Jump to content
IGNORED

Collector's Cards and Games


boxpressed

Recommended Posts

Which is kind of weird considering that the bulk of my label variations came from him as he went through his entire stock looking for them. Of course that was many many years ago.

 

I have the same experience. I totally pestered the heck out of him looking for specific 2600 game manuals, I thought he was going to explode. But he didn't, he was very polite and looked through quite a bit of boxes of manuals to find what I was looking for. Maybe he's on vacation or something back in NJ? Some people literally fall off the map when they are on vaca.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 7 months later...

I have had good luck with him. Has anyone here had any issues with delayed deliveries since the last post that has ordered from Mike? During my collecting since 2009 I have ran into a bad cart for the NES. Namely Legacy of the Wizards but it didn't come from Collector's Cards and Games. It came from e-Starland. I would like to place an order with Mike but last I heard he hadn't moved all of his merchandise yet from MN.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've ordered from him a few times. The first couple orders were really smooth. This last order took several months before I finally received half the order. I don't really blame him for the delay, though, since I told him I was in no hurry and he was swamped with orders and he wanted to fully test the TI-99/4a and the Odyssey2 I ordered.

He's fast with shipping games and peripherals, but consoles seem to take a while for him to send out.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My experiences were mixed as well, and I'll no longer buy anything from him. I made 2 very large orders with him over about 2 years; the first one went pretty smooth, the second was kind of a mess and the third never panned out.

 

My 2nd order had a smashed 32X cart and a Coleco cart in horrible condition, which he refunded.

 

My 3rd order: he had just relocated to FL and had a lot of inventory to go through. Ok fine, I'm as patient as a saint. But after not hearing from him for weeks, I kept having to write him to ask about my order. He always complained of being to busy with work. In my order there were 3 NES games (among a bunch of others), and snapped at me that he has to go through hundreds or thousands of carts just to find the 3 I wanted. Well, do you want my business or not?

 

I did get a lot of great games from him that I still treasure, but I told him politely that if he can't fill my order in a timely manner, tying up money, that I'll take my business elsewhere. He said he understood and seemed almost relieved that he wouldn't have to bother.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My experiences were mixed as well, and I'll no longer buy anything from him. I made 2 very large orders with him over about 2 years; the first one went pretty smooth, the second was kind of a mess and the third never panned out.

 

My 2nd order had a smashed 32X cart and a Coleco cart in horrible condition, which he refunded.

 

My 3rd order: he had just relocated to FL and had a lot of inventory to go through. Ok fine, I'm as patient as a saint. But after not hearing from him for weeks, I kept having to write him to ask about my order. He always complained of being to busy with work. In my order there were 3 NES games (among a bunch of others), and snapped at me that he has to go through hundreds or thousands of carts just to find the 3 I wanted. Well, do you want my business or not?

 

I did get a lot of great games from him that I still treasure, but I told him politely that if he can't fill my order in a timely manner, tying up money, that I'll take my business elsewhere. He said he understood and seemed almost relieved that he wouldn't have to bother.

I've had similar bad recent experiences with him. I used to order from him every few months and never had a problem. The last order was for a bunch of classic cartridge games and a lot of what he sent was in extremely poor shape. Ordinarily I would let it go but in this particular case I had asked specific questions about condition and he badly misrepresented what he ended up sending. I guess I should have never ordered from him because I had some bad vibes a few months prior to that based on some e-mails we had exchanged regarding some games he was selling on Ebay. I had asked condition questions about those as well since he was using stock shots and he was very short with me saying essentially "I'm tired of you collectors wanting perfect items", etc...Frankly, his business is called "Collectors Cards and Games" and his prices aren't exactly cheap on rarer items, so I didn't think I was out of line to ask about what he was actually trying to sell. In any event, I wouldn't recommend dealing with him at this point.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I did my first order with them a while ago and was pretty happy with it. Got some N64 carts, extension cables, and a few new 3rd party joysticks.....the joysticks had rust on the ring around the expansion port but it wasn't visible from the outside of the sealed pack so I was ok with it. Most of it came off anyway with some vinegar, was just surface rust.

 

i didn't care for the N64 carts coming with Blockbuster stickers on them but the price was right so I'll live with it.

 

if I was the picky type I might not order from him again and woudl advise others the same, but I don't mind "player's copies". I'll order again.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My experience was mixed. The items themselves were fine (the packing could've been a little better but everything arrived safely) and the prices were pretty good, but I got a weird vibe from the proprietor. His site encourages visitors to send in lists of boxes/manuals they need, but when I sent in my list, he seemed oddly resentful. It almost seemed like he expected me to commit to buy stuff before he actually named a price (or went to see whether he had it).

 

It also rubs me the wrong way that he didn't have two of the items listed in his online catalog -- items that, in all honesty, were the main reason I placed my order -- but almost a year later, he still hasn't removed those entries from the catalog.

 

 

Same here on mixed experience. I found him through a member here and first emailed to inquire about his Commodore 64 stock. What I was looking for was listed on the website, but he replied telling me that it was not in stock. That is fine, but there was an attitude in the emails. I was waiting for payday to order some items, and asked him something to the effect of if he thought he would still have stock at that time and I received a response with something like "just contact me when you are ready, ok?"

