Fun with Your Kid: Pleygo offers LEGO Rentals

Sunday, May 26, 2013

Pleygo offers LEGO Rentals

Does your child love the challenge of a a new LEGO set, yet you are already over run with LEGOs from the sets that they have completed?
As the mom and wife of LEGO lovers, sometimes it feels like the LEGOs are taking over our house:

Does your house look like this?

Ok, that isn't our house, it was taken at the LEGO KidsFest in October. These are the real pictures of how LEGOS have taken over my house today:

Our Dining Room Table is Building Central

LEGO Display

LEGO Table & Bins

My daughter likes building sets, but they then get placed aside in favor of the next new set. Lately we have been buying sets that will go on display when we are done with them...Harry Potter in our reading room, Star Wars in the basement television area, and special sets in our family room. However, many of our other sets are simply piled on my daughter's LEGO table (or left on the Dining Room table for weeks until they finally migrate to the table.
Today my husband found an article about Pleygo, a new company that offers LEGO rentals in a Netflix format. He told me about them and said I should write about them on my blog. After a quick search of the web, I found the company.

Pleygo offers LEGO rentals using a Netflix format. You pay a monthly subscription fee and can borrow one set a time. When you are done with your set, you mail it back and they send you the next available set on your wishlist.

Building the LEGO Friends Camper (Available on Pleygo)

There are three price plans based on the sizes of the sets you wish to rent. The $15/month Fan plan allows you to select from small and medium LEGO sets. The Super Fan plan is $25/month and you can select from small, medium, and large sets (or pay $21/month when you pay for the year upfront). The Mega Fan Plan is the ultimate plan allowing you to select from the any LEGO set including the huge sets that typically run several hundred dollars. Shipping is included in your monthly subscription.

I have browsed their catalog for availability. Overall I found 45 sets at the fan level, 6 additional sets at the super fan level, and 11 additional sets at the Mega Fan level. Based on set numbers, I would recommend either the Fan or Mega Fan Plan. With only 6 sets to choose from, I am not sure the Super Fan plan is worth the price. They have a fairly decent selection of Star Wars sets, particularly if you do the Mega Fan Plan. They also have several Duplo sets for younger children. However, I did not find any Harry Potter or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle sets. I only found 1 Ninjago, 2 Chima, 1 Marvel set, and 1 Batman set. I hope to see their selection grow as they grow in popularity.

I think this is a great concept and wish Pleygo well. What do you think? Are you ready to give Pleygo a try? With summer break coming in the next few weeks, this is the perfect time to try Pleygo.

Update: Note: Please see the comment below about a bad experience with Pleygo and proceed with caution.

Comments (27)

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Brianna · 617 weeks ago

I was searching for Pleygo reviews to see if anyone had the same experience as I have and came across this. I signed up for Pleygo and was shipped my first selection... great. But it was shipped Cash On Delivery. I did not accept the package as shipping was $10 and I understood Pleygo shipping was to be free both ways. So, thinking it a simple mistake, I attempted to contact Pleygo via contact form, email, and multiple phone calls over past two weeks. No one has answered the phone or replied to any of my emails/voicemails.

2 replies · active 614 weeks ago

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Mom · 615 weeks ago

I too have had a bad experience I hope they work out the bugs in their system and customer service response because the service is a great concept. After returning our first set it took two weeks for them to check it in and send out the new one only to have it missing pieces. No phone number is listed on the site and it takes two days for any email response, which didn't fix the problem. Now they want us to wait until they send out missing pieces......really? wait another 2 weeks? $50 for one set for the month, that seems totally unreasonable. If they sent out two sets at a time it wouldn't be as big a deal. We signed up on the mid-level plan and in this economy it is a waste a money for what we have received so far.

1 reply · active 614 weeks ago

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dad · 614 weeks ago

This is absolutely the worst site to do business with. It is a great idea but very very poor execution. We purchased the megafan membership at $39.00 month. My kids very excitedly selected the top 10 megafan sets like the site suggested. After about 7 days, I went on site and saw that nothing was mailed out to me. I sent 3 emails first 2 were ignored asking why nothing was sent out. I was told all the no megafan sets were available and instead they offered me 3 choices from the fan level sets which are for 5-6 year old kids(my kids are 10 & 11). This site is a total rip off. They are continuing to sell $39.00 per month megafan membership without letting the customers know that they have no inventory of sets. They also have very poor customer service, no answering of emails or no phone to contact. Smart people stay away and please do not publicize this site anymore.

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CFDad · 612 weeks ago

Same experience as dad, almost word for word. I have some concerns about their legitimacy. I have requested several times a refund to my credit card and I eventually got a reply back after almost daily emails.

