3rd Coast Cards — Local services in Katy

I decided to write a comment after my 1-star review with no comment got a nasty reply. The only thing going for this shop compared to other card shops is it's location in Katy. My group had still considered 3rd Coast before this but we will definitely be going ANYWHERE else in Houston, as pretty much any store I have set foot in has been better in everyway, and this interaction has been really upsetting. If there was a different response from the owner we could have resolved this differently. No, I am not a child and no my rating was not incorrect. I did not leave a worded review, but your response just shows how the business and owner act. Extremely immature, rude, and just unaware. Your response to a 1-star review and reaction to criticism and anyone who doesn’t like your store is to go on the defensive and ridicule them. I have been going here for over 10 years off and on and have never really enjoyed coming here. This will be my 1st ever interaction with the actual owner and I have NEVER heard a good thing about them (mistreating customers, being rude, only caring about money are a few things I have heard). You are an inadequate business owner if your reaction to a poor review is to blatantly attack and belittle, and your empathy as a person is extremely small if you are going to insult someone with “child” (is your store not meant for children also?). Being on parole or confused.. and just thinking you are 100% correct and NOTHING wrong could ever happen.. I don’t even know where to start with you. No one was kicked out; instead I left after being mistreated and will go more into that, but thinking that my review was because of anything I did is just a joke and I had to stop laughing at your reaction before replying. (especially considering I had no words in my review, YIKES). I’ll just go over my own interaction and what happened with no belittling. My group had been playing Magic for a few hours and we were leaving. I had seen some roleplaying dice I wanted for DnD and got in line to ask for them to purchase. I was behind someone else getting some food. He got his food, then the employee helping him went to someone else that had just walked up beside me while I had been there for a few minutes. Okay, whatever I can wait. Just waiting to be helped. Then this happened twice more, I was ignored and they walked off to do something else. Then, actually helped others that had started looking after me, all while I was waiting at the register. While I had something that would take 30 seconds to close out, they kept going to other people not in line, talking to them about prices or other products while I had been ready to check out. An employee (blonde always wearing mask) had just been looking at me with 0 interaction and seemed to be too busy to help anyone. 1 went to get an order for the person they helped instead of me, just trying to do their best, all good. The other guy who helped another person before me had said to me he would help me in just a moment, but this was after feeling disrespected and I said I would be leaving instead (kudos to him and the only person to say anything to me after ignoring and passing me up for 10-15 minutes while trying to leave). So, I said I felt like I was being ignored and left with 0 incident. Cool. I then left a 1-star review after Google asked me to and you responded in a childish and immature way. I hope you learn to interact with your customers better, trying to act like I’m stupid, a child or a criminal is no way to conduct business. Your leadership shows in your employees, and you can see either they A. Don’t care B. Don’t like working there probably from you. I have had other interactions with 3rd Coast employees that weren’t great, but independently the owner’s reply to my review and how I was treated on this day are worth the 1-star. If you are trying to decide between this and another store, try the other store. I have had amazing times at numerous Houston card shops with better interactions with employees that are more cheerful, willing to help and a big...

DISCLAIMER! Long and detailed post about my experience with this shop

I’ll use a recent experience as an example. I placed an order on their online site, which now doesn’t reflect the prices of the singles), so I have no idea what they are charging for these cards until I show up in the shop. I already mark this down as a personal red flag, but I still went through and sent in my list. I arrive at the shop and a worker did greet me pleasantly and jumped to pull my order, I asked the worker why the site no longer shows prices and he stated that “the pricing wasn’t working on site right now”, which I thought was odd but that’s fine, so they now look up each card individually, which is fine. I asked the worker how do they price the cards, (the most common universal way to price cards is through TCGplayer.com market value, since this reflects the most accurate value of a card without gouging and buyout prices), he said that they indeed use TCGplayer, which was great.

However, while the worker was looking up the prices, the owner of the shop comes over to him and starts to talk to him about something involving how price hikes work and to look out for cards that could potentially jump in price for X reasons, etc. It didn’t seem like he was directly talking to me but talked loud enough for me to overhear what he was saying but I didn’t pay it too much attention, all while he continued to look over the shoulder of the worker as he continued to look up prices.

