I bought this game over the weekend and upon opening it discovered that I had a duplicate of one sheet of tokens and was missing another. This has made the game pretty much unplayable for me.

I tried to return it to the store where I purchased it, but was told to contact FFG directly, but not to worry as they have awesome customer service. I've done so via email (twice), via phone (twice) and even via Twitter and have yet to receive **any** reply from them.

Am I doing something wrong here? Am I out the purchase price of the game? I'm sitting here, really frustrated right now, and seriously regretting my decision to purchase this game.

Any suggestions from anyone on the boards for other avenues I can try? So far, I'm less than impressed with the "awesome customer service" I was told to expect.

Have you shown them your proof of purchase? Small token, comes with the game at one token sheet. White color. Black letters. Contains codes and stuff to prove you actually bought the game.

Notanumber,

I've heard from the Customer Service in these days for a problem related to the new Mansions of Madness expansion. It took a while for having an answer to my e-mail, and I was told that they are "undergoing structural change which has resulted in a slow down of parts replacement and response to general requests" (I hope not to violate any privacy rule by sharing this fragment of e-mail).

So, I guess your request is suffering a small delay for the very same reason. FFG Customer Care always rocked the world, and I'm certain they'll handle your request very soon and in the most professional way ever.

Fingers crossed!

No doub't. I received my replacement cards for MoM expansion for free.

Take it back to the store again. Tell them you have tried contact FFG with no response and you expect the store to honour your consumer rights.

I appreciate it is common practice in the gaming industry to refer customers back to the game owners, but to be frank I think its a practice that sucks.

To those of you who will say FFG will sort it out "eventually": it isn't good enough. We arent talking about a startup indie game developer.

Not sure how to prove I own it when nobody from FFG has bothered to reply. I suppose I could take the initiative to scan my token sheet or receipt and email it to them, but seing as I have yet to see any signs of life from them, I can't see that making much difference.

I tried, both phoning, and walking in to the store with the game in an attempt to get an exchange, to no avail. I was pretty miffed after they told me, once again, to contact FFG for help. I asked them what the point of continuing to shop there was if they were **less** convenient than Amazon (Amazon has simply sent replacements for defective goods without even asking for me to return the old one in the past) and cost substantially more. To that, they had no answer. I guess I won't be shopping there anymore.

notanumber said:

Perfect response. You hear plenty of noise about supporting brick and mortar stores rather than using the internet to do your shopping. The simple fact is too many shops dont want to know you anymore once you have handed over your cash.

Good luck in resolving your issue.

notanumber said:

Nobody at FFG has ever asked me a proof of purchase for the games I had problems with, so, don't bother with this unless they ask you esplicitly

notanumber said:

Sadly, this is a common praxis of most game shops (here in Italy at least): they sold you games and then they do not feel responsible for missing or damaged components. I clearly remember a discussion had for a "peeled" card from the Innsmouth set (basically, the printer had ripped one of the external layer of paper) and they refused to change it, saying it was not their fault. But it's not the only bad experience had: even different stores behave in the same way.

Krawhitham said:

FFG's "eventually" is still a lot faster than the response from virtually every other company I've had to replace defective parts from, whether that company was large or small, game or otherwise, so it's fair to give them at least a little time, especially since, if I'm understanding the OP correctly, they've had at most two business days to respond.

I, honestly, do not understand how is retail shops are responsible for this?

They order game from FFG, they receive it, they can't check it if it's damaged inside(violation) or has any print flaws/missings, etc.

They sell it, and there their business ends. What they CAN do about you missing one token sheet? Should they rip apart one of their games to replace yours for a reason thats even not their fault?

I'm not talking about FFG dedicated stores.

I think the store where you bought it should take it back... it was a faulty item. Anyone have any suggestions of how he can get the store to comply? Better Business Bureau or something to get on top of them.

MyNeighbourTrololo said:

If they sell a defective product it is their responsibility to replace it in WHOLE!!!!

