MidwayUSA issues?

[huntsman]

My gripe with Midway is the hybrid shipping they use where UPS delivers to the post office instead of your house. Adds days to the delivery time and tracking is useless.

+100 but it's not just Midway, I believe .gov is strong-arming UPS to help keep USPS afloat.

 

[RetiredUSNChief]

+100 but it's not just Midway, I believe .gov is strong-arming UPS to help keep USPS afloat.

Nope. If anything, .gov is doing the opposite and trying to force the USPS out of business. Congress is the sole reason the USPS is in the dire straits they're in right now because they're the ones who told the ONLY government office to be operating in the black that they MUST 100% pre-fund their health care benefits plan to the tune of 5.5 BILLION dollars a year (a 75 year liability) over a 10 year period.

So they went from a postal service that was operating in the black (by law), raising its own funds to do so (it's NOT a tax funded branch), and by law essentially breaking even in the process to suddenly having an annual debt of 5.5 billion dollars.

Thank you very much, Congress.

http://my.firedoglake.com/mmonk/tag/american-postal-workers-union/

Sorry...this was off track.

 

[HammsBeer]

The few times ive ordered from Midway it went fine, but recently their prices have grown and stuff is on backorder. I've found Brownells to have the best prices and availability now and shipping is cheap. Even their free shipping this past weekend they had 'possible delays' on orders, but still got a shipment notice wednesday on my order from sunday.

If you want to see high prices and slow shipping (one month from order to shipment) then go to specialized armament, a colt parts supplier.

 

[Robbins290]

I order 5-6 times a year. Never had a problem. Only thing i dont like about the company. Is how many emails they send a day. They could cut the volume into one large email daily. Or weekly.

 

[Bullseye57]

Larry used to send me birthday discount emails. I wrote to him and explained that I had relatives all around the country who usually sent me gift money and those cards didn't always arrive before my birthday, wouldn't be nice if the discount certificate didn't expire on my birthdate and why not extend the deadline out to one week after. Since I'd likely find shooting related items to purchase, having this policy changed would ensure my purchasing from MWUSA, but since I wouldn't receive all the gifts in time I was reluctant as I wouldn't know the final amount I had to spend. He personally wrote back and said that they had never encountered a request like this before and so the birthday discount policy would remain the same and expire on the customer's birth date. They can flood my email box daily with monthly customer discounts but cannot see fit to adjust the expiration date of the birthday discount a week, the decision just didn't sit well with me.

R,
Bullseye

 

[Paul Kersey]

My last Midway order took 11 days to make it to the house. UPS to USPS to me. I almost always buy from Midsouth Shooters. Order on Monday am, get it Wednesday am.

 

[skoro]

It's been almost two months since my last purchase. But I've never had an issue with Midway.

 

[ZBill]

No issues

Boring, fast and courteous service

 

[Crawfish1]

I have always had good luck with them. No problems.

 

[dmurdach]

ammo to Illinois

I have ordered ammo multiple times from midway , as recently as last month, and other than submitting my FOID have had no issues. I don't like the hybrid shipping, it slows it down sometimes, I get most shipments within 2 days, but now it sometimes takes 3-5. Otherwise Midway has done alright in my book.

 

[Chris Sarno]

Midway, Cheaper then dirt, and ammotogo.com all suck! ammotogo.com is gouging so extravagantly that they now always have more in stock then anywhere else, for example they are selling Winchester 115 gr silvertips at $50.00 a box to walmarts $30.00! Yeah, thats right, $20.00 a box over walmart! They are also selling Speer Gold Dot 115 gr +P+ at $40.00 a box to sgammo's $24.95!

As far as I'm concerned if you're buying anything from Midway, CTD, or ATG you deserve exactly whats being done to you.

 

[Warp]

Midway has plenty of stuff at fair prices. True, they aren't the first place I look when ammo shopping...or the second...or the third...but some stuff they have is as good as it gets (like mk262) and when they have .22lr in stock it's priced decently (usually Grafs or CSS is a little better or wherever is a little better, IF they have it), but Midway isn't that bad.

 

[Edcnh]

I use Midway a lot and have never had any problems. If Midsouth has what your looking for it may be cheaper there or at Natchez as well. You can order a couple of small items at Midway now and shipping is cheaper than standard rates for UPS or Fedex.

