Fight back against Another Universe

[Sameritech]

We as consumers, have been royally taken advantage of by this awful web site called Another Universe. Between poor customer service and overcharges we have allowed them to just ignore out complaints and look the other way. Now is the time to fight back and let them know we will no longer be taken advantage of and be repeatedly overcharged.

I have listed many of the agencies that can help us not only force AU to get off their A** and fix these credit card charges, but also make them accountable for their lack of respect for the consumer. Each site listed allows you to file a formal complaint against AU. Keep in mind the name of the site is anotheruniverse.com but according to their web site, they are owned by CMI Holdings Group . So when you file your complaint, be sure and reference the web site and the company name. I have also included the contact information of the company to assist in your complaint submission. Don't file a complaint for the delay in the set being produced since that is out of their control. The complaints should address the poor customer service, repeated overcharges on your credit card and lack of satisfactory resolution when you contacted them. I urge you all to take the short amount of time to file your complaint. They refuse to fix the problem(s) on their own and the complaints will help ensure they don't take advantage of other customers.

http://www.anotheruniverse.com/
CMI Holdings Group
AnotherUniverse.com
7975 Ramona Ave Suite B
Sacramento, California 958265
(888) 526-6427
FAX (916) 450-0760

Better Business Bureau
http://www.bbb.org/bbbcomplaints/Welcome.asp

California Department of Consumer Affairs
http://app1.dca.ca.gov/complainthelp/co ... plaint.asp

California State Attorney General
http://caag.state.ca.us/consumers/mailform.htm

Internet Fraud Complaint Center
http://www1.ifccfbi.gov/index.asp

[Jason R]

BEFORE TAKING THE ADVICE IN THE PREVIOUS POST...

Might I simply add that people who are reporting errors to AU.com are having them fixed, to the best of my knowledge. Most are telling me (of those writing to me) that the people they called at AU.com have been helpful and have fixed the problems.

I cannot stop you from doing anything you want to do, but please understand that this can lead to unforeseen consequences. Before you seek vengence for an overcharge, I recommend calling them and having it fixed. That is how most people seem to be approaching it. If they don't fix it after you talk to them, feel free to complain to the sites in the that post to your heart's content.

I am as frustrated as the next guy with these errors, but I am not about to accuse them of fraud. Please don't risk the DVD project. Please call them and give them a chance to fix it.

I'll be the first person to blame AU for the credit card errors, but bear in mind that the errors are not limited to overcharges. I get many, many emails from people who were not charged for the set and who simply want to confirm an order. I am not writing this to say whether this is a bad reflection on AU.com or not. It is.

All that I am saying is that while they get the blame for credit card errors (even if it is simply because they don't fire their merchant account company), almost every other problem with this set has been the fault of the rights holders taking their time to clear the art and music and not particularly wanting to do this project. I accepted these delays, so perhaps you should blame me. The alternative was to cut out the offending artwork and music/scenes. I'm really sure that would have gone over well. . . NOT.

Look, there have been what I euphemistically call speedbumps at every step of this project. Ever have a morning where you get stuck at every red light? That's how this project is to me. There have been problems with getting all of the bonus material. Not AU's fault. There have been problems with the lunchboxes. Not AU's fault. There have been problems with about a dozen songs in the DVD. Not AU's fault.

Credit cards errors? Ok, I'll buy that. I'll say that they are responsible for this. So, give them a chance to fix it. If they tell you to toss off, feel free to do whatever you want, but I have found this not to be the case.

As an aside, I probably went way out of bounds this week with AU.com and in my pre-wedding psycho way, I demanded that they fax me proof of sufficient funds for this project. They had no obligation to send it to me. And I'll be the first to admit that I had no right to ask for it. But they sent it. Why did I ask for it? Because with the ship date approaching, I wanted to make sure there would be no headaches. I wanted to sleep better at night, and I do now. Hopefully you can too, now that I told you, and hopefully AU.com will realize it was not so much an issue of trust, as me really caring about this project

As for customer service, AU.com has asked me to get a customer service page up and running that will speed up response time and reduce reliance on emails, which can get lost.

it is going up here:http://www.drygrass.com/mscl.
Please don't use it yet. It will be done this week, but nobody is using it yet.

Again, for problems please call weekdays: 888-5-COMICS.

[Nostradamus]

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE!!! DON'T DRAG THE GOVERNMENT INTO THIS!!!