 

I let it go and ended up placing an order for quite a few Coco carts (all boxed) about a month or two later. I received them and one had partially ripped off label (Pinball). I checked his website and saw that he still had the game in box with manual, and emailed him. I expressed how all the other games (this was quite a large purchase) were great, but Pinball had the issue. I was hoping he would have just opted to exchange it, but the reply I received was quite rude. He basically said that I should be happy with whatever I get Coco-wise as they are so rare anyway....and that he didn't have another one to replace it with even if he wanted to. Yet, boxed Pinball is STILL on his website for sale:

 

http://www.collectorscardsandgames.com/trs80.htm

 

Yeah, I won't be ordering from him again.

Edited by eightbit
Link to comment
Share on other sites

He actually just bought a CV manual lot from me on eBay and paid almost immediately. He got it at a very good price and will probably flip the individual items for a small profit. Hmm, should I contact him with the bad news that I am having a hard time locating everything? :twisted:

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

@eightbit: Ugh, sorry to hear that. There's definitely a "vibe" that he seems to put off these days, but it's not clear to me how exactly him being busy or overwhelmed is the customer's fault. And the thing about not updating his inventory listing to remove enticing items he doesn't actually have? That starts bordering on bait-and-switch territory, and may not be entirely legal.

 

The pitch is "Send me your wantlists, and check out all this other good stuff I have!" but the reality seems closer to "If you ask about something, I expect you to buy it at whatever price I name and without any expectations as to condition, and to listen to me complain about what a pain in the ass it was to find it. Also, all that good stuff that caught your eye? I don't actually have most of it -- but if you balk at following through with an order I can only half-fill, you're yet another time-waster."

 

@NIAD: Ha! :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I am confident that I will NEVER do business with them again. Their customer service is HORRIBLE.

 

My experience with them is that they are one of those places that list a whole bunch of games for sale but don't have any of them in stock. So you can place an order for a bunch of games, they might have them in stock, they might not, you never know! By the time they respond to you, 3 or 4 unreturned e-mails later, if you're not frustrated enough and ready to give up by that point, they respond to you saying some rather foolish things. The last time I tried to buy from them, they explained to me how they couldn't fill my order because it was too much of a chore for them to look for the games I wanted to buy, and I was burdening them by even asking. I mean, god forbid I'm a paying customer that wants to give you business. What nerve I have!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

What was it that you said you were looking for?

The workout video with the hot blonde in the red leatard. It's in the bottom/middle of the pic.... to the left a little, now down a little, ahh, you passed it up, back to the right a little, YES!, that's the one!!!

 

Oh shit!!! Do you have a VCR that you could sell me as well. :roll:

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 months later...

Wow...I noticed they had some decent prices for Atari & Genesis carts & I've been planning on ordering....Their website is designed pretty poorly IMO, I don't even see a search option..very tedious looking for a game....I had a strong feeling their games list hadn't been updated in ages, looks like I was right...Well sent an email like 5 days ago & still no response...And I wound up running into some of the stuff I wanted at a hobby shop yesterday lol...We'll see if they ever get back to me. Im really sketchy now too about the condition of the carts they would have sent me now after what I've read here

 

 

Update: I just tried calling for the hell of it & nothing...but 2 different voicemail greeting messages played simultaneously hahahaha.....There was a guy (assuming owner you guys mentioned) & a woman speaking on top of one another, sounded crazy, must be some kind of glitch their not aware of :grin:

Edited by Stevaside
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just out of curiosity, did you guys (having issues) send them an email directly, or did you go through the process of placing an order through their "Order" tab? I have only done the later and didn't really have any issues asides from slightly slow response on their end (a couple of days at least). Perhaps they prioritize actual orders placed via their own system versus general email inquiries.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Other than delays in communication when ordering, I used to have great experiences with CC&G. That has changed over the last few years, mainly due to some things not being as described. For example, I would expect someone selling something "new" to mention water damage, mold, or other obvious damage before charging money and shipping.

 

Not everything has been like that, however I would highly recommend asking for photos of the merchandise before finalizing the order and making payment.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just out of curiosity, did you guys (having issues) send them an email directly, or did you go through the process of placing an order through their "Order" tab? I have only done the later and didn't really have any issues asides from slightly slow response on their end (a couple of days at least). Perhaps they prioritize actual orders placed via their own system versus general email inquiries.

Never ordered anything personally, but how you order may indeed make for different experiences.

 

I see a pretty significant difference between routes for ordering and finding games.

 

For example, looking to buy an Atari 7800 game though the listing from this page...

http://www.collectorscardsandgames.com/games01.htm

...and then contacting him via email.

 

As opposed to this route/listing...

http://www.collectorscardsandgames.com/new/Atari7800.html

...and using the 'Order' button.

 

Seems the second method may go smoother in addition to containing what appears to be a 'update' date/time stamp on the list that's provided.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Definitely use email direct, not "Order" or phone. Mike responds to emails. Similar to Best Electronics, he's not using a sophisticated inventory system in a warehouse. While he was in New Jersey, his game lists were never updated, but he found things and responded much quicker. Since moving to Florida, his game lists have been more frequently updated, but his response time is way up. It's to be expected. However, I never received a game or manual from him that wasn't in good shape. But if he's selling "NEW" items that are damaged, that's a no-no.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Definitely use email direct, not "Order" or phone. Mike responds to emails.

 

I figured his order system was just sending him an email, but maybe with a unique header or something ("Order #/Date/Time" versus a generic "hi do you have these games" header. Of course, I'm just speculating here).

 

I tried looking through my email history to see how he responded to me in the past, but it looks like I blew them away in one of my recent mailbox cleanups.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...