Over at Maelstrom Games website finally we get the news that they have ceased trading and will go into Liquidation in the next few months. This they blame on Wayland Games who bought their debt recently. This debt was less than £300 under £100,000 and was being paid back at a rate of £500 per day via the company credit card!! (that would take about 2000 days to pay off assuming no interest is credited to the debt). I am not sure why they feel the need to share this information with us but there you go. I am sure that Maelstrom will also owe many other suppliers money which will not be paid either. As for customers, some will get their items whilst others will neither get items or refunds. So that's it I expect you to think, well not exactly no.
Today I popped into the store to check it out. They still have some stock and when asked about restocking the staff member stated that they expect to get stock in in the next couple of weeks but also added well that's what we have been told. Clearly not 100% sure after probably being given the run around this last few months. A few things I did notice though, first up the sign going into the car park had had the Maelstrom Games painted over but yet to have a new name added. Also the stock rooms now look fairly empty but by now they should. However some green routes were showing such as the new FoW objective markers that are produced under Templar's Forge with an advert in store for more to come.
Of course the website looking exactly like the Maelstrom site that indeed has the same stock and customer details called The Eye of the Storm. Well given it all revolves around the same game store in Mansfield it's fair to say Maelstrom is dead, long live the Eye!
As to will this be the case who really knows. The Eye of the Storm (rather ironic choice given the situation it's in now) could yet be pulled down with Maelstrom unless the owner had set them up in such a way that he could fold one and keep the rest. The other possibility is that they have credit washed so that they loose the debts and obligations but manage to buy all the stock and rights but at a fraction of what they owed. It's quite possible that they are trying to be clever but they throw the baby out with the water because customer confidence has gone out of the window and with it the sales.
So if your local pop round and buy over the counter (the last items I bought went through the till as jars of coffee so not sure what they are up to!!!) but on line, no thanks.
Seconded: No thanks.
ReplyDeleteI just got an email from Maelstrom saying that if I responded to this email accordingly, and was happy to have my customer details swapped over to Mierce Miniatures, then Battlefront would honour my outstanding BF items.
ReplyDeleteSince thats all I was outstanding, and they follow through, then I wont be out of pocket...but will I trust them with future purchases... lets just say I will be very wary... I may just watch and see for a while...
I think once they have gone through the procedure then mayb they will be fairly safe depending on how much damage they have suffered to their good name. I just hope they are following the correct procedure and few people loose out. In the message on their website it did state that some customers would end up out of pocket. Having another web site in place and leaving customers out of pocket seems wrong and a little imoral, though I do think they tried to sort out most of their customers I am sure we will not know the full extent. I just hope other suppliers don't go under due to Maelstrom's debts. £100,000 is a very big sum in such a small hobby and you can be fairly sure they owed others as well. Hope they owed GW even more LOL.
ReplyDeleteIan