All I want to do is talk about COMC

[Budler]

Boy Just got 4 e-mails today from COMC about messages I sent months ago.

One about a question I asked about the Sales history data.
The other about the card I wanted returned. The other 2 was clarification about the return and checking into my shipment over due. Will be getting refund for shipping cost. BUT no idea when it will be shipped.

[boxbuster7]

Originally Posted by KhalDrogo

Yes, the sad reality is that current management is inept and running the company into the ground. A capable bunch should have been able to truly capitalize on the boom over the past year. Look what other companies in the card world have done to improve the experience of their customers. Yet here’s COMC with no phone customer service, doesn’t answer emails, doesn’t process new submissions, takes a month plus to ship anything, lost a good number of February orders, thinks packing singles in a soft sleeve and bubble wrap is okay, and charges you more for all of this.

I'm not sure any of the big companies actually handled the pandemic that well

[Dunkaccino]

FYI-
Service: Priority Rushed
Tracking: Not Shipped Yet
Date Requested: 3/25/2021
Estimated Ship Date: 4/23/2021
Actual Ship Date: 4/30/2021
Estimated Delivery Date: 4/27/2021

Got the cards yesterday

[Swipe79]

Think about the state of the grading companies, Topps, etc. Each is dealing with issues related to the bump. The supply companies are struggling with success as well.

Starstock got hit really hard in December/January and they're still working back.

I've done a fair bit of business with Burbank over the last year and it's all been seamless. Most eBay transactions have been fine.

Originally Posted by boxbuster7

I'm not sure any of the big companies actually handled the pandemic that well

[fulltritty]

Originally Posted by CoronaBowl LV

Threaten to file a complaint with the AG. You'll get a response from them

So they finally wrote me back today and said it will ship on 5/14.

We'll see.

[boxbuster7]

Originally Posted by Swipe79

Think about the state of the grading companies, Topps, etc. Each is dealing with issues related to the bump. The supply companies are struggling with success as well.

Starstock got hit really hard in December/January and they're still working back.

I've done a fair bit of business with Burbank over the last year and it's all been seamless. Most eBay transactions have been fine.

There is no doubt COMC has done an absolute terrible job handling the pandemic. Probably the worst out of anybody. But I guess my point was singling them out is silly.

[Swipe79]

Definitely near the bottom for sure - I agree, very few handled it well - I guess it's their thread, so the spotlight is on them.

Originally Posted by boxbuster7

There is no doubt COMC has done an absolute terrible job handling the pandemic. Probably the worst out of anybody. But I guess my point was singling them out is silly.

[cardsrus1]

Originally Posted by Swipe79

Think about the state of the grading companies, Topps, etc. Each is dealing with issues related to the bump. The supply companies are struggling with success as well.

Starstock got hit really hard in December/January and they're still working back.

I've done a fair bit of business with Burbank over the last year and it's all been seamless. Most eBay transactions have been fine.

Supply companies are making more money than ever! CBG for example is selling out basic top loaders in minutes at 4-5 times what they sold for a year ago. They could produce more if they really wanted to stabilize the market, they are choosing to make more money over more product.

[redsfaithful]

Is it pointless to send in cards right now? I have a bunch of stuff that isn't trying to time any kind of market (retired players, etc.) so I don't care if it takes 4-5 months to process but if it's more like something wacky like a year I'd rather just hold on for now.

[rj.cataldo]

Finally got my big rushed order this week. They sent a note that it was shipped and it arrived the next day priority overnight. Looks like they spent some extra money to rush it since it was late.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[checkoutmydeals]

Is it pointless to send in cards right now? I have a bunch of stuff that isn't trying to time any kind of market (retired players, etc.) so I don't care if it takes 4-5 months to process but if it's more like something wacky like a year I'd rather just hold on for now.

In March, I sent in some batches for 1-week processing, 3-week processing and 6-week processing. The 1-week processing was done on time. About 95% of the 3-week and 6-week processing is now complete, though most were processed past the due date.

