#tfsource

[profoundlyscreechingchild]

I'm not happy Bob, Not. Happy.

TLDR; TFsource needs to get there shit sorted, or I am going to the better business bureau.

Pardon me while I set up, I generally don't like conflict but I was engaging in good faith for about a month until I realized that it was not being returned on the other end and I want to make clear exactly what happened.

My most recent irresponsible hobby is transformers model kits. I've been doing them for about two years now and its great fun putting them together. Sadly one of my favorites, IDW Drift, came out in 2019, before I got into the hobby, and is sold out everywhere. Occasionally I'll poke around for him but I've been unsuccessful. (I was able to get a interesting metal kit that you fold into shape but it was miserable to put together and the motherfucker fell off of its self once and stabbed me in the back with its sword.) Until this January. I happened to see one in-stock on TFsource, perfect, mint-in-box, ready for assembly. I excitedly clicked the buy button and waited with bated breath. Its important at this moment I point out the collection of links at the bottom of the order received email I got. It's a surprise tool that will help us later.

I also think its notable that this is my first order I have ever made with TFsource. Spoilers: there will not be more after this. I waited a few days. There is no 'your order has shipped' email in my inbox. I check the order. Everything seems fine, but weirdly its listed as a preorder? Did I buy the wrong model kit? I assumed this was a resale. I double check.

Its the right model kit. It came out in 2019. This should not be a preorder. (Important to note at this point that there is no longer a clickable order or preorder button, despite this item now being falsely labeled as a preorder. Not to mention the estimated arrival is a price and not a date.) I check the forums for the average amount of time it takes them to ship. Its about a week. I shake off my misgivings and wait a week. I wait another. Still no shipping notification. I hate sending in tickets or calling or generally being a nuisance in any way but its been two weeks on an item they had in-stock and the order has it listed incorrectly. Its time to talk to someone.

I send an email. I made my order on January 30th. My first email goes out February 16th.

I get a ticket received notification. It says I should get a response in a day or Monday to Tuesday if I sent it Friday.

I don't get a response until the next Wednesday, but whatever. That's still totally in the bounds of reasonable. But the response itself is very weird. Starting with the fact that I get two responses at the same time from the same person outside of their business hours.

This reeks of automated response, which, honestly fine, I expect the first round of a ticket to probably be a bot simply to weed out the people who didn't just check the QA page. BUT if its an automated system why did it take so long to answer me? And if its not a bot why did I receive two emails, each feeling like an automatic response to a keyword found in my email? Okay whatever, they still aren't answering my question and are under the impression that this is a preorder, which again. Its not. I respond.

At this point I'm a little disappointed, I reaaaally wanted that kit, but I mostly just want answers. If someone else got it that's fine. I'll just cancel my order. But I want to be sure that I'm not missing out on my chance to snag this kit.

This time it does take a full, proper week for the response.

"Most Probably"?! Its your job to find out and I figure the second round of a ticket should be a human, but this still feels vaguely bottish. Why are you just regurgitating the order details at me? I would have at the least expected them to ask me directly if I wanted to cancel. Okay so its time to be a big girl and call them, just to be absolutely sure I'm not missing out on the model before I cancel, but I want to have all my ducks in a row and make sure everything is in front of me for the call. This is where shit hits the fan for me because of several facts I had hither to been unaware of.

I checked my credit card. They had already charged me for the kit. The kit, that according to them they did not have in stock and according to their system, was a preorder. This is where I learn that unlike the other sites I have used, they charge you for a preorder before they ever even get it in stock. What the Fuck.

okay well, I want to make sure before I call I know how to cancel the order myself.

Okay, that's weird, no way to cancel. Maybe the view details?

Huh, that's fucking weird. You have literally no way to guarantee I get my product and you already took my $80, and there's no way to cancel the order. (I feel its important to note the other site I use does let you cancel preorders and does not charge you until they come in, you know, like a respectable fucking site.)

I am fucking livid at this point. How am I not able to cancel my order. You labeled this a preorder and your email tells me I can cancel those anytime.

Funny that. In fact, if you go to their front page, they have all those same little link badges...except for one very important one. Can you guess which one?

Something sure seems to be missing there sport. If you click the link in the email it takes to you a page that also says you can cancel preorders at anytime. However. I checked the QA page.

WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU CAN'T CANCEL A PREORDER. YOU SAID YOU COULD IN TWO SEPARATE PLACES.

I call. I call with the flames of Hell in my heart. I was so excited to get this model kit. If I had simply missed my chance I would have accepted it. But their system has blocked me from getting real answers. Lied to me about my options and stopped me from solving the problem myself. I am answered by a robo voice cuts out every other word and I select the option that takes me to customer service. I am briefly put on hold and then told nobody is home would I like to leave a message. I wait a while and call back again in an hour. Its the same thing. I leave a message with my number. I just wanted to spend my money on a silly little robot. If they don't call back by Friday. I'm contacting my credit card company for a charge back and the better business bureau for their misleading preorder policy (WHICH SHOULD NOT EVEN APPLY SINCE THIS WAS NOT A PREORDER). Eat my Shorts TFsource.

