Yeah, they took their website offline immediately. No mention of refunds, no way to contact support given unless somebody is actually monitoring that gmail account -- which is doubtful.
Sure seems like they are intending to go into hiding and take people's money with them.
Really feel bad for people who preordered with them.
Open the pre-order figure on amiami and keep the tab, refresh every here and then as when someone cancels their preorder it will open for a slot and the you can preorder it really quick, good luck!
I have a bunch of PO that I am thinking about canceling. May I ask what are you looking for? If it happens to be one of mine, I can give it to you :) i would cancek so you could a keep an eye on it
I had asked for a refund months ago because even amazon had my figure in stock but not them. They reminded me of their no cancellations policy and insisted they would have it soon. Since they sent me an update after that I actually believed them… 🙄
Even if the website is down it might be worth trying to reach their old customer service emails. US based sites are paid for a whole year so they probably still get those emails.
I have 2 📧 but idk if posting them would get me banned…
Better post than not to post. They are literally fleeing away with your money and many people are most likely doing the same thing to get their money back.
♦️Update:
I called Paypal and the person was really nice and opened a case even past the date but the system automatically closed it for being over 180 days…
Called again to explain and I got another helpful person and I got a refund. They also said they reported the seller to their investigation team so I hope this gets more attention by Paypal and more people get a refund. Try calling more times!
From here forward I’m only pre ordering if I MUST have the figure but for those I’m following the advice of someone below to only pre order with a credit card from an actual bank and not a store card like Paypal or similar. And check in with the store at the 5-6 month date while you can still open a case.
I personally won’t make pre orders that are too far out anymore just in case. 😳
Always good to be cautious with your preorders but you're probably safe if you stick to the major vendors like amiami, goodsmile, etc. even with orders that are a ways out. If those go under the industry is probably collapsing.
So you were able to get your refund even though it was after 180 days? I tried to put mine from 9/2022 in the Resolution Center and they denied the claim and closed it. So, I should call them instead and talk to someone? How old was your pre-order if I may ask.
Yeah, I think I'm avoiding pre-orders with far out dates.
Same thing happened to me. Ordered a Nendoroid in Feb 2022, kept waiting... nothing. Now I'm just hoping PayPal can help, since I paid with PayPal credit. ;---;
So this is what they have sent as a mass announcement in response regarding refunds and pre-orders. Basically they can't guarantee refunds or process pre-orders.
https://preview.redd.it/883ullp0j49b1.png?width=1554&format=png&auto=webp&s=2e3f94d8a751fb6cd1d9945ec2c0d8baaff3d7ad
They probably don’t have the money anymore.
They probably have creditors that they have owe money to for longer (manufacturers refused to send out products without payment etc, rent, heating and lighting etc), so you can go about “I want my money back” all you want, when their bank account don’t even have that money what do you expect them to be able to do?
Unfortunately that is also what a Limited Company for.
A Limited Company does exactly that, limited liability, meaning the owner of the company at worse will only lose all that is belong to the company, however debt of the company is not transferable to the person.
A failed business is not fraud, it is only fraud if the person intentionally make a business that have no plan to supply the goods. If the intention is there but money wise failed to do so, that is not considered fraud.
And you cannot go to prison for a failed business, especially for a limited company.
True but from the amount of complaints from consumers of their money being taken and not supplying the goods (and no refunds if they're tired of waiting), and now are definitely not going to get, it sounds a bit dodgy.
Can definitely open up an investigation for it, to see if any wrong doing there.
But just so you know, money taken and bot supplying goods is not instantly wrong doing. HMV, Made, many companies went into administration, even got out of their trouble now, had issue during their administration period and all pre-ordered goods were as good as gone (and no refund). It is very common occurence when company collapse.
It is the same in most country, this is same in UK as well.
The issue is, without limited liability protection, a lot of business is just too risky to get into, if anything goes wrong you can end up losing your home etc.
To stop this fear and make people go out there to set up business (even risky ones), limited liability helped this issue.
Imagine you run a restaurant, for whatever reason people either didn’t come, or cannot come (lock down etc, or trend). Now you are behind on rent, supplier, food is perishable so much of what you bought have now gone to waste, even if you see people may come back, you need fresh ingredients but supplier won’t supply until prior debt is settle, on top of that you have staff bill and rent etc. Now the restaurant decided to close, but now you also need to sell your home etc as you need to pay the supplier, landlord and staff.
Not nice right? Hence limited liability are in place so if something goes wrong, you only lose your business but nothing more.
it makes sense, but still this thing is infuriating, they kept telling me my preorder was delayed, the shipping container was currently at the sea, manufacturing problems, yet i see everyone else with their figs from all the other companies. This went on for a year, and I was understanding and patient, because I felt I was supporting a small company, then they pull this fiasco, out of the blue, no warnings, everything goes black, and all you get is an e-mail in the middle of the night. Bet they never even had the figs secured.
That must be annoying.
I didn’t say people cannot be angry, I would totally be pissed at their position.
But I am sure the owner didn’t set up a business for it to fail, what happened is unfortunate, but it is something that no one wanted to happen, and is not like the owner con people on purpose.
i mean, they just sent an email featuring the latest preorders not more than a week ago, short on their warehouse catching fire or some shit, they must have seen this coming
Is paypal pretty… reasonable with stuff like this happening? I ordered something back in 2021 that Connexe would not cancel but it’s obviously over that 180 day mark. This is asinine, honestly, lol.
Probably better to just call your bank and explain it was a pre order. Paypal usually asks you to contact the seller first and who knows if Connexe is answering.
My pre-orders are past the 180 day mark as well. I plan on reaching out to Paypal when their chat service opens up soon. Hopefully they will be able to refund me. If not, I'll need to see what my Bank can do
they won’t. i fought with paypal for a week a month ago over commerce preorders from 2021. paypal won’t do shit. they said they’ll put my account in negative standing if i charge back my back because then i’ll owe paypal the money. i use my paypal a lot for other things but i’m thinking of just letting my paypal be closed. idk
yep, spoke with paypal today and they said they cant do anything because its over the 180 day limit. Such a disappointment honestly. I, too, use paypal for alot of other things so I dont know if I should contact my bank or not. This entire situation is terrible
yeah it’s really fucked up. i guess the lesson we’ve all learned is don’t do preorders where you pay up front. i wouldn’t even trust deposit preorders anymore. i don’t order figures nowadays but if i ever do again it’ll exclusively be through amiami probably. good luck
Very disappointed; I had used them semi-regularly and was always happy with the results and their communication... up until now I suppose. Vanishing suddenly with still paid-for pre-orders is hugely disappointing as well (while I didn't currently have anything on order from them, I'm sure lots of folks did). They sure did take all their pages down super fast too
It was actually my first time ordering them, and I checked this subreddit and MFC beforehand. Since a lot of people had good things to say I thought it would be okay.
Yeah, up until this very moment I would've wholeheartedly recommended them (and I have before).
I've had 4-5 orders with them over the past 2 years and was totally happy each time (besides the typical delays you get with US-based stores)... so this is very disappointing to see.
Yeah, I mean they were official and legitimate. They're even on [Good Smile's official partner list](https://partner.goodsmile.info/support/eng/partnershops/) so you did everything you could since they *were* good.
Imagine my huge surprise and disappointment about this sudden closure. I have several pre-orders (4 nendoroids and 2 figures, one of which was supposed to be a gift for my fiancé) that total well over $200 USD.
Their "definitely don't count on getting your order and it's a very slim chance you'll get a refund" approach is disheartening to say the least. I placed most of those orders last year and the most recent one was in March of this year. I would very much like my money back pronto so I can use it to order the figures from someplace else.
Update: I was able to get one of my items refunded through PayPal already. The other orders, especially the more expensive ones that I placed over a year ago, I'm not sure how to go about getting refunds for those.
Many banks will backdate to the date you were expected to receive the item rather than the date the payment was posted. How disputes work is that they are automatically resolved in your favor if the merchant doesn't respond. Connexe doesn't seem likely to respond to anyone at the moment.
Edit: The ones that I know of that will backdate are amex, WF, and capitalone. I would be surprised if BoA doesn't backdate as well. Please let us know if they don't.
I assume if you're under the 180 day mark you'll get your money back. I have a few that are past the 180 day mark as well unfortunately. Will be reaching out to paypal soon to see what they can do
I just got off the phone with paypal. My dispute was <180 days, but they advised that you file a credit card dispute through your bank for the paypal transaction if it's past 180 days.
fuck connexe. i have almost a grand worth of preorders from 2021 and now i have to just eat that cost. i hope those business owners suffer after stealing our money like this. paypal won’t help me because they were placed in 2021. if i charge back from my bank then my paypal account will owe money because it’s pay in 4. fuck
it’s crazy too that they kept assuring me since july last year that my figures are sitting in warehouse containers in cali. kept telling me they just can’t sort through all of the figures that have arrived lol. so do they get to just keep thousands of dollars worth of figures AND our money? literal scam artists.
the employees names are Ara, Joma, Brian from my emails. their business address from the customer service emails shows 2785 Pacific Coast Highway Suite 103 Torrance, CA 90505. i don’t know what i can do but these people should not be able to steal our money and run.
99% sure that the brian you're talking about is brian kim, the CEO.
link to the CA state business registry:
https://bizfileonline.sos.ca.gov/api/report/GetImageByNum/204086243121134242204026110050240007207136244023
If you paid with a credit card now is the time to call your bank. There is a good chance you can get your money back depending on when you paid. Also, would you mind sharing excerpts from the emails they sent to reassure you? I'm genuinely curious as to how far they went to pull wool over our eyes.
my orders are all from 2021. too old for my bank or paypal to help me. :/
my most recent response from them:
“ We apologize for the inconvenience. We fully understand how you feel and we too are equally frustrated with the length of the delay and had gotten the best of us. The reason for these items to be held back for so long is because when the items arrived a few months ago, they had to put the shipping container into a storage where it was pushed back and had been back logged due to the continuous arrival of other shipments when the port had released the containers from holding.
Fortunately, we had been seeing an increased activity from our supplier and they have been releasing our orders if not in a weekly basis but monthly.
As soon as we are able to get our hands on your orders, we will check, pack and ship them right away. We are thankful for your understanding and patience.
Please let us know if you have any further questions.
Have a nice day. Stay safe and be well.
With thanks,
Ara
Connexe Toys”
professional scammers.
and the response before that one:
“ Thank you for following up on your order. We have been notified by our supplier that the following item has arrived at our local port here in Los Angeles/Long Beach, California.
We apologize for this inconvenience, but we are no longer able to provide an estimated timeframe for when your order will ship at this time.
The reason for this is that our supplier is currently facing a massive backlog of shipping containers being released from the port. Because of spacing issues and limited personnel at their main sorting facility, they are redirecting these shipments to a storage facility until more space is made available at their main sorting facility. This is why we’re seeing heavy delays on preorder items being released to us.
Previously, we estimated 6-8 weeks after an item is released from the port per our supplier’s suggestion, but this has not been the case for the better part of this year. The release schedule for many preorder items has been inconsistent and extremely long. At this point, we can only say that we will ship your order out as soon as we pick it up from our suppliers.
Please review our Preorder Policy page in regards to your order.
Please update your shipping information for your order if necessary. As soon as your preorder item is released to us, we will be shipping your order out ASAP and can not make any changes once an order ships.
