Warning about Toybuilder Labs

[Adam_Bradley_Fr]

I don’t usually like to name and shame but I’m getting nowhere with the company so I feel it’s important to protect other fellow designers- Toybuilderlabs is a site I used to buy my machines from for 3d printing, used to because they recently issued a 20% coupon which they then refused to honor because they would “lose money” on it. I let it slide on the assurance that it would be promptly fixed. A few days ago I get ANOTHER offer for the same coupon and again I went to check and see if it was fixed…nope, it lets you apply it to the total and that’s a total unethical and unprofessional move. One of the people at TBL named J (I’ll protect his identity) tried to give me a meager discount for me to keep quiet about it but I don’t play that garbage- when you’re a business and you screw up then sometimes you have to eat the cost on something in order to stand behind your reputation…period. Not only will I no longer use TB for machine and filament purchases but I also won’t be going with the Fusion3 F400 from this point forward until they decide to adopt better business practices that hold their vendors accountable for mistakes. Enclosed is a screen shot to show the transaction they wouldn’t honor, maybe this will force them to at least change their business if not honor the agreement.

[keebie81]

Its hard to pick a side if you dont show the coupon. Maybe it says not valid for printers.

[PepCo_Parker]

In some countries/States/Provinces it’s actually illegal for a company to advertise one price on a product, and then suddenly charge higher upon attempted purchase by a customer. I suggest you or someone else looks into this further and what you or the community should be advised to do. It’s definitely not fair to solicit false claims and prices just to attract possible customers, which is what this seems to me to be.

Hope this helps,
-PD

[3DFlying]

Don’t mistake incompetence for malice

[ProtoHouse]

Unless the coupon specifically states products are excluded… that’s a report to the BBB.
Won’t amount to much but if enough people complain they will pull their business license.

J

[PrinterAccount]

You should pull your screenshot and reup it once you remove your personal info

[Perry_1]

Sounds like they made a mistake, and let it go too long. It happens in business. I would say give them a break. Business are run by people, and people make mistakes.

[sjohnson_NCSU]

Dude - you’re really over reacting and seem to have a lot of angst / sour grapes. Also to think that Fusion is at fault? Really?

[AtomicFilament]

I have noticed this smear campaign against toybuilder for the past few days. Toybuilder is one of my competitors yet i will step up here and offer my take.

1. Honest mistake

2. Good people, family owned.

3. No money was lost or damage done. just unhappy.

Its a mistake , its not a small amount of money , i am pretty damned sure this is much more than the commission earned on this sale by far and or possibly sell below what fusion3 allows. Again honest mistake with a poorly made coupon system by shopify.

Its not fair to ask a small biz to step up and take a pretty steep loss on a HONEST mistake. I use shopify for my biz also , its annoying with coupons and does not give much flexibility in terms of limiting products it can be used with. This is one of my big issues also.

as far as the owner Joseph , he is a good honest hard working guy and was probably just trying to drum up some filament sales with a coupon , summer is a brutal time for 3D printer / filament vendors , its very slow and things are hurting for most. dont beat someone when they are down already.

[PepCo_Parker]

Although I agree about your points on it being a family run company, I bring your attention again to the fact that this issue was said to have happened multiple times. Now I don’t care who runs any business, I run a corporation myself and I know that no one is above the law. In some places advertising one price but upon an attempted purchase upping said price is actually illegal. I do agree everyone makes mistakes, but when given ample time to fix said mistakes and it still doesn’t happen I believe it’s time for people to start raising an eye towards the situation. Sometimes the temptation at a quick buck can get the best of us. Although no harm may be done in some people’s minds, other people may feel ripped off or mistreated. It could even be that for whatever reason the owner of a business feels advertising ‘mistakenly’ (quotations because you really do just never know what the real deal is) a lower price brings more business and that most people who otherwise may not have even looked into purchasing a product, to just go through with the higher payment. I please just urge everyone to look at both sides. The biggest thing I see on this thread is people making very one sided assumptions. No offense, but it seems as though you are flat out saying its a mistake, and to be honest unless you are them you do not know that. Nobody does, and it’s that’s simple. We just have to trust that they’re trying to do the right thing and whether or not you do trust them is completely a personal matter.

[PepCo_Parker]

I swear I did put spaces and formatting into that paragraph… apparently that doesn’t work when you comment through mobile. Sorry for the wall of text guys

[PepCo_Parker]

It also really does upset me how much I see 3d hubs turning into what a lot of other forums fell to. I just want to remind everyone that just because you disagree with something does not mean you need to dislike that comment. The point of the dislike feature is to help people in avoiding mis information or in accurate posts, not to show vengeance to people of differing opinions to your own. That’s not what 3D hubs is about and I’d really hate to see it turn into this like and dislike war.

[AtomicFilament]

shits getting crazy here about this. i think toybuilder should chime in. im out.

I still disagree it was done with intent to deceive , hes not a bad guy.

[toybuilder]

We screwed up. Period. Full stop.

However, as we have already said before (in reply to Adam’s review on our Facebook page), Adam was able to apply the 20% discount on a printer which is ineligible for that discount because of an error on our part.

This was not our attempt to bait-and-switch our customers.

When he contacted us on July 31st, I called him back to ask how he was able to apply a 20% discount. I agreed that there were errors in our system that allowed him to apply the discount, and that we needed to fix our site. I also informed him that we are not able to offer the price created by the error.

It’s true that we could have done a better job of dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s in maintaining our site. However, the limited resources available to us (my regular job, my wife being busy with her family and our kids, and us having lost our assistant at the start of summer), we’re a bit busy with meeting more immediate obligations, and could not react as quickly as Adam wanted. Fixing the problems went on our to-do list, but the problems with the automated coupons being issued was not fixed before Adam received another automated email.

The day after he initially contacted us, we e-mailed a quote to Adam for the printer with a much smaller discount. Minutes after we sent that quote, he responded that another vendor “just offered me a much MUCH better deal- I appreciate your time but it’s simply a much more advantageous proposition. Thank you though.”

Since then, he has contacted us a few more times demanding that we should absorb the large losses caused by our mistake. In light of the escalating tone of his demands and accusations, I have largely demurred on making any further concessions on this issue. While we strive to give all of our customers, established or new, excellent customer service, our interactions with Adam suggested that we would be best served by not trying to retain him as a customer. (Moreover, for the record, we are not aware of any past purchases from him of any equipment or supplies before July 2016 - I invite him to document his claim that he has been a long time customer of ours.)

Some comments and questions raised about unfair business practices, errors on pricing and coupons, and about willful intent to mislead customers. I can categorically state that we have not engaged in any deliberate attempt to “turn a quick buck”. (If anything, my passion in supporting enabling technologies, and 3D printing in particular, has been a labor of love and certainly not to grab money from the 3D printing gold-rush.) I am not a lawyer, but I suggest anyone interested in the issue look at opinions, briefs and case laws that distinguish between errors and unfair practices. I believe we are in the right on this matter.