I used to order from hottopic.com all the time despite the ridiculous shipping to international customers. I would usually just wait until a 50% off international shipping sale so I was only paying slightly more than their competitors for shipping (which is sad).

Despite that they're site used to at least provide me with what I ordered most of the time and ship within a reasonable time.

Then... the site changed. Now they are just awful. I was dealing with them for nearly a month just to get one of my orders shipped from their warehouse. By the time they actually starting packing it half the items were missing and I wasted my special discount code. Their site also never properly reflects the stock in their warehouse.

It took me quite a while before I actually got a hold of a customer service rep that was helpful. The email customer service is terrible and they spout off stock answers and move on. The Facebook message customer service line is hit and miss. I had to call multiple times and leave public messages on their facebook site to finally get some movement on my order. I actually had placed another order a week later and received it a week ago. I am STILL waiting on that first order though I AM told it is shipped now. When I did get someone good on my first problem she was helpful, but it was not easy and luck of the draw when I got her. On Facebook they said that they would get someone to call me between a certain hour. I waited 2 days and contacted them again on Facebook only to find out the agent that was told to contact me just plain didn't so they got another person to call me immediately.

I placed another order later and used five $5 instant rebates on it totaling $25. One of the items I ordered was $15. It wasn't in stock so they refunded me for the item. But what they did was they refunded me for how much the item was on the order after the discounts were applied so instead of the $15 for the item I was given $3.15 back on the order and my $5 rebates were thrown away. I was not refunded the full amount for the item nor given my rebates back and I argued this for 2 days of which I eventually just gave up. After a month of dealing with nothing but problems from this company I just don't even care about what I'm owed anymore. They have lost a regular customer who has spent nearly $1000 there just in approximately the last 2 months. If that's how they treat a customer like that imagine how they will treat the person who only spends $50 here and there.

Seriously, there's much better and cheaper alternatives. Go somewhere else.

Update, Hot Topic did not like that I posted on their Facebook page about a new Rewards problem that came up and deleted it so they are now hiding things from people too.