[hongzhizhu]

Dear Valued TFSource Customer, First, thank you for being a part of the TFSource community. We don’t take your trust for granted — and we always want to be upfront with you, especially when changes are coming that affect your collecting experience. Recently, the U.S. government announced new tariffs on imported plastic hobby toys, effective April 2 and April 9, 2025. These tariffs are significant, and they affect nearly every product we carry. This is a fluid, government-driven situation, and like many other companies in our industry, TFSource is having to quickly react and adapt to these changes in real time. We’re hopeful the current administration will reach agreements with the affected countries — which could lead to reduced or even eliminated tariffs in the future. In the meantime, we want to be transparent about how this impacts pricing and availability moving forward. What’s Happening The new tariff rates are now being applied and vary depending on the country of origin: China: 104% Vietnam: 46% Japan: 24% Because so much of the collectible toy world is sourced from these regions, these changes are hitting our entire industry — including TFSource. Nearly all of our items are sourced from these regions. Once items arrive in the U.S., Customs applies these new tariffs, which must be paid before we can receive and ship the goods. This additional cost is substantial, and unfortunately unavoidable, making it extremely difficult for TFSource to absorb the cost fully. Impact on Pricing The good news is that all in stock or currently domestic in transit products will not be impacted by current tariffs. Until then TFSource has no choice but to increase prices on many upcoming preorder items, both new and previously announced. This includes existing preorders that have not yet arrived or cleared U.S. Customs. We understand this is disappointing, and we want to be transparent: honoring earlier preorder pricing on many items is no longer feasible, as doing so would result in unsustainable losses for the company. We know this may be frustrating news, and we didn’t make this decision lightly. We’re doing everything we can to manage the impact, including: Absorbing costs wherever possible Minimizing increases on in-stock items (while inventory lasts) Continuing to offer Free Shipping, Source Points and loyalty rewards through TFSourceVIP We know this isn’t the kind of update anyone wants to hear, and we understand the frustration. Our goal is always to support our fellow collectors and maintain the quality, service, and selection that brought you to TFSource in the first place - even in challenging times like these. We’ll continue to keep you informed with any further updates and are working hard to manage these changes with as little disruption to your experience as possible. We're hopeful that this situation will improve in the coming months. As always, we'll adapt quickly to any positive developments — including potential tariff reductions — and do everything we can to pass those benefits back to our loyal customers. Thank you for sticking with us through this — and for being part of a community that continues to inspire our team every day. With appreciation, The TFSource Team Your Source for All Things Transformers

guy on bluesky got this email and the header is killing me

(source)

image only for any purposes you might have:

[nocturnalsleuth]

HUH???

WHAT???

PREORDER????

[king-dra]

i dont normally go out of my way to buy new transformers toys but NGL that ss86 megatron is lookin real nice...

[sophiegoose]

So I've been hearing people talking trash about TFSource again and I was reminded that I have this gem of a screenshot from their site a while back:

[ichbinmeltdown]

A quick guide to naming Transformers OCs

I know naming OCs can be crazy hard, it's one of the things I struggle with most (almost as much as coming up with titles for my fics) but honestly Transformers names seem easier than human ones- so here's some suggestions I have for if you need a little help naming yours! A lot of this mostly applies to G1, since that's the continuity I'm most familiar with.

Use name generators

These usually don't give great, super fitting names if you have an OC already designed, but they're fantastic if you want to pick a name then design an OC around it, and sometimes you get names that really fit!

This one is specifically for Transformers characters, though the compound word ones tend to not make a lot of sense. The compound names in this generator tend to make more sense, but since it's for fantasy locations there's not any futuristic or machine ones. This one has the same sorts of names. (One of them even gave me "Starscream Redoubt" on there once lol)

There's a lot of other generators on that site, so play around with it, these three mainly will help you understand the naming conventions of Transformers characters ^^

Look at third party figures

Go to a site like TFSource in their third party section, and look at the alternate names they gave the characters. There's a lot of names they gave them that sound like they could be real Transformers characters but aren't actually in the source media, so those are pretty much all fair game for naming your OCs! (There's also silly ones and human names too, if you want to give your character that type of name! Purple Potato and Morbus have to be my favorite silly names)

Research science, mathematics, computers, robotics, automotive and aviation words

There's so many terms in STEM stuff that are perfect names for OCs! That's how I came up with Aniline's name, for example. There's a lot of characters in canon who have automotive/aviation related names too (like Ratchet, Gears, Octane, Thrust and Tracks)

Pick a word related to their alt mode/powers/abilities

For example, Soundwave and Blaster have audio powers, Ratchet is a doctor and repairs everyone, Vortex can create tornadoes with his blades, and Mirage can turn invisible; Astrotrain is both a space shuttle and a steam train, Blast Off is a space shuttle and Ramjet is a jet. And as far as my OCs go, Sandclaw is a scorpion and Meltdown is radioactive and poisonous!

