Urban Art Association

Don't fall for the BAIT!, by mmmike on Oct 18, 2018 12:57:41 GMT 1, Just want to warn people about dealing with Bait the online art toy / shoe store and share my most recent experience.

Like many of you I had a pretty bad experience with Bait and the Murakami figures. They took almost a year to be delivered and then the quality was terrible. That was followed by a lot of jumping through hoops and many for replacements to be sent. For international buyers like myself there was also the issue of over paying due to an excessive valuation on Baits customs declaration and then a second charge when the replacements finally came.

But time has past and I didn’t want to pass judgement because it was difficult to tell how much of the issue was Bait and how much of it was Murakami’s camp causing the quality issues and delays.

So this past weekend I made another purchase from Bait. To try to avoid being overcharged for shipping and duty again I made the order with delivery to a buddy in NJ. The order went through on there site. It is set up for those sorts of things. They took my money but subsequently emailed saying I needed to provide photos of 3 specific pieces of ID or they would cancel my order.

Maybe I’m overreacting but to me providing photos of my driver’s license, credit card and a utility bill, everything you need to commit identity theft just to buy a $350 toy is a bit ridiculous.

Especially with a company with a sketchy track record like Bait.

They did say I could pay again with Paypal but as a Canadian, I’m paying with a Canadian dollar card. There is a high likelihood that I will get screwed on the exchange rate on the refund. I explained that but it didn’t seem to phase them. it likely won't be a big hit but I've had enough. Now out of principle I don’t want to do business with a company that doesn’t seem to care to provide even minimal level of customer service.

I asked for contact email for a manager but apparently they don’t have access to phones or something and don’t respond to the generic VIP email address I was told to email to contact one of these mystery managers. I also called the number on their site. Seems the number is out of service.

At any rate I would use extreme caution dealing with Bait and know if you have an issue, escalation will be next to impossible.

All this to buy a $350 toy.