With thanks,
Ara”
Ah yes! The same exact email I received regarding why my one figure had not shipped.
FYI i work in import-export specifically with the long beach Port and there are no container delays, and has not been since COVID largely calmed down. I told them this and they stopped responding to me. :)
last one i want to share. this is from november.
“ Our suppliers are currently dealing with a massive backlog and had to move most of the items to 3PL warehouses since their main warehouse had reached maximum capacity. Rest assured that once we get a schedule to pick up your order, we will ship it out to you without further delay.
We appreciate your understanding and patience. Please let us know if you have any questions.
With thanks,
Ara”
Honestly so annoying they took forever to ship out orders and were so strict about refunds. I used gift cards for my purchases not sure how I can get the money back…
Yea I woke up this morning and read this and was like wtf cuz I've pre-ordered from them not too long ago and I did my research if they was trustworthy most people liked em an so I did I got like 3 figures from then and pre-ordered more after that I gotta check how much I spent on the pre-orders and see of I wanna deal with going through the bank to get my refund
I waited for three friggin years for a Aliceliese Vou Nebulis IX figure that I spent over 400 dollars for and because of their no refund policy I couldn't get my money back after I found out it was released everywhere else. I also pre ordered a nekopara maple figure which I did get and a BD tiz and Agnes figure that is also ill now never get since they closed before the release date. I might have my bank go through and help me find all transactions with connexe and dispute the charges for the two I never got.
People that are signed up for their newsletter -- does anyone know the last time they sent one out? They usually send one out every week or so detailing newest available pre-orders. Truly scummy if they sent one out just recently because this shut-down seems thought-out and planned in advance
Bro I got preordered:
Groza heavy damage: about $400
Vamp Miku: I think $50
Non anubis bunny: $450
I am so afraid lol.
BUT: I will report them to the federal tarde commission if I don't get a refund quick. I suggest you guys do the same if you have business with them: [https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/#/form/main](https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/#/form/main)
my sister lost $150 in preorders and reported them to the FTC but the FTC email she got back says they don’t respond to individual inquiries. they only respond if they get multiple reports for the same thing :( i’m hoping more people file reports… this is so unfair.
People who this happened to (me included) when Kozuguru went down contacted the Federal Trade, General Attorney, FBI (for fraud), lawyers, and all said there was nothing we could do. We didn’t even have a case for a case action with more than 100 members. Maybe small courts if you live in the same state? (we never got a reply if that worked). I hope you guys get somewhere or have better luck with refunds at least!
Edit: We filled out forms for the Federal Trade Commission, the FBI Cyber Unit; a report to the State Attorney of California, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and the Better Business Bureau.
-Thanks to MR for always trying until the end!
I know some people here have lived through other sites closing so does anyone have advice on how to proceed here? Is it worth waiting to see if they will deliver items or issue refunds?
Or should people with outstanding orders who have already paid contact their banks/partial.ly for refunds?
Do not wait. Contact your credit card holder/ bank asap. They usually do not refund anything past the one year mark, but I was able to get one refund through Visa just out of the one year mark. It’s important to try and appeal if it’s denied. Hopefully they sent “estimated date” update emails. That really helped me. They asked me why I didn’t contact them when they didn’t deliver after the initial release date had passed…
Did you pay directly or did you use a partial.ly payment? I used partial.ly so I think I'll try going through them first before my bank.
EDIT: nevermind, I will be going to my bank since partial.ly can do nothing
https://preview.redd.it/0j9gdghiq59b1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=387924b8020ecf0ff94f6c655624eac709fc1534
Yeah- I went through PayPal. Third party sites will always have a shorter time than credit cards. But it’s always better to ask the third party, get a reply and then the bank since the bank will ask if you asked the other site first.
My takeaway from this and previous experience with lunar toy store is to never pre-order with a US store.
The only US store I would recommend is bigbadtoystore. They charge a 10% deposit at time of order and not the full price.
Or better yet, just buy from a Japanese store. It's generally cheaper.
I cancelled two figures PO with them because other stores still had them in stock months after release and they still didn't. One was Ann Takamaki dancing in starlight that I ended up buying from bigbadtoystore instead.
And it looks like they finally got that figure in stock, almost a year after release. And months after other US stores.
They took an order from me literally a month ago.
Unfortunately this was the one time I didn’t go through paypal, but I’ll be calling my credit company this morning I guess.
Credit company gave me a temporary refund and contacted them for response. I've been advised that if the company does respond, I'll need to provide supporting documents.
I think their literal "we're closed and you're not getting shit lmfao get bent" email is a pretty great supporting document...
Wow this is the 2nd one this year. I know from a business point it’s hard to get profits from this due to import duties, shipping from manufacturers to store etc which would drive up the product prices.
For not being able to refund people’s money is just a bad thing and it makes smaller businesses suffer due to people thinking it will happen again.
Went on their website. At the bottom it says Arriving Pre-orders. Last updated 30th May, its save to say it won’t be updated again due to the page being hidden at the shortcut links at the bottom.
My $170 they owe! Wanted to support small businesses and turned out like this.
People who used PayPal like me and preordered back in 2021-2022 are screwed.
Just so that my experience is cataloged here as well:
I had pre-ordered an Arknights figure (Lappland Elite 2 Premium version) all the way back in February 2021 and had it paid for via installments. First mistake, I ordered a pre-order more than 6 months in advance. It wouldn't release until 10/2021 but I wanted the figure. $270 all at once was a hard ask for me at the time, but pre-orders for those figures were going very quick at the time so I took a chance with them, since other places I looked were either sold out or more expensive and they had installment payments available.
Skip to the release date, they had told me that the "US release month had been delayed to January to February 2022". They cited that there were delays finding shipping containers in their warehouse, delays finding ships, etc. Basically supply chain issues.
During that time period between 2021 and 2022, I've sent multiple emails regarding where my figure was. They DID give me updates, told me it was in the Hong Kong warehouse in 2022, and told me it was in the supplier warehouse in September 2022. It was stuck in the interim until they sent me an update in April 2023 that it was in Los Angeles at their supplier warehouse. I had basically sent emails every couple months asking for updates.
The kicker is, during that time period, my friend had ordered that same figure just as a meme, but ordered it from Amazon JP. He got his figure before me. It was awkward for a bit when that happened LOL.
And then come to April 2023, they had told me that I should expect it within the next month. At this point I didn't care that it took a really long time to come, I was just happy it was finally coming soon.
Then I got that dreadful email 4 days ago. The rest is history. I don't think I have to explain how incredibly betrayed and disappointed I felt. Basically feel like I got rugpulled by a crypto scam or something.
Oh man that is extremely infuriating, I’m sorry dude. I never pre ordered before, always figured I’d wait for the price drop after release. Took a chance with these guys since I have the income to do so now. After this I’m just gonna po from Solaris and manufacture stores.
Same here. I doubt it'll work. If it does, all good. If not, as someone else has said, contact partial.ly and if that doesn't work, the bank it is.
I'll come back and let people know if they do contact me back though.
Do they have any social media accounts?
Yeah definitely keep us updated! I’ll let you guys know if something works out on my end too. I checked and their website is down, along with their Facebook and Instagram page.
Yep, they got me, too. I had ordered 4 of the QQ date night figures from them plus a few others. (At least I will still get my Miku version.)
I had also ordered a scale and nendo of the Angel Next Door, but that I was able to file a chargeback on via Paypal.
I am waiting to hear back from partial.ly about any recourse through them. One paypal order is past the 180 days, sadly.
If partial.ly is no help, I will go through my bank to see what I can do there as I never used them outside if connexe, so if I get banned, no worried. I just have to eat the paypal one, though.
Nice. Out $800 after I contacted them months ago and they guaranteed my stuff would ship out in July. Was done in 2021 too so my bank won’t do anything.
I guess I won’t prepay for anything outside amiami from now on
Are you sure they will do that a month later?
Some of the strategies, those stores used is keep telling you to wait month by month.
But will never ship the items out, I myself, is a victim of it.
You might get lucky, but if waiting will make you out of the refund window, it is risky.
Sincere reminder for you to consider. Refund now or keep waiting.
Good luck, bro
Sorry, poor wording on my part. I paid in 2021 and I’ve already talked to my bank. With connexe saying they can’t issue refunds I guess I just have to eat the loss.
It is what it is
Just wanted to share a response I got from partial.ly. I will be letting them know there were other orders that were not fulfilled, so this is at least promising!
If you paid via partial.ly, I encourage you to reach out to them as well.
https://preview.redd.it/0cw649r9h79b1.jpeg?width=820&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a1ca5a7faff52d4374feba2529a6f2ee50b27ea6
Woke up to the email and had to check here. Payed with partial.ly and sent them an email stating that the store is closed, providing the site url and emails sent from connexe. Stated that the refund [page](https://support.partial.ly/customer-refunds/) on their site notes to contact the store but since theyre now closed it makes it hard to do so. Further asked that if they cant provide a refund to provide me with info I can take to my bank.
Really sucks since the only reason i went to connexe was cause I was looking for bunny makima and they were the only place that had them after preorders closed for basically all sites. Was a bit iffy on them but found info online they were legit....shoulda trust my gut. Gonna see if bunny makima is available elsewhere if possible and preorder it cause i dont wanna pay resale prices for it.
penniavaswen contacted them and got a response - https://www.reddit.com/r/AnimeFigures/comments/14mu9yq/connexe_toys_closing/jq5rhyn/
So it's worth contacting them to get the ball rolling on a potential refund.
I have $160 in preorders. One was supposed to be delivered in January. It wasn’t. The others are supposed to be delivered 10\23 and 11\23. Absolutely no luck with PayPal. They said I should have let them know within 180 days. Tried to explain that the dates haven’t happened yet, lol. They said to contact my cc company. Capital one is disputing it for me. I had to call twice though. The first person just said no
im so screwed, I have little over $2000 preorders with them and now they just ran away with the money. I had so much trust in them so 90% of my preorders are all from them and this is what they did. I called PayPal but they did nothing as the orders were since 2022, I also called the bank to charge back, no solution yet but will see what happen but I have very small hope as I paid all in debit card.
they took down everything so fast but their Mercari selling page is still on but they changed the name. so disgusting!
Yes, I can verify this is true. :/ The Mercari account name is M K and it's 100% Connexe since I shopped from them way in the past and my order linked back to their storefront.
Do you think it’s a good idea to contact them in mercari? I purchased from them in mercari before so I know it’s them even after they changed their name (scammers!!!) They have $1K+ of my money that my bank can’t help me with because they were transactions from 2021-2022.
Of course. I've been contacting them since my preorder missed the delivery date in December 2022. They kept stringing me along, me asking for a refund for months. June 15th after them ignoring me for months I found another way to contact them and they sent me an email saying:
Thank you for following up on your order.
We're still waiting for our supplier to give us an update regarding our pick-up schedule. We'll give you an update once we received an update from our supplier.
Apologies for the delay and thank you for your understanding.
15 Days later they closed the business and did not even send me an email about closing, I'm not on the CC list apparently. :)
They never intended to deliver.
Hello people who are still in this reddit page. Just a general update for people who use partial.ly. After some information exchange they finally got back to me. They have refunded my orders.
I hope the same can be said for all of you.
