Stanley Gibbons Is Absolutely Pathetic And I Will Never Deal There Again

I will never buy from Stanley Gibbons again. The Marketplace is an absolute joke.

I bought some stamp albums and paid for them with my CC.

I never heard back from them. After 2 emails I finally got a reply that none were in stock and all special order. They might be available in a couple of months.

Needless to say, I was very upset as there was nothing in the listing on the marketplace that said not available, special order, long delay, etc.

I immediately requested a full refund as if I would have known, I never would have placed the order. Also, I noticed the order went through my credit card in US dollars, not Canadian or ­­British pounds.

What the idiot did that processed the refund was processed each album refund separately and also split the shipping between the number of albums, instead of issuing one refund as it was paid. That was May 18th.

Four of the refunds went through on May 19th and nothing with the other 2. I have been fighting with them since May 19th and they still have not been refunded.

Then I had to send them all my credit card information so they could put through a refund. If I don't have it in the next few days, I am going to do a charge back through my CC which I should have done in the first place.

This is absolutely ridiculous and no wonder SG is going down the tubes.

They are selling what they do not have, don't tell anyone. They are taking your payment in US dollars when I am in Canada. They have no idea how to process a refund, and really don't seem to care.

This has cost me 2 months of time, paying an exchange for the original purchase, paying another exchange for the refunds I already got, losing more money to the drop in the dollar, fighting with them for a further 3 weeks and it is still not finalized.

I for one, will never deal with this ridiculously run company ever again and hope that they go broke if this type of business continues.

They need a complete change in upper management and get people that can run a business which I am sure will only happen if they get sold or go bankrupt.

Be very careful dealing with Stanley Gibbons and if you purchase anything, make sure it is actually in stock.

Sadly all too typical of SG at the moment. Their accessories department (in Ringwood, Hampshire and not in London) has been down-sized as SG focuses on the high-end investment and auction business where the margins are bigger and the customers are fewer. Morale at Ringwood is incredibly low and there's a high turn over of staff. This doesn't excuse their ineptitude but hopefully puts things in context. I tend to deal with Prinz.co.uk (used to be Vera Trinder). They haven't put a foot wrong.

Dutchman: very sorry to hear of your problem. I'll add that it would be really nice if US auction houses stop using Gibbons numbers and prices for some of their British lots. This is the US; please use Scott numbers and prices.

I know the feeling of frustration with gibbons, I've had it for years. It goes way back to a period before they started their latest shift to the big spenders. To put it bluntly, they seem never able to quite decide what niche of the market they want to fit into. If it is the high end, then they need to sell off their catalog and album lines to someone who can service existing users.

Many years ago I bought one of their Luxury hingeless albums, it arrived with incorrectly sized spaces for many of the stamps. You'd insert a stamp and the top would stick out over the frame line. They acted really dumb when I complained, I wound up returning the thing, my refund, when I got it worked out to $30 or so less than I paid, because of currency fluctuations.

I cannot recount all the times I have ordered something from Ringwood and found it defective when I got it, I ordered a ring album once that arrived with the mechanism laying loose in the binder. I figured out finally- they use overseas orders to dump their defective merchandise. Probably thinking recipients won't want to bother returning it.

The OP needs to go through his credit card carrier, that is the only way this will be resolved properly.

It is so sad- many of us like and use their albums and catalogs. they have pinheads running the store. My recent purchases of supplements etc have been made through this site:

http://www.regencystamps.com/viewus...lies_landing

Good service and I think they allow a discount for APS members.

I am in the process right now of closing my bidStart and SG stores as well as my accounts with both as I want nothing to do with them any more.

I have dealt with Regency before but they are having the same issues dealing with SG and getting products. They do however, treat their customers much better and staff are wonderful.

Plus I can call them from Canada for free.

I have gotten what I need from Palo and they are great. Ordered, paid, and delivered within 10 days!

SG GB QV material prices are way over the top to. There's no difference to what they ask hundreds of pounds for to what you can get cheaply off ebay. Surprised that people would spend over 10,000 pounds on a cover with them. Hence I buy everything off ebay. Your protected against such practices as mentioned above. Prices cheaper to. I stay away from other sites when buying its to much of a risk sometimes.

I wonder if Palo or even Amos would consider purchasing SG Publications? They could maintain a presence in the UK and sell the product line through their existing operations here in the US.
No- too many issues with that, What will more likely happen is that SG will eventually be bought by still some other company that knows as little about stamps as all the prior owners. Remember back in the 80's when they were owned by a company that sold drilling equipment? Then there was the 'Flying Flowers' period.

And don't get me going on the issues with their products and presentations. I don't think any two album lines they sell have the same page size, not interchangeable. Their website and catalogs never really show you what the pages look like.

A lot of people are wondering what would happen to the SG catalogs. At the present time, as far as I am concerned, they are the only thing any good right now.

I would really like to see the catalog area on it's own with all their present staff before SG goes caput and the catalog department goes with it. They do issue some excellent well done catalogs including Murray Payne which may also go caput if SG does.

A lot of the SG albums today are Davo pages from what I have been able to find out.

The Gibbons line of 'Luxury Hingeless' albums are indeed Davo- with a SG imprint on the binder. Exactly the same. You can buy them from Palo for far less.

I use the Windsor for my GB collection and have a George VI album set. Both are quality products, although I hve some issues with the way the Windsor displays the Machins, they need to revise that section, but won't.

Palo is a good company with some excellent products. Their expansion into carrying other brands was an interesting move. The only thing that gives me pause when ordering is that they are also located in Illinois, so it costs me an extra 10% in sales tax, which is crazy high.

I was invited to renew my Gibbons Stamp Monthly subscription and chose the four year option that was offered by them on the renewal form, only to get a phone call saying that the system cannot process four year subs, so I'd have to have just a year!

The receipt was then mailed with just my surname on it with no title or initials/forename, which is fine if you are Beethoven or Chopin, but I am not that famous!

How sad, but SO indicative of all areas of business these days, it seems.

Maybe they think they won't be in business four years from now.

I think Stanley Gibbons nowadays is more interested in selling stamp "investment products" rather than stamps to collectors. (You have to admit it's much more profitable.)

We went down this road before in the 1970s; I suspect the majority of the people who buy their "investment products" will be sorely disappointed with the performance of their "portfolios".

I have no idea about the laws in the UK, but if they operated a scheme like theirs in the US they'd probably be inviting a lawsuit.

Just like the Scott Specialized if more detailed for US stamps than other catalogs, the SG catalog is more detailed for British & CW stamps. And US auction houses are selling to an international audiance, not just a US audiance. In an ideal world they would give both Scott and SG numbers.

https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/S...s-E26459.htm

Reviews of Gibbons by anonymous employees.