Sphiatt Hiatt & Hiatt Enterprises Seth & Paula Hiatt review: theft 14

Well Hello Nancy! Seth here... I finally got an email from you about 10 days ago and have been working to fix the problem here with you as you contacted me. As you will recall Paypal refunded over 1/2 of your $51 and we shipped out the other 1/2 of your items already. I am sorry for the trouble you had on this order but you never contacted us and we had no idea there was a problem. Luckily you disputed the $26 through paypal for the product you didn't get and the refund came out of our account so we should be square now. I am very sorry for the mix up here and encourage you to please email to me@sphiatt.com if you have any trouble. Sorry we have so many names, we have just one website, shopsphiatt.com but had to incorporate as Hiatt & Hiatt Enterprises Inc since we do more than just a website. We also do go by our actual names, sorry if thats confusing but hey, I can't very well go by shopsphiatt.com on my drivers license, LOL! Thanks again for your business and anyone else with any problems please email me directly and I will help :) -Seth

I purchased almost $150 on Dec 08. I took the holidays into effect and was super happy about getting an e-mail stating my items were being shipped at the end of the month. But 2 weeks with zero of the tracking information registering...I sent many unaswered e-mails, live chat which is always offline messages and even a message to the webmaster. Since the people in 'charge' didn't reply at all, I finally today filed a dispute with my bank, and also submitted a review with the BBB.

Serious Scam Artists. I thought they'd be better than that. Guess I was wrong.

As part of the crew that sets up Anime Vegas here I was hoping I would have been able to give a fellow anime lover some business. Now, I'll just tell everyone I meet at AV never to use this site.

Scam artist.

I have bought many items from sphiatt and never had a problem, but I heard that they had a few employees that had to be let go. As soon as the owner found out about some of his people not representing his name good, he fired them. The new peoeple seem to be real good and responsive. I would highly recommend shopping with www.sphiatt.com personally.

I had trouble with an order a couple of years ago, but it finally arrived. I was assured that they had fired their staff and turned over a new leaf, and so I was dumb enough to order again about 3 weeks ago. Guess what? NOTHING'S CHANGED! It's still the same crappy service! Do not order from them if you value your money!

I ordered from them just shy of a year ago and it took 2 months to get my stuff. Thinking that it was because of the holiday, I ordered again. No suprise here... the stuff isn't here. What gives?

I just spoke to Seth over the phone. From what he says their system is old and off, so they are updating the ordering, tracking, and inventory. He says I should have it within the week. Will update as needed.

I'm very happy to have found this site. After, at least 5 Emails to Seth, with NO ANSWER, I started to worry about 2 orders that I placed with him! I have roughly $ 150.00 tied up in Games Workshop LOTR items. Anyone with info as to his address, or phone # please Email me at: maxbailey1937@att.net I, too am looking for what I ordered, or my money returned. I'm sure that he reads these comments, so if you value your rep. please don't make me contact your Better Business Bureau. Also...has anyone reported him to Games Workshop? They wouldn't be happy with him!

This is Seth again, we have upgraded our systems and our inventory and tracking systems are now all fixed. We have upgraded the site at www.animeoftheday.com which looks much better and is way nicer. Anyone with any problems at all please email me directly at me@sphiatt.com or call me personally at [protected]. We are not out to steal from anyone and have thousands and thousands of happy customers. When you make a payment on paypal check our feedback there, 41, 000+ transactions on Paypal. We are committed to getting you great items at rock bottom prices!

I found sphiatt.com a long time ago...It must have been three or four years ago. The first couple orders I made with them for $100-150 each went fine, with the exception of the shipping taking a month since they only offered media mail. The last one though was not so good. It was again around $150, but a couple of the items were not dubbed as the site said they were, and then Azumanga Daioh, which from them was a three disk set had an issue. Discs two and three were marked correctly, but the data on the discs was both disc three. I emailed them and was told that there was a manufacturer error. It took a couple months of emails, with long gaps in between from them, and they finally shipped out replacement discs. Unfortunately the disc had the exact same problem. I tried emailing them, but got no response. I even spoke to a few other customers who were having similar problems with other anime series. I got their emails because Seth had replied to one of my questions with all of them in the address line as well. Very unprofessional and probably against some kind of business rules. Anyway, in the end, I and everyone I spoke to just gave up on them. Since then, I found Sun Devil DVD, but they seem to be gone now as well.

