DragonVine — Local services in Springfield

Concerning the Springfield location. I’ve been a fan of this store for several years. I’ve always loved the selection of novelty items and collectibles they have available. Perusing their store has always been a fun and positive experience. That is, until today. My children were in the store with their grandfather, browsing the usual interesting selection of gifts and trinkets. My daughter had a balance remaining on a gift card that I had given her for Christmas and was looking forward to spending the rest of it on a new anime figure. While my children were enjoying themselves and laughing about the unusual position of the teeth of a particular plush collectible, the gentleman running the cash register (and apparently the store), out of nowhere, very rudely and aggressively told my children to “Get out of the store now, or I’m calling the cops!” The children didn’t even realize he was talking to them at first because they were doing nothing wrong. Apparently, said cashier thought that he had heard one of them cough and immediately went into a frenzy. My daughter was explaining to me how she felt threatened and scared. She’s an 11-year-old girl, being threatened with police intervention for simply shopping in her favorite store and being wrongfully accused of a perfectly normal bodily function that can happen at any time for reason other than just being sick. The children, accompanied by their grandfather, vacated the store as demanded by the cashier, without causing any issues. I was soon after made aware of this occurrence, and took it upon myself to get into contact with a manager. Soon after making a phone call to the store in Lincoln City to inquire about obtaining the means to do so, I received a call from the manager of the Lincoln City locations. I had explained to her what had happened. She immediately got aggressive on the phone with me. She constantly interrupted me and would not let me finish a sentence. She was going off on me about how they take Covid seriously and how she has an employee that caught it and was speaking at me in a raised voice with a very rude and condescending tone. Mind you, my children and their grandfather were wearing masks and following all state Covid-related guidelines. I informed the Dragonvine manager of this fact, and she told me that “masks don’t make a difference”. I was pretty shocked that a manger of a store would say such a thing. I was equally shocked at the audacity of this manager to make my children out to be the aggressors in the situation, as if though they intentionally caused trouble by coughing in the store, which they did not. I asked her if it was their store’s policy to threaten children who cough or clear their throats with police-aided removal, to which she replied “if the store employee feels endangered, he has a right to ask someone to leave the store”. I reminded her that my children were never asked to leave the store, they were aggressively told to leave under threat of police intervention and that neither one of them actually coughed. I asked her if she condoned such actions by her employees. I could only get generic responses at that point and so chose to end the converstaion. I am absolutely disgusted by how Dragonvine allowed their customers to be treated today. Apparently, their management condones threatening an 11-year-old girl with use of police force if they dare to cough in one of their stores while wearing a mask. It’s very unfortunate because, up until this point, my family and I really enjoyed shopping there. But I will not tolerate any customer, especially my children, being subject to such borderline abusive treatment by Dragonvine staff. My daughter, hours later, is still shaken up by the incident. Rest assured, I will never again frequent their...

Poor customer service. Repeatedly ignored my questions on Facebook with no reply. Went into the store, and as polite as the clerk might have been, she did not have the answer to my question (one about their inventory and if/when something would come in) and was told to come back in a week when the owners returned from out of town. Bad enough that I can't get a reply through their Facebook page (which they have no problem posting memes to all day, but answering customer questions is apparently too much effort) but then they expect me to come in multiple times across the span of weeks to get an answer. Unacceptable.

And then when I brought up these complaints on their page and informed them I would no longer be spending my money at their store due to their difficulty in making that possible, they opted to delete my comments to save face instead of taking the steps to reach out to me and attempt to make it right.

Great selection and variety, but sadly overpriced (yet I was still happy to frequent their store knowing this because I enjoy supporting small businesses) and unknowledgeable employees with inconsiderate owners who are uninterested in assisting their customers.

Looking through the other negative reviews they seem to always have an excuse, blame negative customer service complaints on the customers themselves, or flat out insult them or accuse them of being "fake reviews". Can't wait to see what kind of reply I get. (BTW, it's only illegal for business owners to post positive fake reviews for their businesses, nothing illegal about someone making negative accounts to post multiple negative reviews. You should maybe make yourself more familiar with the laws that effect you).

Edit: And there's the reply from the owner. Name calling and brushing aside honest criticism from a customer. No attempt to right the wrong or reach out and win the customer back. If I was the owner of this store, I'd be reaching out to the person who wrote this review, find out what item they were looking for, and if I wasn't carrying it I'd put in an order in the hopes of winning the customer back and building some good word of mouth. They should be embarrassed at how quickly they reply to a bad review when they can't reply to a customer wanting to know if they have an item in stock at all. Priorities in all the wrong places. Won't be surprised when they're out of business.

2nd edit: Your store is empty every time I'm there (y'all are usually watching TV) and your Facebook posts get 3 likes and no comments. Sorry if I was interrupting "meme time" as that's clearly keeping you so busy, but otherwise you should have plenty of time to answer a simple yes or no question for a customer. Your staunch refusal to do so is indicative of your poor customer service as also evidenced by the myriad of negative reviews repeatedly citing your poor attitude along with your childlike excuses and name calling. You say you're busy dealing with the people in front of you, where were you when I came in to ask the question you ignored online? Off on vacation. Do I need to make an appointment to find out if you're going to get an item in? Are you booked out 3 weeks in advance? Can you squeeze me in between the Con trips and Facebook memes? You whine when people come in and browse without buying anything, but you're completely unhelpful in getting people what they're looking for....

sometimes they have very great deals! unfortunately i felt very offput by the attitude i received when asking a question to a gentleman behind the register about whether or not they had a certain comic. if felt like a fair question, as they have big areas for their week 1/2/3 comics, and it would have been a week 2 comic. as someone with very bad social anxiety i felt awful for asking when i received some weird mumbled answer in response, instead of like... "no, we don't have that one right now, sorry" or something. the relative i was with was not impressed either, and agreed that the response was not very nice. if you work behind a register, you should be open to answering questions, even if the answer is a no! instead of making buyers feel bad for asking. if you have ANY questions, maybe go elsewhere. if you're going in and know what you're looking to buy, it should be fine. disappointing experience as a newer comic fan for sure :( i've been there twice before where it was a nicer woman behind the register and those experiences were pleasant! it was just this guy

edit: i was totally cool that you didn't have the comic. got it online a day or two later. i've been into comics since may, only going into physical stores since august with my dad and ive been to four or five small ones. he has always been with me to talk for me. so YES, i am a newer fan. your gross attitude with your response shows a lot about your business. even one of my father's friends has heard through word of MOUTH that customers have not the kindest things to say about their treatment at your shop. considering we spent eighty bucks and it's not the first time i've purchased from there (in the 3- months i've gone into a handful of local shops) and my first review of a comic shop is from LAST MONTH. your bs reply is so ironic. must've been YOU behind the counter! i'll take my 3 star down to a 1 star because clearly there is an attitude problem among staff. i only left a review because a couple of weeks later, i still felt really unhappy about the interaction. other comic stores can say no without acting like it is the biggest inconvenience ever to answer a simple question. could've even said "no, we aren't carrying that." you have a great selection of items which was why the review was several stars higher, but yeah, your response isn't helping the whole "was treated...