 

[Chris Sarno]

I use Midway a lot and have never had any problems. If Midsouth has what your looking for it may be cheaper there or at Natchez as well. You can order a couple of small items at Midway now and shipping is cheaper than standard rates for UPS or Fedex.

Well if you don't care about price then I suppose they are just great, a couple of weeks ago somebody here posted a ridiculous thread on Midway offering a great deal on ammo, I guess the guy thought he was being "the guy" or some such, but 20 rounds of Gold Dot's for $17.95 isn't a bargain, its about $52.00 a box of fifty, and when you take the time to piece it all together, you'll always find them from high to extremely high in price. The only thing Midway has ever been good for is convenience.

 

[Warp]

Well if you don't care about price then I suppose they are just great, a couple of weeks ago somebody here posted a ridiculous thread on Midway offering a great deal on ammo, I guess the guy thought he was being "the guy" or some such, but 20 rounds of Gold Dot's for $17.95 isn't a bargain, its about $52.00 a box of fifty, and when you take the time to piece it all together, you'll always find them from high to extremely high in price. The only thing Midway has ever been good for is convenience.

Does this order look okay to you?

If Midway is so damn overpriced, surely you can point me to a reputable retailer where I can buy these for less, right? I look forward to the link.

This was just a few months ago.



While you are at it, maybe you coud point me to where I can get these for so much cheaper? Also from a few months ago

 

[wojownik]

He personally wrote back and said that they had never encountered a request like this before and so the birthday discount policy would remain the same and expire on the customer's birth date. They can flood my email box daily with monthly customer discounts but cannot see fit to adjust the expiration date of the birthday discount a week, the decision just didn't sit well with me.

FWIW, my recent Midway birthday discount was valid for a week before and a week after my birthday. Not sure if that was a recent change, but a two week window around the birthday is pretty generous.

 

[kvtcomdo]

I have never had any problems with Midway USA.

+1.

Happy with my encounters to date.

Agree that their $$ has suffered of late.

 

[Bullseye57]

FWIW, my recent Midway birthday discount was valid for a week before and a week after my birthday. Not sure if that was a recent change, but a two week window around the birthday is pretty generous.

I didn't receive one of their Birthday discount notices last year, but all the previous ones expired at midnight on my birth date. I'm pretty sure that I would get these about a week before, and I could log-in to my account and see the special discount button in the products at that time. However, since the special discount always expired on my birthday, it wasn't very much use to me. If that policy deadline did change to a week after, it must be a very recent change. It was several years ago when I first suggested this change to MWUSA and Larry Potterfield. The customer service dept. emailed me back and said they were forwarding my message directly to Larry, and a few days later I did hear back from him about it.

R,
Bullseye

 

[wojownik]

I seem to recall that their birthday policy was at one time a pretty narrow window. But now when you log in there is actually a timer on the upper bar of the screen, telling you you have X days left to use your birthday discount. And the timer extends a full week beyond of the actual birth date.

Again all good stuff the company is doing. It just looks like - for me - things went completely off the rails with my orders over the past 3 months during this pre-holiday season.

A last issue likely has nothing to do with Midway itself, but the "Mail Innovations" option looks like it will have delay one of the item in my mailbox after Christmas (not a present, so not a problem, but two weeks is rather long for shipping) ... The funny thing is that I paid more for the ground shipping item which got stuck in the Mail Innovations route, and less for the UPS ground item that is back to on time scheduled delivery.

 

[boom boom]

Problems with their low cost shipping option which involves the USPS and UPS. I have also had worse problems, with the FedEx-USPS combo shipping as well this year. Other problems with Midway: constantly out of stock on items, additional shipping charges on backorders, their discontinuance of monthly sales flyers, etc. I have cut down from nearly a monthly order to one or two per year.

FWIW, I have had past good experiences with Midsouth, Wideners, Brownells, and Grafs and Sons. I would probably have ordered more reloading components from all of these sources but constant shortages have led me to purchase my ammo for the last two years and simply save the brass until shortages end. I am currently not using my stockpiles and waiting out the inevitable drop. Only issue that bothers me is the shortage of .22LR so I have simply quit shooting those guns--I won't pay near centerfire prices for rimfire.

