Please be careful when placing orders online for magical mail! It has come to our attention from customers and the Better Business Bureau that another company that offers similar products to Legendary Letters’ has extremely bad reviews for not delivering at all, delivering months late, or delivering only part of a customers order. We are getting many orders from customers in a panic because they accidentally ordered from the other company first and don’t have anything for their children’s birthdays and holidays. We’re happy to help and get our items out to you ASAP, but by putting this out there we hope to let people know about these other sites so they can avoid them. The link to the story is:
Two Harry Potter Memorabilia Sites Fail to Deliver the Magic
If you click the links for the businesses, you will see that they both redirect to a new site. This company is still going and keeps changing its name whenever they get too many complaints. If you search their names on the BBB’s site you will see that there have been about 100 complaints filed on them and that they have an F rating. They popped up a couple years ago and have made their advertising very similar to ours. Their ad usually shows right above or below ours in searches. They claim to ship out in 48 hours, but almost never do according to the complaints. If something sounds too good to be true, it usually is. Our turnaround time can be anywhere from 3 days to 3 weeks during the holidays and we post these times on every page of our site. We are a small family business and are honest about how quickly we can get things done so you know you can count on the ETA we quote.
There are several good elves all over the planet who send out magical mail and they belong to the Professional Association of Santa’s Elves and the National Organized Elves League. We’re happy to be part of the network of people who want to spread magic. There are so many people in the world needing letters that we’re all happy to have many helping hands to contribute. Of course, we here at Legendary Letters would love your business, but if you find other elves with designs you like better or who are located closer to you, we understand! Please just be very careful not to order from one of the sites giving people so many problems.
Some tips to know if you are dealing with GOOD elves and REAL magical mail offices:
1. Has the company been in business a long time and do they have press on sites other than their own?
You can read about Elf Stacy in the Fairfield Daily Republic Newspaper here. Her great-grandparents moved here in 1934. She is a graduate of Fairfield High School class of 1990 and has been in business since 1996. There are Daily Republic articles on her and her family that are too old to be in the searchable database (but you can still find them on microfiche at the public library if you were really motivated to).
2. Does the company have a real address that customers can visit?
You can come see Elf Stacy at 707 Kentucky Street in Fairfield, CA between 10am and 2pm everyday except Wednesdays and Fridays. The address of the other company in the BBB article is a place that provides virtual mail boxes for people. The story says the BBB sent letters to the company and never received a response. Nobody actually knows how to find them!
3. Is the company good about communicating?
Several of the complaints about the other company on the BBB site say that they were never able to get in touch with anyone there. Legendary Letters prides itself on responding to emails and Facebook messages as soon as possible. It’s usually under 24 hours for us unless we are on vacation (and if we were that would be posted on FB and our site.)
4. Speaking of Facebook, does the company have a presence on social media?
The one in the BBB story has none that we could find. Legendary Letters is on Facebook, Google, and Twitter (although we are most active on FB).
5. Can you find good reviews on sites other than the business’ own site?
Many review programs now allow site owners to create or import their own fake reviews. If you search for Legendary Letters reviews, you should easily find links to Legendary Letters on Etsy, Facebook, and Google. We have thousands of positive reviews from lots of happy customers.
6. Does the site have a pop up showing orders from other customers?
Have you see those boxes that say “Someone in Texas just purchased a Hogwarts Letter” or something similar? We actually thought this was neat when it first came out and tried it on the Legendary Letters site. However, we heard from customers that it was annoying AND we also found out that many of those programs generate fake orders to make it look like the site is really popular. They may not actually be getting those orders at all. It’s a tool to make you feel confident about them when real companies don’t need gimmicks like that.
7. Do all the prices seem to be suggested retail prices?
We noticed that on the site that the BBB mentions, things liked Jelly Belly Harry Potter candy was really overpriced. Whereas the MSRP for Bertie Botts Beans is $2, it was 3x or more this price on their site. Legendary Letters is an official retailer of Jelly Belly candy so we get it at wholesale pricing and can offer it to you for the suggested price.
8. Can the company provide a copy of their business license or seller’s permit on request?
Legendary Letters has ours (along with our first dollar ever made) framed and hanging on the wall that you can see right as you walk in. We’re also happy to provide copies by email to anyone who asks.
We hope we’ve helped stop some innocent people from getting duped by other companies professing to send out magical mail. However if you are reading this, you are probably already a loyal customer of Legendary Letters, and we love you for it! Thank you so much for your patronage over the years. We look forward to sending our items to your children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and many more generations to come. After 23 years in business, one of the coolest things is to send letters out to the children of children we sent letters to when it all started!