World record for the longest wait for an online purchase?

[GPX | 1,403]

Probably not the kind of world record anyone would want, but I believe I might be close to such a world record..

This thread is about the longest wait you’ve had to receive an item after purchasing it online. It may be a long wait due to a lazy seller, problems with  postal service, or something to do with a recent pandemic and international delivery restrictions. 

My longest period of waiting is currently 8 months (and still counting!). I had purchased a couple of VGA graded games from Finland in May 2020. It was listed as available for international post, but at some point during the listing, Finland decided against allowing postal deliveries to Australia (where I’m from). I could have easily cancelled the purchase to get a refund, but the seller is a well-known member in the collecting community (Finngamer), and despite me never having dealt with him before via transactions, his communications and online presence have helped to reassure me he won’t be scamming me. So this is where I’m at, still a waiting game until restrictions are off and packages can be sent freely from Finland to Oz.

What’s been your longest wait?

 

Edited January 6, 2021 by GPX

[GPX | 1,403]

And just to clarify further, I’m referring to legitimate transactions. Not ones where you’ve been scammed and the scammer has ran off into the sunset with your cash.

[SNESNESCUBE64 | 606]

So you never know what's gonna happen when ordering from overseas. I ordered some parts from china and it took almost 8 months to get to me. It came after about 7 and a half months. My theory is that it fell behind a shelf at the post office and was only found after cleaning the place. I can't really blame the seller, they shipped fairly quickly as far as I remember.

[LeatherRebel5150 | 1,089]

Anyone who has ordered any games from LRG/iam8bit/SRG at this point are or will be somewhere between 9-11months, anyone that pre ordered from Ready To Dispatch games in over a year at this point I believe, and anyone that ordered Paprium from Watermelon Games waited something like 8yrs for that to show up

[elprincipe | 147]

Those of us foolish enough to pay money towards Bloodstained's development can answer several years.

[Code Monkey | 2,127]

Mighty No. 9

Bloodstained

Mystic Searches

Sydney Hunter And The Caverns Of Death

 

Take your pick, I backed all of them. I think Mystic Searches is going on 5 years.

[JamesRobot | 6,022]

Does kickstarter count?

[DefaultGen | 5,723]

I had a few magic cards lost in the mail for a couple years before they showed up. I felt bad for the seller because by the time I returned them, they were worthless (it was a playset of foil Bonfire of the Damned while they were in standard).

I bought a keyboard from Model F Keyboards in August 2018 and I'm still waiting for it. I'm not even an early preorder either! You could've ordered them all the way back in January 2016.

[fcgamer | 4,987]

Yeah, just a few months shy of a year.

Made a trade with a guy in Africa, we both sent our parcels a few weeks before covid-19 kicked off. He received his back in around June or so, I still haven't received mine. We are not sure whether it made it onto the cargo ship or is still sitting in customs somewhere.

Definitely a well respected member of his community, he even made an unboxing video when he received my half of the trade. I don't fault him at all, definitely don't think he is a scammer, rather just an ill-timed trade.

Let's see what happens once the world settles back down.

[Friendsfa35 | 35]

back in 2014? or so,
there was a Scandinavian poster/seller on NA
he seemed legit, and we agreed on a price for 2 NES games that were only released with the SCN codes.

Gold Medal Challenge '92  & RC Pro-AM II

which at that point were way more difficult to find here,
after paying, he kept making excuses one after the other regarding on shipping them out, always things like "i had someone else go the post office for me to ship em to you...bla...bla...bla"

4 or 5 months after constant complaining that i still had not received them, i FINALLY got a package randomly delivered, it was 1 of the 2 games, badly wrapped in sturdy brown paper with an adres on it.
i was shocked that the game itself was not damaged during shipping.
and it was indeed in the promised condition.
but in the end, i NEVER received RC Pro-AM II.

 

[Brickman | 4,199]

Hey another Australian! Didn’t realise.

Not including LRG, which is more of a pre order than shipped and waiting. Around 6 months when something was sent via boat from US. 

The pandemic saw some long wait times, but I think the most was around 3-4 months.

[Gutling | 31]

5 hours ago, elprincipe said:

Those of us foolish enough to pay money towards Bloodstained's development can answer several years.

Thats literally one I was thinking of when I came in here. It outlasted a whole console generation lol

[a3quit4s | 4,323]

That Limited Run Games wait for Jay and Silent Bob was like 9-10 months. And it didn’t work on AVS as advertised!

[Tabonga | 2,532]

I have a kickstarter board game coming that closed in November of 2018 that has been delayed by problems* in China (where the components are being made).  It is supposed to be shipping soon.