They then turn to me and explain that one of the cards that I was picking up would he $29.99. This didn’t make any sense to me because I had all the cards I was picking up from them in my own TCCplayer list on my phone, and the card they were speaking about was only showing to be around $2 @market price on the app (which again is the most realistic price of a card on the site)

However the owner prices the card @$29.99 because of only 2 obviously gouged listings priced around that amount on the site. The owner very pompously said that they’d find a “lesser condition” one that would be cheaper. The worker goes to retrieve the cards and the owner follows him, before they left I asked him directly if they used TCGplayer.com and his reply was “we use it as a reference” in a very condescending tone then begun to state that he was doing this longer than TCGplayer.com has been around, and that he has been doing for this for 30 years, etc etc. I guess that’s supposed to make me think that his valuing of cards is correct. He eventually comes back with a copy of the card that could be considered “lightly play” and said he would charge $7.99 for it. Where he is getting this price, I have no idea, [please see screenshots]. Anyway, I turned down the card, to which he muttered “well you’re trying to get the best deal and we are trying to get the best deal” as he walked away. Pretty annoyed I just got the rest of the cards I ordered and left. At this point I was aggravated because obviously what’s going on here is that the owner of this shop feels like he can treat his customers however he wants and can charge whatever he wants, which is a bad business model in my opinion. I’ve been playing card games for probably over 20 years and have been to cards shops all around the country and this guy is by far the worst car shop owner I have ever encountered. The crazy part is that every single person who works for him has great customer service and I have no complains there.

Let me just put this out there, If you are shopping for magic the gathering singles, please DON’T waste your time at 3rd Coast Cards, literally 10 minutes away is a shop called Kangaroo Tales (which it’s my normal shop for cards, I only went to 3rd Coast because I was short on time, didn’t think I’d run into something like this) Kangaroo Tales cares about their customers and does right by them when it comes to pricing and shopping in general. I had about 15 min before Kangaroo Tales closed for the night, so after leaving 3rd coast I went to Kanagaoo, found the same card and purchase...

Ordered singles, only to have prices changed when I went to the store to pickup. (Not once but twice) They blamed it on a lack of update on their online system but i'm pretty sure they increased the price because they thought I was speculating. Gave them plenty of business to be screwed over twice. Some staff are helpful others are condescending at best like the employee who can't stop drooling "shiny!!!" every time I pick up a foil i've purchased, just stop it, it's annoying.

Would not recommend, I've experienced far better service and prices at Heroes Collectibles, Strike Zone and Cytex Gaming for alternatives in Houston, TX

Pros: Convenient location.

Cons: Cold and uninviting atmosphere, poor customer service, terrible inventory.

Recommend to a friend? Never

-response RE-EDIT SINCE THE OWNER LOVES TO MAKE STUFF UP

The only thing ironic is that every time I have traded cards in has been for store credit. I didn't realize store credit can purchase this "weed" you're talking about. Now, if you could put that crack pipe down for a second and show me proof rather than these ad hominem attacks I would appreciate it.

From a quick search it's apparent that you have a past history of being abusive and combative with other customers besides myself; maybe the crack fumes in your head made you confused and forget what a customer was. (see how easy accusations are) You were the one who confronted me and threatened me with violence when I admitted that this was my review and I refused to change it. You then refused to refund my fetch lands I had already paid for saying the refund would be issued in a couple days and threatened to call the cops if I didn't leave the property WITHOUT ISSUING MY REFUND ON THE SPOT. Knowing trespass laws in Texas I left.

Let's be real here, some real talk, so listen up you balding, roid raging douchenozzle. YOU are pathetic just like your sorry excuse of a store. You boast about your 6mil + inventory but that doesn't matter if 5.99mil consist of standard draft chaff and commons from kamiwaga that noone wants. You have barely any popular EDH cards or modern staples, forget about any legacy or vintage cards those are non-existent here. I can see why your target demographic is "family safe" five year olds; cause that's about your level of mental acuity and maturity, the only ones who'll take you seriously. Teared up? The only thing I ever "teared up" about was how stale and nasty your donuts were.

Good luck with your bigoted, racists, "inclusive" (in your words) magic store. It's obvious from your other replies what kind of owner you are. Interesting that when I came with my two white friends that I would get different treatment than when I came by myself. You treat your store like your little club house rather than a business and anyone that doesn't bend over for you or has any type of disagreement is removed through intimidation or the law. Fake five star replies that are bought are nothing. I sort by lowest rating to see how how a business truly operates, i'm sure others do as well; and well, the replies on these reviews truly exposes the classless, bitter, ignorant, hateful human being you are.

My suggestion, rather than conjecturing and making empty threats, accept bad feedback and learn from them. Also learn the proper use of an ellipsis and get some anger management classes, I don't think either will help with your customer service though. By the way your donuts are really bad, kinda like what a pastry would taste like if it was left out for a week, I wouldn't be surprised...