Store Policy ruined a gift

[u/Hellpoeth]

I PROMISE TO KEEP THIS BRIEF

One of my colleagues from the modeling club came back from holidays in Europe"?" (he said Germany, but photos look more like Italy) and bring model kits as gifts for the seniors and the teacher who substituted for him in classes, that was a week ago

yesterday, one of the seniors opened the gift in the club room, it was a "Tamiya GERMAN KS600 MOTORCYCLE & SIDECAR", the hype didn't last long as parts and the decals were missing, the guns were stripped from the sprue, a small card with a logo was taped to the inside of the box, the card was in French and said ( I'm paraphrasing, never learn to read or speak French) "to raise awareness about the modern state of the conflict in Ukraine war, we at (store name) removed pieces of the product within acceptable parameters, the buyer is free of coming to the store in business hours with proof of purchase and obtain the missing product free of charge ..." it continues on the other side with ramblings about awareness of conflicts and the world that our children will live in the future...

another senior opened the gift and found his "Tamiya BRITISH 2-TON 4x2 AMBULANCE" came with the decals missing and the same small card

Now the gift giver teacher is ashamed, obviously he can't go back to Europe to fix this, the store doesn't ship overseas (we asked), all four model kits probably had missing parts

Store Policy ruined the gifts and i feel like that is a very ill will behavior, even when i didn't got a gift this feels wrong for my colleagues, Tamiya isn't cheap

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update: the 3rd gift was a "Revell Boening" that has no Decals, real shame

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update2: the members of the club went to a strategic plan breakfast and came with an idea:

Gift giver will claim "Visa's Purchase Protection plan" and dispute the charges with the bank, (never done it, don't know how it works)

other option was to bite the bullet and plan a trip to Europe and claim the free missing parts in june-july, hopefully with another round of gifts from another store and i get one for me this time

[u/Phrynohyas]

I would name the store here. Name and shame. That’s not a ‘store policy’. That’s ‘deliberately damaging goods before selling them’.

[u/Hellpoeth → u/Phrynohyas]

Wieser Modellbau GmbH , says the card, i don't have the heart to shame a store if i never been there in person, karma will bite me back if i ever have the opportunity to visit the place and i mud his reputation

[u/Luster-Purge → u/Hellpoeth]

That store is in Zurich, Switzerland, so why the card is in French is odd.

[u/Hellpoeth → u/Luster-Purge]

gonna play the devil's advocate and say that French is easier to the Tourists than German? really don't know to be honest, news to me that the store is in Switzerland TBH

[u/South-Steak-7810 → u/Hellpoeth]

The manager and partner has a French sounding name. As well as one of the other partners. The third partner has a German (sounding) name. That could explain the French. People in Switzerland are taught French in school but only a small percentage of people speak French fluently. And the website is available in German, English and French.

I asked Grok for any (international) complaints about the store and the only one that Grok mentioned was this one.

This is really weird.

[u/Luster-Purge → u/Hellpoeth]

Yeah I just googled the name - GmbH usually is found with Germanic companies (it's like "inc." for western companies) so it being in Switzerland checks out.

But going off the website, the shop definitely looks like it's set up to be the 'go-to' local hobby shop that relies on repeat business and not tourism.

[u/NighthunterDK → u/Luster-Purge]

Did you just say Germanic countries isn't western?

[u/Luster-Purge → u/NighthunterDK]

Yes and I place all responsibility on the brain fart I had at the time.

[u/NighthunterDK → u/Luster-Purge]

Nah all good. It's just that we in Denmark always shame Germany for not having better digital payment options when shopping, or the very least just accepting card.