I cannot stop you from doing anything you want to do, but please understand that this can lead to unforeseen consequences. Before you seek vengence for an overcharge, I recommend calling them and having it fixed. That is how most people seem to be approaching it. If they don't fix it after you talk to them, feel free to complain to the sites in the that post to your heart's content.

I am as frustrated as the next guy with these errors, but I am not about to accuse them of fraud. Please don't risk the DVD project. Please call them and give them a chance to fix it.

As Jason idicated above, any decision to involve Big Brother may have negative consequences far byond your own account. I have had the misfortune of dealing with local, state, and federal authorities on several occasions, so I speak from experience when I say: if there is a way to make the DVD problems worse, the government will find it! Trust me, their promises of making everything right are even more hollow than anything BMG or AU has said. The government is fond of using sledgehammers to swat mosquitos, and if they perceive (or imagine) a problem here, they might derail the entire DVD project with messy litigation and probes for months or years. Even then, it's questionable if they'll ever get your money back. Jason, on the other hand, is like a surgeon: if there is a problem, he can delicately remove the offending part without killing the patient. He has been slowed somewhat by the sheer number of complaints, true enough, but if you give him a chance he will get your money back, cancel your order, correct false information, do whatever it takes. I have had the good fortune of dealing with him, and I believe he is far too competent and efficient to ever work for the government .

Now, it is true that AU, BMG, etc. did bring this on themselves with the lousiest service in online history, but they will suffer plenty from canceled orders and lost business due to bad reputation without the G-Men interfering. I too have been overcharged and confused, but I think it's worth the trouble, and even if it wasn't, I'm confident that I can retrieve my money at any time. Many others have had similar problems resolved already; be patient, your turn will come. Worst-case, we can always break out the lawyers later if the DVDs never materialize.

I see I am rambling on, so I will conclude with this last plea: If you have been shafted, your disgust is fully understood and shared, but don't let your thirst for vengeance ruin it for those of us who are in this for the long haul.

[Jason R]

The other problem with the first post in this thread is that it is a terrible overgeneralization.

There are errors, but statistically they are a very small number. It seems that the errors seem happening to the same people, in fact, because I keep seeing the same names over and over. I'm not saying that it doesn't suck if it happened to you, I'm just saying that it will be fixed. I never got an email about a triple overcharge, although I am assuming that the originator of this post was unhappy with overseas shipping charges (which the CEO already has said he is going to refund and set right). Again, I know very little about the t-shirts. My business is the DVD.

As I stated in my previous post, I requested proof of sufficient funds for the project and got it faxed to me by AU. The fact that the errors seem happening to the same orders tells me that there is probably something wrong with AU's shopping cart system (which has never been used for this type of pre-order before) When people report the errors, they are being corrected on the spot, so I'll defend them as long as they continue to do this. They have not interfered with the production of the set at all. They have not caused a single delay to the project.

Jason

[mephisto]

[...] although I am assuming that the originator of this post was unhappy with overseas shipping charges (which the CEO already has said he is going to refund and set right).

there is/was a problem with overseas shipping charges?

btw, due to the floating exchange rate and the pre-paying people not living in the US lost quiet some money. To pay the set now would be much cheaper at least for Europeans. Perhaps AU wants to reduce the shipping costs to compensate that a little bit

[Jason R]

I should clarify. People who bought the t-shirts from overseas ended up paying quite a bit, from what I hear. AU.com is supposed to be refunding some of the shipping charges. T-shirts have nothing to do with the DVDs, but since it is a MSCL shirt, and since this is the MSCL board, I am obviously following up on it.

As for the exchange rates, some of the costs went up (relatively speaking) as a result of the declining value of the dollar, plus US postage went up 10%. The $15 discount for the initial preorder, plus the freebies, was an attempt to compensate for the wait, but yeah, I'll agree that had we known it would have taken this long due to clearances, we would have rethought the pre-pay plan, or at least delayed the intial pre-order period. Everything was literally blue skies until the BMG and Buena Vista lawyers got involved.

[...] although I am assuming that the originator of this post was unhappy with overseas shipping charges (which the CEO already has said he is going to refund and set right).

there is/was a problem with overseas shipping charges?

btw, due to the floating exchange rate and the pre-paying people not living in the US lost quiet some money. To pay the set now would be much cheaper at least for Europeans. Perhaps AU wants to reduce the shipping costs to compensate that a little bit

[Dustin]

Im one of the ones who has had every problem. I was overcharged. I was charged two full order and one pre-booking. With help from Jason I got the two full orders sorted out, but they haven't re-debited our cc so at the moment I'm not sure if im going to get a set at all. I was one of the ones who petitioned and pre-ordered, but I don't mind any of this as long as I get the set. It is very wearying though.