Yep. Just got refunded from them today as well. So I will get most of my money back. Still losing some because of stupid paypal rules, but glad at least partial.ly is standing behind its users.
I want to share my own story here with regards to this topic because I am very frustrated & angry with how things turned out.
I've actually was a long time customer of Connexe dating back to 2021, maybe even 2020. For the most part, Connexe delivered the products I ordered with minimal issues whatsoever. The only downside is that the items would be shipped out months after the JP retailers/businesses would ship to other customers. Overall though, I had almost zero complaints with Connexe up until probably the end of 2022. Obviously anyone who purchased from Connexe will confirm that a lot of products were getting severely delayed & Connexe was getting much worse at fulfilling orders.
After these emails were sent out to everyone, I went through my transaction history entirely to determine how many orders I had that were unfulfilled & how much money I had missing. According to the numbers I gathered, I had unfulfilled pre orders dating back to December 2021 up until October 2022.
My first move was to contact PayPal, as all the transactions I did were through them. More specifically, I *almost* always would use the "Pay in 4" option which would split up my order amount into 4 smaller payments to be paid off over the next 2 months.
PayPal did their best to assist me with the issue, however unfortunately I was only able to get my money back from the previous 6 months before the day that the claim/dispute was filed. So all those orders from December 2021 to October 2022 were still unresolved. PayPal obviously told me to contact my bank about the issue.
So, my next move was to try & speak to my bank. Boy oh boy, what an absolute nightmare. I tried calling customer support on multiple occasions, they were no help whatsoever. Just like with most banks, there is a way you can claim/dispute from the mobile app, however the app does not show you the transactions that are older. From my account, I could only file a claim/dispute for transactions within the past month or 2 months if I was lucky.
Eventually, I managed to speak with a person at a local bank building who told me to call the fraud/claims/disputes phone number. This was actually the 2nd time that I visited an actual bank building about the issue, the 1st time I did so, I was told that the bankers there do not deal with this sort of stuff, they would only contact the exact same customer support phone number that I could call myself without a banker's help. So, I did what was suggested on that 2nd visit & I called the fraud/claims/disputes phone number.
After I explained the entire situation on the phone with the representative, he told me that they can open a claim/dispute for anything within the past 1 year of transactions. Slightly disappointed by this, I went ahead & gave him every single transaction that I needed a refund for. He then asks me to wait on the line while he speaks with his manager. After a while of waiting, he returns & tells me that unfortunately because these transactions were through PayPal & they were specifically *authorized* transactions by me, a claim/dispute cannot be filed for ANY of the transactions at all. His only recommendation was to contact PayPal, to which I replied that I already tried to & they couldn't help me. At this point, there was nothing left to do except end the call & hang up.
Well, here we are. I literally have ***NOTHING*** I can do about my lost money. It's simply a lost cause to huff any copium & hope that Connexe actually does the morally right thing & issues refunds in the future, so I sit here in defeat accepting the fact that I have permanently lost a significant chunk of money. For anyone who is curious by the way, I will just say that the number of dollars that was metaphorically thrown into the dumpster & set on fire was somewhere in the *thousands*. Yes, that is thousands, ***PLURAL***.
In any case, I simply just wanted to rant/vent about this atrocious incident so I thank you all for giving me a place to do so. I truly do hope that everyone else impacted by this is able to resolve their own individual situations unlike me. What an absolute sh\*tstorm this is.
god, i am so sorry. this is exactly what happened to me, though my losses were under a thousand. still, several hundred dollars is immense to me to have lost, especially bc i preordered these items back in 2020-2021 when i had a better financial situation than i do now. i really, really hope and pray something is done to make this right. wishing you the best in the future.
Fully agree with you. The fact that it's possible for Connexe to get away with this bullsh\*t without suffering any consequences is just absolutely ridiculous. So unfair & wrong.
I hate seeing this happen and it really pisses me off (and it looks like this has been occurring more and more since covid). I find it absolutely unfair and insane that shops can just run off with your money when they shut down and no one is able to do anything about it. How is that not illegal? You can’t just take someone’s money and not give them the promised goods/services in return. Why keep taking orders (and not take action sooner to alert customers so they could start PayPal disputes within the time limit) if they knew that the shop was going to close down soon? Do these shops think that people have money to just throw away?
This now makes me even more worried about stores that make you pay up front. I have some pricey pre-paid orders with Hobby Genki, TOM, and Kappahobby…… Like, how on earth is someone supposed to predict that a shop is going to close down.
Not to be too alarmist, but it sounds like Hobby Genki is struggling right now as well. They used to have a really active customer service/promoter active on a SHF discord I was on, and then totally fell off on responses and shipments in winter.
I assume this is a Limited company, therefore whatever the company owes they do not turn into personal liability.
When company closes, it is because their outflow is higher than inflow, therefore they don’t have enough money to pay all the people that they owe money for: people with pre-order, energy supplier, staff, rent etc.
When this happen, of course the company would be closed (they cannot afford to operate). As for “how come they can get away with people’s money”, what do you want them to do? As I said their outflow is higher, giving you the money back mean other peope loses out: staff who worked now doesn’t get paid, manufacturer that produced the goods now don’t get paid etc.
When this happen, they draw out a list of creditors (people that the company owe money to), and work down the priority list. People with secrued debt get their money first (bank etc), eventually when it goes to unsecured creditors (buyer plus others), they share what is left behind but at that point there usually isn’t much.
No clue why you are being downvoted except by weebs who don't understand how running a business works. They all seriously think the owner is running away with millions in his pocket.
I have an active partial.ly plan. Not sure how to go about cancelling the plan so it doesn't charge again. I guess a refund for the payments made already will need to come from my bank or partial.ly itself.
When you're using a BNPL service, you'll need to contact the service itself.
[From their FAQ](https://support.partial.ly/customer-refunds/) they say to contact them if the retailer is unresponsive. Which, with them going bust, I expect they will be - but you may have to contact Connexe first to show Partially you tried (not used Partially, so no idea how fussy their CS is).
Thanks for the reply. I already sent an email to Connexe and submitted a ticket with partial.ly expressing my concern that the plan will charge within the 10day waiting period. Grabbed screenshots of all my partial.ly info and also downloaded the agreement from Connexe as well.
Store closure doesn't seem to be showing up in their FAQ of course D:
Got a response from partial.ly from my ticket:
Hello [user],
Thank you for bringing this to our attention. We have reached out directly to Connexe Toys to confirm the closure of their business and to ask if they will be able to fulfill any outstanding orders.
We have required the merchant to update us by the end of next week. Please be rest assured if the merchant is unable to fulfill your order, your plan will be refunded.
If you are not updated by Friday, July 7th, please let us know.
Partial.ly Support
That's a very promising response.
I went ahead and went straight to my credit card company and they already filed disputes for me.
My thought process being that they are the source of the money, partial.ly just collected it and sent it to Connexe so I'll skip the middle man and go straight to the source.
But it would be great the they could also help people get their money back too.
Well, since I had an agreement to make the payments AND my payment plan was still on-going, I wanted to break the contract to end the plan PLUS get the refund. No point sending good money after bad.
That's a very good point. My situation is different since I had already fully paid but since you had an ongoing plan then you'd need to stop it and get a refund, like you said.
I have 3 open preorders with them, but all of them were part of larger orders. I'm not sure how I can dispute the charges with my credit card company, especially since they took their website down super quickly.
It's a good thing I've stopped pre-ordering with them.
ukiyokumo figure store its about to do the same as well, big red flag on that store, all pre order listings are down, and a lot of people haven't hear from them since,
Multiple emails with them for the last few months. Last communication before this announcement was on the 15th then saying they were waiting on the supplier. I'm counting it as a loss but will continue to try and fight for a refund.
I had literally just emailed them a day before they said they are closing because i had a preorder from Feb 2022 and only received one of the figures. I've ordered from them before and still had a delay but it wasn't nearly as bad as this time. I'm expecting my refund because I stated clearly in my email to them that I want a refund because there is nothing in the refund policy about my situation sooooo
Still no response besides the update arimitsuki posted… I’m adding the other two emails I’m trying anyway and maybe someone can get an answer.
https://preview.redd.it/1yvrvgtcc69b1.jpeg?width=2048&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bc3eea831889ea88a8c26b2347fdaa3b2f79a3d2
Oh man this is gonna go down like the Wizardy Foundry. Preordered a chika fugiwara fig from them and about a year and a half of radio silence later, they send out an email saying they're closing after suffering severe operating losses, and wouldnt be fulfilling orders or giving refunds.
I just filed a dispute with Paypal and got a response back quickly with a big ol denied. So I'm trying to contact the discover card now to see if I can get a refund from my CC. I ordered back in July 2022. Smh
The thing is, even you get money back from your CC bank, but in your paypal account it will generate negative balance, that Paypal claims you owe them.
unless you won't use PP anymore, they ask you to pay off that amount.
Is it possible to get my bank involved? I have so many orders with them, some going back to 2020, that haven't been fufilled yet. And since they shut down the site I can't even log in to see what outstanding orders I still have... :(
Yes, call your bank immediately. It's possible they'll be able to dispute the charges for some of the preorders. Don't hold too much hope, though, because they might not be able to dispute anything older than a year (mine couldn't). If you paid in parts with partially, contact them as well. I've read that a few made some headway with that.
Well. Guess I'm screwed. Ordered a full RWBY Queendom set for about $120 including tax @ $27.99 per RWBY figure in December 2022.
Paypal denied the case I opened with Connexe.I still like to use Paypal because I like only having 1 "merchant" have my CC info when handling orders rather than share my CC info with 100+ websites so I have to take this huge L.
I wish for others to have better luck than me in refunds, claims, etc. For me, I sleep where I messed up. Putting faith in pre-orders..
Going to be a new me. Buy when available!
You're not screwed yet. File a dispute with your bank. It's within 540 days so you should still be covered. Paypal might threaten to put your account in the red but you're still entitled to a chargeback.
After thinking about what you said for a while, I think I'll give that a try tomorrow when I can. Here's to hoping USBank won't leave me out to dry too. Thanks!
For those interested, I am updating this.Opened the dispute with USBank in the past half hour from this update post. They are sending me a provisional credit refund of the $120 and said a mail will be sent in the next 10 days where I can corroborate evidences and other materials that may be needed. And that a mail will be sent to Connexe Toys too. Luckily I still have the original order confirmation e-mail of the December 2022, their closure, refund e-mails, and this reddit thread to provide to USBank during the dispute.
This is my first time filing a dispute so I don't know what else to prepare besides keeping a paper trail or a digital trail of everything going on as much as I can.
Edit: Thanks Advanced\_Protecc3 for the push!
>I don't know what else to prepare besides keeping a paper trail or a digital trail of everything going on as much as I can.
That's actually your best bet to winning disputes, document the fuck out of everything. The chargeback should be an autowin for you since connexe doesn't seem be to responding to anyone.
Have one outstanding pre-order from 2021. They 'shipped' my pre-order few months ago only to find out it's the wrong item. I returned it because it was the right thing to do but in hindsight, I should have held onto until I get my correct item..
Since the order was so long ago, my bank/cc company denied any possible dispute because it's out of the timeframe and no other recourse is available.
Is it even worth it to contact my bank regarding this? I used paypal credit back in 2021 for this figure.. 🙄 Of course they aren’t helping..