I am not worried about getting ripped off - this is a stand alone follow up to an earlier release which I also got - IIRC it was also.  The miniatures (and there are a lot of different ones in both iterations) are pretty amazing so it is worth the wait.

*The virus has really screwed things up in the production schedule.

[RH | 5,196]

For me, personally, I had ordered a couple of GB protos from England.  The guy seemed like he could be sketchy, but I figured I'd take a chance since his prices were good for what I was getting.  I think it took about 2, almost 3, months to get the protos and I had a tracking number.

But, close enough to this issue, we all remember the abysmal hype and failure of Duke Nukem 3D 2, which became Duke Nukem Forever.

I remember reading an article that a guy went into Funcoland and preordered the game back in 1999, maybe even earlier.  Years later, when DKF finally came out, he went into Electronics Boutique (or possibly Game Stop) and they honored his purchase since they had bought Funcoland.  That dude kept his original receipt for something like 12 years just to get that game.

Edited January 6, 2021 by RH

[croagunk | 798]

Luckily the longest I’ve ever waited was about two months for some games I ordered from the US to Canada.

[Hammerfestus | 4,099]

The most for me has been like 3-4 months on some random amazon something or other that shipped from China.  

[TDIRunner | 2,876]

It will be six years next Monday for me, but that's for a Crowfunded game, so maybe that doesn't count.  

If that doesn't count, I'm still waiting on a Amazon order that I placed 3/20/19.  I contact them about every other month and they just tell me "it will be there soon."  

[ZeldaFreak | 3,730]

I ordered the First 4 Figures Majora's Mask statue they released awhile back (Not the smaller PVC one they recently released, the big one,) I placed the order on January of 2017 and it didn't arrive until well in to 2018, around July if memory serves. I believe that was due to them redesigning the look of it to look more aged and damaged instead of looking all shiny and new, which was a choice I could get behind even if it drastically increased the wait times for it.

I do think crowdfunded games is kind of cheating, since there's an expectation of long wait times with stuff like that, and even though you will actually get the game eventually as long as you donate enough, crowdfunding is more about supporting the developers so they can make the game they want to make anyway.

[GPX | 1,403]

15 hours ago, DefaultGen said:

I had a few magic cards lost in the mail for a couple years before they showed up. I felt bad for the seller because by the time I returned them, they were worthless (it was a playset of foil Bonfire of the Damned while they were in standard).

I bought a keyboard from Model F Keyboards in August 2018 and I'm still waiting for it. I'm not even an early preorder either! You could've ordered them all the way back in January 2016.

Wow.. do you know what had happened for those magic cards to show up after 2 years?

[GPX | 1,403]

52 minutes ago, ZeldaFreak said:

I ordered the First 4 Figures Majora's Mask statue they released awhile back (Not the smaller PVC one they recently released, the big one,) I placed the order on January of 2017 and it didn't arrive until well in to 2018, around July if memory serves. I believe that was due to them redesigning the look of it to look more aged and damaged instead of looking all shiny and new, which was a choice I could get behind even if it drastically increased the wait times for it.

I do think crowdfunded games is kind of cheating, since there's an expectation of long wait times with stuff like that, and even though you will actually get the game eventually as long as you donate enough, crowdfunding is more about supporting the developers so they can make the game they want to make anyway.

Seems there are 2 types of online purchases, which I didn’t think about when doing the OP: an outright purchase and a crowdfunding purchase. I was thinking mainly of the outright purchases because these types are likely to cause more angst and stress the longer the waiting period! With crowdfunding, it is kind of a given that a waiting period of 1 year to several years for a game/item to eventuate, so the waiting part is mainly for the developmental period and not the posting period.

 

 

[NZCollector | 107]

I've been waiting two weeks for something and that's frustrating enough. I couldn't imagine waiting for some of the times you all have mentioned! I don't have the patience for that. 

[ZeldaFreak | 3,730]

46 minutes ago, NZCollector said:

I've been waiting two weeks for something and that's frustrating enough. I couldn't imagine waiting for some of the times you all have mentioned! I don't have the patience for that. 

Thankfully I am a fairly patient guy so I'm usually alright with long wait times, haha.

[RegularGuyGamer | 2,042]

17 hours ago, Code Monkey said:

Mystic Searches

Is this the 8 bit heroes guy? I backed them in 2014 and still haven't received a game... Crooks

[Code Monkey | 2,127]

16 minutes ago, RegularGuyGamer said:

Is this the 8 bit heroes guy? I backed them in 2014 and still haven't received a game... Crooks

Yes. I guess it's now 6 years.

The guy's name is Joe Granato and he hasn't provided any update since May.