Fortunately, I have rarely bought ammo online during the last two years online. Instead, Academy, Cabelas now, Bass Pro, WalMart, and some local LGS megamarts, have as good or better prices.

 

[kbuilta]

A followup on the Illinois shipping of ammo - the couple other things I bought from them when I wanted to throw in some ammo arrived and I also got an email prompt to give feedback on my order. I thought - what the heck, nobody will read it anyway - and left a comment on how I was disappointed they wouldn't give me the opportunity to send in my FOID card copy so they could ship ammo to me out in Western IL. I also said in my comment that I may have missed their offer to save the FOID on my account and if they actually could do that, perhaps they could make it a little more obvious to find.

So, a couple days later I got an email from Midway CS and they said sure, send in your FOID and you'll be good to go. So I did and they replied that I was all setup.

As others have since posted, they can obviously store a copy of IL FOIDs and ship ammo to IL. The ability to do that was probably right there in the My Account page and plain as ..., well,...a really plain thing, and I just missed it. So, I've got nothing bad to say about them any longer - they done took away my only possible negative.

As far as shipping costs, etc.., I price compare with other sources and if Midway's got something I need and a better price isn't available (shipping included) then they're good in my book.

 

[wojownik]

Well, here's the conclusion of my Midway saga. As already noted, most of my backordered items were cancelled, and I did get through an order for two items. One shipped UPS ground, the other USPS Mail Innovations. I was very happily surprised to see how fact the USPS got me the shipment, several days faster than the indicated delivery date. That much was good.

Opened the item, and it was ... the wrong item. Since I used both my birthday discount and a promo code on this (instead of another item), I called Midway to see what they do for customers in this situation. My options were simple. The item that should have been shipped is now out of stock, no backorder. So I can

1. return it (and write a note on the return form asking for a credit for original shipping, but I still eat the return shipping cost).
2. Or return it and buy a higher priced alternative. Higher, as in double the price. But both the birthday discount and promo code are gone, expired, and sorry, but we can't extend any similar discount to the replacement item that costs double the price of the item that should have been shipped.

So, I am returning both the wrong item (requesting shipping credit), and returning the other item (and I'll eat the shipping cost both ways). I wanted to give Midway a fair shake, but this is not the positive experience that so many of you have enjoyed. I don't think I'm being an "entitled" customer. I just wanted the actual item I ordered, and not be suggested to buy an alternative at twice the price due to their error.

 

[jrdolall]

The last couple of orders I have placed with them they have sent me an email confirming the shipment but no tracking number. I had an issue last week where I needed the number and their CS agent was unable to give it to me???? She told me that UPS would return the item and then it would be re-shipped. I asked if I would get an email notification and she didn't know.
If it's UPS then there is a tracking number. That number should ALWAYS be provided but I looked back at my recent orders on the website and I think the past four had no tracking number provided.
Their pricing has always been so-so to me.

 

[Lj1941]

Midway problems

I have not used Midway for around 5 years. At that time I had no credit or debit card. I would pay VIA USPS Money Order. Sometimes the items I order would be sold out before they received my payment. They would credit my account with the amount of the item that was sold out. When the time came for me to use the credit to purchase another item and use the credit they would request a credit card number. I told them that I had no credit card and just wanted to use the credit in my account. They refused to do that and still told me they had to have a credit card for me to use my credits in my account. Needless to say I told them in no uncertain terms that I had no credit card and just wanted to use my credit.After several calls back and forth they finally issued me a refund check for the amount of my credit and that was the last I even attempted to do business with Midway USA.It is a plastic money world.

 

[il.bill]

.... I wanted to give Midway a fair shake, but this is not the positive experience that so many of you have enjoyed. I don't think I'm being an "entitled" customer. ... .

Midway USA, not that long ago, was the ONLY online destination for my firearm supplies, especially reloading dies and equipment. Not so much anymore. Times, and things, change I guess. I wish them well, but there are other sellers who seem to appreciate my business more.



wojownik -

That is a bummer. Shame on Larry P. for letting his company pull the old 'bait and switch' when it was their error in the first place. What you asked for is not unreasonable in my book. I have worked full time as a small business owner since 1974, and sometimes I have to bite the bullet and make things right by my customers, particularly when I made a mistake of some kind. I suppose the difference is that Larry Potterfield makes real money, while I never really have.