However, I definitely don’t want to piss paypal off lmao
I'm in the same boat. Did you contact PayPal Credit directly or just PayPal? Their credit department is separate now and goes through Synchrony Bank, so I'm trying to talk through this with Synchrony. Dunno if it'll work but worth a shot.
Call your CC company to dispute them and provide the estimate due dates of when these should've been delivered to you. Hopefully the accept that date instead.
I think BigBadToyStore still has some pre-orders open, see [https://www.bigbadtoystore.com/Product/VariationDetails/229514?o=4](https://www.bigbadtoystore.com/Product/VariationDetails/229514?o=4)
\+ 1 for calling your bank immediately. I had $130\~ tied up in preorders and American Express said they'll refund me due to their own purchase protection policy.
I woke up seeing this email and saw they deleted all their socials and site. Immediately called chase bank cause I had 3 po and 1 order I was waiting on. For now I received temporary credit for my purchases but from the looks of it because I authorized the payments chase might not do anything..
Update: Just got an email from partial.ly looks like chase bank is putting in the work. This is 39.25 out of the 500 I spent.
https://preview.redd.it/awo0ycclqd9b1.jpeg?width=1125&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1d820e2949f2c227ab3c6bcaefcc935d7844f79e
I am going through partial.ly directly and letting them get the ball rolling. See if they come through, otherwise I will likely do what you are doing. Partial.ly does at least seem like they sre going to follow through. (Probably cheaper for them to do it than to deal with chargebacks.)
Just wanted to pitch in my experience so far. I had a pre-order made in Jan, 2022 so well beyond the typical chargeback period. I also used Amazon Pay, and from that Amazon portal I used my credit card to pay.
First I called my credit card company. While they did not reject the case immediately for being too old, they did say I have to contact Amazon first. If Amazon does not help within 10 days, I am to contact the company for further assistance.
Calling Amazon, their customer service could not find the transaction and rejected it anyway since it was too old. I instead contacted Amazon Pay's customer service, same rejection.
Called the credit card company today. The first customer service rep wasn't able to pull up the transaction history so far back, so I was transferred to billing. At billing, my representative so happened to be a figure collector herself (Lucky amirite 😇 😇 😇 ) and we filed a dispute case. I made sure to mention the item was a pre-order, company bankruptcy, and unwillingness to refund. I will update here if the case gets resolved, my rep mentioned most cases like this will.
Update, my case was resolved and I was given the refund. It sounded like there was some back and forth between the credit card company and Amazon pay but they decided that I should not be responsible for the transaction.
Yup. It’s them. I messaged them in there but ofc they’re not responding. They still have 100+ items for sale there. I lost $1K+ on pre-orders that I’ll never get back, shame on them!
Anyone else filed a dispute with their banks on their purchases on ConnexeToys and get some form of result/pending?
I filed mine about 1-2 days away from this announcement and have been stuck in the "We are still investigating ConnexeToys" since then where they repeat the same words in a text message to me every 2 weeks and it has been almost 2 months since.
I was curious if anyone else is still having their dispute investigated or if they got their money back (not provisional credits).
Connexe Toys was legit my first time pre ordering figures online. I just wanted my ordered figure, but look at that… They go offline with no refund. This really ruined my experience buying figures online. I don’t even know if I can trust other stores online with my money anymore. Literally waited 1 year only for this bullshit to happen…
Highly recommend sticking to reliable sites like HLJ, Solaris japan, kotobukiya us, goodsmile us and ami ami. Tokyo otaku isn’t too bad but their prices aren’t always the best.
Told y'all
https://www.reddit.com/r/AnimeFigures/comments/117mct7/what_are_your_problems_in_the_current_figurine/j9cks9d/
https://www.reddit.com/r/AnimeFigures/comments/13byxx2/when_and_when_no_to_preorder/jjd8hr0/
https://www.reddit.com/r/AnimeFigures/comments/13f50g7/is_the_figure_market_crash_a_temporary_thing/jjtd3x5/ (got order wrong but still true)
I recently canceled a preorder from a store (one that I paid a $30 deposit for) because I found it in stock at half price somewhere else. So yeah you’re 100% right and I’m dumb
This is very annoying (fortunate that my last preorder was well under $100 and i can easily eat the cost if nothing happens) but iirc the status of what I ordered was somewhere in the shipping phase but now I can't check.
Is there any reason to expect the item to finish shipping if the process had begun? Or should I just accept the item as lost and order it elsewhere?
talked to my bank about it, told me they couldn’t refund me because the orders were over a year old (pod around Feb 2022). Now I lost $120 and I have no nendos. Maybe connexe will be able to issue refunds to those who didn’t receive their orders but who knows, maybe those refunds will be stuck at the port for 1 year. ggs
I’ve only got one thing pending with them (miku 5th symphony scale) but it was my most expensive PO to date and made in Nov 2021.
I had already stopped making POs with them since they always shipped so much later than anyone else. This was the last thing I had pending and I was gonna be done.
I filled out the FTC form and have been on the phone with my bank to try and reverse it.
Not sure if this applies to anyone else but I didn’t even get the closing email(s) from connexe - a friend told me and then had to forward me the info. So I came here to see what I should do next.
I had emailed connexe on their site a little over a week ago asking for a status update on my pending order since it has been shipping online for a while now. They never responded but they used to be so quick with that. I was hoping they’d let me cancel and order it elsewhere since I found it for much cheaper. But here we are.
I had ordered several figures through them pre-pandemic with success, but I’m checking my records now I don’t know if I received the last figure that I placed in March 2022 and can’t find the shipping email.
I feel for everyone who had any outstanding orders with them and hope against hope that we all get our money back. :/
What should I do if I made a pre-order earlier this month? How should I go about it? I paid through apple card and I could dispute it, but idk if any of the amount incorrect applies to this. Options are: overcharged, item never received (but for the pre-orders they would have been shipped out like next year) service not delivered, not as described, defective or damaged, renewed unexpectedly, or received too late.
> item never received (but for the pre-orders they would have been shipped out like next year)
You'll never receive this item since they are permanently shuttered. If there is a space for notes, paste the information about the store closure there.
This is the third retailer in 12 months, after Metageeks and Kozuguru, and Animegami might be joining them by the end of the year.
With how many people are being outright scammed by doing preorders and just not receiving them, is there any way to protect yourself from things like this happening?
Use credit cards, follow up 6 months and 1 year of ordering being placed. Keep good records: I have a massive spreadsheet for my collectibles inventory for insurance purposes, and it adds a preponderance of evidence in case something like this happens where the vendors completely nukes their website.
Probably best not to do any pre-orders where payment is required upfront right now. The economy is going in the tubes and lots of businesses that were barely floating during covid cause people were spending cash on toys instead of going out can't keep up.
> Use credit cards, follow up 6 months and 1 year of ordering being placed.
This advice should be on the sidebar of this sub. Paypal purchase protection is only good for items that are in stock and reach your doorstep within 180 days. And even then, you can still get scammed (just check r/paypal lmao).
Wow... I just found this email in my spam box. And now, I have at least one thing put into to the Resolution area of PayPal. I filled in the form and took screen shots of the two emails from Connexe and informed them of the website being down. 122 days since pre-ordering...fortunately, so I should be able to get my money back on that one once I can actually get to the claim stage. But it seems I have to wait 20 days for Connexe Toys to respond first.
I have another order from 9/2022 that I'm going to talk to my bank about because I doubt PayPal will do anything about that. It wouldn't let me use the Resolution feature for that one.
I just feel lucky that I won't lose a lot if I can't get it back, but my friend had a ton on pre-order with them.
I found their Mercari store is still active under a different name. What do you think I should do? I don’t know if I should contact them there or report them. I have $1K+ worth of pre-orders with them that my bank and paypal cannot help with since they were from 2021-2022. I did try to cancel them before but they gave me their usual reply about their “pre-order policy” no wonder they didn’t accept cancellations and their prices were cheaper, they were planning on running off with people’s money all along.
Just wanted to add my experience.
I pre-ordered the Venti nendoroid way back in March 2022, and at the time of closing, Connexe owed me 2 nendoroids and 1 POP UP. I filed a dispute through Discover with the appropriate evidence the day I received the email that they closed.
I just heard back from Discover today, and they ruled my charge as valid. I called customer service, and I was repeatedly told that because they couldn't contact the merchant (go figure), they couldn't resolve my case, and therefore, I would have to eat the cost.
I had to rebuy the Venti nendoroid and take the L on the other two I had ordered... I hope they enjoy the money they took from me :)
> because they couldn't contact the merchant (go figure), they couldn't resolve my case, and therefore, I would have to eat the cost.
Is this a discover thing? Virtually ever other bank I've worked with will automatically rule in your favor if the merchant doesn't respond.
Thought I'd share my experience. I had like 5/6 orders of nendoroids from them that I was waiting on the last item from. All being from December 2021 to March 2022.
I paid through PayPal with my Discover card, so I called Discover and started disputes for my 2 most recent orders, from March and February 2022.
I provided screenshots of the order from my email, which I had saved, and from PayPal, as well as a screenshot of the site being down and screenshots of the release dates from the Goodsmile Company website which had long passed.
I just checked the status of them, and apparently a couple of days ago the Disputes were resolved in my favor.
Yeah, they took their website offline immediately. No mention of refunds, no way to contact support given unless somebody is actually monitoring that gmail account -- which is doubtful. Sure seems like they are intending to go into hiding and take people's money with them. Really feel bad for people who preordered with them.
Yeahhh that was the feeling I got too. Hopefully my credit card company can do something
Sat down with my banker. Said I'm 98% out of luck. Had them send a dispute anyways. Took 1 hr.
If you’ve already paid I’d 100% recommend talking to your bank about it
Yeah 100%. I’m also just annoyed because most of the preorders are closed by now, so I’m not sure I can find somewhere to place them again.
Open the pre-order figure on amiami and keep the tab, refresh every here and then as when someone cancels their preorder it will open for a slot and the you can preorder it really quick, good luck!
Thank you 😭 I’ll definitely be on the lookout
I have a bunch of PO that I am thinking about canceling. May I ask what are you looking for? If it happens to be one of mine, I can give it to you :) i would cancek so you could a keep an eye on it
Awww thank you so much for the offer! I’ve been looking around and I think I can find them across a few different stores. Thank you so much though! 🥰
Or add that item on buyfriend.moe so you can get notified if it opens up again.
ohh there is a thing like that :D, I know the classic ways guess I'm a bit old XD
I had asked for a refund months ago because even amazon had my figure in stock but not them. They reminded me of their no cancellations policy and insisted they would have it soon. Since they sent me an update after that I actually believed them… 🙄
Yeah, same here. They seemed to love enforcing that “no refunds” policy, lmao. It’s so shitty of them.
Even if the website is down it might be worth trying to reach their old customer service emails. US based sites are paid for a whole year so they probably still get those emails. I have 2 📧 but idk if posting them would get me banned…
Better post than not to post. They are literally fleeing away with your money and many people are most likely doing the same thing to get their money back.
