Mike,
In 2007 I was TTOS National Vice President when what you are describing went down. While I do not know what happened with your credit card, I do find the Glendale connection interesting. At the time of the 2007 convention TTOS only had one office person, who was supposed to go to the convention but decided at the last second to not go and give notice. The Treasurer at the time stayed behind and let the person go ahead of the short notice date. After the convention we found out that the office person had not done any order processing for the convention cars. We found most of the orders buried in a drawer. Orders that were done on-line were ignored and not processed. It took us several months to straighten out the mess. I should know since I was the one that had to figure it all out. As for the convention cars, Lionel sent what was supposed to be the banquet cars to the convention. What actually arrived were the regular cars in the wrong boxes with the wrong part numbers. Those cars had to have the boxes fixed, and get sent to the shipping company in Michigan to be sent to the members. The banquet cars were held up until Lionel could get new doors from China, send them to us so we could install them, and relabel the boxes. The operating hoppers were held up in China, so those were two months late. The only car that made it on time was the S gauge hopper. It was a mess but eventually we sorted it out. In spite of the problems, Altoona was a blast. I and my family had a great time.
Regards,
Randall
Originally Posted by Mike W.:
I have been a TTOS member since 1990. Its fine and I enjoyed the convention in Altoona...plus some of their recent convention cars have been pretty neat. However we had an odd experience. Shortly after paying for the 2007 Convention with our credit cards we were told at the hotel in Altoona that the card was declined. We called MasterCard and were told that someone in Glendale CA was charging up thousands to the card. At the same time TTOS had some issues and lost orders for convention cars etc and apparantly had to let some office staff go. This is all hearsay mind you but I feel there is a connection. But aside from this I am still a happy TTOS member. None of this if related was the fault of TTOS.
