[Closed] Modelcarworld's dishonesty.

agree with you jean ,he don t respect collectors !

No, I didn' know! and I have quite a few Neo Models!

Are American Excellence made by the same firm? I guess it's
fortunate that they made very few of the models for which I
care most!

Thanks for this information. Since the warehouse is in Charlotte, NC,

I assumed this was an American firm. These practices should not be encouraged. I wonder if Amazon is aware of this situation since American Excellence is an Amazon dealer (or was the last time I checked).

Neo has been owned by Matrix Jaap van Dijk

I believe Neo in a sneaky way has been taken over by the owner of Modelcarworld.
Jaap van Dijk started than Matrix.

Yes, but there is no more link now between Mr van Dijk and NEO. They're competitors now.

As I understand the story ...

... Replicars was a model shop in Holland which used to have some models produced under their own name (the Replicars business still exists as far as I can see). Then they decided to incur the considerable cost of creating and producing a new range of high-level resin models (Neo) and it seems that Model Car World helped finance the project, on the understanding that (a) MCW would be the main distributor and (b) if the range was a success they reserved the right (as a majority investor) to take over the Neo brand as as their own.

Which they promptly did. The creator of Neo (not altogether surprisingly) walked away from the whole thing, and by way of revenge set up Matrix as a slightly more upmarket brand producing the same kind of models as Neo at a higher price point.

The response from Neo/MCW was to start undermining Matrix by producing clones of Matrix models with cheaper finish and trim detail, and at half the price, under the BoS brand name. Amazing that Matrix didn't sue but I think the costs of doing so would have been crippling. Even more amazing that for a time at least MCW were offering some Matrix models on their website, at the same time as they were pirating others! Well, business is business, I suppose.

If I remember correctly, Neo started marketing the American models in their range as the "American Excellence" series, even in Europe, but then apparently dropped that label and used American Excellence purely as the name of their U.S.outlet. I didn't know all that stuff about AE passing themselves off as a small U.S. model manufacturer, I thought it was pretty obvious from the MCW and AE websites that they were one and the same outfit. But there you are.

A nasty little story of commercial rivalry, but I suppose it's the same in most lines of business. Dog eat dog. You only need to read about the vicious attempts to undermine or strangle competition that firms like Microsoft, Apple and many other big names others have indulged in over the years. But unfortunately, if people like (or need) their products, they turn a blind eye to these nasty details (or maybe remain blissfully ignorant of them) and buy the product anyway. Personally I admit it won't stop me buying Neo or BoS models, although when it comes to the same model being sold as a BoS and then as a Neo at twice the price with very little difference in trim level, it does make me wonder what kind of silly game they are trying to play with us.

(p.s. Hope I haven't said anything libellous here. Just the commercial facts as I understand them).

Graeme, many thanks for your enlightening thoughts about that story...

Mr K may be a model car lover, but first of all he is an uncompromising businessman...

Business is a dirty business.

Wow, how timely.....

Last month I ordered 2 cars from AE, these were older issues that weren't available elsewhere. One came factory sealed, but without dual side mounts. Hmmm.....right? Took it back, no problem. Offered me an add'l 10% off to keep it, but no replacement as this was the last one. Took 3 weeks to properly credit my CC. I figured these things happen. Just last week, I was enticed again by their 20% off sale as they had another older issue in stock that was otherwise unavailable. A factory sealed box arrived, with the trunk, rear bumper and a broken sliver detached...I could only assume this car fell some great distance and stopped abruptly during some part of the shipment/inventory process. Again, 10% off to keep it, or a refund as it was the last one.

Now, I've been a collector for too long, and have purchased little ones from all over the world and have never received a car with missing parts, or come to think of it..even loose parts, nevertheless broken ones. And two in a row? Even I had a hard time believing this.

The tl;dr here is that there's nothing worse than poor QC or CS, and there's no substitute for appreciating your customers, little things like a basic eyeball of the product before shipment, a prompt response to an e mail, and cheerful and rapid credit to a cc. Anyone who provides that..and a reasonable price, please... has my loyalty, and unfortunately, 2 in a row from anyone means nevermore.

That's not giing me a warm feeling Robert, since I....

....took advantage of that sale and have a few items on the way to me. I''ll report here on their condition.

I hope you have better luck than me, Harvey...

...what are the odds that I'd get 2 in a row, shipped a month apart that were damaged or defective? I think the issue for me was that these were apparently the last of each, for some reason maybe they were most vulnerable or were improperly dispatched returns?

ill like that mcw boss give one s opinion he must surely read this forum ...