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Old 01-11-2017, 12:18 PM   #41
outlikealight
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Originally Posted by The13thWarlock View Post
First... the customer is not always right. Good business is built on a good company and a good customer. It's a two way street. And I don't have my head in the sand. I know and have posted that ARH has issues... what I'm saying is that they are being unfairly persecuted here in thread after thread. You would think Arahom spends his days punching badies and stepping on kittens. I really don't think he does that.

There is a reason people are not getting their statues... I don't believe that reason is 100% the fault of ARH, which is how things seem here post after post.
First... the customer is not always right. Good business is built on a good company and a good customer.

This sounds like a line taken directly from the Arahom school of business. As a customer my job is to pay for the product in a quick and timely manner. That's it. I am not obligated anything beyond that. This company has the absolute worst customer service I have ever encountered in almost 50 years. It is absolutely unforgivable.

"You would think Arahom spends his days punching badies and stepping on kittens. I really don't think he does that."

No he has just taken my product and my money. It has been five months since I started talking to them about my damaged Horse. At what point does that become theft?


"There is a reason people are not getting their statues... I don't believe that reason is 100% the fault of ARH, which is how things seem here post after post."

Really! Who's fault is it. Do you really believe this drivel you post or are you just here trolling us?
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Old 01-11-2017, 12:34 PM   #42
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Come on Warlock, even you have pointed out that you can see your statue sitting around in their videos not being worked on. Have you done something that has prevented them from working on your project? I love my ARH statues, but let's be honest here. Many of us have lots of money tied up in their company, and it would be good to know if we will be getting our statues. If, in fact, they have to make sales to ship their old statues, what does that mean for the ones arriving in February?

What about Arhian Forever which is still a ways out? My payment schedule was cancelled by ARH with one payment left. I have tried to get in touch with them various times since to no avail. Spencer said they would be contacting people affected by the payment plan being cancelled, but that still hasn't happened. Have you squared away your remaining balance on that statue? It seems to me that they are giving little concern to the China produced statues (old and new) which is where they have my money.

Add the somewhat cryptic messages on the Q&A page and the supposed Arahom email, I can understand why people are not ordering.

ARH can directly fix this issue by communicating better. I have to assume they are not communicating because the news is really not good. If it were something temporary like a Paypal lock of funds, they should be released at some point.

I've said it 100 times. ARH needs to communicate. They show us tons of stuff behind the scenes, but will not communicate in a way most of their customers desire.
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Old 01-11-2017, 12:42 PM   #43
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I am going to throw my 2 cents in here but first have to throw out my usual disclaimer. I am not associated with ARH, I don't have any inside info, I don't speak for them. This will likely get pretty long so I will probably break it up into a couple of posts.


First, I don't discount anyone's complaint or think that anyone who has a complaint should just "shut up" or not ever say anything about it. That said for me I think the complaints should be divided and addressed through 2 distinct prisms. First, before the Frazetta debacle and Second, since the Frazetta debacle. For this post just before Frazetta.

Prior to the Frazetta debacle the complaints were pretty much as follows (again, not denying any of them are true, just listing)

1. Arahom is sometimes a jerk to customers

I have seen enough of these complaints in some cases from people I know personally to know that this is sometimes true. I have dealt with Arahom for many years and he is just a straightforward and brash person. It bothers some people more than others. It does not bother me.

2. No art boxes and crappy styrofoam

Again this bothers some people more than others, it does not bother me. Prior to Frazetta he never promised different styrofoam and always said he wasn't doing art boxes so it seems like not an issue to me (pre-Frazetta).
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Old 01-11-2017, 12:50 PM   #44
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Since Frazetta is where the ARH train REALLY has had issues. Again this may take a couple of posts and should not in any way be considered excuse making for ARH on my part as that is not how it is intended but rather to be additional information that people may not be aware of and it may or may not make any difference to them.

So for this post, the history.

