Maybe celga has two or more YJA ID. They are doing act in a play of one's own bit with those ID.

So I put in a high bid of 5000 and Celga bid 3700 only to be outbid immediately afterwards with a bid of 3800 by someone else. They never countered and never even used my max bid, WTF!?!? So I emailed them and they said sorry we will adjust your next bid fees. So what's the point of having a max bid if they don't follow through, not to mention it was something I was super stoked about and just to see it go for a measly 100 yen more was heart breaking.

just to add to this i got my hold box from celga got a couple of blobpus and was suppose to get a GID skullbrain with it
they tell me they cant find it (this was a BIN so i paid the whole thing up front) then after some email back and forth they find it and since i have already paid to ship my hold box for my other item this one included now i have to repay to ship this one item or keep it held( wich after losing once who knows where it will be) and will be and with the bad yen - dollar its not like im going to be buying much

Just thought I'd mention to anyone new to Celga, make sure you pay to paypal@celga... and not papal@celga...

Looks like they've been sending out the wrong email on their invoices for a while too - not sure if it would go through, get lost, or whatever but watch out!

They are aware of their mistake now...

this sucks. gotta go with a Gold Account.

I love Celga. I've used them for years and although there have been a few mix-ups they've always tried their best to remedy the situation and keep me happy. I use YJA a lot and have little doubt that were I to be using another service, at some point there would be a fuck up with them too.

If it weren't for them I'd not have the collection I do. I love you Celga! Here's to 2010!

I also received a box from them today so I'm feeling the love.

Well said, Tim.

I also have a box coming from them, this week!

Celga rules.

just requested shipment

My situation sucked but they made it right, they always do. Plus it doesn't hurt as bad knowing that I was outbid buy a fellow SB'er.

Anyone complaining about Celga needs to compare the experience to eBay. I don't usually buy Microman stuff stateside, but this past holiday season lots of different sellers were dumping collections. So I jumped in!

Holy crap, with only one exception was every experience on eBay as a buyer a massive pain! Truly. No communication. Bad communication. Even sellers saying they didn't do delivery confirmation unless I would pay for it... Yet... Guess what? The package arrives with a green delivery confirmation sticker on it?

Such lameness.

In contrast every Celga transaction I have had has been flawless with no issues ever and quick response.

Oh, and the one eBay exception? I guy who combined shipping on items and even sent me a refund for the difference after shipment. I do that all the time as a seller, but this was the FIRST time for me being on the other side in over 10 years.

Sorry folks, Celga is great. And if you think they charge too much try to do it on your own. They are very reasonable.

Huh, even after reading those complaints you think its purely down to fees? Losing items in Celga office after you've won an auction and then holding them to ransom until you pay for it to be shipped again, when its their fault, is pretty shitty.

I cancelled my gold account about two years ago, and once a year for the last two i've received an annual bill for the gold service. After arguing the toss after the first bill and refusing to pay it, I thought that would be it. Then this years came, copy and paste the original email discussion, and lo and behold, no reply yet.

This is a 3 page thread with only or 2 people with serious issues that seem like exceptions rather than rules with the occasional chuckle-head jumping in and complaining about exchange rates as if they don't understand how Celga works and the difference between consumer/interbank exchange rates are.

Nobody said they are perfect—no service is—but some folks are really making mountains out of molehills here.

Generally, anyone saying their experience with Celga is worse than eBay... Get some perspective. Deal with your specific issue and move on.

Wait, so we're generally talking levels of crapitude here?

I can honestly say i've had more trouble with Celga in the last three years than I have on eBay. Genuine. Maybe its because I deal with UK sellers on eBay...one seller even made me a cuppa when I went and collected some 2000AD progs.

I didn't feel the need to jump in here, but if you want examples, here are mine:

In my use of their service, Celga has:

- double-billed me for an item that I paid for months ago
- mailed me a broken toy (I suspect it was broken before they boxed it up)
- taped the bubble wrap to the box of a vintage MIB toy (thankfully, no visible damage)
- accidentally bought 3 toys instead of the 1 that I requested, tripling my bill- essentially, "sorry, you need to take them all." (there is a long story here that is not worth repeating)
- billed me for my Gold account after I finally canceled it (and it took me multiple e-mails to get them to agree to cancel/downgrade the account)

Mistakes I can forgive; yes, no buying service is perfect. Celga is much more convenient than eBay and they do a good packing job (but remember that you are paying for this convenience). 95% of the time, you will probably be fine with Celga if you are only bidding on auctions.

The reason that I ultimately stopped using Celga was not just the above errors- simply put, their customer service is not acceptable. You are always dealing with a different agent through e-mail and they can be brusque. Sometimes they do not respond for a while (so chances are pretty low for webstore items that sell out quickly). The few times that you need to correct errors or contact them for other requests can become frustrating.

When you are running a service business, is it crazy for me to expect good customer service?

Okay, fair enough. But what are the options and are they any better? With the dollar down, I would imagine all Japanese proxy/deputy services are hurting.

I am in the middle of this right now with them.

I did a webstore order from Blobpus a few months ago ( larvagons ) and received one larvagon and a PK Deadstocker which were not the URLS I sent to Celga. This might not have been their mistake, but they obviously didn't check when it arrived, and are now following it up.

In addition I've had items shipped with awesome amounts of packaging and other items as you've written above, with tape on the actual item which could cause damage.

Bottom line is it's a business. As such you need to correct glaring errors in customer service and mistakes being made. Obviously from the amount of complaints in this thread it's not isolated incidents. Sure mistakes happen, but you need to own up to them and not pass it off on the customers under the guise "well we're doing you the favor". Celga staff are very nice but all the niceness in the world is not going to make up for the consistent errors.

BTW I've used Crescent Shop over the last year and never ever had a mistake.

Lixx, nothing personal, but as someone who has worked in customer service in many different fields over the years I can say this: The customer is always right and the customer is never happy no matter what.

Sorry folks, practically all of these complaints fall into the category of exceptions to the rule. And in your specific case Lixx, sorry but it seems like there was a miscommunication and what happened? The worst was you didn't win something and didn't have to pay. That's frustrating, but in the great scheme of things... whatever. You still have your money.

MicromanZone are you actually Keigo Morita?

Micromanzone I work IN Customer Service. To simply put all of this down as a bunch of whiny customers is pretty juvenile. You're right I didn't lose any money but it did cost me a trade I had been working on. From what I've read here there have been quite a few monetary complaints also. If you can't get any aspect of your business right from bidding down to the accounting, then you deserve to lose business.

So you work in customer service and have devised ways to do business that result in a 0% complaint rate from customers? Where every customer is 100% happy and no mistakes are made?

Even Willy Wonka had management and customer issues.

Micro your points are pretty moot. Of course every business has customer service issues. No system is 100% perfect. How you handle the mistakes and correct them usually results in continued service. That is the issue here, Celga seems to get similar complaints over and over that go unresolved.

lol....Keigo is in Japan. MicromanZone is really Hyla and Emily.

So you're saying Keigo should fire them all and hire Oompa-loompas...

crazy to hear everyone else have same problems,
took me half a year to work things out.

i like celga and their staff, long time love affair,
but they seem to be a little bid overcharged lately.

my bigger complain though is that they use
wrong exchange rates. dont mind paying a little higher fees,
but expect them to play fair and not cash in backdoor.