My 2 cents worth

[JamesClark]

Sorry this is long but the point needs to be made.

It's amazing to hear some of you people basically say it's no big deal that AU has treated the people that ordered this DVD set with very little respect. It's no wonder Sameritech chose not to provide their email since they would probably have to deal with some foolish people from this forum emailing them complaining that they took a stand and took action against a company that obviously doesn't have a clue what customer service is.

Let's look back shall we? Way back in Jan/Feb we hear about the set and start placing our orders with AU. I looked back at those old posts and see there were some problems even then. First AU charges us $20 for pre-ordering the set. No problem there since that's what we all agreed to. Then about 45 days after the initial $20 pre-order, they decide to start charging the remainder without even informing us they're doing it. Now none of us expected for them to cash flow the whole project, but they also didn't tell us we would have to pay for the full set that far in advance either. Matter of fact, after looking at the traffic on this forum, AU just started charging people for the full amount without the courtesy of telling people they were going to have to do that. All they had to do was send out a mass email letting us know it was necessary and most of us would have been ok with that. Instead we had to go back to this forum to find out what was going on. It was AU's responsibility to notify us prior to charging the remainder...but they chose to make us find out when we viewed out credit card statements or received that unexpected email back in March/April. Is that any way to treat a customer? I think not.

I have no idea what the profit margin is for AU on this set, but I think it's safe to say they're going to do ok on this DVD set. It doesn't cost anywhere near $89/$99 per set even when you factor in all the companies that had their hand in this project. Then let's not forget the price went up so AU is looking at an even larger profit margin for the sets ordered after the initial pre-order period. I don't have a problem with them making money but look at how long they have had our money. For a vast majority of people, AU has had the full amount since March/April. What do you think they have been doing with that money? A portion is used to pay for the project, the rest is sitting in a bank/money market account collecting interest off our money. So in addition to the standard per-set profit, their making more and more money every day that goes by without even 1 set being delivered. And here we are 6+ months since the initial charge with nothing to show for it.

Then let's FFWD to June when we had expected to receive our sets. June comes and goes with no mention from AU the project has been delayed. Once again, nobody should have to go back to this forum to find out what's going on. AU has our money and therefore a responsibility to notify us without us even asking. They chose not to do that. At some point they sent us a letter but that was long after the initial release date came and went. A good company would be pro-active not reactive as AU has been. If I remember correctly, AU couldn't even be bothered to update their web site back in June when they knew the set would not release on time. They continued to allow customers to order the set thinking it was just around the corner. It wasn't until many people on this forum started to bash them that they got around to doing something pretty basic and simple as updating their web site with correct information.

Then July comes along and I read on this forum about people being double charged. It seems AU has an issue with some people not being charged way back when like the rest of us. Yet again, AU should have notified the affected customers and as a courtesy, told them they would have to charge their credit card for the remainder. They once again chose not to do that. We have to go back to the forum to read about it. Then shortly thereafter we read on the forum about people who had already paid-in-full were now being charged again. First of all, what kind of company not only keeps such poor records that 5+ months goes by without their knowing about orders not being paid-in-full, but also have such shotty records that they start posting charges against orders that were fully paid for?. We go back to the forum and learn it's not a problem with a few credit cards, but by the volume of different messages we have here, it's quite a few overcharges. By this time it's clear AU is aware of the problem but again chooses not to notify it's customers and instead waits for us to notify them of the erroneous charges. What kind of company allows this to occur, one that doesn't have a clue what their doing.

Every step of the way, AU should be keeping us informed of what's going on. Why should they do this, BECAUSE THEY HAVE OUR MONEY. You would think they would learn from their mistakes but instead they just keep making more. You heard it here first: Based on AU's past history and obvious lack of knowledge of how to run a business and how to treat a customer, it's highly likely AU will have problems once the DVD set starts to ship. Things like people being overcharged or unreasonable charged on shipping fees, orders being sent to the wrong address, orders arriving incomplete, wrong, damaged, or not at all. If history is any indication of future results, there will be a lot of angry customers come shipping time. I hope I'm wrong, but I doubt I will be.

So those of you that like to bash people for standing up for their rights and taking action when they are being taken advantage of by a company, please leave this forum. You are either too naive or just plane stupid about the world of business and consumers. By the way, just for the hell of it I called/wrote a couple of the agencies Sameritech mentioned in their post. It wasn't to complain but instead to inquire if AU had a history of poor service or was the MSCL the start of their downhill spiral toward mediocrity. I wasn't the least bid surprised to find out the MSCL set was not an isolated case of business mismanagement. Let's just say they have more than a few complaints on file. When I called one agency, the lady said in the background, "Hey Larry, guess what internet company this call is about". Apparently many people from this forum have taken Sameritech's advice and fought back against AU. All I can say is, good for them. No other customers should have to deal with what MSCL DVD fans have had to deal with.