We were all very excited when ARH got the Frazetta license from JR. I really thought 1/4 was too big but Arahom and Jr both wanted that. Everybody I know had the same expectations as Arahom, that these pieces would sell well. I don't know what the licensing fee was but I do know that Frazetta licensing for anything has always been relatively high, even when Frank and Ellie were alive.

So we have the licensing and sculpting fees all paid up front by ARH anticipating really good sales. With that he did make promises to address some of the earlier complaints such as the crappy styrofoam.

As we all now know things did not go well at all. Sales were terrible for virtually all of the pieces despite some of the best sculpting talent around. Tony Cipriano, Ehren Bienert, Troy McDevitt, Shiflett Bros. Arahom did none of these pieces himself.

So he decides in for a penny in for a pound, having already paid the sculptors and licensing fees he would go ahead and produce the line and then cancel the license. He goes through all of the process and sends them to China to be produced. Next post to address some of the complaints, again not as a defens of ARH but maybe explanation of what I think may be happening.
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Old 01-11-2017, 12:53 PM   #45
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Quote:
Originally Posted by The13thWarlock View Post
First... the customer is not always right. Good business is built on a good company and a good customer. It's a two way street. And I don't have my head in the sand. I know and have posted that ARH has issues... what I'm saying is that they are being unfairly persecuted here in thread after thread. You would think Arahom spends his days punching badies and stepping on kittens. I really don't think he does that.

There is a reason people are not getting their statues... I don't believe that reason is 100% the fault of ARH, which is how things seem here post after post.
So you really believe if a customer was knowingly at fault for not receiving their order, they would come on here or go on FB complaining?

I realize sometimes the customer is to blame because they miss payments or their shipping info is wrong, etc. That's understandable.

However, I don't think it's being "unfair" for customers that have legit complaints with ARH to express them. There's people waiting since October of last year (I believe that's when ARH first started receiving these shipments) for their statues which were fully paid.

Calling them or e-mailing them doesn't accomplish anything. You said it yourself in so many words.

What is a customer left to do at that point? Complain on the forums/social media and possibly pursue refunds.

This isn't about Arahom "punching babies or stepping on kittens" or whatever colorful phrase you can think up. It's just about ARH's poor communication and service to their customers.
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Old 01-11-2017, 01:03 PM   #46
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So post Frazetta here are some of the complaints.

1. Fully paid statues took years to receive and in fact some have still not been received.

I cannot speak to anyone's individual situation particularly those who still have not recieved one. However I do have some info on the overall delay. At first factory in China did not even want to produce and paint them because ARH had not met the minimum per statue production requirement on many (I thnk it is 100?) However Arahom negotiated to get them to do it at a much higher premium per statue than he would normally pay (again adding to costs) but by this time other statue companies (most use the same factories or group of them) had filled the schedule and so he had to go back in the que. Once they were finished he had the same problem with shipping. Shipping containers need to be full before they are shipped, so he couldn't do one statue for example and then go to the next, he had to pretty much wait for all to be done and then they were shipped to him at once. As we saw in the videos it completely filled all of his building and he was shipping them out at a rate he could given the limitations of his staff and Fed Ex trucks available. That said, it still meant some people got statues weeks before others which led to anger, especially for those who ordered the NYC editions which were supposed to ship sooner.

2. No poster, wrong COA number compared to statue, damaged poster, no apparent difference between NYC and reg editions. No black styrofoam

I believe all of these are a function of the issues in #1. Not customers fault and not saying that but ARH, the Frazettas, and a lot of us were anticipating huge sales which would propel ARH. Didn't happen. So instead he has all of these boxes to ship with a skeleton crew and trying to add the posters and such after the fact. He knows he didn't make good on the black styrofoam promise but realistically couldn't given the circumstances. All he can do on that is really apologize and explain why he had to go the way he did.

3. Lost order info and requesting paypal receipts.

Don't really know much about this one other than they also tried to change their web page and make it more user friendly and had a ton of issues. I had to to do this for a company I worked for once and it was a similar disaster. WE did have all of our accounting info backed up on a separate location prior to the change however so we at least had that. I can't speak to why ARH had this issue but as far as I know nobody was denied that they had paid but if I am wrong on that I would not dispute it.
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Old 01-11-2017, 01:10 PM   #47
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4. Broken Statues.

