Waiting Woes

I am still waiting to receive my replacement Vintage Club Sentinel and Echo.

At this point I am feeling discouraged - the wait has been so long; will I be receiving a set that someone else returned? At this late in the release of the set, I think that is very possible.

Frustrated at the wait, I drew up a timeline yesterday to see if it really had been as long as it felt, or if I was just being impatient.

It's been as long as I thought.

January 29  Sentinel and Echo were released to Vintage Club members for ordering. I ordered within an hour of that announcement. 

February 6  My set arrived.

Echo was fine,

but Sentinel's front leg was snapped off.

February 6  That same day, I contacted Breyer, was asked to send photos of the break, and was then sent a return ticket.

February 7  I packed up Sentinel and Echo, went to the local shipping store, and sent them back to Breyer. 

February 12  Breyer notified me that the box had been received by them and sent me a shipping notice for my replacement set.

I was surprised but excited to see that Breyer would be shipping my replacement set by Next Day Air!

Except... they didn't.

The warehouse didn't ship it at all.

I began a days long wait, checking tracking several times a day, but the delivery status never changed. Breyer's warehouse had never shipped that box.

February 18  After waiting six days, I finally emailed Breyer, asking for them to check into why my box had not been shipped. I received no response. 

February 20  I again contacted Breyer but this time I heard back. It was the same woman who had helped me with the original return, and she expressed surprise that my box had not been sent out. Within ten minutes I had another email from her saying that a new shipment of Sentinel and Echo was now scheduled to be shipped on Monday, February 22.

February 22 Except, that it didn't.

February 23  It didn't ship the next day, either.

February 24  At last! I received a notice that my box was on the way with an estimated delivery of Friday, February 27.

Needless to say, I have been tracking that package carefully.

February 27  This morning's tracking looked promising, except for that tiny text that my package would be delivered by USPS. 

I clicked the tracking note for that delivery.

The box was in Lafayette at 5:36 AM and still had to be sent over to the West Lafayette post office.

Which means it is highly unlikely that I will get my models today. 

Am I frustrated? Yes. But there are bigger problems to have than this.

I will get my package soon and look forward to finding out which foal is in this box. The Scratching Foal like the one that was with the broken Sentinel,

or the Running Foal, which was actually my first choice, at least until I had the Scratching Foal in hand, and I really thought it was nice.

Either way, I will be happy.

My wait is almost over. I hope.

Breyer, Barns, & Books

Lots of bits and pieces to share today!

Breyer

First, Breyer made an announcement yesterday acknowledging the issues their shipping department is having. Here's that announcement from Breyer's Facebook page.

It's a good beginning and I think it was wise that Breyer do so, but my experience has been that the problem is bigger and has more facets than what they are addressing in this email. (Remember my Christmas Blanket Debacle post?) Yes, shipping is a problem, but so have been other things, too,  in CCG.

Another concern I have is the Customer Service department. No doubt they are buried in emails and phone calls; I get that. But it isn't much of a confidence builder when the automated response to your email comes back tagged as SPAM!

You start wondering if your email really was received and read. (I mentioned in the post about the blanket debacle that I emailed Breyer about having received a blanket that I had not ordered or paid for and asking how to return it. Crickets. That blanket is still here.)

Regardless, kudos to Breyer for updating collectors on the situation - they've taken some heat and gotten some snark for their efforts, but I think it is a step in the right direction and hope that that continues. It never, ever hurts to communicate and keep people in the loop. Thanks, Breyer.

Two more guest horses were announced via the BreyerFest blog, both of them  returning guests. 

HD Darkness (he's 27 years old!) will be in attendance and Breyer will have a limited number of models of him for sale on site. (I really like this mold.)

Buckeye will be back, too, although no models will be available of him.

Barns

I love barns in all their variety. (I'm talking the old wooden ones, not the metal pole barns.) This little info sheet about various barn types crossed my social media feed yesterday so I took a screen shot of it. I do not have the original source; it was just shared by a woman in a group.

Farmyard Palace Barn? Hmmm, quite the description! Around here our barns are related most closely to the Western Prairie Barn, the Dutch Gambrel Roof Barn, and the Pioneer Barn with a few Round Barns added to the mix.

Tim has the beautiful new barn with its indoor arena, stalls, lounge, office, and tack room, but I have always chosen the old barn as the place I most like to be when I am out there. 

Abby, Sultanna, and Diablo thundering out of the old barn to come get some peppermints.

There is just something about the wood creaking as the wind gusts against it, the hay mow overhead with its fragrance drifting down, and the gentle snorts, stomps, and chuffs as the horses take shelter from the heat and the cold.

Books

Pony Pal Mila and her mama invited me to read a book with them. "There's a horse in it named 'Butter', Grammy!" (Guess why. Just try. LOL)

The photo I sent Mila and Vanessa to let them know that I'd gotten the book and could begin reading.

The War that Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley is a really good book and one that I would've included in my classroom library were I still teaching. 

In an interesting coincidence, Emily texted Teacher Daughter Lisa and me a day later and asked if we had any book recommendations for Pony Pals Julie, Kate, and Susan. Easy peasy - at the end of their two years with me (I taught a multiage class of 4th and 5th graders) the outgoing students always created a list for the incoming 4th graders of their recommendations of Children's Classics to read.

I opened my teaching files and pulled out one of them and emailed it to her. (This list does have a book I removed from the suggestions due to the author's use of the F-word.)