Pick a word related to their personality

It doesn't have to just be about powers! You could pick a word related to their personalities too. Meltdown is another example of this, with his name referring to both physical radioactive meltdowns and emotional ones (which he has plenty of both- admittedly though I didn't realize it fit his personality too at first until someone pointed it out). In canon, Blurr talks and moves in an extremely restless, rushed manner, Red Alert has anxiety and thinks most things/bots are a danger (his name is actually another example of one fitting both his alt mode/powers and personality) and Wildrider is pretty wild and chaotic.

Other things to keep in mind

Most combiners' names end in "-us," "-or" or "-ion" (Devastator, Menasor, Defensor, Bruticus, Superion)

Subgroups in Transformers usually have names that fit their specific personalities/powers (for example, the Constructicons and the Protectobots), but some may also have names that fit a specific theme (the Reflector bots all have camera-related names, and the Osmions- some of my OCs, a race of Cybertronians related to the Junkions- are all named after wrestling/boxing moves, for instance)

It's not a big deal if you end up using the name of a minor character from another continuity. There's so many characters (especially background characters or obscure ones who appear for maybe one episode such as Pipes or Nightbird) that it's really hard to avoid coincidences. Generally speaking, people will understand- especially since a lot of fans probably aren't going to know every single character's name from every continuity and toyline by heart, and even fewer of those who do will expect the same of everyone else.

Might update this with more advice later on ^^

[chamm0y]

I GOT FEATURED IN TFSOURCE REPORT

EEEP IM SO HAPPY:DDD

[ultramagnys]

don’t let me on tfsource when i’m sad. just spent two hundred american dollars on pee magnus for my magnus collection

[allsoundwavesarebeautiful]

it's my birthday so i was browsing tfsource and saw something highly cursed:

this is NOT what i envision when i say i want Woman Galvatron

[gijoe-forever]

[istherewifiinhell]

saw the post about blobjects again and just remembered even tho i dont REALLY crave like. Material goods as just STUFF to have (i like my digital collections just fine thank you) the most tf toy ever

imma call him baja blast hot rod

[ID: A redeco Hot Rod toy in blue tones, and made of entirely clear plastic. He's mostly a cyan colour, with some accents like his thighs and spoiler in a more greeny aqua, and his windshield and tires in a lighter/more translucent blue. He's got foil decals in the same aqua, and gold for his head lights and flame detailing (plus chrome on his engine block). Painted sliver face. 1. Standing in bot mode, 2. Car mode from above. 3. Group shot with other decos of the mold. (Red clear, dark red and chromed, dark red, and light red). 4. The car mode from a diagonal/high angle. showing some of the side, the tires, his triple exhausts. END]

images from seibertron.com

hot rod is one of those tf design i think is just undivisably perfect. tho unlike whirl my icon guy its not in a like. every design iteration every shitty toy way. it just his movie design is the prettiest boy ever. and i have STRONG opinions that they should make his key colour Fucking Pink Again we already have so many fucking red tfs cmooooonn.

[ID: 1. TF the movie (1986) Hot Rod, head shot profile, he's magenta pink with orange and yellow accents. 2. TF Cyberverse (2018), head shot front, he's bright red, orange and yellow accents. END]

[NO dissrespect to CV roddy as a design OR character. I love him so much. He's very pretty, and it is a GOOD red, I'm just saying. what if pink???]

For the blue razz tho, ill make the exception.

Now if I did want to actually possess this thing? Not even bringing that this a 13 year old a japanese exclusive from e-hobby, that came in a three pack. [from tfu.info] Okay. AND ON TOP OF THAT. All that clear plastic..... If you know toy people stuff you were probably already thinking it. I mentioned it as soon as I saw him even if don't KNOW this model has this issue. The shit is just really brittle, and ppl mention it enough on toy reviews that even I have a flinch response.

So uhhh all that said lets just do a quick search here. tfsource? out of stock, also. TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS. I found exactly ONE listing on ebay for the same. jesus.

[bitegore]

i need tfsource to cool their jets a bit

[shattered-ass]

invests 100+ in a toy because its a beast wars toy and its a cool 3rd party concept of pre war cybertron models

company is called trojan horse

their first attempt, a dinobot, was not produced but is still up on showz

i finally get their waspinator toy after it was put up on tfsource for preorder

packaging is beautiful

toy LOOKS GOOD. is actually bad (already breaking in package) and is so top heavy he cant stand

help

[redfoxdude07]

Can 3rd party companies start making CHUG figures again or at least make their figures have 5mm hand options? I adore Newage and all, but they're not making Legends figures. They're making Deluxe class figures and calling it Legends.

Also can TFsource and BBTS figure out the prices on those guys because they're are obscenely overpriced for literally no reason.

[tarnishedpeonies]

You ever find out the wrong expensive way that you had your TFSource stack set to the wrong setting. Accidental expensive holiday self-gift ahoy!

[allspark]

TFSource News - Blowout Sale Extended! Save up to 50% Off, Final Day!

Today at TFSource, there is still time to check out the past weekend’s Blowout Sale. Grab a deal while you can, like Magic Square Light of Justice 2.0 for $50 off! And as always, check out this week’s new preorders and instock items. Continue reading Untitled