ComplaintsforHobbyDB

• Initial Complaint

  10/31/2022

  Complaint Type:

  Service or Repair Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  This site absorbed The Toy Peddler and as such, promised a better selling experience. The Hobbydb site is an underperforming platform that made many promises but has turned out to be nearly useless compared to The Toy Peddler. They insist that they can cancel the more than $800 in listing credits I had on the old site and give me a few months of no fees on their site. My sales have gone to near zero on their site, down from ******* items per month on TTP. That means if I sell on Hobbydb at my current sales rate, I would not recover my $800 for 3 or 4 years.

  Business response

  11/06/2022

  For technical reasons (the old platform was more than 24 years old) we had to make changes to the underlying technology. As part of that we also changed the way fees get calculated from pre-paid to a success based transaction fee.  We have the rights under the Terms & Conditions to do so and this worked fine for most members.  We realize that this Seller has bought more credits than any other Member but one and for that reason we are considering other options.  We will email the seller directly to discuss these.

• Initial Complaint

  10/28/2022

  Complaint Type:

  Product Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  As owner of The *** *******, a website for the buying and selling of toys, Hobbydb operated that system by selling credits each good for $1 towards listing items on their site which when listed would stay for 3 years or until sold. From time to time they would have listing credit specials where you could purchase credits for up to 1/2 off. In September of this year Hobbydb initiated the movement of all items for sale on The Old *** ******* Platform over to the Hobbydb platform. It was promoted prior to the move as "The Same *** ******* Only Better." The new website in no way resembles the old site and is being met with outrage by both buyers and sellers alike. A huge issue with this move is that the new site does not use Listing Credits. Instead they will be taking a fee of up to 5% from PayPal payments made to sellers. Hundreds, maybe even thousands of sellers from The *** ******* were holding credits that they paid their hard earned cash for and they are now literally worthless as Hobbydb refuses to refund the value of or even the amount paid for those credits. Instead they are offering not to charge the sellers fees for a few months when they sell an item. The HUGE issue with this is that all items moved over from The *** ******* have already had all fees Prepaid. Those items should remain listed on the new site for 3 years from their original listing date. I personally have $3,868.96 in listing credits that they refuse to issue a refund for. I have offered to settle for 50% but they refuse to refund to anyone based on what they call their ****************** of no refunds on credits. But they eliminated the credits and thus offer no value to the customers for the money they took from customers for those credits. The offers of some fee free time on the new site are absurd and settlement offers they have made are not fair in any way. Taking money knowing full well you will not give the value offered for that money constitutes fraud unless the money is refunded.

  Business response

  10/29/2022

  These credits were sold as non-refundable to be used on the site for listing items for sale. For a number of reasons, the fee structure was changed to a final value fee if a buyer is using the check-out and none if the buyer and seller agree on a transaction privately. The Fee is low at between 2 and 5% and we offered this seller a long free period of no fee for items listed for sale from before this change as well as new items listed for sale. He insisted on a refund and after we explained again that the sale of these credits is non-refundable filed this.Tell us why here...

  Customer response

  10/29/2022

  
  Complaint: ********
  
  I am rejecting this response because:
  

  As they have said above. They changed the rules. They took my money and then changed the rules. Compare that to say a car dealer that took your money for a new car and then delivered a used car saying, "Oh, Well we don't sell New cars anymore, but,  we will be glad to give you an extended warranty on that rused car. As said all of the over ***** items I had listed at the time of the conversion were PREPAID for sale on the site for 3 years. Their best offer has been for 1 year of no fees on any items. Those that are prepaid are prepaid and should not have any fees at all. As for fees on new listings why would I want to make more new listings when the site is slow, poorly organized, and so difficult to use that sales are down over 90% vs the old site because customers got so frustrated they just leave. The old site served up pages of items 45 at a time almost instantly. The pages had page numbers that you could hit to jump right away to other pages forward or back. The new site after a wait of 2-3 seconds for the "SPINNING WHEEL," searves up 18 items that you scroll down to 3 wide ant 18 in total. After you get to the bottom of the page you get the spinning wheel and then 9 items and so on as it repeats 9 at a time. If you go to Hobbydb's main site you can see that this design is to place ****** ads which they are being paid for in between the items being presented. Despite what they are trying to tell everyone their intrest is not in helping sellers, but rather in building their database which they use to justify raising funds from the public several times per year. You will soon see all of these "NEW ITEMS," that were added to their database from The *** *******, AT OUR EXPENSE (Mine and the Thousands of other *** ******* Users), being used to boast their great job of Building "The The Worlds Fastest Growing Collectibles Database," in the numbers they post for fund raising I am certain. I charge $100 per hour for my services, and have given this new site thousands of dollars in FREE help based on that to try and mitigate all of the issues they had when they moved the items from The *** ******* to Hobbydb. Further I was one of the first users of Hobbydb several years ago and many of the issues that they have then, are still present. That is because their mission of building a database does not conform with the best interests of someone wanting to buy or sell the collectibles. Especially a high volume seller. Add to that the fact that customers have to do the SLOW SCROLL or the inefficient search on the new site and you have a nightmare since the transition. Hobbydb has made numerious statements to me over the phone that the issues with the credits were just really hard to figure out, and that this was the roughest conversion they have ever had. Well, that is business.. You need to step up to the plate and do the right thing, give the people thier money back, or at least a reasonable choice. Chances are if your future funding rounds fail it will be the end of Hobbydb anyway.

  
  Sincerely,
  
  *************************

• Initial Complaint

  09/26/2022

  Complaint Type:

  Product Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  I payed $150 for an item that was posted on their website and it was supposed to ship 2 days after purchase. 10 days pass and No notification of item being shipped so I reached out to seller. No response for roughly a week so I reached out to the company support who then contacted the seller and the seller then responded to me stating that the item that was listed was No longer available and not supposed to be listed any longer. Some time passed and I still didnt get a refund as promised. I have reached out many time but I have not received an item or a refund. They even said that I received a refund when I obviously have not. I just want my $150 refunded to me since the item they were apparently selling was something they didnt even have.

  Business response

  09/27/2022

  The Member of our site has bought an item from one of our ***** vendors and paid via the site's PayPal checkout.  We have told the Member that he will have to ask the Seller for a refund and/or submit a PayPal, Debit or Credit Card dispute. We cannot help further as we operate a Classified format and neither have possession of the funds paid or the goods bought.  We have provided general information about how to go about this and believe there is nothing more we can do.

*Some consumers may elect to not publish the details of their complaints, some complaints may not meet BBB's standards for publication, or BBB may display a portion of complaints when a high volume is received for a particular business. ↩