At present, they don't offer 3-week or 6-week processing. There is a new 16-week processing service which I haven't tried (and which hasn't been in existence long enough for anyone to know if they're meeting deadlines).

I am seeing quite a few newly processed cards with COMC ID numbers in the 94 million range, so it would appear that they are processing cards on a regular basis.

Personally, I am inclined to start sending in weekly or semi-monthly batches for the 16 week processing service. At some point, new cards would be hitting my account every week or two. One caveat is that the stuff I intend to send is generally evergreen. It will have value a year from now or 5 years from now or 10 years from now. If it was new, hot stuff or time-sensitive, I might be more inclined to use a different venue.

[redsfaithful]

Originally Posted by checkoutmydeals

Is it pointless to send in cards right now? I have a bunch of stuff that isn't trying to time any kind of market (retired players, etc.) so I don't care if it takes 4-5 months to process but if it's more like something wacky like a year I'd rather just hold on for now.

In March, I sent in some batches for 1-week processing, 3-week processing and 6-week processing. The 1-week processing was done on time. About 95% of the 3-week and 6-week processing is now complete, though most were processed past the due date.

At present, they don't offer 3-week or 6-week processing. There is a new 16-week processing service which I haven't tried (and which hasn't been in existence long enough for anyone to know if they're meeting deadlines).

I am seeing quite a few newly processed cards with COMC ID numbers in the 94 million range, so it would appear that they are processing cards on a regular basis.

Personally, I am inclined to start sending in weekly or semi-monthly batches for the 16 week processing service. At some point, new cards would be hitting my account every week or two. One caveat is that the stuff I intend to send is generally evergreen. It will have value a year from now or 5 years from now or 10 years from now. If it was new, hot stuff or time-sensitive, I might be more inclined to use a different venue.

Nice, thank you, that is good to know. I'm just getting back into cards as a hobby and feeling like I missed the boat a little bit on COMC. Hope they can turn things around.

[Swipe79]

That's one product and one company - which I don't prefer as I've had QC issues with their product. I would think you find a happy medium of charging more while meeting the supply demand to keep customers on your side. If they are knowingly inflating prices and not keeping their customers in plastic protection (while being able to meet it if they wanted), that doesn't sit well.

Originally Posted by cardsrus1

Supply companies are making more money than ever! CBG for example is selling out basic top loaders in minutes at 4-5 times what they sold for a year ago. They could produce more if they really wanted to stabilize the market, they are choosing to make more money over more product.

[Swipe79]

Just an interesting set of instances at the end of the week. I had second oldest Economy Rushed shipment get shipped, then they processed almost the entire last batch of cards for me, and then yesterday I got notification that my third oldest Economy Rushed has shipped.

That's progress - hope to see it continue for the sake of others getting their cards shipped. I'm still not sure why the 42 card order that is my oldest hasn't shipped yet.

[boxbuster7]

Originally Posted by cardsrus1

Supply companies are making more money than ever! CBG for example is selling out basic top loaders in minutes at 4-5 times what they sold for a year ago. They could produce more if they really wanted to stabilize the market, they are choosing to make more money over more product.

I've literally never even heard of CBG

[mnvikingstwins]

What's realistic expectation for when shipping Epack stuff would arrive? Might just cash out my balance with Kaprizov cards instead of let them steal more money on fees

[Saraste]

I just went through my 775 card that took me 6 months to receive and all was good.

In looking at the cards in the boxes myself, it made me wonder how the orders themselves were picked. If I had to make a guess, it would go something like this: They group x number of orders together (pick a number) in a batch and then the orders from those orders are put in a combined numerical by item number. The data is transferred for the cards numbered to say, the first 2 million and all of the cards from those orders that have item numbers under 2 million are pulled. Once those are all brought in and confirmed, the next sub group of numbers is pulled and so on until they are all done. They could do this starting with the highest numbers in the batch and go down (my guess is that how it is done). If an order is complete from the batch they are working on, then it can be gathered together and sent to shipping until all of the orders in that batch are shipped. Wash, rinse, and repeat. They likely have multiple of these cycles going together with more than one person working on the same group of batches at the same time.

