Box subscriptions are my kryptonite. I wish I could have boxes of goodies showing up all month long. I'd be all, "Surprise!" another present just for me!
But I can't BUY ALL THE THINGS because I live in the real world where bills have to be paid and kids gotta eat.
Yet for funsies, we're doing an experiment for the next month where our family is each trying out a subscription box of choice. My husband's arrived first.
Dan decided to give Pleygo a whirl. Pleygo is a Netflix like rental service for Legos. You pay a once monthly price and get unlimited rentals. First you have to decide the level of membership - They have Fan ($15/mo), Super Fan ($25/mo), and Mega Fan ($39), with each level dictating the size of set you have access to.
Dan, my sweet skeptic, the yin to my yang, signed up for the one month free trial which gave him Super Fan membership without paying the $25 first. He built his queue from the eighty three available sets at this level. The first kit was shipped on a Friday and we received it three days later on Monday. Score one for Pleygo.
Pleygo says that every set is cleaned with an eco & kid friendly sterilizing solution. It was clearly evident these were clean legos, upon opening the bag we could smell the "clean" and it was not an overpowering or chemical smell. Score two for Pleygo.
Next Dan got right to building. He chose a three-in-one set so I thought I'd get a good hour of uninterrupted time to watch The Blacklist while he lego-ed away. Not five minutes into my show I hear, "Uh-oh."
I held my breath and stayed still, like prey in the wild, hoping he would forget I was there, all the while keeping one eye on James Spader.
"There's a piece missing."
ALREADY!?!
Sighhhhhh.
He was missing a blue 2x2 brick.
"Okay hon," I said, "let me pull up the site and see where to go from there." So I get on the site and relay the info, "Pleygo says they won't charge you for any piece that's missing upon receipt of the set. It says to check your 'Spare Parts Bag' for an extra piece."
Silence.
He calls back, "Uhhhh..what spare parts bag?"
Sighhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
I called back to him, "Alright, it says we can report the missing bricks and they will send them out. So let's inventory what you have so we make sure there aren't any others missing."
30 minutes and almost the rest of The Blacklist later: We were missing a total of two pieces. There were also four pieces that while they did belong in the kit, were not on the inventory list online.
"Alright, I'll fill out the order form," I told my husband. Thirty seconds later Pleygo tells me it will take seven-ten days to receive the pieces and did I want to continue ordering them or did I just want to sub in my own Legos for playtime instead and also thanks for letting them know they're missing the pieces so they could note in for their records.
Sighhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
Dan decided to just build and play. After finishing the model, he also realized that he received two "lefts" of a piece instead of a left and right.
Overall, this isn't looking good for Pleygo. While we appreciate the cleanliness of the kit we weren't impressed by the incompleteness and the inconvenience of waiting for pieces.
And now this Momma's going to have to On Demand her show for the two thirds she missed.
However, we are all about second chances so we'll ship this set back and hope for the best on the next kit that comes. An update will definitely follow. I would love for this to work out since I hate buying new Legos for a kit to be built one time and then banished to a storage bucket (or buried in the carpet all over the house - my poor feet!)
Have you used Pleygo? Was your experience better?
*note: I was not compensated for this review. I am just a regular consumer using the free trial offered by Pleygo
UPDATE 03/11/2014 - Pleygo has since changed their name to Pley and has changed their website to Pley.com
0 comments:
Post a Comment