Wholesaletrains www.wholesaletrains.com

I owe you all a debt of gratitude for saving me the pain you have all suffered at the hands of this business. To say sorry to all of you for

experiences would be an understatement. Their business practices and terms of contract speak volumes.

Many thanks to all of you.

I have encountered a lot of online companies that have less than stellar customer service. However, Wholesale Trains takes 'customer beware' to a whole new level. They absolutely refuse to tell you what your shipping charges are in advance of/or while placing an order. When you receive a confirmation of shipping - the costs are totally in the ozone. I called customer service within an hour of getting a shipping notice. There response attitude was than terrible. The box was still in their building and they were VERY adamant about my paying their exorbitant shipping charge or an equally exorbitant 're-stocking' fee. I cancelled the order and will have my credit card company dispute their charges. After reading dozens of scathing reviews on this company across many web sites, I must conclude that this is their normal way of doing business. Buyer Beware !!

Just my experience.

I ordered a Great Planes micro F-86 and some spare parts for my Sbach. Everything was in stock, with the friendly "usually ships next day" next to it. Not so much.

8 days after placing my order, I called, and the person I talked to assured me that it would go out that day. The next day I called, and was told it hadn't shipped. I requested they cancel my order, because really, they don't deserve my money at this point. I was told that I could not cancel because it was already "in the shipping department." I asked why it was in the shipping department when I was assured it was going to go out the day before... "I'm sorry, sir, but we can't cancel your order at this point."

I told them I would never order from there again and got off the phone. That night, I got a friendly email from CS letting me know that my order had shipped. I emailed them back that I was unhappy about it taking NINE days to ship an order and would not be doing business with them again. Response: .....crickets.....

I worked a lot of crappy customer service/service industry jobs when I was younger, and guess what; I hated the customers too. However, it's your JOB to make customers happy. That's what you get PAID to do. Happy customers spend money at your business, unhappy customers don't, and they tell everyone why they won't.

Oh, and when my package arrived, the nice delicate foam parts for the sbach? UNDER the F-86. The package: beat up, the tape on top didn't even seal the box, or came loose due to all the empty space underneath it. The empty space that would have stopped everything from moving around? Empty, as in "nothing in the box to stop things from bumping around and smashing things."

I get their business model, sell way under MAP, and charge the bejesus out of people for shipping who order less than $150 worth of swag, and God help you if you order under $60 of stuff, because you'll pay 1/3 of the total cost in shipping. Yeah, I saved twenty bucks, but was it worth waiting almost two weeks for? For me, that's a big old "nope." I expect this kind of thing from Hobbyking, I order from them and forget that I did and move on to something else in the meantime. I don't expect this from a stateside vendor.

That's my 2 cents, and the last 2 cents I'll give wholesaletrains.com

I found this store online, As most people do, because they do have lower prices than anywhere else. That being said, after placed the order on the webpage. I received an email with 2 phone numbers to call if I had any question on the status of my order. One number was "NO LONGER IN SERVICE" and the other was BUSY.. After a few calls later they said my order would be able to be picked up in a day or two. When I finely was able to pick it up I went to the store and was impressed by what they had in the store. But I agree, the customer service could be better. But I guess that comes with paying a little more.

What a horrible experience. I ordered a Polar Express set for my son's christmas, once having placed the order I was re-reading the return policy and was uncomfortable with it. I then called their customer service to cancel and the supervisor told me that in the event something was defective, they would take care of it immediately. I recieved the set and it was defective. When I called back, I was told by the supervisor that this was my problem, and when I asked to talk to her boss, I was told that was impossible and unlikely that they would call me back. So, I contacted Lionel and they set me up, but after receiving the replacement from lionel, it became obvious that the set they sent me was years old. What a horrible experience and horrible customer service. Do not deal with them.

Routinely lists hard to find items, especially Lionel Trains, as in stock getting you to order. Weeks later Wholesaletrains will state that the item is back ordered and that they do not know when it will be in (cannot even guarantee that it will be). Then, they happily cancel order but charge you a 7% cancellation fee. I believe their main source of profit is cancellation fees.