I know I haven’t posted here in several weeks and I do hope to resume regular posts in 2010. Maybe that will be my New Year’s resolution (though I made a resolution several years ago to never make resolutions and I’ve been holding to it pretty well). But here’s a quick Christmas-related post that needs to be said…

NEVER buy from an online company called CCG Armory.

I don’t want to link to their site here, as they’re not worth linking to, but the company sells action figures, toys, and other collectibles – items that always fill our Christmas tree.

Michelle (my wife) ordered 13 items for me from them that I wanted for Christmas. She placed the order on Dec. 2, leaving plenty of time for the company to either ship the purchased items or let her know that they weren’t going to be able to fulfill her order.

Days went buy with no communication whatsoever. Michelle had tried to email and call them with no luck. Finally they responded and said they would be able to get everything to her by Christmas, so she was happy and waited… and waited… and waited. Day after day she watched our mailbox to see if the big package arrived.

Finally, Christmas came and went and I ended up short 13 presents, which I wasn’t upset about but Michelle was very disappointed. Her phone calls to CCG Armory were *never* answered and email responses only came once a week (if that).

Today, the day after Christmas, a package finally arrived from them and it only contained 4 of the 13 items she ordered. They never told her that they wouldn’t be shipping the rest. On top of that, she had been promised free shipping by ordering $150 worth of stuff, but instead was charged $8.40 for shipping since they only sent 4 items instead of all 13. Again, no communication from them letting her know that this was going to happen.

All in all, buying from CCG Armory is like playing the lottery, but with worse odds. Do not buy from them unless you want to have a painful shopping experience. It’s merchants like this that give online shopping a bad name.