I don't know if this is really going to help.

I had to contact Customer Service twice, once for a lost card (the DH Encounter that gave Velma's Blessing), and once for a slightly chewed card (the IH Quachil Devours card in Dust Deck 3; you could see that card from the deck profile, and you should NEVER EVER know where that card is!).

The lost card e-mail took most of a week to get a response, but it was during the holidays (I think), but once I got a response, I had a resolution immediately. (Then it was just a mail wait which probably took about a week.) But the chewed card was responded to almost immediately, with the same quick resolution (and approximate mail wait).

For all its (alleged/debatable) faults, the one thing FFG has been amazing at is Customer Service. However, you just happened to be calling in during a rather large Mansions of Madness fiasco that is probably taxing the Customer Service/Parts Replacement Deparment to the extreme. Julia stated a nice "company response" with lots of "appealing professional language", and that's exactly what I would expect from any company...but I suspect that there's a little compensation for embarrassment in that mechanical response. (And I could be totally wrong about that.)

All I can really say is, hang in there. Unfortunate timing is one of the banes of existence, but it shouldn't prevent you from missing out on truly one of the best cooperative games ever made (if not THE best). I PROMISE YOU, once FFG gets to you, you WILL have satisfaction.

And THEN you'll have MORE tokens than the rest of us. Can I ask which of the four boards you had duplicated? (I personally would have loved some extra Zombies, Ghouls, and Ghosts. )

The duplicate board I have is the first one. The missing one is the second one. From what I can deduce from the part list in the manual, I seem to be missing nearly all of the clue tokens (I only have about 4) and all of the money and the terror token. I'm probably missing other stuff too, I didn't count everything.

The reason I would think that the store would replace it is that they already have an established relationship with FFG and, presumably, more clout than I do to get it resolved. After all, they buy a lot more than I do, likely by an order of 100 to 1.

Honestly, this is the first time I've ever had a store refuse to replace a defective product.

notanumber said:

You know what? This is a unfortunate mishap, but honestly, you could start playing right now.

That's all you're missing, and most of it is easily replaced by...well, anything!

1. Clues - use pennies, stones, teeth.

2. Money - you got a Monopoly game lying around somewhere? Or maybe an exotic dancer?

3. 5 brains, 2 hearts, 2 doom tokens - You have enough resources from the other boards to never miss these. And if you do miss them...WOW. BAD GAME. Quit and start over!

4. Terror Track Marker - you can use anything to cover a number. If that thing that donated its teeth is still around, I'd suggest an eye or an ear.

5. First Player Marker - see Terror Track Marker above. Most things have two eyes or ears...

6. Mandy Thompson's Player Marker - As a man, I'm terribly sorry you don't have this...but you have 15 other Player Markers, and it's only an 8-player game. The math is in your favor.

7. 1 R'lyeh Gate - okay, there isn't much you can do about that. You will have to play with only one access to R'lyeh. But ask anyone here: YOU DON'T WANT TO GO THERE ANYWAY!!!

The only possible thing preventing you from playing immediately would be a bad case of OCD about patchwork-looking games. My advice would be to ignore that, grab your junk drawer, and PLAY!

Welcome to the Carnival, notanumber!!

Yeah, when I worked in a book store, we'd replace it out of our own stock and send the defective one back to the publisher for a refund. I don't know whether FFG handles this stuff directly just because they're just really nice like that, or because they know that game retailers won't bother.

I actually just got some replacement cards in the mail today, so I can attest to the fact that their Customer Service area is working.

It did take a little while, but I understand they are busy right now. Plus, when they got back to me, they were very willing to help. I got an email a week or so later saying they were restructuring and were sorry for the delay. Also, the replacement cards were sent free of charge. That's pretty amazing.

The advice above about replacement tokens should get you by until they get back to you (and the comment that no one really needs two gates to R'lyeh anyway is pretty spot on).

