Illumicrate Reviews

So close to greatness

The boxes themselves are good the books are great quality and the items are always great quality even if you aren t interested in the specific items Customer service however leaves a lot to be desired For whatever reason your address has to be set in stone 10-15 days before your crate ships if you miss your windows to change your address well sucks to be you you ll be forced to pay postage again to get the product you ve already paid for shipped to the right address Don t expect however for this problem to be sorted quickly oh no you ll be waiting days before someone answers your email asking about getting a replacement box shipped out Then days more after you ve replied To say you want an invoice to pay the fee to get a box shipped out So far I m still waiting for my November box and my December box has already been shipped to the wrong address so I ll be paying for postage on these boxes twice and I ll be charged for a 3rd box before these others turn up The rep is also very confrontational as stated in other reviews This company needs to look at how it operates I ve never heard of a subscription business that prints postage labels 2 weeks before a box even ships Be warned The product is nice and totally worth the money If you have to talk to the customer service team it would probably be less hassle to get a refund through your bank and start a new subscription

HORRIBLE CUSTOMER SERVICE

I placed an order a few days ago and because the website kept crashing I had to place 5 separate orders Illumicrate canceled and refunded the orders without even consulting me I emailed them that it was intentional and this Customer Service Manager Caitlin kept on sending me one-liners just saying we will not reinstate these orders I got upset of course because we stayed awake until 1AM our time just to wait for the sale and it was such a struggle ordering because the website kept crashing and they canceled my orders and won t reinstate Now they are refusing service because I wasn t nice to them and canceled the one remaining order that I have Caitlin said I m not really sure why you think that would help your case here because I was upset in our emails Who wouldn t be She is really rude and i m not sure how she s the Customer Service Manager of this company I probably will not do business with them anymore

Virtue Signaling

Edit I cancelled my subscription because as of May 2023 there hasn t been any non-LGBTQ novels since July 2022 At this point it s clearly just virtue signaling They have a separate subscription for romance novels but only feature LGBTQ books in their normal subscription They fail to highlight any other form of diversity as much as this one Updating my review from 3 stars to one Original Review I ve had a book-only subscription since July 2022 It s difficult to get on the waitlist and pray that you see the waitlist notification email the day it comes through or you ll have to wait again Customer service was helpful when I ve had to use it the books are beautiful and high quality The only thing I don t like is 75-80 of the books are LGBTQ romance novels I m not one to read romance books of any sort and I understand they re trying to get diversity points but this seems to be their main and sometimes only diversity focus I ve only been able to get one book in nine months because I have no desire to read romance I wish there were more books like Babel by a BIPOC author with BIPOC characters without romance

Not a book box experience

Bought a special edition box and received instead a damaged ordinary box with its content also took some damage due to poor packaging and handling I have paid a hefty flat rate for shipping and was ready to be patient for any delays due to covid or shipment processing The box itself was pricier because its a special edition But after receiving the package my heart sank upon seeing its condition The contents as well as the box itself was not protected and was simply put together as-is in a small ordinary brown box No bubble wrapping no paper padding to prevent creasing nor was the box itself put into a protective box As a result the book paper cover has many scratches and torn edges as well as the poster have written to their support team about my experience but never received any response Given that they advertise the product as a book box experience and so much hype put into these book boxes the product itself and the service did not match the expectations set

Customer service is atrocious

Customer service is atrocious I reached out due to the website change taking away my subscription I had put my account on hold financial reasons after waiting for a year on the waitlist When I went to reactive it my account showed no history The customer service rep Caitlin told me I had canceled my account and would have to go back on the waitlist I messaged back saying that I had not canceled She sent back a message It was definitely canceled Im afraid with a screen shot of a drop down menu that says cancelled I replied back with a screen shot of all my emails with Illumicrate Nowhere stating that I had ever cancelled my account No response from Caitlin Sent another email stating it makes no sense that I would have canceled after waiting so long 3 days later still no response Pretty sure Caitlin is ghosting me Top notch customer service

HORRIBLE customer service

HORRIBLE customer service very rude and confrontational Resorts to verbal personal attacks when you the customer are worried and agitated about different matters Very cheap items a LOT of plastic I will cancel my subscription because of the extreme rudeness of one of the support staff members My bad rating is also due mainly to this person who should NOT work in customer service How the HELL did this person get a job in customer service

List is way to hard to access support staff are not helpful

Way to hard to get access to the list 24 hours is too short people s lives don t revolve around waiting for this link I was on the list for nearly 6 weeks and the day I couldn t access my email I got the link which I missed and I was then told by the unhelpful support staff if you missed the link to basically resign up so here goes another 6 weeks of waiting

Their Customer Service is Horrible

I want to start by saying that the books are cool but they are on the cheaper side quality wise My reason for such a negative score is how they handle their customer s information I sent an email to customer service and let them know that I would like to move my subscription from the full box to book-only They got back to me saying that the book-only subscription is full but that they would put me on a waitlist During this time I decided to cancel the subscription fully as I got a book that was in less-than-desired condition in a box full of excuse my language sh t items Weeks later I got a message saying that my subscription had been renewed Customer service has then taken it upon themselves to use MY information to renew the subscription even after I canceled it This feels unacceptable to me After contacting customer service they tried to put the blame on this on me and became very rude and aggressive and once I did get a refund I got a whole lot less than I paid due to conversion rates Now had the issue been mine fine But the issue was not mine as I had cancelled the subscription so I think this is poor form on their end The books are nice and look nice on a shelf but they feel cheap and often they arrive damaged in some way This combined with the items being not so great and the way information is handled has made me wary of using this company again

Poor service poor quality

I have been a subscriber for a couple of years until this past week or so I have found they are doing mediocre books in the sub lately but I stuck with them and had never skipped a book One book I was actually looking forward to was A Study In Drowning but when it arrived excess glue had been used in manufacture therefore when the book was opened it ripped the inside of the book When contacting them I was first advised I would have to wait 3 weeks for a verdict due to lack of replacements When 3 weeks came I was told that the damage was enough to qualify for a replacement book however they did not have enough due to other damaged books great quality control so my compensation was 15 refund When I asked how 15 seems reasonable compensation when I would ordinarily get a replacement they basically advised that it is better than nothing my damage is minimal compared to others I was offered a full refund if I returned the damaged book at my cost This cost was not refunded No replacement As a book collector this is not an acceptable response I had cancelled a preorder of Waterstones special edition because this was Illumicrates sub book regretting that decision 3 is what I got back and a damaged book that cost 24 25 THEN my October book arrives again with damage again a manufacturing fault but this time there was spine sticking out of the bottom These books are not just standard books they are special edition books and I would expect better customer service and customer care Subscription cancelled Poor customer service they clearly do not care