After months of problems with the bindings, foil stamping, and other defects, Brandon Sanderson’s Dragonsteel finally began shipping the new batches of its leather-bound edition of The Eye Of The World by Robert Jordan. Like many fans, I was excited to get my copy of one of my favorite series, hoping to get a full leather-bound collection of The Wheel of Time one day.
The packaging left something to be desired, and there was a lot of room in the box, so the book moved around in transit and was damaged. I did the unboxing on YouTube, showing what happened exactly:
I immediately submitted a request for a replacement copy, sent pictures of the damage, and Dragonsteel seemed to do the right thing by allowing me to return the book (why they wanted the damaged book back, I’m unsure) and get a new copy that was pristine. I was happy with their prompt response, but now, 45 days later, things have changed, and Dragonsteel is no longer responding to me.
It looks a lot like Brandon Sanderson and his company have stolen my money, and here’s what’s happened so far.
When I first submitted, as soon as I recorded, they immediately sent an automated response that it was under review:
Everything went fine, and they accepted it, giving me a return label:
Note the tracking number, as it’s evidence that I did exactly as they requested:
Putting the tracking number into UPS, you can see that the package was delivered, with a handy picture showing that multiple packages like mine arrived this way. They must have had quite a few damage returns.
This is where it gets strange, as you can see this was delivered on September 8th, but on September 14th, I got a reminder to send the return:
I thought nothing of it, considering it an automated system, and figured it was a glitch so I ignored that first one.
Then, a week later, I got the email again:
I grabbed the email for questions in reply, store at brandon sanderson, because this said it was a no-reply email, and forwarded this to them:
I received no response.
On September 28th, I got another email, this time telling me the return label expired, and that they were closing my case:
I once again sent an email to the store email listed for questions:
At this point, I was realizing something was very wrong, so I started going to Dragonsteel’s website. They have places to put in tickets.
Every day for the last week I’ve been putting in tickets:
It keeps telling me a ticket gets created, but I don’t receive an email confirming:
It’s now 45 days after I mailed my return, and I still haven’t received any updates and no response.
Now, generally, I’d just think they’re really inundated, but this is a lot of emails on my part, and a lot of days have gone by. There’s another factor to consider: I’m critical of Sanderson’s recent content, and they really don’t like me over there. In fact, I’ve been blocked on social media:
Not just by him, but also by Dragonsteel, the business account, who I don’t even think I’ve interacted with
It makes me wonder if there is a corporate directive within Sanderson’s group not to reply to me, which is ridiculous, as I not only run the biggest news site in SF/F here (thank you all for reading!), but also I’m a customer who paid for a massive premium product.
I don’t know how to rectify this at this point, and this is enough money that I care about it, so I have no choice but to make it public, in hopes that Sanderson will get me my book!
UPDATE: I just went into my account with them through Shopify, and it says this:
It looks like someone internally might have flagged this.
Do you think this is them being too busy, or is it malice against me within the organization?
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