I am happy to announce GameStop Italy is now selling Fanatec products in all of their shops in Italy.
GameStop Italy is the the biggest subsidary in Europe of GameStop with over 300 shops. This sounds small for US citizens but GameStop is the No. 1 in video games in Italy.
The following products are available from next week:
Porsche 911 Turbo S whee
Porsche 911 Turbo S wheel Pure Edition
ClubSports Pedals
RennSport Wheel Stand
If this co-operation is succesful we would be very interested to expand it to other countries as well.
http://www.gamestop.it/
Replies - Comments
Are the units being shipped
Are the units being shipped to Italy the unsold stock? I thought the wheel was limited edition?
The bundled package with the
The bundled package with the clubsport was limited. The wheel is a standard product.
No. The PWTS is limited to
No. The PWTS is limited to 10.000 units in total - all versions.
The amount we ship to Gamestop will be within those 10.000 so it will be a limited edition for them as well.
Don't you think you should
Don't you think you should be replacing the people's broken shifters, pedals and wheels with these products you are putting in gamestops. I know several people who have problems that have not been solved, they are customers who have already paid for your products who can not get replacements for they're broken wheels, shifters, and pedals. And now you announce you will have new wheels and clubsport pedals, and shifters for sale at gamestop next week. You should fix everyone's problems by giving them these products before you start sending gamestop wheels.
I emailed Armin about my shifter breaking and he said you didn't have any shifters in stock. Obviously these wheel packages you will have in Italy next week have shifters in them. Why can't I get one of those shifters. I gave you over 400$ over a year ago, and now I can't get a replacement shifter for the one that has broken because you don't have any in stock, but you can somehow supply Italian gamestops with new wheels and clubsport pedals.
Armin also said that he wanted to see a video of my problem. I have no way of doing a video. I was willing to send you 400$ a year before the release of your wheel, and after all the delays I never cancelled. Don't you think with all of the trust I showed, that you should show me the same and just assume my shifter is broken and send me a new one as fast as possible.
thinking here is the wrong
thinking here is the wrong place to complain.
Where would the right place
Where would the right place be when you get no response either way?
When it comes to complaining
When it comes to complaining to fanatec this place is as good as anywhere else. At least in here you know they will at lest read this, I'm not even sure they get around to reading all of their support emails. If they did read them all they would know how big of a slap in the face it is to sell new products at gamestop, while they're customers who have already dealt with all the delays and problems have not been catered to when they're product fails. Those new shipments of wheel should be broke down and and have the wheels, shifters, and pedals sent to customers who have faulty products. How can they possibly say they do not have any items in stock after posting a thread saying they will be selling stuff at gamestop next week.
I have defended and praised fanatec to no end, but after seeing this thread I will no longer suggest they're products, or attempt to calm down customers that have been wronged by fanatec. I am really not upset that it was going to take awhile for me to get my shifter, but after seeing this, it drives me crazy that people have been waiting over a month for a replacement wheel, or shifter or pedal set.
You should not sell one more wheel until all of your broken products have been replaced. It's just a shame that companies take so much advantage when they have no competition to force them to have good customer service.
I see a lot of assumptions
I see a lot of assumptions being made here while you most probably don't know what's happening behind the scenes at Fanatec w.r.t. support and w.r.t. the GameStop business. Already judging Fanatec by what you think they did wrong, or even saying Fanatec made the wrong choice while you don't even know the ins and outs of the whole business and decisions being made is just wrong.
Do you really think Fanatec 'wrongs' its customers and refuses to support people who have problems? Do you really think a company and brand that is a global player is just selling products and then knowingly and on purpose is letting people stand in the cold, just for making cash and refusing to support its customers? That is just absurd to imply.
I can't tell if you are
I can't tell if you are being sarcastic or not.
In my business, if we are having trouble meeting orders, we hire more people to make the jobs move along quicker, at a loss to the business's profit. If we fill an order wrong, we either meet them in the middle on the price we charged them(if they will accept that) or we send one of our trucks or an outside trucking company to go and pick the load up as quick as possible and bring it back. We then make that customer who was wronged our priority and send them the next load we manufacture. We do not start making other loads of our product for customers who have orders, before we fix the problem we have caused with the disgruntled customer.
Do I think Fanatec is intentionally not fixing these problems quickly. no. Do I think Fanatec needs to put forth a much better effort yes. They need to impliment a much better website and system, but before they do that, they need to hire more people to take care of the overwhelming amount of emails they say they are receiving. All of the problems they are having could be fixed, but they are not willing to invest the money it would take to fix the customer service issue.
I don't think they are intentionally making customers wait up to a month or more to get email replies. But they haven't done anything yet to put an end to this problem they are having. So one could say that they are intentionally having bad customer service, because they haven't done anything to fix it.
Given Your information, I
Given Your information, I very well understand Your feelings.
Nevertheless my experiences with Armin were substantially different:
I had contact with him several times and he was very helpful and honest. I also belive his one apology for a late reply to be sincere. I´m from south Germany too, so I think I should know.
I further believe that there was no intent of delaying You or whatsoever. Given the fact that this forum is not full of disgruntled posts, Your case should be an exception. I´m also sure that Fanatec will make up for it. From what I´ve seen, Thomas and Armin have a very strong sense of accountability.