What do you think?

[jaykat]

So what is the best way to get COMC to actually respond to a requst? I have a $500 order tied up with them since Nov 29th. Estimated Ship date was 3/3. Last time they responded to an email they said it would be 4/9. Its now 5/8 and there is no update and they no longer respond to emails.

Do you have a email address that works as the info one just gets ignored and you can't call them either.

[DynaEtch]

I wonder if the new slip with each card is affecting the processing time....seems to be roughly whenever they started doing this (when was this?) that the shipping situation has gone even more downhill. I haven’t been following the official releases/blogs/interviews that much to know exactly why they are doing that for each card. But it seems tedious.

[mjohnatgt]

Originally Posted by DynaEtch

I wonder if the new slip with each card is affecting the processing time....seems to be roughly whenever they started doing this (when was this?) that the shipping situation has gone even more downhill. I haven’t been following the official releases/blogs/interviews that much to know exactly why they are doing that for each card. But it seems tedious.

Tim addressed this in his live interview with Sports Card Live on Youtube a month ago. You can watch the video there.
They started doing it after their new employees at their new warehouse jumbled up a bunch of packages in February. That's why a huge number of shipments during that timeframe are stuck in limbo, because many packages were sent out incomplete, some had other people's cards in them. They are still trying to unravel those. They are putting almost all their effort into Rushed and Expedited shipments and standard shipments are getting postponed until they cut down the backlog on the higher shipping service levels.

They bought some million dollar item sorting machine that runs off barcodes, so that is what they implemented to try to not have a repeat of the February cluster-suck. They are hoping that the additional time now helps them reduce the backlog and run smoother in the future.

Their failing to notify their customers that they were in the middle of moving all their cards to a new warehouse with untrained personnel was dumb, but then finally announcing that they opened a new warehouse on April Fool's Day seemed even more tone-deaf.

My cards are still selling at a pretty good clip, but they're not the modern that would be going to grading companies anyways.

[BaseballKing]

Originally Posted by boxbuster7

There is no doubt COMC has done an absolute terrible job handling the pandemic. Probably the worst out of anybody. But I guess my point was singling them out is silly.

Singling them out is not silly in my opinion. Defending them in any way whatsoever might be. I apologise for my combative tone but COMC's MO is completely indefensible. They may have even gotten worse despite things opening up.

I have never dealt with a company that takes money from its customers and then does not ship the product for 6 months or longer and does not have the decency to reply to emails. It's absolutely inexcusable.

I ordered from both BO and Steel City (and eBay) during the height of the pandemic and it took 2 weeks at most via economy shipping for those orders to reach Australia. For PSA orders it was 1 week.

I once paid COMC around $110 for Priority shipping late last year and it took 7 weeks to get here despite the package weighing significantly less and being smaller in size than my orders from both BO and SCC. These postage charges of COMC are something of a racket in my opinion and should be investigated by a consumer watchdog. Something does not seem right.

I get that those who try to defend them are probably heavily invested in them and I genuinely sympathise with those persons. I suspect I would do the same.

If COMC had been more transparent, asked for understanding( they have but without outlining the full picture imo) but most importantly, kept open the lines of communication then there would be far more goodwill for COMC then there currently is.

People resorting to filing complaints with the AG just to get what they paid for is indefensible.

[NatsSBR]

Originally Posted by jaykat

So what is the best way to get COMC to actually respond to a requst? I have a $500 order tied up with them since Nov 29th. Estimated Ship date was 3/3. Last time they responded to an email they said it would be 4/9. Its now 5/8 and there is no update and they no longer respond to emails.

Do you have a email address that works as the info one just gets ignored and you can't call them either.

