Email their customer service, they’re great at fixing things. Apparently lots of experience doing so makes you great.
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Yeah the guys is on FB I had to press him… hes gonna give u some bs excuse and send it out next day or refund you.
I hear ya jimee…Unfortunately, a lot of my last order which was fairly large has most of the comics in it damaged…along with the Last Ronin #1 1:10 (sigh). So far TFAW has responded quickly and I need to take photos of the damage…which will be many. They are polite and professional so hoping it will be an easy back and forth.
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LOL, the Comic Mint is doing this right in terms of shipping. They basically combine two of the TFAW options, and then some.
Comics sandwiched between two pieces of cardboard and then taped up into a “gemini” mailer. This mailer is then placed into an oversized Fedex envelope giving it plenty of buffer.
No damage to books while in transit.
Not to knock Comic Mint but I’m sure they do a fraction of the orders that TFAW does as well. So as they grow, they’ll have to cut costs by speeding up packing costs on a material and hourly level.
Got an order from Lab Comics packed very well. Gemini taped down inside with bubble wrap between couple oversized backer boards.
And my second order from Black Flag and once again awesome on packing and A+ on branding as well… Ha . Custom reinforced packing tape black gemini type mailer black painters tape to tape down books in mylars wrapped in extra oversized bag.
And they also charge way above cover for any hotter books too.
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That’s utter nonsense and no excuse for their pure utter disregard for how they package books. Every single order I get from mycomicshop.com is perfect and they’re just as big if not much bigger.
I’m really baffled why anyone still orders from them after all the nightmares. Yet people still make excuses. It’s not that they fill so many orders it’s that they just don’t seem to give a shit. That excuse isn’t a valid one.
Regardless of how good TFAWs customer service is customers want their orders to arrive as described. They don’t want to get a package where a single books dinged up let alone the whole order. They don’t want to have to contact them and take the time to document the damage and wait for replacements or refunds. Killing any time sensitive specs in the process.
The COVID excuses need to end as well. We’ve been living with restrictions for months so there’s no excuse.
I’d be curious how much TFAW spends (resources and revenue) fixing problems with damaged books versus the cost of upgrading to Gemini type mailers. Then Add the potential lost revenue from driving upset customers away…probably isn’t a net gain…
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Oh yeah, Comic Mint, like Golden Apple, overcharge for new books when they get hot - Golden Apple is the worst. Comic Mint has also been guilty of this so yeah, sure - you’re preaching to the choir. Golden Apple can kick rocks when it comes to this though - their markup tactics are outrageous.
Look, I got my first package from CM today and thought it was funny that the gemini was placed inside the oversized envelope and first thing I thought was man this is a combination of two of TFAWs packaging strategies🤣
Some of you guys are so quick to come to TFAWs defense on this board at the slightest critical comment that it’s unsettling to say the least.
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I wish they would switched Gemini type mails…been speaking out about it here for years. Now I just make sure I accumulate enough books to force them to use a Gemini mailer. Bought into that for now. They’d get a LOT more business from me if they made the switch, though.
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I unfortunately have pre orders locked in so I’m stuck with them through next month at least. My last order arrived damage free but with missing/wrong books. They’ve already shipped replacements for these items but since we are only talking about single-book shipments, they’re gonna arrive in oversized envelopes I’m sure.
The challenge is to find another source that has all new printings(2nd, 3rd, etc) available for preorder, Pre-FOC with no limits. TFAW is great when it comes to this (preordering any and everything).
It’s a damn shame that the issues with the actual shipped items persist.
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PCKComics.com has all new printings available for pre-order with no limits and we only ship in comic mailers ( or boxes with bubble wrap for larger orders) if you need a pre-order source 
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We’ve gone over this though already… I’m not debating it yet again… and most of comics now that I make sure my orders are 5 or more comics come in pristine condition (my own experience though).
MCS loves to jack up prices on new release books as well. They’re making up costs in other ways, TFAW doesn’t sell back issues, just new books.
Also, should I tell you my own MCS story yet again? They’re not perfect, no online retailer is perfect.
Just checked out PCK as recommended from their post. The most books that released today that I am interested in are already jacked up in price on standard covers
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Ditto. My big draw for TFAW is I can add and delete books up until FOC and I have (with help) mastered their pre-order for ratio variants. Issues are clear about packaging but they take care of customers when there is a problem.
Mycomicshop I drop hundreds of dollars on back issues. They grade fairly. Shipping is decent but they did recently lose $900 worth of pre-code horror books in the mail. They refunded but it was a whole process. Other problem I have had with them is bought a book they graded as NM and was sealed. Book went back on their buy list and I sold back same graded (still with their grade sticker of Nm) and sealed book and they paid for a VF saying it wasn’t NM.
I use comic mint for 5 and 10 packs. Good prices for members. Shipping is secure but can be slow or costly. Still haven’t gotten my FCBD packs from them.
Not defending or making excuses for any store. But I have been very clear about my experiences good or bad.
My faves are still TFAW and Mycomicshop for very different reasons.
Also another big difference between a online retailer like TFAW and Sanctum is, TFAW will give you a bigger discount on pre-orders and variants while Sanctum gives 10% off some of their pre-order books from the looks of a quick browse, seems if they do give a discount on previews pre-orders, it’s only 10%.
So yes, they’re making up the cost by making you pay more for your books. I’ll keep buying from TFAW where most if not all my books show up in NM condition with a bigger discount and if they do get damaged, TFAW just keeps on taking care of me.
To each their own though… if you don’t like TFAW, then don’t buy from them. It’s a very simple solution. MCS did me wrong years ago, they lost me as a customer forever due to how they treated me…
I know the story yet still but from them. Others have lost my business but I still by from MyComicShop back issues because I trust them.
Yup and that’s perfectly fine. You know the story too well, you probably also agree they treated me worse than garbage too…
Ya’ll can thank me. I like to give myself credit for MCS changing their shipping ways… cause it really did turn around after I bad mouthed them openly here in some of my articles years ago… 
Ultimately if some people have bad experiences buying from us and want to stop, that’s their right. There are plenty of stores I never buy from because of bad experience that have been stellar for most people I know. (Newegg is my big example; I had four straight shipments from them of PC parts show up damaged in the box and getting them to replace the final GPU that was damaged was such a nightmare I’m never buying from them again.)
Yes we have had some shipping issues recently, but most of those are (hopefully) being fixed in the warehouses now. I know on Friday they spent half the day going over all the training with people again, implementing some new policies, etc. And today they added a few more things they’re going to start doing based on lee’s feedback. The envelope vs gemini mailer thing is always going to be a debate, and maybe once we’re past the holidays we’ll look at it again but the last time we did a major study on it all of the data we had showed that there were more reported damages with those than rigid mailers. Eventually we’ll have the option to upgrade it for an extra buck or something and hopefully that will take care of it.
I will say the only thing I’ve had an issue with being brought up is saying “the COVID excuses need to end”. As you said, it’s not an excuse, we’ve been living with it. There’s no realistic way to adjust the size of buildings to accomodate for more people working, so there’s going to be and has been a bit of a slowdown in EVERY retail/warehouse/distribution environment. Whether it’s a smaller retailer like us, or someone like Amazon. The only time I (or anyone at our company) have ever used COVID as an “excuse” is just to warn people that processing and shipments may be slower because of the steps we need to take to be able to keep our business running while operating within the guidelines of the local laws, and making sure our staff says safe and feels safe coming into work every day.
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