House of Staunton Says Too Bad, Your Problem and Not Ours

Just a heads up that House of Staunton won't take responsibility for problems with shipping. I ordered a chess board for my son's birthday. I wanted it to arrive on his actual birthday, so I chose next day shipping--it was a LOT more expensive than the other options. The board didn't arrive on the day it was supposed to. When I called House of Staunton, a supervisor named Kevin said too bad, nothing they could do. Although House of Staunton claims that normally they would refund my shipping charge, apparently the late delivery was FedEx's fault, and FedEx had just suspended its refund policy for late shipments. So according to Kevin, if anyone was going to eat it, it would be me, and not House of Staunton.

Well, if House of Staunton knew that FedEx was no longer refunding money, and House of Staunton knew it was not going to take responsibility either, then House of Staunton should have put some sort of "buyer beware" notice on their website. After all, I bought the shipping from the House of Staunton website, not the FedEx website. 

Not the end of the world, and everyone knows that packages are often late around the holidays. But House of Staunton sold me the FedEx shipping and didn't tell me that I was rolling the dice with my $50. And Kevin wouldn't even get on the phone with me. He had one of his employees give me the news, and when I asked to speak to the supervisor, I was told that he was "unavailable."

I don't know why, but I expected better from House of Staunton.

Sadly all shipping is like this during the holidays, only made worse by covid. I have learned to make peace with this reality.

I recently experienced two problems similar to yours.

I ordered a Bullet Journal on 12/1.  It was shipped priority mail on 12/2.  On Monday, 12/27, the tracking was still locked for 14 days.  The Bullet Journal people gave me a complete refund even though we all agreed it was the USPS.

A few times in a two week period, I attempted to talk with Kevin at HoS wanting to buy a Chess set.  Now, I have bought a lot of stuff from them and Kevin has been my go-to guy since before he was a supervisor. Each time I called, Kevin told the person answering the phone to tell me that he would definitely call me back that day.  He has my cell phone number.

Well, at least on 4 different days of this happening, he never called me back.  This is a breach of how they should treat any customer, let alone someone with a long history of buying when I call.  Yeah, I have never spent less than $110 and usually $210 - $350, each time I would make such a call.  They not only lost my purchase then, but I am not motivated to order from them anytime soon.

So, in my opinion I think House of Staunton should have given you a partial refund or even store credit to compensate the money you lost to the FedEx delay.

And Kevin should have spoken with you himself on the phone.  No one in a position of customer service as he is should ever be too busy to do his job with customers.  Of course with instances like ours, he won’t be too busy because of less customers coming back.

Note, this is an example of what I have constantly said of my attitude and behavior with any retailer.  I am not anybody’s advertiser.  When business behave or produce poorly, I will call it out as a fact.

I've had very poor service from House of Staunton recently too. When everything goes right, the items I've gotten from them have been great. But when it hasn't---or when anything is other than routine---it's been not so great. And this was from before the holiday madness.

Their subsidiary, wholesalechess.com, sent out an email wherein they mentioned that they all worked through the holiday just to be able to fulfill the orders. Was HOS in the same boat, and should it matter with regards to customer service? You decide.

Funny just this evening I started a chat with their 'We're online' chat service only to wait and wait. No one showed up to respond to my queries.  

I'm personally treading lightly because of the holiday and the Queen's Gambit effect. But my HoS experience pre-dates most of that and other vendors are facing the same craziness and responding significantly more promptly and politely.

I'm getting no response from the Chess House for my repeated requests for a return label. Since the 13th I've called twice, emailed 3 times and did the chat box thingy also 3 times. Nothing. Worst service I have ever  had from ANY company.

That's a real bummer and very different from my experiences with Chess House.

How much time does it take to send a return label. And they advertise friendly team there to help and all that.  

The Chess House is a much smaller operation.  Raphael is the owner and there is Paul and Josh.  They are good guys and have been very helpful in the past.  I do not mean this as an excuse.

At this stage I suggest you demand to speak with Raphael, the owner.  Call on the phone and don’t be reasonable  

I believe Raphael will make this right by you.

I think you find this is a world wide thing with late shipping , Or stuck somewhere in transit ,

Or post just not moving as it should !

Would you guys like some cheese with that whine?

I'm trying to return a JLP folding board to Chess House.  i ordered a 2 1/4" board, but they sent me a 2" board.  It's fine if it takes several days because the 2 1/4" board is out of stock.

Ok they're good guys but no one picking up the phone. 

This is a discussion forum for chess Equipment.  These guys are voicing problems they are having with some retailers.  This is certainly the right place for this.

Of course there is no place for you or anyone to insult or denigrate anyone else.  Go away.

Just to share my experience in slow shipping: I placed an order on December 4th. A new Chavet set from France. 26 days later and still no joy. I paid 25Euro ($30USD) for shipping. I've stopped checking the mailbox. It'll arrive when it arrives. Bah humbug.

I've noticed in images of HoS sets that the HoS logo is imprinted on the king. Is this optional? That's NOT something I want. 

Ordering online has taken a huge flight since the beginning of covid early this year and it's still is today. Now with the second wave going on and holiday season on top of that, people are ordering massively online. To be honestly, ordering online at the last minute is kinda gambling with the delivery in my opinion.

26 days wow that's excessive delay in processing. It's either all the staff are sick at home and nobody can pick up the work or the parcel is missing.