I'm not normally the guy who posts negative stuff... but I gotta express a personal sentiment. Most of you know that I have run a business around modeling and the hobby since 1998. We manfacture and we also resell. When Bob Letterman / VLS broke up with Verlinden, I had to find new sources of supply at dealer prices for the items I resell. After working with other far away distributors, it came to light that Military Model Distributors - also known as MMD (and not so well known to actually be the parent company of SQUADRON MAIL ORDER) is now a big wholesale distributor of Verlinden kits- and they are right across town!

So I called in with a $500 opening order... and was told "we don't deal with online stores".... of course, the fact that MMD owns SQUADRON MAILORDER - which is an online dealer is conveniently overlooked. Chuck Harransky - the owner of the wholesale operation called to "interview".... (or was that "grill) me about the viability of my business. After he himself stated he called due to the value of a personal letter i sent to him - he then basically called me a liar right to my face. "Prove you are real - prove to me that you are not just representing a bunch of guys in a hobby club trying to get a cheap deal" is what he said.... my website, my artilcles, my advertising, the number and name of my CPA.... none of that seemed to be the "proof" he wanted. "Anyone can do that:.... like I would set up a $4,000 website, spend another $2500 on annual maintanance and programming, just so I can save $200 on a $500 order?" Get real!

I have to now open a retail storefront as well? When two of the three largest hobby dealers in Dallas have closed in the past 12 months... now I have to open a store and absorb all that overhead... just so I can serve 100 locals, while the other 1,300 customers I have can't even visit? No thanks....

I think the guy just doesn't want any online competition. I will never spend another dime with these guys... personally or with my business. I encourage you to do the same... the big guy is trying to ward off the little guy - think about that before you spend another dime with them. They sell to dealers at one price, and then leverage their wholesale status to run an online store that competes with dealers... and then when another company tries to compete online with them - "we aren't real"..... Well, it's back to Stevens International for me... I don't mind paying the freight and waiting a few days for my orders to ship.... at least they want my business.

Hey Squadron... here's hoping you get shot down!

Keith

Interesting situation, and a very frustrating one for you I might add.

I frequently patronize Bob aka Alpenflage's Hobby as he, (like you), is a fellow Armorama member, runs a small business, and provides customer service that is second to none.

I wish both you, and Bob, all the best in your business endeavors.

Good luck.

Steve

Eh, their putty sucks anyways. I must say though. What you probably want to do is take pictures of your store and send them to him for proof....

Do i feal another boston tea party coming up?

Keith, I totally agree with the sentiments behind starting this thread and although my personal (bad) experience was nothing compared to yours, it was sufficient to totally hack me off..

The other week, I was looking for the Ampersand book on building the Tiger 1. I went to the Squadron website and found it quite quickly.The book was retailing at $25 - quite a good price. I then followed the procedure to the check out, where to my surprise, they wanted another $25+ for postage (airmail, not UPS) to Europe...

Now I know that postage can get expensive from some places. That is a fact of life, but $25? Who do they think they are kidding? Ten minutes later, I orderd from HK - the book was a tad more expensive , but the postage was a reasonable 12 bucks...

A message to Squadron, if this is your business plan, I suggest you get some new advisors...Jim

I don't want to defend Squadron here, as there is no excuse for what they did to Keith, but I can assure you Jim that the real shopping cost to Europe they charge, is lower than what you see on the website during order processing.

Pawel