Iron Lion

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This spring, I had the absolute worst experience I’ve ever had at a hobby shop. It occurred at the Iron Lion in Colorado Springs. I had driven up from Denver with my two sons, both of whom are autistic.

A few weeks prior, I had dropped off some sports cards for them to look at. It was a very nice lot valued at over $4,000; however, they were not interested in them. It took me a few weeks to get back down to the Springs, since I am very busy. I’m sure that this upset Shelby, the co-owner of the store.

The last time we visited the shop, we had mixed feelings about Shelby. My wife wanted to leave a negative review that very same day. I decided to give her a chance. As usual, my wife was correct.

Shelby brought out my two boxes pretty quickly. She even tried to give me a third box that belonged to someone else. Unfortunately for me, I am too honest and couldn’t accept it. I told her that I had a small box of Funko Pops that I was interested in trading. There were only four items in the box, so it shouldn’t have taken long. Shelby acknowledged me and proceeded to help several other customers.

Remember those two sons of mine? Here is where they come into play. My oldest, Parker, was looking at the Funko Pops, deciding on what to buy. He was very well behaved. Beans, whose Christian name is Sawyer, began to have a difficult time.

Beans’ autism is more severe than his brother’s. He didn’t speak much for the first three years of his life. While he has made a ton of progress, he still has a long way to go. Beans wanted to play with the “toys” in the store. Apparently, he doesn’t understand the concept of “collector’s items” at this stage in his young life.

I had to keep my eyes on Beans at all times, so he wouldn’t destroy anything in the store. That task became more and more difficult as time dragged on. He was getting cranky and began crying loudly. All the while, I kept hoping that Shelby would finally get to me. She knew I was waiting, but she kept assisting other customers instead.

Perhaps Shelby doesn’t have children, but she should have been able to sense my frustration. The tone in my voice was growing more desperate by the minute. After what seemed like an eternity, I finally asked Shelby what was going on. Her answer still chills me to the bone.

Shelby proceeds to inform me that she wasn’t buying or trading at the moment. Unfortunately, for me, she never communicated this to me.

At this point, I’m pretty angry. In fact, I’ve never been angrier at a retail establishment. If she wasn’t buying or trading, then why didn’t she just tell me to begin with? She told me that she had decided to “look them over anyway.” Great, but that still didn’t explain why she let me suffer that whole time. Her response to that was equally discouraging. She thought I was simply “browsing.”

Talk about a poor reading of a situation. Yet, things could have been still been patched up. She had several options that would have placated me at the time.
• She could have offered store credit for the items that I had brought.
• She could have offered a discount on a future purchase.

Either one of those options would have justified the long drive to and from Colorado Springs. Sadly, Shelby did not offer any type of restitution. In fact, like President Trump, she “doubled-down” and made the situation even worse. Much, much worse. As I walked out, ...

Had an issue with The Iron Lion that I attempted to resolve myself, but the owner would rather act like an immature child over it. My son mistakenly made a purchase online without my permission through The Iron Lion. I messaged them through Facebook to try and resolve the issue since the purchase was on Facebook, no response. After Paypal denied my claim because the payment was made using Friends and Family and isn't covered by them, they suggested I try and contact the store again. So I did, once again explaining the situation. Again no response and they blocked me on their Facebook page. Never once was I rude all I did was politely explain the situation and request a refund. Since they refused to address the issue and rudely blocked me I contacted BBB and opened a case against The Iron Lion. NOW I finally got a response, from the owners personal Facebook account, "So I see you opened a case with the BBB? We have screenshots of you claiming spots and also you chatting in the chat of the break you "claim" that your son got into. Please tell me what about all of this is theft?? The only thief here is you trying to get money back for something you've already paid for an participated in. Contacting the local authorities? We will be getting our lawyer involved since you've brought it to this point. We have proof, and you sir are a scammer. We will be putting you on the scammer page as well for chargebacks and fraud.

If you think that you're going to get away with trying to steal from us, you're sorely mistaken."

All of these assumptions were made without ever contacting me to get my side of the story. If they had then they would have known that my son did all of these things from my mobile phone which I let him play on occasionally. Any smart phone user knows you can stay logged in on apps for convenience, and I am on several. That's how he had access without a password, but no one at The Iron Lion could be bothered to talk to me and find out that fact. Instead they threatened me with legal action and slandered my name on social media, all over $70. I have NEVER been treated so rudely by a "professional" business in my life. They refuse to acknowledge my response on BBB because now they realized they messed up. Feel free to read all about it on the BBB site. At any time they could have told me they would be unable to refund the money and I would have accepted that because it was my fault for letting me son play with my phone. However they instead chose to ignore me, block me, then slander my name on social media when I did something about it. That is unacceptable behavior and I will not tolerate being treated this way. Hope everyone else has a better experience but I will NEVER buy from this store again and will be sure to tell everyone I know how I was treated.