Assembly Square -- Missing An Entire Bag?

[etr102]

So I'm about 80% complete building Assembly Square, and am working on the Bag 6s.  Only problem is that I seem to be missing a significant amount of pieces, I think I may be missing an entire bag?  Or possibly a 'sub bag' (ie one of the smaller bags that are contained within a larger bag).  So far what I know for sure I'm missing is the baby minifig's body (though I have two baby heads), I'm missing 1 adult minifig head, and 2 red 1x3 plates. I'll update this thread as I find more missing but has anybody else had this happen to them?

I think the Fire Brigade had a packaging problem where a whole bunch of boxes were missing a parts bag but I haven't read about this phenomenon happening with the Assembly Square yet.

What would you all suggest is the best way to correct this situation?  Should I just fill out Lego's online missing piece for for each and every missing piece?  Or should I place a call to customer service?

Overall I love the set as built so far, which is why this disappoints me so much. I want to finish it!! hehe

Love the forum. Hopeing you all can help out a n00b!

Edited January 14, 2017 by etr102
grammar

[scottwb2010]

I'd call customer services first. Easier explaining it over the phone and they can arrange for a replacement bag to be sent or even the parts your short of.

Also it will help the track if this is a batch issue with missing parts.

[etr102]

okay.  for the record, the tape seals on my box are printed 40R6 in case anybody has similar problem.

I'm going to try to substitute in parts from my collection just to try to complete (though some might not be the correct colour) to see if I can complete the build and work up a final list of what all is missing.

 

 

[etr102]

The plot thickens.  I had a friend with an unopened Assembly Square check her bags .. She confirmed that all the pieces I'm missing are in a main bag, not a 'sub bag'.  Additionally they are all from the same bag (as suspected). But here's the weird part.  I have gone through my emptied bags and I definitely have 7 empty bag sixs, so I got the correct amount of bags. However, I suspect that I got a duplicate bag 6 rather than 7 unique bag 6's.  This would explain why I somehow got two baby minifig heads (I've never seen "spare" minifig parts come in a set,).

I'll contact customer service. But have any of you guys ever had this happen??  I know all the parts bags are automatically filled and weighed for quality control, but what about packing the box itself?  Is that a manual process?  Is there a final weight of the box taken for quality control?  I'm starting to understand what happened, but I'm having trouble figuring out HOW it happened.

[Vindicare]

At least it'll be easy to determine which bag you're missing, since you don't have the baby's body. 

As to your question, I'm fairly certain they're not packed by human hands. Once they're weighed, they go in boxes. 

[L@go]

The exact same thing happened to me with one of the regular Creator house sets - I got a duplicate bag, and one was missing. I called customer service and told them which parts I was missing, and they sent me the bag in question. So it's definitely possible.

[Humdrum]

13 hours ago, Vindicare said:

At least it'll be easy to determine which bag you're missing, since you don't have the baby's body. 

As to your question, I'm fairly certain they're not packed by human hands. Once they're weighed, they go in boxes. 

Actually, some sets are manually packed. I saw this recently in some documentary on NGC (Mega Factories or How it's made, Lego edition). They showed people manually boxing up the previous iteration of the police station, claiming this was necessary for larger sets.

Edited January 15, 2017 by Humdrum

[Vindicare]

17 hours ago, Humdrum said:

Actually, some sets are manually packed. I saw this recently in some documentary on NGC (Mega Factories or How it's made, Lego edition). They showed people manually boxing up the previous iteration of the police station, claiming this was necessary for larger sets.

Ha, I was trying to picture that exact documentary when I responded. So, I went with the automated...as that's the majority of the factory. Great show. 

[etr102]

Hey guys, thanks for all the replies. You've all given some really good info. I'll provide an update to my situation.

On Friday (January 13th) I called Lego's customer service and explained that I was missing an entire bag, and had the part number of the baby's body handy just so that I could tell them what bag. The guy on the phone acted surprised but didn't seem to doubt me or ask too many questions, he said he'd send a replacement of the whole bag.

Within minutes I received the usual confirmation e-mail you get when you fill out the missing parts web form. I plugged the order number they gave me into the shipment tracker portion of the site and saw that they had each and every part from the missing bag listed on there, so I thought everything was great.

However, today (6 days later), when I plug in the order number, every one of those parts still shows "In Warehouse."   Is it normal for missing parts to take this long to even leave the warehouse?    

I mean I'm not expecting them to 'overnight' these parts to me or anything but I figured they would have at least left the warehouse after 6 days.

[AFOLguy1970]

It can sometimes take a few weeks for replacement parts to arrive, therefore I would not be worried at this time.  Perhaps give it a couple of weeks and then make a follow up call if it is still showing to be in the warehouse. 

[TheLegoDr]

It also depends on where they ship from. I don't remember where exactly, but I recall certain orders come from different areas. So I'm sure that adds to the time, if it has to cross the pond especially.