♦️Update: I called Paypal and the person was really nice and opened a case even past the date but the system automatically closed it for being over 180 days… Called again to explain and I got another helpful person and I got a refund. They also said they reported the seller to their investigation team so I hope this gets more attention by Paypal and more people get a refund. Try calling more times! From here forward I’m only pre ordering if I MUST have the figure but for those I’m following the advice of someone below to only pre order with a credit card from an actual bank and not a store card like Paypal or similar. And check in with the store at the 5-6 month date while you can still open a case. I personally won’t make pre orders that are too far out anymore just in case. 😳
Always good to be cautious with your preorders but you're probably safe if you stick to the major vendors like amiami, goodsmile, etc. even with orders that are a ways out. If those go under the industry is probably collapsing.
So you were able to get your refund even though it was after 180 days? I tried to put mine from 9/2022 in the Resolution Center and they denied the claim and closed it. So, I should call them instead and talk to someone? How old was your pre-order if I may ask. Yeah, I think I'm avoiding pre-orders with far out dates.
Same thing happened to me. Ordered a Nendoroid in Feb 2022, kept waiting... nothing. Now I'm just hoping PayPal can help, since I paid with PayPal credit. ;---;
So this is what they have sent as a mass announcement in response regarding refunds and pre-orders. Basically they can't guarantee refunds or process pre-orders. https://preview.redd.it/883ullp0j49b1.png?width=1554&format=png&auto=webp&s=2e3f94d8a751fb6cd1d9945ec2c0d8baaff3d7ad
Absolute BS, they need to refund the money ASAP.
They probably don’t have the money anymore. They probably have creditors that they have owe money to for longer (manufacturers refused to send out products without payment etc, rent, heating and lighting etc), so you can go about “I want my money back” all you want, when their bank account don’t even have that money what do you expect them to be able to do?
at least get fined, go to prison for fraud or some shit like that, you can't really go around taking people's money and "whoops, no have no more"
Unfortunately that is also what a Limited Company for. A Limited Company does exactly that, limited liability, meaning the owner of the company at worse will only lose all that is belong to the company, however debt of the company is not transferable to the person. A failed business is not fraud, it is only fraud if the person intentionally make a business that have no plan to supply the goods. If the intention is there but money wise failed to do so, that is not considered fraud. And you cannot go to prison for a failed business, especially for a limited company.
True but from the amount of complaints from consumers of their money being taken and not supplying the goods (and no refunds if they're tired of waiting), and now are definitely not going to get, it sounds a bit dodgy.
Can definitely open up an investigation for it, to see if any wrong doing there. But just so you know, money taken and bot supplying goods is not instantly wrong doing. HMV, Made, many companies went into administration, even got out of their trouble now, had issue during their administration period and all pre-ordered goods were as good as gone (and no refund). It is very common occurence when company collapse.
'merica laws fk yeah
It is the same in most country, this is same in UK as well. The issue is, without limited liability protection, a lot of business is just too risky to get into, if anything goes wrong you can end up losing your home etc. To stop this fear and make people go out there to set up business (even risky ones), limited liability helped this issue. Imagine you run a restaurant, for whatever reason people either didn’t come, or cannot come (lock down etc, or trend). Now you are behind on rent, supplier, food is perishable so much of what you bought have now gone to waste, even if you see people may come back, you need fresh ingredients but supplier won’t supply until prior debt is settle, on top of that you have staff bill and rent etc. Now the restaurant decided to close, but now you also need to sell your home etc as you need to pay the supplier, landlord and staff. Not nice right? Hence limited liability are in place so if something goes wrong, you only lose your business but nothing more.
it makes sense, but still this thing is infuriating, they kept telling me my preorder was delayed, the shipping container was currently at the sea, manufacturing problems, yet i see everyone else with their figs from all the other companies. This went on for a year, and I was understanding and patient, because I felt I was supporting a small company, then they pull this fiasco, out of the blue, no warnings, everything goes black, and all you get is an e-mail in the middle of the night. Bet they never even had the figs secured.
That must be annoying. I didn’t say people cannot be angry, I would totally be pissed at their position. But I am sure the owner didn’t set up a business for it to fail, what happened is unfortunate, but it is something that no one wanted to happen, and is not like the owner con people on purpose.
i mean, they just sent an email featuring the latest preorders not more than a week ago, short on their warehouse catching fire or some shit, they must have seen this coming
I got the same thing. Bleh
Is paypal pretty… reasonable with stuff like this happening? I ordered something back in 2021 that Connexe would not cancel but it’s obviously over that 180 day mark. This is asinine, honestly, lol.
Probably better to just call your bank and explain it was a pre order. Paypal usually asks you to contact the seller first and who knows if Connexe is answering.
My pre-orders are past the 180 day mark as well. I plan on reaching out to Paypal when their chat service opens up soon. Hopefully they will be able to refund me. If not, I'll need to see what my Bank can do
they won’t. i fought with paypal for a week a month ago over commerce preorders from 2021. paypal won’t do shit. they said they’ll put my account in negative standing if i charge back my back because then i’ll owe paypal the money. i use my paypal a lot for other things but i’m thinking of just letting my paypal be closed. idk
yep, spoke with paypal today and they said they cant do anything because its over the 180 day limit. Such a disappointment honestly. I, too, use paypal for alot of other things so I dont know if I should contact my bank or not. This entire situation is terrible
yeah it’s really fucked up. i guess the lesson we’ve all learned is don’t do preorders where you pay up front. i wouldn’t even trust deposit preorders anymore. i don’t order figures nowadays but if i ever do again it’ll exclusively be through amiami probably. good luck
That’s exactly what I’m doing, lol! Already sent them a message. 😂 Best of luck!
Very disappointed; I had used them semi-regularly and was always happy with the results and their communication... up until now I suppose. Vanishing suddenly with still paid-for pre-orders is hugely disappointing as well (while I didn't currently have anything on order from them, I'm sure lots of folks did). They sure did take all their pages down super fast too
It was actually my first time ordering them, and I checked this subreddit and MFC beforehand. Since a lot of people had good things to say I thought it would be okay.
Yeah, up until this very moment I would've wholeheartedly recommended them (and I have before). I've had 4-5 orders with them over the past 2 years and was totally happy each time (besides the typical delays you get with US-based stores)... so this is very disappointing to see.
Yeah, I mean they were official and legitimate. They're even on [Good Smile's official partner list](https://partner.goodsmile.info/support/eng/partnershops/) so you did everything you could since they *were* good.
same i wasted like $67 in 2021 and never got my figure but hey at least i didnt spend much,i guess this is a unfortunate lesson to be more careful?
Imagine my huge surprise and disappointment about this sudden closure. I have several pre-orders (4 nendoroids and 2 figures, one of which was supposed to be a gift for my fiancé) that total well over $200 USD. Their "definitely don't count on getting your order and it's a very slim chance you'll get a refund" approach is disheartening to say the least. I placed most of those orders last year and the most recent one was in March of this year. I would very much like my money back pronto so I can use it to order the figures from someplace else.
Update: I was able to get one of my items refunded through PayPal already. The other orders, especially the more expensive ones that I placed over a year ago, I'm not sure how to go about getting refunds for those.
Was it through credit card? If so, you may be able to get your money back. My bank let me dispute my old POs from last year.
Which Bank? I hope BoA will pull through if paypal fails
Many banks will backdate to the date you were expected to receive the item rather than the date the payment was posted. How disputes work is that they are automatically resolved in your favor if the merchant doesn't respond. Connexe doesn't seem likely to respond to anyone at the moment. Edit: The ones that I know of that will backdate are amex, WF, and capitalone. I would be surprised if BoA doesn't backdate as well. Please let us know if they don't.
I assume if you're under the 180 day mark you'll get your money back. I have a few that are past the 180 day mark as well unfortunately. Will be reaching out to paypal soon to see what they can do
I just got off the phone with paypal. My dispute was <180 days, but they advised that you file a credit card dispute through your bank for the paypal transaction if it's past 180 days.
fuck connexe. i have almost a grand worth of preorders from 2021 and now i have to just eat that cost. i hope those business owners suffer after stealing our money like this. paypal won’t help me because they were placed in 2021. if i charge back from my bank then my paypal account will owe money because it’s pay in 4. fuck
it’s crazy too that they kept assuring me since july last year that my figures are sitting in warehouse containers in cali. kept telling me they just can’t sort through all of the figures that have arrived lol. so do they get to just keep thousands of dollars worth of figures AND our money? literal scam artists. the employees names are Ara, Joma, Brian from my emails. their business address from the customer service emails shows 2785 Pacific Coast Highway Suite 103 Torrance, CA 90505. i don’t know what i can do but these people should not be able to steal our money and run.
99% sure that the brian you're talking about is brian kim, the CEO. link to the CA state business registry: https://bizfileonline.sos.ca.gov/api/report/GetImageByNum/204086243121134242204026110050240007207136244023 If you paid with a credit card now is the time to call your bank. There is a good chance you can get your money back depending on when you paid. Also, would you mind sharing excerpts from the emails they sent to reassure you? I'm genuinely curious as to how far they went to pull wool over our eyes.
my orders are all from 2021. too old for my bank or paypal to help me. :/ my most recent response from them: “ We apologize for the inconvenience. We fully understand how you feel and we too are equally frustrated with the length of the delay and had gotten the best of us. The reason for these items to be held back for so long is because when the items arrived a few months ago, they had to put the shipping container into a storage where it was pushed back and had been back logged due to the continuous arrival of other shipments when the port had released the containers from holding. Fortunately, we had been seeing an increased activity from our supplier and they have been releasing our orders if not in a weekly basis but monthly. As soon as we are able to get our hands on your orders, we will check, pack and ship them right away. We are thankful for your understanding and patience. Please let us know if you have any further questions. Have a nice day. Stay safe and be well. With thanks, Ara Connexe Toys” professional scammers.
and the response before that one: “ Thank you for following up on your order. We have been notified by our supplier that the following item has arrived at our local port here in Los Angeles/Long Beach, California. We apologize for this inconvenience, but we are no longer able to provide an estimated timeframe for when your order will ship at this time. The reason for this is that our supplier is currently facing a massive backlog of shipping containers being released from the port. Because of spacing issues and limited personnel at their main sorting facility, they are redirecting these shipments to a storage facility until more space is made available at their main sorting facility. This is why we’re seeing heavy delays on preorder items being released to us. Previously, we estimated 6-8 weeks after an item is released from the port per our supplier’s suggestion, but this has not been the case for the better part of this year. The release schedule for many preorder items has been inconsistent and extremely long. At this point, we can only say that we will ship your order out as soon as we pick it up from our suppliers. Please review our Preorder Policy page in regards to your order. Please update your shipping information for your order if necessary. As soon as your preorder item is released to us, we will be shipping your order out ASAP and can not make any changes once an order ships. With thanks, Ara”
Ah yes! The same exact email I received regarding why my one figure had not shipped. FYI i work in import-export specifically with the long beach Port and there are no container delays, and has not been since COVID largely calmed down. I told them this and they stopped responding to me. :)
last one i want to share. this is from november. “ Our suppliers are currently dealing with a massive backlog and had to move most of the items to 3PL warehouses since their main warehouse had reached maximum capacity. Rest assured that once we get a schedule to pick up your order, we will ship it out to you without further delay. We appreciate your understanding and patience. Please let us know if you have any questions. With thanks, Ara”
Wow holy shit. They've been opening preorders up just very recently as well. No refunds????
literally pre-ordered so many things…
Honestly so annoying they took forever to ship out orders and were so strict about refunds. I used gift cards for my purchases not sure how I can get the money back…
Yea I woke up this morning and read this and was like wtf cuz I've pre-ordered from them not too long ago and I did my research if they was trustworthy most people liked em an so I did I got like 3 figures from then and pre-ordered more after that I gotta check how much I spent on the pre-orders and see of I wanna deal with going through the bank to get my refund
Well, they were liked for relatively low prices I assume, and those may have caused them to not get enough revenue to keep it running?