Thanks a bunch for this. Very much appreciated. I'm going to raid my son's piggy bank for pennies to use for clue tokens until FFG (hopefully) sends me replacements.

Now to convince the wife to play with me so I don't get slaughtered by an old one.

jgt7771 said:

JosephCurwen said:

It's all entirely on FFG.

MyNeighbourTrololo said:

Its not about blame, its about Customer Service. If a buy a mobile phone and its faulty, I take it back to the shop from which I bought it and expect that they either a) Replace my item from stock or b) send it away for repair. The point is they do *something*. They don't tell me that its not their problem and that I should contact Nokia. Yes ultimately it comes back on FFG, but thats for the shop to deal with and not they paying customer.

I knew this was going to happen when I first replied; people are actually defending bad customer service.

MyNeighbourTrololo said:

Nobody said they caused the product to be defective. They did, however, sell it. Usually when a retailer sells a product, there's an assumption that the product is as advertised.

This has always been the case for every other product I have ever purchased. I have never had to deal directly with the manufacturer of a defective product before. What is the purpose of using a retailer if they will not accept any responsibility for what they sell?

If you bought a new car from a dealer and it was defective, would you expect the dealer to fix it or would you expect them to tell you to contact the manufacturer?

MyNeighbourTrololo said:

Wow, those quotes.

Know what? Dealer usually partners with manufacturer. Shops doesn't partner with FFG.

What's the diffirence between the retail shop and ordering directly from FFG? Answer is:

Buying from the shop you get the game immediately, buying from the FFG you wait. In my case you wait for months(and there is no retail shops selling this, so waiting for months is my only option), in your it'll be, probably, less time.

Whether you buy it from shop or directly from FFG, there is a chance of flaws. And the one to contact is always a FFG as they are providing the customer service for this product, not the shop you bought the game from(if this store does not partners with FFG, I saw FFG opens their dedicates stores, those prolly will provide customer serivce).

Basically what you want, is innocent man, who, lets say, paid 100 buck to buy 2 AH copies and sell them for 55 bucks each, resulting in 10 bucks income, provide YOU with customer service he isn't supposed to provide, waste the second game he bought with his money to repair yours and leave him with negative income? Are you serious?

Just to be clear, I'm not saying the store has to do anything. I'm just saying that they should if they want to maintain a positive relationship with their client base. I worked retail for over a decade and never once told a customer to "take it up with the manufacturer" when something was defective. I've also never had to do so as a customer before. In fact, just a few weeks ago I bought a "barrel of pirates" toy for my son from a local toy store only to discover it was missing a piece. Guess what, they opened another sealed toy, took the missing piece from it, and gave it to us without question. In fact, they gave use a few extra pieces as compensation without us even asking for them. Now, take a guess which store I'll be purchasing from again in the future.

So, once more, I'm not saying the have to do anything. I'm just advocating good business sense, from my perspective. It seems short sighted to me to send your customer packing when the problem could be easily solved by replacing the defective product and then returning it to FFG themselves.

Well if you need another barrel of pirates - I bet you gonna shop there.

I'm afraid, FFG does not replaces your entire game if some part of it is flawed. It just sends you missing/replacements. And this business is better handled with owner of the game to FFG than owner of the game to retail shop to shipping department to FFG.

MyNeighbourTrololo said:

Its called Consumer Rights. These will vary from country to country (I'm guessing state to state in the USA). I'm pretty confident that this shop will be legally obligated to handle this. The shop won't be losing money because they will then go back through the supply chain to get the problem sorted.

In this particular instance, the shop should have gone back to its supplier and advised them of a defective product. This would have resulted in either a replacement game or just a copy of the missing sheet (which is all this person wants).

Even without consumer rights, what this shop has achieved is an unhappy customer who will go elsewhere next time. I'm sure that this shop owner will blame the internet when they have no customers left.

Anyway, thats enough of me responding to this post.