Again another interesting first post attacking this business from a new user that's 3 now on this thread!

We have actually been contacted by whosblackpool as they believe there is a internet campaign by 1 disgruntled customer who is going to great lengths to sully there name on the internet.

Can you please provide your details and vintage SW collecting interests as ultimately that's what this site is for.

Jay

After completing check the users who have only post once on this thread are all from completely different parts of the UK and are not the same person.

The all highlighted on going issues with whoblackpool and apparently trading standards are involved.

Whoblackpool have also contacted both myself and the moderation team threatening legal action unless we take the user comments down after talking with my solicitor this morning they have confirmed that the Imperial Gunnery Forum is breaking no laws by allowing posters the freedom of speech that UK citizens and international site members are granted.

Its also worth noting we are just one of at least 10 major websites where users have set up warning threads / comments about this company.

I want to draw whoblackpools attention to the forums disclaimer located in FAQ's

Site members and visitors shall remain solely responsible for the content of their messages. Information obtained in a forum may not be accurate or reliable. All messages made available as part of this discussion group (including any bulletin boards and chat rooms) and any opinions, advice, statements or other information contained in any messages posted or transmitted by any third party are the responsibility of the author of that message and not of The Imperial Gunnery Forum (unless The Imperial Gunnery Forum is specifically identified as the author of the message). The fact that a particular message is posted on or transmitted using this The Imperial Gunnery Forum web site does not mean that The Imperial Gunnery Forum has endorsed that message in any way or verified the accuracy, completeness or usefulness of any message. The Imperial Gunnery Forum shall not be liable for any statement, misstatement, inaccuracy or omission of any type for any content submitted by a site member or visitor on any forum. We encourage visitors to the forum to report any objectionable message to admin@imperialgunneryforum.com. This forum is not monitored 24/7.

Whoblackpool are also welcome to join the forum and put forward there side as well.


Jay

hear hear!
good job jay

Sorry to hear about the hassle you've had from these idiots Jay but as i started this thread,i should set the record straight & tell everyone about the horrible experience i had when i tried to buy something from them online.The reason i didn't go into detail at the time i started this thread is because i couldn't be bothered to type out a small novel describing my experience but now is the time!

On 15th May 2009,i purchased Darth Maul's Sith Infiltrator from WHO Blackpool's online store & paid by paypal.£29.99 for the toy & £3.95 for delivery making £33.94 in total.

After a couple of weeks of waiting & receiving nothing,i emailed them & eventually got a reply from someone called Cathy who said that the Sith Infiltrator they had in stock was damaged & that they had ordered some more & should be arriving in about a weeks time.After waiting another couple of weeks,i emailed them again asking if they had received the new stock & when could i expect to receive my item & still i heard nothing from them.

After about another week of waiting & hearing nothing i was starting to become concerned & emailed WHO Blackpool asking for a refund as it was now getting close to the 45 day limit for making a paypal claim.After about another week i emailed them again saying that i would be making a paypal claim against them for item not received & received an email from Cathy saying that she thought my refund had already been actioned & processed & that she would issue my refund immediately.

I decided that i'd had enough excuses & timewasting from WHO Blackpool & initiated a paypal claim for item not received & on 18th July 2009,paypal notified me that they found the case in my favour & that they had managed to recover all of my £33.94.

After i had received my paypal refund,i tried to log into my WHO Blackpool online account only to find that my account had been blocked!!!

I believe that WHO Blackpool had no intention of refunding me before the paypal time limit for making a claim & were deliberately wasting time fobbing me off with excuse after excuse hoping that i would believe their pathetic lies of promising to refund my money so i would then miss the threshold for making a paypal claim so they could steal my money as they have done with numerous other people judging by the shocking reviews they have received for their online service.

I can honestly say that my experience with WHO Blackpool has been the worst online shopping experience of my life bar none & i was lucky that paypal managed to recover all of my money as numerous other people have not been so fortunate & the people that run WHO Blackpool need to take a good hard look at themselves & the way they operate as they have no one to blame but themselves for their current predicament!

Jay,if you need anymore info or copies of my paypal statements pm me mate!

Mark.

Thanks for taking the time to post Mark.