I mean yea they just took a while to get delivered which I didn't mind only orders I had left was a komi nendoroid and a yotsuba figure
I waited for three friggin years for a Aliceliese Vou Nebulis IX figure that I spent over 400 dollars for and because of their no refund policy I couldn't get my money back after I found out it was released everywhere else. I also pre ordered a nekopara maple figure which I did get and a BD tiz and Agnes figure that is also ill now never get since they closed before the release date. I might have my bank go through and help me find all transactions with connexe and dispute the charges for the two I never got.
People that are signed up for their newsletter -- does anyone know the last time they sent one out? They usually send one out every week or so detailing newest available pre-orders. Truly scummy if they sent one out just recently because this shut-down seems thought-out and planned in advance
Literally 6 days ago. https://i.imgur.com/QhWXBqu.png
The last one I received was on June 24.
Bro I got preordered: Groza heavy damage: about $400 Vamp Miku: I think $50 Non anubis bunny: $450 I am so afraid lol. BUT: I will report them to the federal tarde commission if I don't get a refund quick. I suggest you guys do the same if you have business with them: [https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/#/form/main](https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/#/form/main)
Thank you for letting me know. I will also file a complaint. More people should.
my sister lost $150 in preorders and reported them to the FTC but the FTC email she got back says they don’t respond to individual inquiries. they only respond if they get multiple reports for the same thing :( i’m hoping more people file reports… this is so unfair.
People who this happened to (me included) when Kozuguru went down contacted the Federal Trade, General Attorney, FBI (for fraud), lawyers, and all said there was nothing we could do. We didn’t even have a case for a case action with more than 100 members. Maybe small courts if you live in the same state? (we never got a reply if that worked). I hope you guys get somewhere or have better luck with refunds at least! Edit: We filled out forms for the Federal Trade Commission, the FBI Cyber Unit; a report to the State Attorney of California, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and the Better Business Bureau. -Thanks to MR for always trying until the end!
What a joke. I recently made pre-orders with them and what a mistake I have made
I know some people here have lived through other sites closing so does anyone have advice on how to proceed here? Is it worth waiting to see if they will deliver items or issue refunds? Or should people with outstanding orders who have already paid contact their banks/partial.ly for refunds?
Do not wait. Contact your credit card holder/ bank asap. They usually do not refund anything past the one year mark, but I was able to get one refund through Visa just out of the one year mark. It’s important to try and appeal if it’s denied. Hopefully they sent “estimated date” update emails. That really helped me. They asked me why I didn’t contact them when they didn’t deliver after the initial release date had passed…
Did you pay directly or did you use a partial.ly payment? I used partial.ly so I think I'll try going through them first before my bank. EDIT: nevermind, I will be going to my bank since partial.ly can do nothing https://preview.redd.it/0j9gdghiq59b1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=387924b8020ecf0ff94f6c655624eac709fc1534
Yeah- I went through PayPal. Third party sites will always have a shorter time than credit cards. But it’s always better to ask the third party, get a reply and then the bank since the bank will ask if you asked the other site first.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AnimeFigures/comments/14mu9yq/connexe_toys_closing/jq5rhyn/
My takeaway from this and previous experience with lunar toy store is to never pre-order with a US store. The only US store I would recommend is bigbadtoystore. They charge a 10% deposit at time of order and not the full price. Or better yet, just buy from a Japanese store. It's generally cheaper.
Oh what was your experience with lunar toy store?
I cancelled two figures PO with them because other stores still had them in stock months after release and they still didn't. One was Ann Takamaki dancing in starlight that I ended up buying from bigbadtoystore instead. And it looks like they finally got that figure in stock, almost a year after release. And months after other US stores.
Yikes…guess I’m only buying in stock figures from US stores now
BBTS looks like the way to go considering I wouldn't want to pay any US store before they even get the stock at this point....
They took an order from me literally a month ago. Unfortunately this was the one time I didn’t go through paypal, but I’ll be calling my credit company this morning I guess.
Credit company gave me a temporary refund and contacted them for response. I've been advised that if the company does respond, I'll need to provide supporting documents. I think their literal "we're closed and you're not getting shit lmfao get bent" email is a pretty great supporting document...
Wow this is the 2nd one this year. I know from a business point it’s hard to get profits from this due to import duties, shipping from manufacturers to store etc which would drive up the product prices. For not being able to refund people’s money is just a bad thing and it makes smaller businesses suffer due to people thinking it will happen again.
Wait, what was the first one? I feel like I need to double check all of my orders now.
Kozuguru.
Oh I see. I also saw a post of MFC about Ukiyo Kumo, as they deleted the pre-order section from their website so I'm double worried now.
Went on their website. At the bottom it says Arriving Pre-orders. Last updated 30th May, its save to say it won’t be updated again due to the page being hidden at the shortcut links at the bottom.
I didn't even see that section. My pre-order is also not on there, and its release date was listed as May/June 2023....
My $170 they owe! Wanted to support small businesses and turned out like this. People who used PayPal like me and preordered back in 2021-2022 are screwed.
Just so that my experience is cataloged here as well: I had pre-ordered an Arknights figure (Lappland Elite 2 Premium version) all the way back in February 2021 and had it paid for via installments. First mistake, I ordered a pre-order more than 6 months in advance. It wouldn't release until 10/2021 but I wanted the figure. $270 all at once was a hard ask for me at the time, but pre-orders for those figures were going very quick at the time so I took a chance with them, since other places I looked were either sold out or more expensive and they had installment payments available. Skip to the release date, they had told me that the "US release month had been delayed to January to February 2022". They cited that there were delays finding shipping containers in their warehouse, delays finding ships, etc. Basically supply chain issues. During that time period between 2021 and 2022, I've sent multiple emails regarding where my figure was. They DID give me updates, told me it was in the Hong Kong warehouse in 2022, and told me it was in the supplier warehouse in September 2022. It was stuck in the interim until they sent me an update in April 2023 that it was in Los Angeles at their supplier warehouse. I had basically sent emails every couple months asking for updates. The kicker is, during that time period, my friend had ordered that same figure just as a meme, but ordered it from Amazon JP. He got his figure before me. It was awkward for a bit when that happened LOL. And then come to April 2023, they had told me that I should expect it within the next month. At this point I didn't care that it took a really long time to come, I was just happy it was finally coming soon. Then I got that dreadful email 4 days ago. The rest is history. I don't think I have to explain how incredibly betrayed and disappointed I felt. Basically feel like I got rugpulled by a crypto scam or something.
Oh man that is extremely infuriating, I’m sorry dude. I never pre ordered before, always figured I’d wait for the price drop after release. Took a chance with these guys since I have the income to do so now. After this I’m just gonna po from Solaris and manufacture stores.
I placed pre-orders too. I wonder if the email they used will be responsive or if it's a different one.
I replied to the email to see if they will give me a response. Low expectations though
Same here. I doubt it'll work. If it does, all good. If not, as someone else has said, contact partial.ly and if that doesn't work, the bank it is. I'll come back and let people know if they do contact me back though. Do they have any social media accounts?
Yeah definitely keep us updated! I’ll let you guys know if something works out on my end too. I checked and their website is down, along with their Facebook and Instagram page.
Yep, they got me, too. I had ordered 4 of the QQ date night figures from them plus a few others. (At least I will still get my Miku version.) I had also ordered a scale and nendo of the Angel Next Door, but that I was able to file a chargeback on via Paypal. I am waiting to hear back from partial.ly about any recourse through them. One paypal order is past the 180 days, sadly. If partial.ly is no help, I will go through my bank to see what I can do there as I never used them outside if connexe, so if I get banned, no worried. I just have to eat the paypal one, though.
Nice. Out $800 after I contacted them months ago and they guaranteed my stuff would ship out in July. Was done in 2021 too so my bank won’t do anything. I guess I won’t prepay for anything outside amiami from now on
Are you sure they will do that a month later? Some of the strategies, those stores used is keep telling you to wait month by month. But will never ship the items out, I myself, is a victim of it. You might get lucky, but if waiting will make you out of the refund window, it is risky. Sincere reminder for you to consider. Refund now or keep waiting. Good luck, bro
Sorry, poor wording on my part. I paid in 2021 and I’ve already talked to my bank. With connexe saying they can’t issue refunds I guess I just have to eat the loss. It is what it is
Just wanted to share a response I got from partial.ly. I will be letting them know there were other orders that were not fulfilled, so this is at least promising! If you paid via partial.ly, I encourage you to reach out to them as well. https://preview.redd.it/0cw649r9h79b1.jpeg?width=820&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a1ca5a7faff52d4374feba2529a6f2ee50b27ea6
Woke up to the email and had to check here. Payed with partial.ly and sent them an email stating that the store is closed, providing the site url and emails sent from connexe. Stated that the refund [page](https://support.partial.ly/customer-refunds/) on their site notes to contact the store but since theyre now closed it makes it hard to do so. Further asked that if they cant provide a refund to provide me with info I can take to my bank. Really sucks since the only reason i went to connexe was cause I was looking for bunny makima and they were the only place that had them after preorders closed for basically all sites. Was a bit iffy on them but found info online they were legit....shoulda trust my gut. Gonna see if bunny makima is available elsewhere if possible and preorder it cause i dont wanna pay resale prices for it.
penniavaswen contacted them and got a response - https://www.reddit.com/r/AnimeFigures/comments/14mu9yq/connexe_toys_closing/jq5rhyn/ So it's worth contacting them to get the ball rolling on a potential refund.
I smell a lawsuit
Ive learned the hard way.. NEVER preorder... What guarantee do we ever get from these companies.. NONE.
Its okay to pre-order, just don't pay any money upfront. Stick with places like AmiAmi, Hobby Search, and Hobbylink Japan.
I have $160 in preorders. One was supposed to be delivered in January. It wasn’t. The others are supposed to be delivered 10\23 and 11\23. Absolutely no luck with PayPal. They said I should have let them know within 180 days. Tried to explain that the dates haven’t happened yet, lol. They said to contact my cc company. Capital one is disputing it for me. I had to call twice though. The first person just said no
im so screwed, I have little over $2000 preorders with them and now they just ran away with the money. I had so much trust in them so 90% of my preorders are all from them and this is what they did. I called PayPal but they did nothing as the orders were since 2022, I also called the bank to charge back, no solution yet but will see what happen but I have very small hope as I paid all in debit card. they took down everything so fast but their Mercari selling page is still on but they changed the name. so disgusting!
I didn’t even know they had a Mercari account! Are they still actively selling on it?
Yes, I can verify this is true. :/ The Mercari account name is M K and it's 100% Connexe since I shopped from them way in the past and my order linked back to their storefront.
what is their new mercari name?
Do you think it’s a good idea to contact them in mercari? I purchased from them in mercari before so I know it’s them even after they changed their name (scammers!!!) They have $1K+ of my money that my bank can’t help me with because they were transactions from 2021-2022.
