I've tried being patient... really.
I placed an order during the spring giveaway that was large enough to qualify for all 4 bonus sabers. It's 11 pieces in total: two diamond hilts + blades, plus accessories like couplers and hilt extensions. My account still says processing on the orders page, and I'm okay with that since it's such a large order. It's not a birthday gift, or even Christmas, so I don't need it by a certain date. I sent two emails about a week apart in June and got no response. That didn't even put me over the edge since I've read lots on here about longer wait times and slow email responses.
On July 18 I got a delivery confirmation email. I was not at home all day and I did not happen to check that email address until Monday. I sent a reply immediately saying I had not received a package. There was no tracking number in the email, just a line that mentioned FedEx Ground. I never received an email saying that my order shipped. I never received an email with a tracking number. All I got was a surprise! it's here - when it wasn't. It could be that the email was sent in error and was meant for another customer. That's my best-case scenario.
Still, I'm left wondering if I should speak to my bank about what options I have in case I need to go that route. If US will get back to me about shipping/really anything, I'd be fine filing a police report for electronics equipment
I'm at a loss right now, though. I don't want to use the *s* word, but that's where paranoia and anxiety are taking me.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. (Based on your post, you’ve probably read this before, too, but I’m still going to say it again.)
This is a group of UltraSabers customers and fans, not a way to reach UltraSabers customer service. Nobody here works for UltraSabers. We can give advice, but we can’t provide specific information about your order because we don’t have access to any of that information.
ORDINARILY, you would probably have your saber in your hand already, because their turnaround time was typically 1-2 weeks. Lots of us old-timers have that as our default experience with UltraSabers. HOWEVER... in early December of last year, thanks to all the fan excitement surrounding the last Star Wars movie, a new Star Wars TV show that apparently should have been titled “Baby Yoda” instead, the release of a new Star Wars video game, the Christmas gift-giving season, and a winter sales promotion, they began to have so many orders that they fell behind. In January, there started to be issues with parts and components, because of the COVID-19 issues in China, where some of the electronic parts are manufactured, and they fell a little more behind. In February, the fallout from COVID-19 started to have effects here in the United States, and some of their more-local parts suppliers fell behind, not just the ones in China. As time progressed, and as social-distancing measures needed to be put into effect in the workplace (causing more than the usual scheduling issues of getting the right technician, the right saber, the right parts, and the right tools all at the right workstation at the right time, multiplied across the multiple suppliers used), the backlog continued. On May 25, they lost all their emails prior to that date, and that has caused its own issues. They have staff working 24x7 trying to catch up from the backlog, and some progress is being made, but they are nowhere near back to normal yet.
Their overall delivery times have slipped quite a bit; although some folks still get their sabers in a week or two, some sabers take three or four weeks, and some take eight weeks or longer. Note that the orders are NOT worked in a First-In-First-Out queue order; there are too many dependencies on various parts, technician skill sets, machine/workstation availability, and Lord-only-knows what else for that to be even close to efficient. There have been entire books— heck, entire college courses— written on efficient manufacturing-process scheduling, so there’s no way I can give a full explanation here; just know that it’s very complicated.
The response times on the customer service emails have slipped quite a bit, too. All I can say is to keep sending POLITE emails to
info@ultrasabers.com with your order number in the subject line, but I wouldn’t send an email every day; that will just clog up the Inbox and make it harder to find the emails that need an answer other than “Yes, we have your order, and it’s in the processing queue, but I can’t tell you when it will ship, because we are waiting on <fill_in_the_blank>.” There’s nothing wrong with wanting an update, because you have sent them your money; just understand that right now, getting an update, or your saber, is going to take longer than normal, and longer than any of us would like.
So send another polite email to
info@ultrasabers.com, making sure your order number and a BRIEF statement of the issue (Order #xxxxxxx status— now at xx weeks, or something like that, I don’t know) are in the subject line. You have seen many, many people posting that they are getting their Golden Ticket email (and yeah, that email you got was from a third party review-tracking site that has no knowledge or insight into UltraSabers’ manufacturing processes, and was set up to use a timing based on NORMAL processing times, so don’t let that email mess you up too badly; it doesn’t mean your shipment got lost); your turn will come, too.
Right now, I already got the Golden Ticket email, but the USPS seems to have lost track of my package... it’s been in “In Transit, Arriving Late” status for the past week, and it was last seen as it entered the facility in Houston last Sunday, at oh-dark-thirty. That’s not anything UltraSabers can help me with; it’s not their fault, and it’s not my fault; it just is the way things are. All I can do is sit here and wait, trying not to freak out about my Frankensaber possibly never making it back home to me, after I shipped it off to get a Diamond upgrade.
Hang in there, tonyk17... your Golden Ticket email will come.