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bDad · 611 weeks ago

This company is horrendous. After returning one set, they didn't send out the next set for a full month, despite multiple emails back and forth with customer service during that time. In addition, the good sets (superfan and megafan) seem to never be available, so you end paying for $39 a month while getting sets that are worth $25.
Great idea, horrendous execution.

2 replies · active 584 weeks ago

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The Pleygo Team · 611 weeks ago

Pleygo is a relatively young company, but we are expanding quickly and we are working hard to try to keep up with our service demand.

We are experiencing a lot of growth and receiving great feedback, but do not want to overlook our customers that are unsatisfied, as they are very vital to our business, just as all of our customers are.

We have increased our customer support staff as well as our inventory and reduced our shipping time. We are very sorry to hear that any of you have experienced anything less than satisfactory with us and we genuinely appreciate your feedback and suggestions, as it truly does and will continue to help us to improve our service.

I would like to share a few exciting updates:

1. Some of our members mentioned a longer than expected shipping time. So we changed our packaging and replaced our shipping vendor. We are happy to announce that we managed to reduce the shipping time to 2-4 days (previously 2-8 days). Now you can get your Legos quicker than ever! Hurray!

2. To achieve a shorter shipping time, we had to make modifications to our subscription plans as follows:

The Fan plan now includes 51 different sets that are up to 250 pieces, (enough for a year of building and we are adding new sets every week).

The SuperFan plan now includes 66 different sets that are up to 500 pieces, (enough for two years of building and we are adding new sets every week).

The Mega Fan plan now includes 78 different sets, that are 501+ pieces, (i.e everything in the catalog and enough for a year of building). We are adding new MegaFan sets every week as well.

We trust that the improved turnaround time will keep your little Pleygoers happy, which will in turn keep Parents happy and happy parents, make happy customers! :)

Again, we appreciate your input and we look forward to continually improving our service with your help and suggestions.

Thank you and Have a Pleygo Day!

The Pleygo Team

2 replies · active 585 weeks ago

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Matt · 610 weeks ago

Just cancelled membership out of total disgust. I have had the mega fan membership for two months and have not had any availability of anything but small and medium sized sets. I received notification of their increase in sets, however I don't see anything on their site at all to indicate that they have expanded the offerings. In the time frame that I have been a member, I have spent 80 dollars to have two small sets that I dont get to keep. I MUST BE AN ABSOLUTE FOOL TO HAVE SIGNED UP FOR THIS!!!

The company also says that all pieces in each set are washed and disinfected prior to sending them out. When we returned the first set, I received a notification that the set was not fully disassembled and "wouldn't a child be disappointed to get a partially built set?". Excuse me, but how could that happen if you wash, disinfect, and count each piece?

Personally I think it warrants a class action suit if you pay for a service and they have no availability of product. I want my money back!

1 reply · active 584 weeks ago

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Jen · 608 weeks ago

Wish I had seen this before we signed up. Although, I did just sign up this morning, and I checked this evening to see if anything had been done on our wish list. Nothing, so I went ahead and emailed to see how we would know if something was headed our way. I have already received a response to my email, not happy with the response, but a response it was. We have paid for a month, so we will keep it a month, if nothing arrives, then we will just cancel. Good idea in theory, clearly they need more financing for inventory.

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Hannah · 589 weeks ago

I was SO excited to sign up for this service for my son as a Christmas gift...signed up on 12/15 and loaded my account up with 10 sets. It is now 12/23 and my first set has yet to arrive. I emailed Pleygo and got the following response:

"Hello,

We apologize for the delay in shipping a set out. If you are not matched within a day of joining, you may want to revisit your wishlist and ensure that it is full. This will give you the most chances to be matched and sent a set promptly. Remember that you can you put sets on your wishlist from lower level plans as well.

Julie K.
Friendly Support
Pleygo.com"

I'm sorry...but if I loaded my account with 10 sets and not ONE is available, I am going to have to rethink my membership here. They obviously are unable to keep up with the demand. For $15-$25/month (depending on the plan you go with), I could buy my son a new set each month, which seems to be their current shipping speed anyway!!

I'm glad you had a better experience with them. Perhaps they are overloaded with new memberships due to the holidays, but they should at least have the courtesy of informing potential and new members that this is the case.

Hannah

1 reply · active 585 weeks ago

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JIll · 586 weeks ago

I too was very hopeful with Pleygo's concept. Renting Legos - brilliant! Getting them to my house was quick - 3 days. Getting them to leave Fed Ex: 4 days. Getting them shipped to Pleygo: an additional 13 days. Getting them to send another set..............waiting. They told me to keep 15 sets, not 10 in the cue and that you should receive 3 sets a month. They clearly do not keep enough inventory to satisfy their customers. Invest the money Pleygo or your business will collapse! If we get another set we are going to buy it with the $20 credit they offered us and be DONE with this program. DISAPPOINTING!!!