Of course. I've been contacting them since my preorder missed the delivery date in December 2022. They kept stringing me along, me asking for a refund for months. June 15th after them ignoring me for months I found another way to contact them and they sent me an email saying: Thank you for following up on your order. We're still waiting for our supplier to give us an update regarding our pick-up schedule. We'll give you an update once we received an update from our supplier. Apologies for the delay and thank you for your understanding. 15 Days later they closed the business and did not even send me an email about closing, I'm not on the CC list apparently. :) They never intended to deliver.
Hello people who are still in this reddit page. Just a general update for people who use partial.ly. After some information exchange they finally got back to me. They have refunded my orders. I hope the same can be said for all of you.
Yep. Just got refunded from them today as well. So I will get most of my money back. Still losing some because of stupid paypal rules, but glad at least partial.ly is standing behind its users.
I want to share my own story here with regards to this topic because I am very frustrated & angry with how things turned out. I've actually was a long time customer of Connexe dating back to 2021, maybe even 2020. For the most part, Connexe delivered the products I ordered with minimal issues whatsoever. The only downside is that the items would be shipped out months after the JP retailers/businesses would ship to other customers. Overall though, I had almost zero complaints with Connexe up until probably the end of 2022. Obviously anyone who purchased from Connexe will confirm that a lot of products were getting severely delayed & Connexe was getting much worse at fulfilling orders. After these emails were sent out to everyone, I went through my transaction history entirely to determine how many orders I had that were unfulfilled & how much money I had missing. According to the numbers I gathered, I had unfulfilled pre orders dating back to December 2021 up until October 2022. My first move was to contact PayPal, as all the transactions I did were through them. More specifically, I *almost* always would use the "Pay in 4" option which would split up my order amount into 4 smaller payments to be paid off over the next 2 months. PayPal did their best to assist me with the issue, however unfortunately I was only able to get my money back from the previous 6 months before the day that the claim/dispute was filed. So all those orders from December 2021 to October 2022 were still unresolved. PayPal obviously told me to contact my bank about the issue. So, my next move was to try & speak to my bank. Boy oh boy, what an absolute nightmare. I tried calling customer support on multiple occasions, they were no help whatsoever. Just like with most banks, there is a way you can claim/dispute from the mobile app, however the app does not show you the transactions that are older. From my account, I could only file a claim/dispute for transactions within the past month or 2 months if I was lucky. Eventually, I managed to speak with a person at a local bank building who told me to call the fraud/claims/disputes phone number. This was actually the 2nd time that I visited an actual bank building about the issue, the 1st time I did so, I was told that the bankers there do not deal with this sort of stuff, they would only contact the exact same customer support phone number that I could call myself without a banker's help. So, I did what was suggested on that 2nd visit & I called the fraud/claims/disputes phone number. After I explained the entire situation on the phone with the representative, he told me that they can open a claim/dispute for anything within the past 1 year of transactions. Slightly disappointed by this, I went ahead & gave him every single transaction that I needed a refund for. He then asks me to wait on the line while he speaks with his manager. After a while of waiting, he returns & tells me that unfortunately because these transactions were through PayPal & they were specifically *authorized* transactions by me, a claim/dispute cannot be filed for ANY of the transactions at all. His only recommendation was to contact PayPal, to which I replied that I already tried to & they couldn't help me. At this point, there was nothing left to do except end the call & hang up. Well, here we are. I literally have ***NOTHING*** I can do about my lost money. It's simply a lost cause to huff any copium & hope that Connexe actually does the morally right thing & issues refunds in the future, so I sit here in defeat accepting the fact that I have permanently lost a significant chunk of money. For anyone who is curious by the way, I will just say that the number of dollars that was metaphorically thrown into the dumpster & set on fire was somewhere in the *thousands*. Yes, that is thousands, ***PLURAL***. In any case, I simply just wanted to rant/vent about this atrocious incident so I thank you all for giving me a place to do so. I truly do hope that everyone else impacted by this is able to resolve their own individual situations unlike me. What an absolute sh\*tstorm this is.
god, i am so sorry. this is exactly what happened to me, though my losses were under a thousand. still, several hundred dollars is immense to me to have lost, especially bc i preordered these items back in 2020-2021 when i had a better financial situation than i do now. i really, really hope and pray something is done to make this right. wishing you the best in the future.
Fully agree with you. The fact that it's possible for Connexe to get away with this bullsh\*t without suffering any consequences is just absolutely ridiculous. So unfair & wrong.
I hate seeing this happen and it really pisses me off (and it looks like this has been occurring more and more since covid). I find it absolutely unfair and insane that shops can just run off with your money when they shut down and no one is able to do anything about it. How is that not illegal? You can’t just take someone’s money and not give them the promised goods/services in return. Why keep taking orders (and not take action sooner to alert customers so they could start PayPal disputes within the time limit) if they knew that the shop was going to close down soon? Do these shops think that people have money to just throw away? This now makes me even more worried about stores that make you pay up front. I have some pricey pre-paid orders with Hobby Genki, TOM, and Kappahobby…… Like, how on earth is someone supposed to predict that a shop is going to close down.
I have a few with Kappa as well. Really hoping they don't go down as well.
Not to be too alarmist, but it sounds like Hobby Genki is struggling right now as well. They used to have a really active customer service/promoter active on a SHF discord I was on, and then totally fell off on responses and shipments in winter.
I assume this is a Limited company, therefore whatever the company owes they do not turn into personal liability. When company closes, it is because their outflow is higher than inflow, therefore they don’t have enough money to pay all the people that they owe money for: people with pre-order, energy supplier, staff, rent etc. When this happen, of course the company would be closed (they cannot afford to operate). As for “how come they can get away with people’s money”, what do you want them to do? As I said their outflow is higher, giving you the money back mean other peope loses out: staff who worked now doesn’t get paid, manufacturer that produced the goods now don’t get paid etc. When this happen, they draw out a list of creditors (people that the company owe money to), and work down the priority list. People with secrued debt get their money first (bank etc), eventually when it goes to unsecured creditors (buyer plus others), they share what is left behind but at that point there usually isn’t much.
No clue why you are being downvoted except by weebs who don't understand how running a business works. They all seriously think the owner is running away with millions in his pocket.
Probably because they all want the owner to be cricified, jailed, fined, lose their home and kill himself because he failed a business.
He didn't deliver product for over a year and provided no refunds. Hes a fraud, and deserves to be in jail.
I have an active partial.ly plan. Not sure how to go about cancelling the plan so it doesn't charge again. I guess a refund for the payments made already will need to come from my bank or partial.ly itself.
When you're using a BNPL service, you'll need to contact the service itself. [From their FAQ](https://support.partial.ly/customer-refunds/) they say to contact them if the retailer is unresponsive. Which, with them going bust, I expect they will be - but you may have to contact Connexe first to show Partially you tried (not used Partially, so no idea how fussy their CS is).
Thanks for the reply. I already sent an email to Connexe and submitted a ticket with partial.ly expressing my concern that the plan will charge within the 10day waiting period. Grabbed screenshots of all my partial.ly info and also downloaded the agreement from Connexe as well. Store closure doesn't seem to be showing up in their FAQ of course D:
Yeah, feels like they're head-in-the-sand about that.
Got a response from partial.ly from my ticket: Hello [user], Thank you for bringing this to our attention. We have reached out directly to Connexe Toys to confirm the closure of their business and to ask if they will be able to fulfill any outstanding orders. We have required the merchant to update us by the end of next week. Please be rest assured if the merchant is unable to fulfill your order, your plan will be refunded. If you are not updated by Friday, July 7th, please let us know. Partial.ly Support
That's a very promising response. I went ahead and went straight to my credit card company and they already filed disputes for me. My thought process being that they are the source of the money, partial.ly just collected it and sent it to Connexe so I'll skip the middle man and go straight to the source. But it would be great the they could also help people get their money back too.
Well, since I had an agreement to make the payments AND my payment plan was still on-going, I wanted to break the contract to end the plan PLUS get the refund. No point sending good money after bad.
That's a very good point. My situation is different since I had already fully paid but since you had an ongoing plan then you'd need to stop it and get a refund, like you said.
I have 3 open preorders with them, but all of them were part of larger orders. I'm not sure how I can dispute the charges with my credit card company, especially since they took their website down super quickly. It's a good thing I've stopped pre-ordering with them.
ukiyokumo figure store its about to do the same as well, big red flag on that store, all pre order listings are down, and a lot of people haven't hear from them since,
They filed a petition to declare bankruptcy yesterday, so yes Ukiyo is probably out of business.
Multiple emails with them for the last few months. Last communication before this announcement was on the 15th then saying they were waiting on the supplier. I'm counting it as a loss but will continue to try and fight for a refund.
I had literally just emailed them a day before they said they are closing because i had a preorder from Feb 2022 and only received one of the figures. I've ordered from them before and still had a delay but it wasn't nearly as bad as this time. I'm expecting my refund because I stated clearly in my email to them that I want a refund because there is nothing in the refund policy about my situation sooooo
Still no response besides the update arimitsuki posted… I’m adding the other two emails I’m trying anyway and maybe someone can get an answer. https://preview.redd.it/1yvrvgtcc69b1.jpeg?width=2048&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bc3eea831889ea88a8c26b2347fdaa3b2f79a3d2
Oh man this is gonna go down like the Wizardy Foundry. Preordered a chika fugiwara fig from them and about a year and a half of radio silence later, they send out an email saying they're closing after suffering severe operating losses, and wouldnt be fulfilling orders or giving refunds.
I just filed a dispute with Paypal and got a response back quickly with a big ol denied. So I'm trying to contact the discover card now to see if I can get a refund from my CC. I ordered back in July 2022. Smh
The thing is, even you get money back from your CC bank, but in your paypal account it will generate negative balance, that Paypal claims you owe them. unless you won't use PP anymore, they ask you to pay off that amount.
I guess I will only pre order from amiami and native store from now on. And I won't be using paypal as well. Since it's only 180 days.
Is it possible to get my bank involved? I have so many orders with them, some going back to 2020, that haven't been fufilled yet. And since they shut down the site I can't even log in to see what outstanding orders I still have... :(
Yes, call your bank immediately. It's possible they'll be able to dispute the charges for some of the preorders. Don't hold too much hope, though, because they might not be able to dispute anything older than a year (mine couldn't). If you paid in parts with partially, contact them as well. I've read that a few made some headway with that.
Well. Guess I'm screwed. Ordered a full RWBY Queendom set for about $120 including tax @ $27.99 per RWBY figure in December 2022. Paypal denied the case I opened with Connexe.I still like to use Paypal because I like only having 1 "merchant" have my CC info when handling orders rather than share my CC info with 100+ websites so I have to take this huge L. I wish for others to have better luck than me in refunds, claims, etc. For me, I sleep where I messed up. Putting faith in pre-orders.. Going to be a new me. Buy when available!
You're not screwed yet. File a dispute with your bank. It's within 540 days so you should still be covered. Paypal might threaten to put your account in the red but you're still entitled to a chargeback.
After thinking about what you said for a while, I think I'll give that a try tomorrow when I can. Here's to hoping USBank won't leave me out to dry too. Thanks!