Given the fact, that Your post has not been deleted but replied further strengthens my faith esp. in Thomas.
I don´t want to bash, but with companies like Logitech or Nvidia, such threads usually get deleted kind of tracelessly, along with the posters´ accounts. Just remember the G25 deadzone issue or the Series 34 GPU substrate problems.
Also look at the menu bar. They are hiring. From my personal experience, it´s not easy to get really qualified IT staff in Germany. I´ve been in the business for about 10 years. You have to be very careful. There still are people that will brag about their IT expertise while looking for the anykey or searching for linux next to the lettuce in the grocery. Vegetable, no? You would´t want to have such a person represent Your company, would You? Also that would not really improve service ;) . One should also note, that hiring is easy, but letting people go, even if not qualified, is near impossible and takes a long time in Germany. (Which isn´t exactly helping the economy, yes).
Seeing that there was no followup for a few days, I hope that Your issue has been or is in the process of being dealt with.
Life is really not that
Life is really not that simple, Brian.
We are working hard and now we finally coming up with the emails and soon all open cases will be closed.
Please understand that we cannot take a brandnew wheel apart and destroy it to take out a shifter and send it to a customer who claims it is broken but without giving any evidence. In your case I have no reason not to trust you but I hope you understand that we cannot do that in general and I dont think any other company would do it.
I can give you more backgound but this is not the right place here.
I know this to be true. I
I know this to be true. I sent Armin my videos, and I got my wheel today! Thank Thomas, Armin, and the rest of Fanatec!
THIS is what I was missing out on...This wheel feels amazing. 100% different than the one I had before. Next buy for me is Clubsport pedals. But I want to wait for the red ones like I saw in that video.
Maybe, but all i know is I
Maybe, but all i know is I sent them a few emails, and now my wheel is on its way to my door today.
If we assume they plan to
If we assume they plan to put them into shops before sending out replacements. I think your in your right to complain in the public about it. But currently your not sure about it, So be carefull about assuming they are going to ignore the people with problems.
I don't think they are going
I don't think they are going to ignore us. I need a new wheel, and I was given a timeframe that my wheel may possibly be sent to me when they restock. Seems about the same time that they might go into gamestops. So I wouldn't worry until they are in the gamestops and nowhere to be found to the other customers. It's too early to judge what they are doing.
I just really would like to know the pricing that gamestop will place. I cant see the price getting any cheaper, but I cant see them staying exactly the same either. So we'll see.
Ignoring is exactly what
Ignoring is exactly what they are doing.
It has literally been one month to the day since I sent an email about my Clubsport Pedals, and the crosstalk between the pedals (the gas pedal all the way down triggers the brakes slightly, as well as prevents the clutch from being fully engaged).
I have yet to get ANY response from them.
It is a bit sickening to me that I am considering a $500 purchase to be a write off to a life lesson.
Great and ambitious idea, but the product has issues, and the support is beyond terrible. Yeah, if they ever respond to you, they will certainly try to fix the problem, but good freaking luck getting them to respond. :(
Still that is no proof that
Still that is no proof that they are ignoring you. How did you contact them? Perhaps your mail got caught in a spam filter. I do know that they are extremely busy, so they they could also be behind on their work schedule. Just because you are understandably peeved off about having to wait so long, doesn't mean that Fanatec has bad manners or doesn't care about its customers (the contrary of the latter is the truth, they don't feel well about their support backlog either).
I have had several dealings
I have had several dealings with them. All of them were through the same email.
First I didn't get my wireless dongle. It took over a week to get a response, then almost a month to get the dongle. Then it was defective when I got it. It took another 2+ weeks to get a response back, and then several more weeks to get the replacement.
Now the Club Sport Pedals, by far the biggest problem, I send an email, and it has now been over a month, and I have yet to even get a reply.
Are they specifically ignoring me? No, probably not, but they are ignoring the situation as a whole. Their support is horrible. Like many people I spent a very considerable amount of money looooooong before any product was even ready to ship. As if that wait wasn't bad enough, now having to deal with support that doesn't get back to you in weeks or even months is just not acceptable.
I haven't bombarded them with support requests, because at this point I feel written off, and I have just taken this as a $500 life lesson. It serves me right for giving a company so much money before there even was a product. If I had waited till there was an actual product, and gotten to see how things are... I would have never given them my money.
If they decide to get back to me and fix my broken CS pedals someday then great. Otherwise whatever. I will never be buying another thing from them, and they will never get a positive word of mouth out of me to anyone.
They are NOT ignoring us. I
They are NOT ignoring us. I have already received my tracking number for my replacement wheel today. Seems as though they are hooking us and gamestop italy up around the time they said: when they have stock.
Herzlichen Glückwunsch und
Herzlichen Glückwunsch und weiterhin viel Erfolg wünsche ich dem Team Fanatec.
Hoffe die Gamestops in Deutschland ziehen da nach.
Great! US gamestops next!
Great! US gamestops next! Then I can buy Clubsport pedals and have them the same day. WIll the prices go up?
With gamecrazy going out of business, Gamestop seems like the biggest game shop in the US now, and doesn't seem to have much competition. Eb games is owned by them I think, so it's the same thing.
Great, good luck :)
Great, good luck :)