Bissett Magazine Services have ceased trading. Subscribers left in the dark

Well… so much for customer service at Eaglemoss. At least someone replied. Didn’t really help much though.

Hi Vince
Thanks for the email.
I have managed to locate your account for the delorean and I can see that you have two deliveries worth of issues on the way to you, have you received these yet?
Unfortunately there is no way to differentiate the payments I am afraid.
Once I have this information I will be able to assist you further.
Kind regards
Joshua

Customer Experience Department
Data Base Factory - Unit 4 Pullman Business Park, Ringwood BH24 1HD
Email: Customer-Service-Australia@eaglemoss-service.com

I find it hard to believe that they don’t have a simple way to look at customer records of what each payment is covering when people have multiple subscriptions, nor which issues they are for. As for the two deliveries worth of issues, I guess they’re now in catch up mode, which means we all need to budget for twice as much as we used to. When I signed on for the thing I was only expecting 4 issues every 4 weeks, not 8 issues every 4 weeks. Again, there has been no correspondence with anyone about any of this. SURPRISE!!! :confused: Anyway, we’ll see what turns up in the post.

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An update on my situation with Hachette. Received 4 issues in the mail yesterday. No idea they were coming. They came in a satchel from D & D Mailing Services. No letter inside, just the invoice for the four issues the same as Bissett used to do (except directly from Hachette). I’m going to assume this will just come out of my ccard in the next few days. Will wait and see. If so, then I guess things are back on track. It is weird though that there hasn’t been an official letter, email or anything explaining the situation.

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I got a email earlier in the week telling me the eaglemoss shop is open at https://shop.eaglemoss.com/au

I ordered a couple of binders even though the pricing seems to be in aud the amount that came out of my bank wasn’t the same and Today I got charged something westpac is calling a foreign fee of $1.25 so that’s a thing.

I’m wondering now if I’m going to get a fee every time when they start charging me.

I’m thinking about canceling and ordering them from the newsagent I’ve had enough

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The cost is not liked by many. The fee is their “International Transaction” fee and most if not all Banks charge this now. The fee paying has been discussed in another section of this forum and I include below the links to each:

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Anything you purchase from the Eaglemoss shop, even if it says au in the URL address is coming directly from the UK and will be charged in GBP, so yes, there is an international transaction fee involved with some banks. The existing subscriptions we already have are charged to us in AUD though, and therefore shouldn’t attract the international transaction fee. They also get distributed from a local hub rather than being shipped directly from the UK.

I have a couple of 2 year (magazine-less) subscriptions that I purchased from DeAgostini’s ModelSpace website, because that’s the only way to get the things, and of course I’m not only stuck with the international transaction fee when they take money off me once a month, but I also never know exactly how much I’ll be charged as the monthly subscription fees are in GBP, so the actual amount in AUD varies from month to month depending on whatever the conversion rates are on the day.

Incidentally, if you do purchase direct from one of the UK websites (even those disguised as AU) it’s best not to use a PO BOX address, as they usually use a courier service who will then hand the package over to whichever courier service they choose to use once it arrives in Australia, and of course being couriers they won’t deliver to a PO BOX unless the courier taking the package off their hands is Star Track. So far I’ve had no packages transferred into Star Track’s hands.

For those who get regular (magazine-included) partworks, it all goes via Australia Post, so PO BOXES will still work.

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Just jumping in here to say thank you to everyone for this info. Was re-organising my various figurines today when I realised I hadn’t heard anything about my Marvel Movie Collection ones for a while. Vaguely remembered getting a letter that said something about Bissett closing down, but couldn’t remember any details. After combing the internet, stumbled across this thread and am very grateful for the info herein.

On that note, to add my info, I, too, have been charged now by Eaglemoss London, on the 22nd of October to be exact, and I couldn’t find any charges before that, so I don’t think Bissett overcharged me at any point. Hopefully this means things are kicking back into gear and I will soon be receiving another issue as, presumably, that was the charge for the last one.

Will let you know as things develop. Again, thanks to everyone who provided info here, as otherwise I probably wouldn’t have known anything!

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Amazingly, I’ve actually had an email from Eaglemoss that gets me back up to speed on what’s happening with my account, simply because my DeLorean build was getting payments taken out via direct debit, and apparently Eaglemoss UK can’t access the funds via this method, so they’ve sent me an email to get in contact with them about it. They have to have a credit or debit card by the looks of it.

So, it looks like the 5 rogue issues that were sent to me months ago, after they were found lying packaged and ready to go in Bissett’s closed mailroom, might end up being freebies. A couple of weeks ago 2 new issues of the build were posted out to me, and today’s email says they tried to bill me for 6 issues, which included the 2 that I recently received, but the bank wouldn’t let them in. So presumably the 2 packages that are in the post for me are 4 more issues of the DeLorean build, and 3 issues of the Marvel Movie Collection, which was already being charged to my debit card, so they had no problems taking any money for that one.