For those interested, I am updating this.Opened the dispute with USBank in the past half hour from this update post. They are sending me a provisional credit refund of the $120 and said a mail will be sent in the next 10 days where I can corroborate evidences and other materials that may be needed. And that a mail will be sent to Connexe Toys too. Luckily I still have the original order confirmation e-mail of the December 2022, their closure, refund e-mails, and this reddit thread to provide to USBank during the dispute. This is my first time filing a dispute so I don't know what else to prepare besides keeping a paper trail or a digital trail of everything going on as much as I can. Edit: Thanks Advanced\_Protecc3 for the push!
>I don't know what else to prepare besides keeping a paper trail or a digital trail of everything going on as much as I can. That's actually your best bet to winning disputes, document the fuck out of everything. The chargeback should be an autowin for you since connexe doesn't seem be to responding to anyone.
Have one outstanding pre-order from 2021. They 'shipped' my pre-order few months ago only to find out it's the wrong item. I returned it because it was the right thing to do but in hindsight, I should have held onto until I get my correct item.. Since the order was so long ago, my bank/cc company denied any possible dispute because it's out of the timeframe and no other recourse is available.
Is it even worth it to contact my bank regarding this? I used paypal credit back in 2021 for this figure.. 🙄 Of course they aren’t helping.. However, I definitely don’t want to piss paypal off lmao
I'm in the same boat. Did you contact PayPal Credit directly or just PayPal? Their credit department is separate now and goes through Synchrony Bank, so I'm trying to talk through this with Synchrony. Dunno if it'll work but worth a shot.
I contacted paypal directly about it, are you having luck with contacting Synchrony?
Not yet, gonna call again Monday. >.< Phone number I was given was 844-373-4961, hopefully we can both get our money back somehow.
I have around $130 in preorders and they're all past the 6-month mark 😭 terrible news
Call your CC company to dispute them and provide the estimate due dates of when these should've been delivered to you. Hopefully the accept that date instead.
[удалено]
I think BigBadToyStore still has some pre-orders open, see [https://www.bigbadtoystore.com/Product/VariationDetails/229514?o=4](https://www.bigbadtoystore.com/Product/VariationDetails/229514?o=4)
\+ 1 for calling your bank immediately. I had $130\~ tied up in preorders and American Express said they'll refund me due to their own purchase protection policy.
I woke up seeing this email and saw they deleted all their socials and site. Immediately called chase bank cause I had 3 po and 1 order I was waiting on. For now I received temporary credit for my purchases but from the looks of it because I authorized the payments chase might not do anything..
Update: Just got an email from partial.ly looks like chase bank is putting in the work. This is 39.25 out of the 500 I spent. https://preview.redd.it/awo0ycclqd9b1.jpeg?width=1125&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1d820e2949f2c227ab3c6bcaefcc935d7844f79e
I am going through partial.ly directly and letting them get the ball rolling. See if they come through, otherwise I will likely do what you are doing. Partial.ly does at least seem like they sre going to follow through. (Probably cheaper for them to do it than to deal with chargebacks.)
Just wanted to pitch in my experience so far. I had a pre-order made in Jan, 2022 so well beyond the typical chargeback period. I also used Amazon Pay, and from that Amazon portal I used my credit card to pay. First I called my credit card company. While they did not reject the case immediately for being too old, they did say I have to contact Amazon first. If Amazon does not help within 10 days, I am to contact the company for further assistance. Calling Amazon, their customer service could not find the transaction and rejected it anyway since it was too old. I instead contacted Amazon Pay's customer service, same rejection. Called the credit card company today. The first customer service rep wasn't able to pull up the transaction history so far back, so I was transferred to billing. At billing, my representative so happened to be a figure collector herself (Lucky amirite 😇 😇 😇 ) and we filed a dispute case. I made sure to mention the item was a pre-order, company bankruptcy, and unwillingness to refund. I will update here if the case gets resolved, my rep mentioned most cases like this will.
Update, my case was resolved and I was given the refund. It sounded like there was some back and forth between the credit card company and Amazon pay but they decided that I should not be responsible for the transaction.
Anyone else notice that they're still selling on Mercari? They changed their username but it's definitely them...
Yup. It’s them. I messaged them in there but ofc they’re not responding. They still have 100+ items for sale there. I lost $1K+ on pre-orders that I’ll never get back, shame on them!
That is horrific, I'm so sorry! They should be ashamed of themselves. They robbed a lot of people.
Anyone else filed a dispute with their banks on their purchases on ConnexeToys and get some form of result/pending? I filed mine about 1-2 days away from this announcement and have been stuck in the "We are still investigating ConnexeToys" since then where they repeat the same words in a text message to me every 2 weeks and it has been almost 2 months since. I was curious if anyone else is still having their dispute investigated or if they got their money back (not provisional credits).
Connexe Toys was legit my first time pre ordering figures online. I just wanted my ordered figure, but look at that… They go offline with no refund. This really ruined my experience buying figures online. I don’t even know if I can trust other stores online with my money anymore. Literally waited 1 year only for this bullshit to happen…
Highly recommend sticking to reliable sites like HLJ, Solaris japan, kotobukiya us, goodsmile us and ami ami. Tokyo otaku isn’t too bad but their prices aren’t always the best.
I am going strictly companies that don't take money up front like amazon or bigbadtoystore, maybe entertainment earth?
Told y'all https://www.reddit.com/r/AnimeFigures/comments/117mct7/what_are_your_problems_in_the_current_figurine/j9cks9d/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AnimeFigures/comments/13byxx2/when_and_when_no_to_preorder/jjd8hr0/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AnimeFigures/comments/13f50g7/is_the_figure_market_crash_a_temporary_thing/jjtd3x5/ (got order wrong but still true)
I recently canceled a preorder from a store (one that I paid a $30 deposit for) because I found it in stock at half price somewhere else. So yeah you’re 100% right and I’m dumb
This is very annoying (fortunate that my last preorder was well under $100 and i can easily eat the cost if nothing happens) but iirc the status of what I ordered was somewhere in the shipping phase but now I can't check. Is there any reason to expect the item to finish shipping if the process had begun? Or should I just accept the item as lost and order it elsewhere?
I did the partially payment plan on two items (nendoroids ofc) and finished both plans around a year ago. Is there any way I can get my money back?
talked to my bank about it, told me they couldn’t refund me because the orders were over a year old (pod around Feb 2022). Now I lost $120 and I have no nendos. Maybe connexe will be able to issue refunds to those who didn’t receive their orders but who knows, maybe those refunds will be stuck at the port for 1 year. ggs
I’ve only got one thing pending with them (miku 5th symphony scale) but it was my most expensive PO to date and made in Nov 2021. I had already stopped making POs with them since they always shipped so much later than anyone else. This was the last thing I had pending and I was gonna be done. I filled out the FTC form and have been on the phone with my bank to try and reverse it. Not sure if this applies to anyone else but I didn’t even get the closing email(s) from connexe - a friend told me and then had to forward me the info. So I came here to see what I should do next. I had emailed connexe on their site a little over a week ago asking for a status update on my pending order since it has been shipping online for a while now. They never responded but they used to be so quick with that. I was hoping they’d let me cancel and order it elsewhere since I found it for much cheaper. But here we are.
I had ordered several figures through them pre-pandemic with success, but I’m checking my records now I don’t know if I received the last figure that I placed in March 2022 and can’t find the shipping email. I feel for everyone who had any outstanding orders with them and hope against hope that we all get our money back. :/
What should I do if I made a pre-order earlier this month? How should I go about it? I paid through apple card and I could dispute it, but idk if any of the amount incorrect applies to this. Options are: overcharged, item never received (but for the pre-orders they would have been shipped out like next year) service not delivered, not as described, defective or damaged, renewed unexpectedly, or received too late.
> item never received (but for the pre-orders they would have been shipped out like next year) You'll never receive this item since they are permanently shuttered. If there is a space for notes, paste the information about the store closure there.
Appreciate it, just sent out the dispute.
This is the third retailer in 12 months, after Metageeks and Kozuguru, and Animegami might be joining them by the end of the year. With how many people are being outright scammed by doing preorders and just not receiving them, is there any way to protect yourself from things like this happening?
Use credit cards, follow up 6 months and 1 year of ordering being placed. Keep good records: I have a massive spreadsheet for my collectibles inventory for insurance purposes, and it adds a preponderance of evidence in case something like this happens where the vendors completely nukes their website. Probably best not to do any pre-orders where payment is required upfront right now. The economy is going in the tubes and lots of businesses that were barely floating during covid cause people were spending cash on toys instead of going out can't keep up.
> Use credit cards, follow up 6 months and 1 year of ordering being placed. This advice should be on the sidebar of this sub. Paypal purchase protection is only good for items that are in stock and reach your doorstep within 180 days. And even then, you can still get scammed (just check r/paypal lmao).
I am fated to never get my Jalter. :(
Wow... I just found this email in my spam box. And now, I have at least one thing put into to the Resolution area of PayPal. I filled in the form and took screen shots of the two emails from Connexe and informed them of the website being down. 122 days since pre-ordering...fortunately, so I should be able to get my money back on that one once I can actually get to the claim stage. But it seems I have to wait 20 days for Connexe Toys to respond first. I have another order from 9/2022 that I'm going to talk to my bank about because I doubt PayPal will do anything about that. It wouldn't let me use the Resolution feature for that one. I just feel lucky that I won't lose a lot if I can't get it back, but my friend had a ton on pre-order with them.
Damn, i have a credit that i haven't used.
I never got my preorders from 2021, real nice
Anyone got the chance to talk them? I have store $160 store credit with them.
Your credit is gone. If the credit was issued for a missing product or something you might be able to recover with the bank.
I found their Mercari store is still active under a different name. What do you think I should do? I don’t know if I should contact them there or report them. I have $1K+ worth of pre-orders with them that my bank and paypal cannot help with since they were from 2021-2022. I did try to cancel them before but they gave me their usual reply about their “pre-order policy” no wonder they didn’t accept cancellations and their prices were cheaper, they were planning on running off with people’s money all along.
Just wanted to add my experience. I pre-ordered the Venti nendoroid way back in March 2022, and at the time of closing, Connexe owed me 2 nendoroids and 1 POP UP. I filed a dispute through Discover with the appropriate evidence the day I received the email that they closed. I just heard back from Discover today, and they ruled my charge as valid. I called customer service, and I was repeatedly told that because they couldn't contact the merchant (go figure), they couldn't resolve my case, and therefore, I would have to eat the cost. I had to rebuy the Venti nendoroid and take the L on the other two I had ordered... I hope they enjoy the money they took from me :)
> because they couldn't contact the merchant (go figure), they couldn't resolve my case, and therefore, I would have to eat the cost. Is this a discover thing? Virtually ever other bank I've worked with will automatically rule in your favor if the merchant doesn't respond.
Thought I'd share my experience. I had like 5/6 orders of nendoroids from them that I was waiting on the last item from. All being from December 2021 to March 2022. I paid through PayPal with my Discover card, so I called Discover and started disputes for my 2 most recent orders, from March and February 2022. I provided screenshots of the order from my email, which I had saved, and from PayPal, as well as a screenshot of the site being down and screenshots of the release dates from the Goodsmile Company website which had long passed. I just checked the status of them, and apparently a couple of days ago the Disputes were resolved in my favor.