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Melinda · 585 weeks ago

I can't get them to stop charging me and sending me legos. I have submitted cancel requests twice. Guess I'm just going to have to cancel my card.

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Unhappy Dad · 585 weeks ago

20 days and still no legos in my mailbox. It has been 20 days since i set back my first set and still no legos. At that rate you could only get one set a month,you could buy one for that price. I thought this was a great Idea but it turns out to be a ripe off. They are little help at pleygo. They just stop helping me and I guess they just hope I go away. Bad way to run a bussness.

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Matt · 585 weeks ago

Sad to see the continuing saga. We did the math and it was less expensive to buy sets. We had paid for the high tier product, had selected all of them and were told to with the lesser tier to make sure we got sets. Would be a great class action lawsuit for a hungry ambulance chaser. To continue to do business is less than respectable.

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Unhappy Dad · 585 weeks ago

I have found about 100 bad reviews for pleygo so far. That's just the people that wrote reviews, so if one bad review stands for about 10 people (the ones that just stop doing business with pleygo but don't write a review) that's 100 x 10 that is 1000 unhappy customers. Wow. That is a lot of unhappy customers.

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Jeff · 584 weeks ago

I'm with all of you. It is really nice (but sad at the same time) that I am not alone in my frustration and dissatisfaction with this company. You messed with something my kid loves to do, (assemble Legos), and my wallet. Thanks for nothing, Pleygo. Thank you all for allowing me to vent.

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Danielle G. · 582 weeks ago

Very frustrated with Pleygo - only in the very fine print on the question page does it say up to 3 sets shipped per month - ONE EVERY 10 DAYS! Are you kidding me? What a rip off! Hopefully another company will come up with a more efficient service.

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Melanie · 578 weeks ago

My letter to Pleygo:
When I first came across your website I was so excited. The idea is wonderful. I read a LOT of reviews before signing up, most of which said the shipping is so slow, it is not worth it at all. For the cost of a membership, when you only get 1 set a month, you can just BUY a set. There were many many complaints online, from your customers. But then there were replies from your company saying they had fixed some shipping issues and things were being shipped faster. SO, I decided I would do the one month free trial and see if what you advertise was for real. I figured if I got at least 2 of the bigger, nicer sets and was able to send them back within the month, we would keep doing it for a few months until we got busy with summer. (The "free" trial was for the more expensive upgraded membership that should include the big sets). WELL, as per all the bad reviews online, your company DID NOT deliver. We got ONE little set during the WHOLE month. My ONE MONTH "FREE" trial ends Tomorrow and we still have not gotten another set. So I got online today, to make sure I canceled my "FREE" trial membership BEFORE the one month date, so I wouldn't get billed AS PROMISED in the information I read before signing up. I looked at my account and there was a set just shipped, it will probably arrive tomorrow, or more likely, the day after. So when I tried to cancel, it said I can only cancel without being billed for the month, IF I have all sets sent back by YESTERDAY. How is that even possible, when you don't send out sets until the day before the CUT OFF date for billing? Seems to me like that was your plan all along. I didn't want to believe all the bad reviews given to your company. But now mine will be added to them. I paid $25 for a "free" month trial and got one little set that I found online for $10. Definitely a huge disappointment in your company. Not too mention, it's always frustrating to not be able to actually call someone and talk to them to try and get a "refund" on a "free" trial. I am canceling my membership before my trial date ends tomorrow, but apparently your company is still going to charge me $25 for the one little set we managed to get during the whole month. What a scam. I want my money back! I am also worried about a company like this now having access to my credit card information.

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Elizabeth · 559 weeks ago

I've also just had a bad experience with Pleygo/Pley. We were customers for several months at the most expensive level. We put up with various problems (inability to access our account on-line, sets with several pieces missing, bounced email when I tried to contact them, delays in sets being shipped, etc.) because I figured they were a struggling start-up company. Then we returned a set and they said the set was incomplete. It's possible it was - though the set had only been opened at my sister's and (unlike us) she has no other Legos at her house. She said she couldn't find any pieces left behind. We asked if they could return the set to us as our one set out and we would purchase it (their policy allows customers to purchase any set they want). They refused, saying we had to be charged for the "damaged" set because they had to incur the cost of replacing it. This makes no sense, since they would still have to replace it if we bought it. The effect of this policy is Pleygo/Pley can charge anyone at any time with sending an incomplete set. There is no burden of proof on them. Then they charge your credit card to replace the set and send you nothing. This is ridiculous policy even for a well-run company - it's intolerable in one that regularly makes so many mistakes. As a final kick in the teeth, I canceled today, but they had just managed to charge my card for the next month, and they don't give refunds after they charge you. The charge doesn't even appear on the billing record of my accounts page yet. This company is at best extremely poorly run and at worst shady.

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Sunday, May 26, 2013

Pleygo offers LEGO Rentals

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