This to me confirms the reviews and reports of this place are 100% truthful as Mark would never lie about a situation like this
and he is a trusted member.

As for Who Blackpool threatening the site with legal action, if they put the same amount of effort into operating their business
properly as they do trying to silence their customers on the internet they might not be in this mess...

Terrible business by the sounds of things.

good investigative work,jay..Dan

Ha ha, thereatening the site with legal action! That's a joke considering they're basically operating a service which appears to be nothing but carefully organised theft.

Jay, I'm extremely sorry for not logging in earlier to check back on the developments. I would have been happy to help you determine that I'm definitely an individual who found this site and thread and came looking for help. It doesn't surprise me at all that they're doing everything they can to have this thread closed down, it's a beacon to anyone who doesn't want to get royally ripped off. At least my bad experience will help other people NEVER take the risk of spending money with them again.

At the moment I'm extremely busy with other things in life, but not too busy to take the company to the cleaners. That's still on the agenda and they know it, and I'm planning to move the authorities in in due course. I've got no fear of reprisal because they're rotten to the core. I'll definitely update here to let you know the developments. In the meantime I hope this thread grows and grows - people should have more freedom of speech in the world to be able to warn people about stores like this.

I'm glad to hear trading standards have acted on this now, I did report them a while back so it's good to know they're doing something. I am going to call back to find out what my next proper action should be.

Just out of interest, did anyone ever manage to force the sugar tongued Cathy to provide a full refund without managing to get a return through paypal?

That woman has a hard job man, having to continually lie to people for a living. Don't know how she sleeps at night.

I have had my review on reviewcentre.com removed at the request of whoblackpool for the third time. Each time I ask that it is put back on and it goes back.

My review simply says "Avoid at all costs. Pathetic customer service. Do a google search and see how many people have had problems with these people. Make excuse after excuse to avoid paying back what they owe you."

Nothing there that isnt true and I stand by my opinion.

I have noticed that the positive reviews are all very, very similar though - have a look for yourselves - http://www.reviewcentre.com/reviews168812.html

Awful spelling, punctuation, grammar and another give away - almost every I which should be a capital is written as a lower case i. Looks like English is the writers second language or they have some learning disorder.

I'm surprised nobody has clicked on 'report this review' for all the similar posts and pointed this out to the admin team at reviewcentre.

Hi Joeblob, I'm glad you signed up here to discuss this. Obviously Poo Blackpool are watching the internet carefully and (as they did with this forum) are attempting to quell the amount of fallout from their actions.

An update -

Phoned Trading Standards again just now. I spoke to them about my next options which I'm not going to disclose just yet (I know they're reading this daily) but I will carry out and then call them back in a little while.

I also asked them to escalate the matter within trading standards because I believe they're operating criminally. They did say the more people they get reports from the easier it is to launch a full investigation. Thankfully, it's a peice of cake. Here's a quick bit of info to help us help each other:

REPORT WHO BLACKPOOL TO TRADING STANDARDS:

Anyone who has had any issue, in the past or otherwise (it doesn't matter to them, they just want info), please take a few minutes to call the numbers below. It's really simple and only takes a few minutes. You'll get straight through on the phone, no waiting, and the guys on the line are always really helpful.
At the end of the call they'll give you a reference number, so have a pen handy to write it down. Total time you'll be on is less than five minutes normally, and if you're making a claim for money back they'll give you instructions on what to do, if you'd just like to report them for illegal practice and bad experiences, that's absolutely fine too. It all helps.

The number to call if you live outside of Blackpool is: 08454 040506

If you live within Blackpool and want to make a report, call: 01253 478 375

Please, if you have had a bad experience, you owe it to yourself to make these guys pay for ripping you off. it really is quick and painless and we'll all be helping each other. The more reports made the more likely these punks will get what appears to have been coming to them a long time.

I resent the fact that they prey on figure collecting communities expecting us to apathetic and accepting, almost like hobbyists don't really matter they can just be ripped off and then they'll go away.

Let's do something about it.

