Shady pricing practices at Gathering Ground?

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berkumps
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Shady pricing practices at Gathering Ground?

Post by berkumps » Mon Mar 29, 2010 7:45 pm

Just wondering what others experience is with this site? A little birdie told me that they had boxes of Korean 4th for $299, and Korean Visions for $99. I checked their site, saw what I liked, and emailed them asking about quantity in stock. After a number of back and forth emails with cryptic answers, I asked them to confirm the $299 and $99 pricing. The response I got: "CHECK THE SITE"

It seemed as though I was inconveniencing them by confirming pricing/quantity information. I CHECKed THE SITE, and to my dismay, the prices had magically risen to $399.95 and $189.95.

Anyone else experience this bait and switch tactic from them?

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Re: Shady pricing practices at Gathering Ground?

Post by Ertai's Familiar » Mon Mar 29, 2010 10:08 pm

berkumps wrote:Just wondering what others experience is with this site? A little birdie told me that they had boxes of Korean 4th for $299, and Korean Visions for $99. I checked their site, saw what I liked, and emailed them asking about quantity in stock. After a number of back and forth emails with cryptic answers, I asked them to confirm the $299 and $99 pricing. The response I got: "CHECK THE SITE"

It seemed as though I was inconveniencing them by confirming pricing/quantity information. I CHECKed THE SITE, and to my dismay, the prices had magically risen to $399.95 and $189.95.

Anyone else experience this bait and switch tactic from them?
Well I received a tracking number for my order so it doesn't seem as though they are going to back out of the transaction like they do to so many people.

When I noticed the item I wanted on the site, I called their main office. Spoke to a secretary and a man in shipping who both assured me they were in stock of the item I wanted. I immediately went online and purchased the item once I got off the phone with them. ~10 Minutes after my order was placed the price of the item I purchased jumped a significant amount.

They sent me an email confirming my order and said that a shipping conformation email would follow shortly. A day later I called them to speak with the shipping personnel and was told that the package would ship either that day or the day after.

Based on their reputation I was worried as many have stated that Gathering Ground backs out of transactions despite payment being cleared, it didn't help that they acted extremely suspect on the phone. I was expecting this same bait and switch they have done to others in the past. Sure enough two days later I received my shipping confirmation. We will see how the item looks once it arrives.

Overall I wasn't very pleased with the effort I had to go through to actually get them to ship my order, the entire time I was waiting for an email telling me they were magically out of stock. Right after my inquiry and purchase similar items to the one I bought shot up in price for no apparent reason. It was almost as if they were trying to beat me to the punch, luckily I was able to get the order in and by calling and talking with multiple people as well as taking their names and assurances they shipped.

Not worth the hassle, in my honest opinion shop elsewhere.
Last edited by Ertai's Familiar on Tue Mar 30, 2010 9:27 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Post by monkeymadness » Tue Mar 30, 2010 3:34 am

Gathering Ground is one of the worst places I have ever dealt with during my many years of buying Magic. I placed a pre-order that they did not fulfill and they responded with unprofessional behavior and refused to refund my money. I had to go to my credit card company to get a refund. Before that, they had lost a record of my previous pre-order so that I actually had to have my credit card company fax them my statement to prove that I had paid. I should have moved on after the first episode, but I'm a big believer in second chances. Needless to say, Gathering Ground has used up their second chances and long since lost my business to competent and honest people.

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Post by Gryfalia » Tue Mar 30, 2010 7:53 pm

I think they're still smarting from when I bought lots of boxes of starters for $110-$115 each. Ahh that felt good.
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Post by Ertai's Familiar » Sun Apr 11, 2010 6:04 pm

They are now listing 4th Booster Boxes as FBB and will not differentiate between languages, saying "you have a chance to get Korean, Japanese, or any other language.

Stay away from this sketch place.

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Post by Default User » Fri May 21, 2010 4:06 pm

Early this year they just stonewalled international orders and calling them at oh-early-AM is not my kind of fun, so all the cheap boxes belong to US.

I actually mailed them four times, with the first mail bouncing back four days after I sent it. I sent them the info, told them of several broken links, misspeleld e-mail links etc, and never even got a thank you, but some of the addresses were fixed later on.

So my view is that they obviously do not want to get any money from me. So I'll just add my voice to the choir. Avoid the place... Unless you are one of the lucky ones, 99 $ korean boxes are a steal.
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Post by Ertai's Familiar » Sat May 22, 2010 2:27 am

Not anymore. They jacked up the prices on the boxes and now list them as all languages. If you ask for a Korean box they say they will send you whatever they have, so you can get Chinese, Japanese etc. Lame.
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Post by Gryfalia » Sat May 22, 2010 4:07 am

Loved the place when Ron owned it. He was a blast..;-)
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Post by Gryfalia » Sat May 22, 2010 4:07 am

Loved the place when Ron owned it. He was a blast..;-)
He's just this guy, ya know?

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Post by magicmisprints » Thu May 27, 2010 6:46 pm

Yeah, Ron (Powell?) was the best. He was the first guy I ever mail ordered from, way back when I was trying to put together a Beta set in 95. Must have talked with him on the phone for like half an hour past placing the order, and even then $12 Beta and Alpha Birds of Paradise seemed cheap to me. Of course, the whole set in progress got stolen when I got up to about 250 cards, but hey, Ron was a nice guy. I say 'was' because I dimly remember hearing some rumor that he had died.. does anyone know if that's true, or if I just imagined it/got wrong info?

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