Some blame the styrofoam for this but I have not had more breakage with ARH than I have with other companies, just anecdotal of my own experience. Ironically I find the least breakage in kits and pro painted returns to me that arent' in form fitting styrofoam at all.

5. Slow repairs.

I really don't want to irritate anyone here. Particularly Outlikealight as he, in my opinion, was trying to be fair at he start of this but as a guy who does hire people to paint or customize statues and kits it is just a fact that it typically takes a long time. I know Out started talking to them in August but when did he actually send his horse back? When I send something to one of my painters it is at a minimum 6 months and more often longer before I get it back, although sometimes quicker depending on their work load.

6. Poor communications and customer response.

Results seem to vary, some are able to get through and get answers, some do not. Some emails don't get anwered or not timely. I don't know enough about their system or individual cases to comment so I won't but this does seem to be really common.
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Old 01-11-2017, 01:17 PM   #48
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So after all of my longwinded posts what I am trying to say is I have no doubt complaints are legit against ARH and they have some issues, but I have also ordered from Arahom for years and it has been my experience that he will make things right, at least in terms of getting you what you paid for.

I remember a few years ago when he lost everything he owned in a fire up to and including his dog and still I don't know of anyone who didn't get all of the statues they had ordered.


I don't know his finances or pretend to but I'm sure he is currently trying to bridge the financial kick in the Jimmy he got from the Frazetta line to the post Frazetta production and going forward afterwards. He has to balance all of the aforementioned issues with sales and production. He has changed his buisness model and production plan that makes a lot of sense to me and eliminates nearly all of his problems that result from poor sales of a statue or group of statues. Huge companies like sideshow have those too but can just absorb them, ARH was too small to do so.

I realize that NONE of that is the customers problem or fault, but I think it IS relevant to the discussion. I also am not saying that anyone who is currently having problems with ARH is not right to be concerned or angry.
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Old 01-11-2017, 02:34 PM   #49
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Darrin, great posts, very well written and an excellent summary of what is going on. The onky thing I can add is that ARH could and can prevent the way that we as customers react and that is communication, communication and communication.

I happen to work in the service industry and what I've learned in all these years is that if you take your customers serious and explain what is going on your customers will accept most what is happening.
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Old 01-11-2017, 04:07 PM   #50
outlikealight
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TNovak View Post
4. Broken Statues.

Some blame the styrofoam for this but I have not had more breakage with ARH than I have with other companies, just anecdotal of my own experience. Ironically I find the least breakage in kits and pro painted returns to me that arent' in form fitting styrofoam at all.

5. Slow repairs.

I really don't want to irritate anyone here. Particularly Outlikealight as he, in my opinion, was trying to be fair at he start of this but as a guy who does hire people to paint or customize statues and kits it is just a fact that it typically takes a long time. I know Out started talking to them in August but when did he actually send his horse back? When I send something to one of my painters it is at a minimum 6 months and more often longer before I get it back, although sometimes quicker depending on their work load.

6. Poor communications and customer response.

Results seem to vary, some are able to get through and get answers, some do not. Some emails don't get anwered or not timely. I don't know enough about their system or individual cases to comment so I won't but this does seem to be really common.

Your not irritating me at all. I do appreciate everyones posts on this topic - in my thread and the others that are ongoing.

You do bring up a point that I think many need to know. If you have issues with your purchase from ARH you are not getting a replacement or your money back. You can send it in for repairs or take a small credit. It took me months to communicate with them and finally send my Horse in. They did pay for the return shipping on that. At the time I was told repairs were running about 2-3 weeks. We are double that right now and closing in on two months.

I never had a problem with waiting for 2 years for the statue. I never messaged them once in that time period.

It does get me fired up when I watch the videos they are posting now and everyone in their shop is working on the new stuff. I know my horse is sitting in box somewhere in that mess. I didn't sign up up for custom work that will take months.

But anyway - I digress.
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