First off, let it be said that Mattel makes some very cool action figures. There is no question about it, the toys rock. Unfortunately, that's the only positive thing we have to say about the world's biggest toy company as it stands right now. With all the emails we get complaining about the practices of MattyCollector.com, the rock star attitude collectors have to endure when visiting the Mattel booth at the summer conventions, and the constant comments at the product panels about giving all your hard earned money to Matty or else, its a wonder some people haven't been fired, or at very least removed from being the public representation of the company. The people who sign cheques really should be paying closer attention to the people acting as the public face of Mattel. The people who come to say hi are not only your customers, but they are fans of your products, and they deserve your respect. You have a job because of them, not in spite of them.

Moving past the atrocious face to face troubles, equally puzzling is the online interaction. MattyCollector.com should be the flagship for modern toy collecting, but they don't seem to want to learn from the companies that have been doing online sales for years. There doesn't seem to be an interest in improving the customer service, and we use that term loosely. With the economy being what it is, MattyCollector.com should be bending over backwards to make the online buying experience as simple as possible, but instead collectors have to deal with the almighty, and all far to frequent, White Screen Of Death. The fact that collectors have a term for it should be the first sign that there is a problem, but it seems to the collecting community that Matty would rather point fingers and say it isn't 'his' fault than actually resolve the problem. Other online stores have had server problems in the past, and have figured out how to fix the problem, and now in 2011, it seems that only MattyCollector.com has been unable to figure it out. That's appalling considering the fact that Mattel is the biggest toy company in the world. That's a fact you should never forget when the site's customer service lacks. This isn't a small business trying to make it in these tumultuous times, it is a major corporation, and it is hard to believe that they really can't figure out how to keep their online store up when it's big sales time... or even worse, figure out how to combine orders to save their customers the highly inflated shipping rates.

Will we see things improve in 2012? That's hard to say. We'd really like to see Mattel put the customers first, but we wouldn't be surprised if business remains the same at MattyCollector.com. After all, there has to be a reason why they created an impersonal mascot that looks like a total asshole and don't sign their own names to the many negative statements they publish on their site or through Facebook. Then again, so long as everyone buys from them directly, they have no reason to change, do they? So take this tip with you in 2012: The MattyCollector.com figures are all available online through sites like Big Bad Toy Store for pretty much the same price. Matter of fact, the only real difference is when pre-ordering the figures elsewhere is in the absence of the anxiety you feel when trying to buy your action figures.