New Railway Modellers Forums

I placed an order for some paint with Humbrol, Jan 2nd. I have allowed five days to deliver, but still no sign of anything. I should have a dispatch notification, but nothing yet.
I have logged into my account, and can see the order. I have an e-mail from PayPal with a refund of £1.79, so one paint pot is out of stock. I am confused, as to why I received an e-mail from Hornby Hobbies asking if I signed up to receive e-mails, which I don't remember doing. Is there a connection between these two please?
Is Humbrol usually this slow, or is it the time of year?

I think Humbrol is part of Hornby. I've ordered a few times from the Hornby and Scalextric websites, and it's generally very slow service. I ordered a Scalextric car, some traction tyres for a Hornby Gordon, and spare buffers for Tornado, at the end of November. They finally turned up a few days before Christmas. The day after they arrived, I had an email and text telling me they had been dispatched and were out for delivery, stating the date as 01/12/2019... so something went wrong somewhere with that.

Humbrol is definitely part of Hornby, as are Airfix, Arnold, Electrotren, Jouef, Lima, and Rivarossi. My impression is that either the goods never go from the manufacturer to Hornby, but straight to the retailers, or that they are simply re packaged and sent out as quickly as possible. Somewhere on some of their paperwork I found an address for premises in Southampton, which would make sense, straight of the ship and into the post probably done by a shipping agency.

Thanks for your replies. It's just a case of wait and see....

A short complaint to Hornby Hobbies, and I have a apology. I shall receive my order, Monday Jan 13th....A result.

As a complete contrast, I ordered a Metcalf Factory kit from Model Railways Direct yesterday afternoon. It arrived first class post this morning. How's that for service!!

In my experience, anything to do with Humbrol nowadays will lead to disappointment. However, http://www.scalemodelshop.co.uk/ do Humbrol if you must use the stuff, and you can't beat them for efficiency and speed of service.

While I'm at it, I second the above post about Model Railways Direct. What with them and Derails, I've managed to do without Hattons for the best part of a year now

Yes, I ordered some kits from Track Shack on Sunday evening and they arrived this morning. I also ordered a Union Mills loco last week, spoke to Colin on the Monday, it arrived on Wednesday. As both firms are in the Isle of Man, that's great service. The last time I used Hattons I had to email them after a week's waiting in order to get them dispatched.

It can be done but so many firms seem to think people will wait forever. My wife came out of hospital on the 18th of January following surgery for a brain abscess. She's hopefully going to get mobile again, but for now we need a wheelchair.*
So I ordered a cheap one from Amazon to be delivered 'next day', being the day before she was due home. 3 days later and no amazon delivery, I cancelled the order and bought the same item from a specialist shop, again paying for next day delivery. It turned up a day late, as did the amazon one, now 6 days late. I refused the Amazon one and having already had a full refund. Five days later I go to the bins in the garden only to find a wheelchair, in box, chucked over a 180cm high locked gate. Then amazon wanted me to take it to a returns centre, a reasonably local garage. I flatly refused and they eventually collected it 16 days after I ordered it and 15 days after it should have been delivered.

*Yes I know the NHS would supply one free of charge, but I'm due to get my knee seen to and having one handy will be a boon.

Byegad wrote:... As both firms are in the Isle of Man, that's great service ...

Yes, I'm a fan of Track Shack too, and I also find that if I order anything from the IoM, it invariably gets here next day by first class post - and has done for the last two years! How that works so well I have no idea.