later I get the two packs again. This time they had some more bubblewrap and the books were ok.

I have ordered from T&T quite a bit and have been happy for the most part. There are some books listed in their inventory (rather easy to find Kalamar, Alternity, DnD, etc) with prices that really cannot be beat even on Ebay. That being said, their inventory on Ebay seems to parallel that on their website. I would order from their website b/c items are cheaper. A few times they have sent book different from what I ordered, not in the condition described, or not sent at all b/c their inventory wasn't current. However, they do quickly correct their mistakes and/or refund money so that accountability sets things straight.

I always write any seller to confirm the condition of their books and inquire if there are marks in the books, dog-ears, missing maps, torn out inserts, tears, and other damage, including odors of smoke, regardless of what they have in their descriptions.

bamajon1974 wrote:"... That being said, their inventory on Ebay seems to parallel that on their website. I would order from their website b/c items are cheaper. ...".

I believe one of their customer support people were on here at one time and mentioned that they have to raise prices on Ebay to cover fees and misc expenses compared to their normal T&T store prices.

I personally have ordered from them once or twice (most recently to get the Castle Ravenloft board game) and I would order from them again. Just straight from their website and not their Ebay store. Just my 2 cents.

They're safe for items up to about $6.

Hi guys! Let me introduce myself. My name is Marshall and I will soon be in charge of the RPG department at Troll & Toad.  One of the main things I was tasked with changing is our reputation and understandably, we have a fairly bad one. This certainly doesn't help either.  I went and investigated what happened with you, MetamorphosisSigma, and the short answer is negligence.  4 different people who handled the product couldn't look at it and figure out that "Greyhawk Adventures" is not "World of Greyhawk."  Hopefully things get tightened up in that area because I pitched a fit about it. Our new warehouse manager is A+ as well,

This morning we also changed the packaging method for RPG's.  One of our main problems is that the people who work in the warehouse do not play RPG's so they don't have any sort of grasp on what condition is acceptable. They aren't trained to grade books so myself and the people in my department are to blame if something if mis-graded.  

Concerning the grading, I understand all too well that the relaxed standards of the past are simply not acceptable. At all. I just got into RPG's from magic and my grading standard in magic is what people refer to as Japanese. I cringe at some of the cards I see graded here because I am just that strict.  IF there is any sort of mark on it, it is no longer near mint. I am carrying this over to RPG's. If I think it could possibly considered VF or if it is borderline, its downgraded. The 1st edition stuff we have in stock has already been pulled out and been regraded along with about half of the 2nd edition AD&D.  I will be going through most of our inventory that I think needs re-grading and eventually I hope to eliminate all of the complaints about our grading.  I think that tighter standards and better shipping methods are the beginning of making things better.

This brings me to you all.  You guys are the customers and the people who ultimately determine how good we are, so I would love to hear anything you have to say about us. We can't fix anything if we don't know something is wrong.  Right now I understand why some of you have major problems with us and that is just simply awful for us. The fact that I understand why we have a bad reputation is pretty bad. So I want to hear your horror stories, problems with grading, what you think is wrong with us and anything else you care to say. I would also love to hear your standards of grading books. I want to be on the same page so when I send out a book that I have graded as VF, it isn't someone elses good.  

Thanks in advance!
Marshall

PS: yes our ebay store is directly connected to our websites inventory. The prices reflect the ebay fees we have to pay. So order from the store if you want something, it's cheaper

MetamorphosisSigma wrote:Thanks again for handling my complaint quickly and effectively. I apologize for the title of this thread; I was angry at the time, and should have allowed time to cool down before posting (I still would have posted the "horror story", but I would have been a little more politic). Part of the reason I was so miffed was that I have had a number of slightly negative experiences in the past. LOL, at one point before the item arrived yesterday, I actually had a brief daymare about receiving "Greyhawk Adventures" instead of "World of Greyhawk" and laughed it off. But sure enough .

In the hope that it helps, these are some of the "minor" issues I've had in the past with T&T grading (this is from memory, but you could check my order history to corroborate):

1) A Dark Sun box set (don't recall which) listed as NM in S/W: arrived in the barest remnants of tattered shrink, in something like Fine condition.

2) An AD&D hardcover (WSG IIRC): listed as VF, but arrived with musty smell and liberally covered with foxing.

3) A few times I've ordered Magic cards (all NM) which have had minor nicks or other flaws that should have disqualified them for that grade.

I'm Joe and as some of you might know I work for TnT also, Marshall is taking over the out of print RPGs from me, and I now handle our distribution and Inprint RPGs. And as he has already gone over if theres an issue with grading on any product make sure to contact us to try and get it resolved, both of us have been working to fix the grading issues that were before our time in the company. It's a long process but it is getting better, there is just an immense amount of products to go through and check.

And as for shipping problem with them not being packed properly we have brought it up to our shipping manager and they should be packed better, but even so we have no control on how the carriers treat the packages, especially for overseas. Again if product arrives damaged just contact us to get it resolved. Again sorry for the hassle.

Grading IS improving, but we have a ton of stuff to grade. Our warehouse and inventory are both huge so its hard to get to everything when its just us re-grading things.  It really upset me when I read this thread today because we have been working really hard to get our reputation where it needs to be and someone who decided to try us again was burned.