What an incredibly disappointing saga in the treatment of customers. If this were a similar issue from a major appliance manufacturer, it is likely consumer groups and the FTC would probably become involved. However, these items are viewed as "toys" by the general public. Nonetheless, as Scott points out, the cost of a nice O gauge model train such as this puts them in the class of a major appliance purchase.
While desk and laptop prices continue to tumble, the price of model trains are going in the opposite direction perhaps because of the relatively small market and so few manufacturers. In this market, the lack of response to customers is severely problematic but only to customers. The apparent lack of competition in this market allows these manufacturers to offer the lowest level of customer service without any apparent effect on sales.
I am glad to see OGR allow this post in that they can provide some visibility of these problems instead of ignoring them as the manufacturers want to do. The extent to which these issues are brought to light the greater the opportunity there is for one of the manufacturers to create a competitive advantage by offering high quality customer service.
Bravo to Scott and OGR for bringing this industry-wide issue to light! I hope efforts like this can bring about some attention to customer service in this high priced market.