This is the first time i ordered from sphiatt but i ordered from his new website Anime of The Day. At first i was pretty excited because they carried tons animation dvds, at super cheap prices. I was completly unaware of the the scams that were going on. Actually, i was thinking of ordering things from Sun Devil Dvd as well but i believe there site doesnt exist anymore as well. So i ended up ordering almost $170 worth of dvds on seth's new site anime of the day. I had no problems with shipping, took like two weeks maybe less, i dont remember. Later i would email his site many times, asking a question about a certain dvd but no reply. So now, just this morning i was interested in buying some more dvds from anime of the day but the site states under construction. Does anyone know whats going on with this site. Or is the BBB finally cracking down on these anime hk websites?

As a long time customer, who actually goes into their store on a regular basis (rather than ordering online), I can say Seth is a great guy, his business is great and responsive, but the problem is inventory. Without fail, when I go into the warehouse to buy things, there are literally stacks and stacks of orders being pulled... but what you have to remember is that not everything is always in stock, so partial orders get shipped, while some wait for completion before shipping. It also doesn't help that some lesser in store customers will pull items from the pulled stacks (which always astounds me when I see someone do that as there is a ton of signage asking you not to), making the online orders even more complicated to get completed.

But as a long time customer who started as an online customer and became an in store one, all I can say is that these complaints are fairly surprising. And the accusations of them being Scam Artisits is truly insulting (I literally feel insulted for Seth and his employees, whether they do or not). They aren't scammers in any way shape or form... they're a business with a TON of customers. I'm sorry that you have bad experiences with them from time to time, but every business has a margin of error... but given that there are less than a dozen complaints here over a nearly ten year period of time... c'mon, that has to say to something!

Contact Seth directly, as he says, if you have any problems. It may take him awhile to respond because he is EXTREMELY BUSY, but he will get back to you, and try to the best of his abilities to make things right... becasue he's a good person running a big business as best he can. Personally, I can't recommend his company more, and I will continue to do so for as long as he stays in business. Besides, where else are you gonna get deals THIS good?

~Tom Parry (long time customer and acquaintance)

two year period of time* sorry

The following comments are submitted as neutral. Speaking from experience, I am familiar with the service one may encounter with online order management from Hiatt & Hiatt Enterprises (specifically referring to their former location at www.shopsphiatt.com). I am pleased to see the owner actively engaged on this complaints board and demonstrating a commitment to rectify the issues posted; however, it is unfortunate that the posted situations were allowed to escalate to this point.

I first ordered from Hiatt & Hiatt in January of 2008. My introduction to the service was not pleasant. I placed a $500 order that took over five months to fill. After placing the order I waited two full months before following up with Hiatt & Hiatt via e-mail. I had not received any product or a status update. Less than a week later I received a brief reply providing an apology and stating the order had just shipped. Thinking everything had been straightened out, I was shocked to find half of my order missing upon its arrival a couple of weeks later. The representative failed to communicate that point in the earlier e-mail response I received and there were no explanatory comments in the shipment itself.

I followed up with another e-mail to Hiatt & Hiatt for which I receive a prompt reply stating the items were backordered. No estimated time of arrival was provided. After another two months, whereby I had not received any further product or status updates from Hiatt & Hiatt, I pursued the matter once more via e-mail. I received the second half of my order shortly thereafter.

A little proactive communication on the side of Hiatt & Hiatt would have gone a long way in managing my concerns about the company. Due to that experience, my initial reaction was to identify another vendor to source anime from…and I did. However, finding the quality of Hiatt & Hiatt’s products to be in good form and acknowledging the ultimate follow through I received, I opted to give Hiatt & Hiatt a second chance. I promptly placed another online order, but scaled back on its size—I targeted $100 to $150. The order was shipped within 48 hours. In 2009 I awarded Hiatt & Hiatt additional business. My next two online orders, still under the $150 mark, were shipped out within three days and one day, respectively. I recall at least one these orders being another surprise partial shipment, but I did not need to follow up as I did on my initial order above (however, I still did not receive any status updates).

We’re now in 2010. I stumbled across this complaints board in an attempt to find out what happened to www.shopsphiatt.com. I used to get e-mail announcements about upcoming sales from Hiatt & Hiatt. I never heard anything about the new website mentioned in the previous post (www.animeoftheday.com). I guess communication has not come along much. The new site is already down. I’ll check back in a week. If I still have no luck, then I’ll move on to another vendor…again. Hiatt & Hiatt, please get it together.

Peace & Prosperity,
Adrien D. Green

I'm a long time buyer of Seth... everytime i called or left an email about a purchase... himself or his staff got back to me a.s.a.p. If any dvd had a scratch or skiped or i didn't receive part of my order it got taken care of even if 1 of my items was on back order i'd ask to replace my item with another that was in stock and it was taken care of with no problems...I was trying to place an order this time around but the website is close. I'm a bit upset. They have the best prices i'm going to miss them. I really hope this is not the end of animeoftheday aka (sphiatt)...
AKA CUPCAKEJL