Bicycle Gator Back Holographic Metalluxe

[Bikefanatic]

I wasted no time and ordered these along with some other decks. The small discount and free shipping was good enough.

[Harvonsgard]

... , including 4 unique holographic foil jokers.

Only the four extra cards.

[PrincessTrouble]

The should say card backs and jokers. Saying faces is misleading.

[crazy_lazy]

Can't justify the $25 price point right now. This seems no different from the other $20 metalluxe gatorbacks; worse actually with the absence of the nice tuckbox and with the ugly + aggressive Bicycle branding. Hoping we see something better from DB for black friday, they've been sitting on the non-AP holo split spades for a long time now

[Harvonsgard]

The should say card backs and jokers. Saying faces is misleading.

I'm pretty sure they're aware of that.

[PrincessTrouble]

I'll think twice before ordering from the "new" Bicycle site again. On 11/09 I ordered the holo Gatorbacks, Peacock, and KW Tally-Ho. Never got an order confirmation email but at least I used PayPal so I had a PayPal receipt. Never got a shipping notification. After 10 days, I opened a PayPal case. Earlier this week, PayPal informed me the seller responded with "null" for the tracking number. Ffs. Anyway, today my six decks showed up (happy about that) but they were in a large bubble mailer all loose with no packing and too much room to float around and collide with each other. Not impressed with this experience.

[brownsl]

Yup, same with me. Another large order and the decks just tossed in a mailer with dings all over. I have an email complaint open with them from an earlier order.

[Strag]

That's pretty shocking. Between these shipping issues and the NFT fiasco, it seems like Bicycle has really gone downhill since being bought by Cartamundi, at least for collectors. A real shame.

[bdawg923]

I also never got a confirmation email for my order for the tally hos and gators. Still haven't received them. They haven't even shipped. They keep telling me they're working on it and there's some issue affecting multiple orders that they're trying to figure out.

[Bikefanatic]

I did get a shipping notification about a week later after my order. I'm also not a fan of the decks in just bubble wrap. The holo Gatorbacks are nice. For the peacock deck, very nice but the cold foil backs, they didn't pop.

[GandalfPC]

I sent them a missive regarding the bubble mailers and how the rest of the world does it correctly - they replied:

“Thank you for providing us with this feedback and we appreciate your patience in this matter.

As we are constantly striving to improve, your feedback is greatly appreciated and I will pass this on to our dedicated team for you.”

Not going to hold my breath….

[bdawg923]

I guess I was lucky. I got my 7 decks in a too-big cardboard box. They were just in there bouncing around with no bubble wrap at all. But there was a brown piece of crumpled paper for protection. Only two of them were dinged up.

[BaconWise]

Many of you know Henry from Socal Playing Cards. He just posted a video of the shipping disaster that is Bicycle Playing Cards. He ordered three dozen and they showed up loose in a bubble mailer. Just a few were unharmed. WARNING, this is hard to watch:

https://www.instagram.com/tv/Clg2j1Hu96 ... _copy_link

[Bikefanatic]

It's been a lot of screw ups with shipping lately.

If under "new management" or whatever, they got brand new employees too? Same team, new team, whatever the case is, people should know how to ship and pack up decks right!

I barely ordered directly from Bicycle "back in the day" but never seen many legitimate complaints until now.

[bdawg923]

It appears they have changed fulfilment companies from what I can gather from comments on Instagram. The new company is shipmonk. They probably have just absolutely no clue that playing cards are collectibles and should be protected in transit. Just some random guy in a warehouse gets orders for who knows how many other brands and the job is to put the stuff in a box and add a label. If I had to guess, uspcc probably picked them because they were cheaper than whatever they had before and you get what you pay for.

[pint5on]

I'm pretty sure this shipping fiasco happened due to technical issue at the fulfillment centre.

Workers, who pack shipments at large fulfillment centres, scan barcodes of the products and then the computer screen shows how to pack them. In this case they should have used box + bubblewrap/crumpled paper etc. but the computer screen most likely showed bubble mailer by technical error/mistake. It actually happens in large fulfilment centres that have thousands and thousand of customers/products.

People responsible for packing have to pack exactly the way what the screen shows them. If the screen shows bubble mailer instead of a box then products must be shipped in a bubble mailer even if it doesn't make any sense.

I think this is only logical explanation what happened and i'm just writing this because i see a lot of people asking "how can these people be so stupid? " etc. It's not their fault, they pack the way computers tell them to pack. They don't decide how to pack.

[Jykwei]

I bet if some guy decides to do the right thing he gets fired, instead of getting a promotion. The management that screwed up gets a bonus.

I'm pretty sure this shipping fiasco happened due to technical issue at the fulfillment centre.

Workers, who pack shipments at large fulfillment centres, scan barcodes of the products and then the computer screen shows how to pack them. In this case they should have used box + bubblewrap/crumpled paper etc. but the computer screen most likely showed bubble mailer by technical error/mistake. It actually happens in large fulfilment centres that have thousands and thousand of customers/products.

People responsible for packing have to pack exactly the way what the screen shows them. If the screen shows bubble mailer instead of a box then products must be shipped in a bubble mailer even if it doesn't make any sense.

I think this is only logical explanation what happened and i'm just writing this because i see a lot of people asking "how can these people be so stupid? " etc. It's not their fault, they pack the way computers tell them to pack. They don't decide how to pack.

[vasta41]

It's not their fault, they pack the way computers tell them to pack. They don't decide how to pack.