OK, enough of this rubbish.
The WHO sends out hundreds of items to hundreds of happy customers EVERY week.
at the moment we have one very disgruntled customer who we are having a dispute with and also a competitors store who are aslo attacking us.
we are an honest business with great customer service and great track record. yes there are a few (very few) customers we have let down and each have been sorted to the best of our knowledge. we are after all only human.
we work hard to maintain integrity and honesty to all our happy customers.

again its very easy for you to read a biased review and make up your mind, i dont blame you, i have done the same in the past on others.

But please remember this is really only one very disgruntled customer which we try to amicably sort out his/her problem but they are just abusive and angry for no reason and un-co-operative. and we have all documentation from trading standards to prove we are doing our best to amicably sort this. maybe there is something else unhappy in his life and he feels better taking it out on us.


the other is a store who tries to pretend to be a branch of ours, ie makes his customer think he is part of our chain, which he is not. and thus has been caught out and is lashing back at us. he has systematically gone around the fan sites bad mouthing us under differant guises and asking some of his friendly customers to comment on them as seen by this very forum. even a dismissed member of staff has been enrolled. this is being taken up by our legal team.

i cannot and will not discuss individual cases or names in a public forum, we have far to much integrity to do so. so please dont ask/comment about them as they wont be replied to.

if anyone has a paticular problem with us please email us at whoblackpool@btconnect.com and we will do our best to solve your problem as quickly as possible.

for those who just attack us for no reason bar jealousy or anger then please look at yourself before you throw stones as your not just "having a lark" your jeapordising jobs.

for those people reading this thread from scratch , welcome , please read and then re-read all comments befoe you make a opinion.
as anyone who has ever been in the store in Blackpool will tell you it's a fun happy family-friendly place and strives on customer service and recognition and has won numerous awards for such.

peace and love to all fellow collectors and sci-fi nuts like myself.

WHO

WWW.WHOBLACKPOOL.COM
For all your TV, Movie and Fantasy Merchandise.

Dont know what to make of all of this honestly. I found the thread thus far to be an "interesting" read just the same though.

I honestly have never even heard of the business "Who" up until now. On an unrelated note, I went to the Who site via the link provided and saw an odd figure that caught my eye....'Mr. Blobo' or 'Mr. Bubbles' or something like that...he/it/she is a pink goofy-type of character sealed on the card. Is this some sort of U.K. cartoon character or a food promotion toy, or??

Hope everything works out peacefully and with positive outcomes for all involved.

Take care everyone!

Regards,

Andre

First of all this is not rubbish,my experience with your online store is based on FACT not fiction!

For all the honesty & integrity that WHO Blackpool claim to practice in running their business,if that were true then why did i have to open a paypal claim to get my money back for an item that i paid for & never received & after i got fed up waiting & cancelled the order they still had no intention of refunding my money???

I honestly believe that i would never have received a refund from WHO Blackpool without paypals intervention & find their claims of providing great customer service & working hard to maintain honesty & integrity laughable based on my own personal experience in dealing with them.

Forum members are free to make up their own minds regarding this matter & unlike WHO Blackpool,i DO take pride in being honest & i started this thread to warn others in the hope that they would avoid the terrible experience i had in trying to buy from WHO Blackpool's online store & the lengths i had to go to get my money back from them & IMHO the only way you are guaranteed to receive anything from WHO Blackpool is to go into their store & pick it up in person!!!

Mark.

I would like to add to this thread that Mark (Darthstanley) is a highly though of and trusted member of this community.

I have also seen the Paypal receipts and emails and he did indeed have to go down the paypal claim route to recover his money from whoblackpool what ever your business be it a private shop, ebayer seller or a collector who sells the odd item on forums to fund additional purchases to make somebody send email after email, make multiple telephone calls and still not provide them a refund pushing them to the point of actioning a Paypal claim before the deadline passes is wrong.

When selling on the internet (selling in store is a completely different ball game) it can take years to build a solid reputation and it only a few bad deals to ruin it. You only have to look at what happens on sites like RS when long time successful sellers end up flaking out and not doing the right thing in a situation and end up in the watch out warning threads.

I'd also like to add whilst some of your post maybe true regarding a competitor you tried to play this down as 1 disgruntled customer the FACT is each user posting in this thread come from different areas of the country and they have all been confirmed as individual people and each one has emails and receipts to show the problems they are having / had trying to recover their money from you.

Jay