You are WELL past the point at which I would have opened up a PayPal or credit card claim. I strongly recommend taking it up with your bank before the six-month window closes. I had to open up PayPal claims to get them to issue minor refunds (priority shipments and guaranteed submission due dates) that I'm due according to their own terms of service. Sitting on $500 of your money is criminal.

[LSUNatChamps]

Originally Posted by BaseballKing

Singling them out is not silly in my opinion. Defending them in any way whatsoever might be. I apologise for my combative tone but COMC's MO is completely indefensible. They may have even gotten worse despite things opening up.

I have never dealt with a company that takes money from its customers and then does not ship the product for 6 months or longer and does not have the decency to reply to emails. It's absolutely inexcusable.

I ordered from both BO and Steel City (and eBay) during the height of the pandemic and it took 2 weeks at most via economy shipping for those orders to reach Australia. For PSA orders it was 1 week.

I once paid COMC around $110 for Priority shipping late last year and it took 7 weeks to get here despite the package weighing significantly less and being smaller in size than my orders from both BO and SCC. These postage charges of COMC are something of a racket in my opinion and should be investigated by a consumer watchdog. Something does not seem right.

I get that those who try to defend them are probably heavily invested in them and I genuinely sympathise with those persons. I suspect I would do the same.

If COMC had been more transparent, asked for understanding( they have but without outlining the full picture imo) but most importantly, kept open the lines of communication then there would be far more goodwill for COMC then there currently is.

People resorting to filing complaints with the AG just to get what they paid for is indefensible.

I agree with your post, and the point about their outrageous shipping charges is spot on. It’s basically the consumer funding COMC’s ineptitude (with no guarantee you’ll still get your items anywhere on time anyway)! In a free market, that alone should cause COMC to continue to lose business or a competitor to fill the void.

I can’t think of another example where I’ve seen a decently sized business treat their customers this poorly and continue to pull the wool over everyone’s eyes and act like all is right in the world when the ship is definitely sinking.

As an example, I used to buy cards on COMC to send out for autographs in the mail. I use Sportlots and eBay exclusively now and don’t see a world in which I ever use COMC again for that. The end result of all of this poor customer service will likely be record customer losses down the line, and if the sports card market is indeed in a bubble as other asset classes likely are, the impact of record customer loss and declining interest in cards could be devastating for their company.

[KhalDrogo]

Originally Posted by BaseballKing

I have never dealt with a company that takes money from its customers and then does not ship the product for 6 months or longer and does not have the decency to reply to emails. It's absolutely inexcusable.

Last summer I bought furniture from a local company who used the same tactics COMC is. Flat out lie about delivery estimates to ensure that money keeps flowing in. Charge customers up front. Purposefully avoid repeated contact attempts by the customer. In the case of the furniture company, it was even worse because the delivery estimates were not only wrong, but did not reflect how many others were already in line in front of you for the same pieces.

They continue to pile up bad feedback. Now up to 10.3% in the last month. Wondering how high it will get and just how bad you have to be for eBay to actually do something.

[shrevecity]

Originally Posted by KhalDrogo

Last summer I bought furniture from a local company who used the same tactics COMC is. Flat out lie about delivery estimates to ensure that money keeps flowing in. Charge customers up front. Purposefully avoid repeated contact attempts by the customer. In the case of the furniture company, it was even worse because the delivery estimates were not only wrong, but did not reflect how many others were already in line in front of you for the same pieces.

They continue to pile up bad feedback. Now up to 10.3% in the last month. Wondering how high it will get and just how bad you have to be for eBay to actually do something.

Ebay does not care about feedback. Feedback does not mean anything with Ebay metrics and if they are using the customer cancelled option Ebay is not going to care on cancelled sales. Where Ebay will nail them is not as described complaints and items that are not cancelled and overdue for shipping(but if they cancel due to customer request that defect will be removed)

Only thing Ebay will do as it stands is drop their search ranking and possibly their seller level depending on the numbers which could cause them to lose their fee discounts. It just really depends on their late shipping rate and their not as described returns but if they are not shipping they cannot get not as described complains so they kind of off set.