Maybe initially it's not their fault. But this has been going on for months now and Bicycle has seemingly done NOTHING to intervene or fix the problem (a problem I'm sure they're aware about). So either they're A) too cheap to get a smaller packing company, retrain the people, computers or whatever, or shell out the dough to fix the problem or B) they're too stupid/lazy to fix the problem.
I don't blame the warehouse or it's workers. But I certainly blame Bicycle, 100%. After all, it's their reputation on the line. So wouldn't they want to fix this problem? I wonder...

[BaconWise]

It appears they have changed fulfilment companies from what I can gather from comments on Instagram. The new company is shipmonk. They probably have just absolutely no clue that playing cards are collectibles and should be protected in transit. Just some random guy in a warehouse gets orders for who knows how many other brands and the job is to put the stuff in a box and add a label. If I had to guess, uspcc probably picked them because they were cheaper than whatever they had before and you get what you pay for.

This is a great point. I remember backing the Adventures in Oz decks and they chose to fulfill through Amazon. My decks were loose in a HUGE box that had a couple of those inflated packing bubbles thrown in for good measure. I can understand sticking to a process, but the issue falls on the producer to provide complete instructions. Bicycle knows the community too well to let something like this happen.

[bdawg923]

It's not their fault, they pack the way computers tell them to pack. They don't decide how to pack.

Maybe initially it's not their fault. But this has been going on for months now and Bicycle has seemingly done NOTHING to intervene or fix the problem (a problem I'm sure they're aware about). So either they're A) too cheap to get a smaller packing company, retrain the people, computers or whatever, or shell out the dough to fix the problem or B) they're too stupid/lazy to fix the problem.
I don't blame the warehouse or it's workers. But I certainly blame Bicycle, 100%. After all, it's their reputation on the line. So wouldn't they want to fix this problem? I wonder...

Yes exactly. If what Gemini says is true, which is probably is, the fulfilment company isn't to blame. I'm wondering if they get paid by uspcc based on how they want items shipped. Like a bubble mailer is x dollars, bubble wrap costs extra, a box costs extra, etc. At the end of the day it's on uspcc to make sure customers get their stuff undamaged

[crazy_lazy]

Every now and then I'll see someone defending the misaligned borders found on USPCC-printed cards, calling the critique "nitpicking" and "a minor defect" (from personal experience, many of my misaligned borders are far from minor), but this shipping debacle highlights the real problem: cost-cutting and a lack of regard for the customer experience.

If USPCC/Bicycle simply doesn't care, then there will likely be more problems in the future, whether it's subpar shipping/printing/other practices. In any case, for what it's worth (not much), I already voted with my wallet already, having decided not to pick these up mainly due to the price point.

[Eric Lee]

Someone posted on IG that Bicycle did get back to them on the dinged decks and they'll do something about it. I would love to see them respond to Henry's case. All these cases should hopefully get them to do something about that.

[vasta41]

I received my response from Bicycle today and they offered to replace all the decks, no questions asked. Now I wonder if they'll arrive in different packing this time. Stay tuned...

[brownsl]

They got back to me and asked me to send photos of the damaged decks. Did you have to do that?

[bdawg923]

I received my response from Bicycle today and they offered to replace all the decks, no questions asked. Now I wonder if they'll arrive in different packing this time. Stay tuned...

Now you're just gonna be stuck in an endless loop of sending back damaged decks and getting new damaged decks.

[hikeeba]

Better than I got:

"We would be happy to provide you with a 20% discount code you can use on your next purchase bicyclethankyou20.
 
This discount code will be valid until 12-31-2022. 
 
Have a nice day!
 
Kind Regards,

Bicyclecards.com Customer Support"

[vasta41]

Sorry, guys. I didn't even ask for a refund. Here's what I wrote:

Hello,

Last week I received my order of playing cards in the mail and I wanted you to know that the way the cards were shipped was deplorable. I ordered 7 cards and they were just loosely thrown into a large bubble wrapped bag and almost every one of the decks has dings or dents. I have purchased hundreds of dollars worth of playing card over the past decade plus from bicycle.com and I’ve never had cards shipped so poorly. I’m also a moderator on a playing card forum where others have posted similar issues with the new shipping methods you use.

I’m sure you know that shipping cards this way is unacceptable, but most likely a way to save money. And if that’s the case, I implore you to reconsider spending a little extra time and/or money to ship playing cards correctly so they do not show up damaged. As the leader in US-produced playing cards, you should be embarrassed! I know that I will certainly not order another deck from you again until I know this issue is resolved.

A very unhappy customer,
Paul Vasta

[GandalfPC]

Better than I got:

"We would be happy to provide you with a 20% discount code you can use on your next purchase bicyclethankyou20.
 
This discount code will be valid until 12-31-2022. 
 
Have a nice day!
 
Kind Regards,

Bicyclecards.com Customer Support"

I would reply to them that this is unacceptable, that you are a collector and damaged decks are worthless to you.

[Harvonsgard]

... "how can these people be so stupid? " etc. It's not their fault, they pack the way computers tell them to pack. They don't decide how to pack.

If you choose to take orders from a pc instead of thinking for yourself it's definetly your fault, lmao.

[Bikefanatic]

I'm going to stop giving people the benefit of a doubt. When it's a problem, it's the management, people at the top. USPCC management need to get ish together. If it was any other fulfillment center or just a seller, they'll have sense to pack things up to prevent damage.