[DVD SHERIFF]

DVDUNIVERSE DVDPLANET AMAZON. YOU HAVE ALOT OF TIME ON YOUR HANDS THERE BUDDY. KEEP BASHING

[Ross Rojek]

Couple of comments about this.

We were informed by BMG that they set would be to us at the beginning of June, and that they wanted payment in full prior to doing the authoring. We informed EVERYONE at that point (April) that we had an estimated ship date, and that we were going to have to be pre-paid on everyone's order. If anyone didn't want to pre-pay, we would credit back their deposit and let them know when the DVD set was ready to ship so they could order again. We gave everyone a time frame to cancel their order and then began collecting the orders.

Then BMG let us know that they didn't have all the rights to the music in the last 5 episodes. We were given the choice of having them strip the music out of the episodes or waiting for them to clear the rights. We opted to have them clear the rights. That delayed them beginning the authoring, however they didn't give us an estimate on a new schedule.

During this time we were also working on the bonus material and the lunchbox. The lunch box had to be approved by Disney, and between BMG and Disney, that took an additional 6 weeks just to get the legal notice Disney required. During this time BMG was continuing to work on the authoring.

We'll have an e-mail and posted update tomorrow. I'm getting the last of the timeline from BMG in Writing tomorrow, and sending out the update at that time.

We've had numerous problems with our processor and many of the customers. Some customers we've had to try and charge over 10 times to get the charge to go through. We still have over 400 orders that owe some or all of their order.

As far as our profit goes, we're not making that much money any more. the cost of the DVDs is a much higher percentage of the sale price than it should be (or was quoted to us at the beginning). And its been increased several times. The additional costs of the lunchbox and shipping, the bonus DVD and the actual MSCL DVD set itself will run over $60. Then the costs of the transactions:

1. Credit Card fees - We're losing about 4% on every order here, and per-transaction fees every time we try (again) to run a card that won't clear.

2. Free shipping (more than half of the orders qualified for free shipping and the post office increased the fees during that time (another 5% or so). Plus the shipping supplies on 3,000 sets isn't free to us either.

3. Employee time - My receptionist (Wade for those who have called) takes probably 50+ calls a day about the set. Some people call once a week to check on their order. Between all the work being done on this, there are probably 3 people working full time on this project since March. That is a hard cost since they can't work on other projects, and the longer this takes, the more its going to cost the company.

4. Jason is also getting paid out of the net sales. For the amount of work he's done, and the amount of time its taken to get here, he won't be making a huge amount on an hourly basis, but still, thats also coming out of the profit.

When all is said and done, AU will probably either break even or lose some money on the project over all. But we said we were going to do it, and we will. People should start having them in September, and any and all order problems will be sorted out. I've had one person going through the orders one at a time, checking that everything is either all ok, or flagging anything wrong so we (or you depending on the problem) can fix it before we begin shipping the DVDs.

As far as complaints about AU, since we bought AU last year, we've had very few customer problems. Until this project. HOWEVER, Another Universe went out of business overnight in March of 2001, leaving a lot of pissed off customers. And since we bought the web site at that point, everyone assumed that we were going to be responsible for all the outstanding pre-paid orders. Which we weren't.

This project has been both one of the funnest things I've ever worked on, and also one of the worst. I cannot honestly say I'd do it again if the choice was before me, but I've learned a lot, so I would be able to make it easier next time.

Anyone who was double charged (and realize that many of them were authorizations run by the processor, where your card may have been debited, but the money wasn't transfered to us) will have that money credited back to their account. And in cases with debit cards, we've also been taking care of overdraft fees, even when we weren't responsible for the charge in the first place.

The DVDs and bonus material will be shipping in the very near future. As soon as I have the actual ship date from BMG (hopefully tomorrow) we'll let every one know. I may even fly out to the printer to pick them up the day they are available. (there's an idea, anyone in the area might be able to join me and pick up some "hot off the press".

I am ever so sorry for the problems that have happened thoughout the process of getting this thing out. MSCL is often the first thing I deal with in the morning and the last thing I deal with at night. We will make this happen, and then you folks will finally have the DVD set. And I'm working on getting something to add to the set as a thank you for everyone whos had to put up with all the crap.

And again, if you can't get though to anyone else, you can always e-mail me directly at ross@anotheruniverse.com.

[giuditta]

Thanks for that, Ross.
I am one of the people who was overcharged, and while I can't say I was overly happy about it, I realise that this is not a regular situation, and due to the special nature of the project things cannot always run as smoothly as planned. At the end of the day I know that I will get my money back eventually, to be honest all I'm worried about is getiing that boxset in my hands!! And I really appreciate everyone that's put in so much work to make this happen