[Jennifer]

I paid for my deposit and the rest by check, so I haven't had any issue with cc overcharges, but I will second the comments about AU's lousy customer service. I got no confirmation of my order. It took several weeks for them to cash my check. I tried repeatedly to contact them to be sure I really had an order placed, by email, fax and phone. I got no response. Eventually, I got the email from Jason, telling me that the balance was due.

Please understand, Jason, that this is in NO WAY a negative comment about YOUR work on the project. Every time I've asked YOU a question, I've gotten a quick, courteous and accurate response. But I have not once, in the easily 10 attempts I made to contact them, heard back from anyone at AU.

Now I'm concerned. The project has taken so long that I've moved from the address AU has on file. I'd like to change the shipping address, but don't have high hopes that they can make that happen.

[Sarah]

Jason! Same Question as Jennifer's Post. How do we go about changing addresses? At the same time receiving confirmation?

[Jason R]

I am unveiling the new customer service page especially for you.

http://www.drygrass.com/mscl (Dry Grass Partners, LLC is my firm).

Select new address from the drop down menu and the next page will be where you enter the new address.

If it seems like a pain to enter so much personal information, bear in mind that we need to verify that it really is you who wants to change shipping addresses.

Jason! Same Question as Jennifer's Post. How do we go about changing addresses? At the same time receiving confirmation?

[Ross Rojek]

Yes folks there have been lots of problems. And we've been trying to fix them as fast as we can find them.

Wade is the guy answering the phones all day. And 80% of his time is dealing with MSCL questions and problems. He's supposed to be the receptionis, but has ended up becoming the answer guy. There are over 400 e-mails a day coming in to the customer service address, with many being klz virus (some of you really need to run a scan on your computer), 4 or 5 e-mails from the same person (using webmaster/help/whatever@au.com) and all our regular ongoing business e-mails.

I currently have one person going through the entire pre-order list. Order by order confirming the charges made, or not made. We have many people (several hundred) who still haven't paid because their card was rejected. In some cases more than 10 times. They keep telling us "no really, it'll be ok" and we try again.

As far as our processor goes, we've really had many problems there. With many of these double charges, we never even got the benefit of the money. So we're not even refunding it back to you, but only reversing the charges, and spending our staff time to fix someone elses charge. And we can't change all that easily. We use the same processor for my stores as well as the AU site, and either one can't go for a week or more unable to process credit cards.

We had someone call demanding we reverse the double charge on their account. Just mad as hell. Treated Wade like s**t, threatened us with the Attorney General and everything. Turns out, he's never been charged. He's been declined twice and it looks like he was just trying to get a free DVD and have us pay him the cost of it.

As I've said here before. If you have a problem getting though to someone, you can always e-mail me directly. ross@anotheruniverse.com I'll do my best to fix it as quickly as I can.

[rhibar]

I Just want to say i think it was a good idea to put a post up explaining your situation to us.
I think we can all respect the fact that you are overloaded with calls, queries and problems.
I personally have been double charged, and i have emailed you to report this, but i will wait patiently for a while if you say you are getting around to it.
Until then, keep up the good work everyone who's involved with the DVDs so that we can all get them and be happy!

R.Williams
London, UK

[THE SHERIFF OF DVD]

BASHING ANOTHERUNIVERSE AND LYING TO OBTAIN. FREE DVD'S .
THE CRIMES HAVE BEEN INITIATED, UNDER THE APPROPIATE STATUES OF LAW IN THE STATES WHERE THE PERSONS OR GROUPS RESIDE.

DO NOT BELIVE THESE PEOPLE. THERE HAVE BEEN SOEM PROBLEMS. BUT NOTHING THAT CAN NOT BE SOLVED. IT IS JUST A DVD. NOT BUYING A HOUSE.

[senator McCarthy]

starting a scandel over a DVD. people like him, cost regular tax payers like us, millions in useless paper work. the problem has ben solved over a DVD. now it is time for that jerk to get a life, and stop being a bashing idiot.,

[baby joe]

I didnt have any problems...