When are shipped cards not shipped?

I’m starting to grow more and more tiresome of redemption cards.  Even when things go smoothly, there’s usually a long period of waiting if you are purchasing new product.  I’m not sure why card companies can’t just plan autograph inserts a year in advance.  Give yourselves plenty of lead time to get the cards signed on card.  Non-autographed redemption cards are even more frustrating.  Between the time that you pull the redemption and it arrives, there are a bunch of other rookies of the same players that you’re waiting for and people quickly forget about the redemption cards.

I ended up with 4 redemption cards from 2009 Topps Finest, 1 from 2009 Topps and 1 from 2008 Topps.  They were all marked as shipped around the same time towards the end of December.  I saw some of the Finest cards and Red Hot Rookies show up on other people’s blogs.  A Colby Rasmus Finest card arrived in my mailbox.  I figured that the rest would arrive in the next day or two.  I waited and waited and over a week later there was no sign of the other cards.

I sent an e-mail to Topps asking what was going on and if I had any recourse if the cards didn’t arrive.  What I got as a response was kind of surprising:

The products you are expecting may take up to 4-6 weeks to reach their final destination from the processing date. The date the order was processed was December 23rd. We apologize for any inconvenience, as we experienced a delay in the processing.

So, these cards were marked as shipped before they were actually shipped.  That’s my biggest complaint in all of this.  I get absolutely no information regarding the status of these cards.  Upper Deck a little better, but they aren’t all that great either.  There’s no shipping information on these so if they never arrive how am I to prove that?  Is it even worth the hassle?  What’s to stop people from falsely claiming that their cards didn’t arrive?

So, I have to wait another 2-4 weeks from the time that the redemptions were processed by Topps after waiting since May when I first redeemed these just to see if these ever arrive.  Who knows what happens from there.  I’ve sung the praises of Topps’ Customer Service in the past, but their redemption department really needs a lot of work and they need to cut down the number of redemption cards inserted in products.

In other news, I ordered a box of 2009-10 Topps Basketball jumbos and took the hit on shipping.  It’s almost impossible to find and I can see it easily jumping in price again.  I can wait to break that box open.  Topps jumbos are always a lot of fun and these boxes are loaded.  Of course, I’ve probably just jinxed myself and will get nothing.

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