Anyways, as per usual, time will tell. I’m still trying to get Eaglemoss to organise for my sub details to be available via an online account, which at the moment won’t recognise any of my subscription details. Hopefully they’ll sort that out for us all soon as well.

As for my step-son’s subscription through Hatchett Partworks UK, they’re also having no luck with direct debit payments, so the Mrs still needs to contact them to sort that one out for him.

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Latest report via one of the Facebook groups is that one Australian subscriber to the DeLorean build from Eaglemoss has not only had $200 taken out of his account with no warning whatsoever, leaving him broke as he was expecting to be notified before money started coming out of his account again, but his latest delivery is also not what he was expecting. His previous delivery was for 2 issues, 58 and 59. Today he took delivery of issues 64 through to 68, meaning they’ve forgotten to send him issues 60, 61, 62 and 63. This opens up a fresh can of worms as I too only received issues 58 and 59 last time, yet Eaglemoss UK attempted to charge me for issues 58 through to 64 before realising that my bank wouldn’t let them use the direct debit arrangement that was in place with Bissett. So we’ll see what I get in the post. They did say I had two deliveries coming, but couldn’t say what they were. I was beginning to think that one of them might have been my son’s Marvel Movie Collection, but it may end up being the 4 missing issues of the DeLorean build yet. Living in Tassie it will take a few extra days before Australia Post manages to deliver the things, so once again, time will tell.

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Another email response from Eaglemoss. Just as well I was sitting down at the time.

Someone has finally figured out what the $75(ish) deduction was for that came out of my bank account a few weeks ago. Not the DeLorean build but the Marvel Movie Collection, which I already suspected was probably the case. Time to hit my son up for a reimbursement on that one.

Also, Eaglemoss is apparently in the process of organising online accounts for everyone so we can log in and keep track of everything. When will this happen? Of course, they don’t know. I’m surprised I managed to get this much information out of someone.

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Thanks for the updates @NubglummerySnr

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Someone in Australia just posted this to one of the DeLorean Facebook groups.

Capture

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The 2 binders I ordered on the 23rd of October from the eaglemoss online store got dispatched by Coghlan on the 1st of November (according to the invoice) and received today the 5th of November in Adelaide.

Still nothing in regards to my subscription but this gives a possible timeframe if anyone wanted to know.

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Is there anyone out there that was building the 1967 SHELBY via Bissett?? Have had medical issues and am now back up to speed… Only to find they have ‘done a runner’ so to speak with their customers… HELP PLEASE.

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You need to deal directly with the publishers now. I think the Shelby was via DeAgostini and all the info you need concerning contacting them about your Australian subscription is available over at https://www.deagostini.com/au/important-communication/

You’ll probably find that the Sydney based phone number they supply will patch you through to the UK for the price of a phone call to Sydney, which means you’ll probably get a message to call between the hours of 5pm and 11pm AEST, or thereabouts now we’ve started Daylight savings in some states, and they’ve just finished with it.

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So much for my two deliveries that were supposedly in the post. Nothing’s shown up after 3 weeks and Eaglemoss aren’t answering their emails again. I do know I’ve been charged for 6 specific issues, yet only got 2 of them, weeks ago now. :confused:

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Sounds very topsy turvy. Thanks for the update

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I just got a random phone call from eaglemoss wanting me to update my payment details and I owe them $80 something dollars for my marvel movie figurine collection up to issue 52… I explained that I haven’t received anything in months and my last issue I received was 46…

She passed it over to customer service and said they will call me within the next 24h to sort it out

I just don’t know lol

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The main problem with Eaglemoss seems to be that they’re now handling the accounts themselves via their UK offices, but outsourcing the actual deliveries to Coghlan in Victoria, so while Eaglemoss is happily taking money from everyone as if everything is now running like clockwork, Coghlan doesn’t actually seem to have the stock to send. Either that or they’ve taken on more than they thought they could handle and packages simply aren’t being posted as scheduled. Either way Eaglemoss UK seems to be oblivious to the lack of stock being sent from Coghlan’s end.

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FABULOUS RESULT - Have Received Product again
The SHELBY Is Starting to be built again at our place.
1st package with 4 items arrived yesterday Fri 16 Nov 2018 - With letter of Apology for Delay from Supplier in UK - Thank You DeAGOSTINI
Hope everyone else has good news also

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I have also received a shipment from DeAgostini, the next issues in the R2D2 series. Surprisingly this was delivered today (Saturday) by Australia Post!
It looks like things are back on track at last.

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