There is nothing like hearing a child giggle aloud at their desk as they read and you know that they have just seen through Tom Sawyer's ruse to get his friends to paint that fence for him! (Oh, the fond memories of reading books with kids!)

So, if you are interested in a variety of good literature that both adults and children will enjoy, there you go!

Bye! (Hah! Couldn't resist adding in that fourth letter B!)

Catching Up with Life

Second Post of the Day

I have been unable to do my usual daily routine for almost a week now. And, I have not been as able to stay in touch via social media during that time, either. Today is a day of starting to catch up with life and possibly even doing a few more parts of my usual routine.

First, Breyer News

Breyer has announced a few guest horses for BreyerFest, some of whom have been Breyer models in the past. Hobbyists are cautioned that there will not be a model available for any of these horses. (All pictures are screenshots taken from the BreyerFest blog.)

Danash's Northern Tempest

Paddyngton's Mark of Distinction

Rain, a Pryor Mountain Mustang and daughter of Cloud

Biloxi, a Pryor Mountain Mustang and barn mate of Rain

In other Breyer news, their shipping department, CCG, continues to struggle and be the subject of many, many frustrated posts all across social media platforms. I share in that frustration.

I have made three orders since the first of the year - the Stablemate Brilliance set, Vintage Club Inferno, and Prague, the first release in the 2025 Exotic Destinations Series. I've had to send emails about each delayed order and I even called Breyer once only to get an answering machine. I left a message that was never returned, and the emails have only gotten an acknowledgment of having been received coupled with the remark that Breyer "would respond to your case as soon as possible."

Those Brilliance Stablemates have arrived as has Inferno, but there is no sign of Prague. There is still no shipping notice and the order is still marked "Unfulfilled" in my account.

Let's hope Breyer and CCG get this straightened out. It truly is a mess of gigantic proportions.

One last piece of Breyer news. 

Maddox is still available. I don't remember when he was first offered, but it was before my surgery last Thursday, so he's been up for a week at least. I almost went ahead and ordered him this morning but 1) I was leery about having another shipping problem to resolve, and 2) if I were to order him, I would no longer be able to check his sales progress.

Moving on to the Sewing Room!

With Kalamazoo only a little over three weeks away, time is short for preparing clothing to sell.  Not only did I write blog posts ahead of my surgery, I also cut out garments I'd like to have on hand to sell at the event.

I buy many of my fabrics in bulk so I had to first do some measuring and cutting off the bolt before I could begin pinning patterns to the fabric and cutting them out.

Usually fabric is either 42 - 44" or 56 - 60" wide but my white cotton is double folded on the bolt. It is 108" wide and with that double fold, I simply cannot use it unless I cut smaller pieces off the bolt and then open the second fold so that I only have a single folded piece of fabric to use. It takes time, but the fabric is cheaper bought that way. 

Normally I don't mind the extra time to cut things out, but last week I was feeling the pressure of the time lost to surgery as well as having to make those extra cuts in the cotton.

Still, I got three chemises cut out, marked and ready to sew as soon as I feel up to bending over the sewing machine. I also cut out a couple of pockets from some red wool and stacked those on top of the chemises in my prep cart.

Will I get to those projects today? I hope so. I love to sew and I sew almost every day. I am under a lifting restriction but I don't think my iron will be a problem. (I use my iron a lot - the key to really nice end products is ironing before, while, and after you complete the piece.)

Wish me luck - getting into the sewing room would be a huge step towards normalcy for me!

Customer Service & Shipping Woes

I love Breyer. I love their products, their events, their clubs... just about everything. But I don't care for their customer service. Why? Because never, ever have I received a return phone call or email. EVER. 

Until yesterday.

A week ago I had called to ask about two missing items from my BreyerFest purchases. When I checked online, my account details had listed everything as fulfilled, complete with tracking numbers. Knowing Breyer was in the middle of a mammoth job of shipping things, I waited a few days for a return call, hoping that in the meantime my missing items would show up.

Crickets. 

And no new boxes.

Three days later, with the order's status still showing as fulfilled, I emailed Breyer, explaining the problem, and including the order number and what I had not gotten.

More crickets. And still no boxes.

I waited four more days, growing more and more frustrated, especially as I saw posts on social media where people reported that they'd called Breyer, spoken to someone, and gotten results. That bothered me. Why did I never get return calls or emails? 

Wondering if the problem might be on my end, I went back to Breyer's web site and checked their contact info, then compared it to my phone log and sent emails. Everything was correct - the problem was not me.

Finally, I decided to call Breyer again and, as in the past, got the answering machine. I explained the situation, although this time I added that I had already phoned and emailed them with no response, and asked if someone would please get back to me. For whatever reason, that did the trick and I got a call from Breyer's Customer Service an hour later.

She apologized for the delay and checked my order. I was told that it was on the way and given a tracking number. I hung up happy to have finally gotten through to Breyer's Customer Service and to know that my tee and Stablemates were on the way.

Until I clicked on that tracking number and got this message.

As I looked at it trying to figure out what was wrong, I suddenly realized that she had given me the same tracking number as the one on the original box, not a new one. Now what should I do?

I tried again, hand typing the number into the search box instead of clicking on Breyer's link.

This time I got some better information. As I compared the two messages, I also noticed that the first box came UPS, while this shipment (with that identical tracking number) is coming USPS.

Call me confused about that for sure, but at least I know that my missing merchandise is on its way . And, at last I can say that, for the first time ever, I got through to Breyer's Customer Service.

That's a win on both fronts!