In Praise of MFH Customer Service (long)

[ah100m]

I ordered a 1/12 Ferrari 315S/335S kit directly from MFH on March 2, 2018. I received it (Florida USA) on March 7th! Real fast from Japan. I was working on another model at the time (1/96 scale USS Constitution) so I didn’t start on the Ferrari until May of 2021. I found a part was missing so I emailed MFH (kyoko@modelfactory.com) on May 27th. She replied to me two days later, apologized for the error and said she would send it out to me. The part arrived via FedEx on June 2. Again about five days – great service. And it came with an origami swan!

In December of 2021 I was finishing up the kit and completely botched the vacuum-formed headlight covers. I emailed Kyoko about whether I could purchase a replacement set. She said she would send me out replacements at no charge. Again, the parts arrived in about five days with another origami swan!

The Ferrari kit was a fun build but all of the front and rear suspension work would never be seen so I decided to buy an F1 kit. I wanted the McLaren MP4/4 but MFH was no longer stocking it. Upscale Hobbies in the US was offering it as a special order at a pretty good price. They said that they could still get it from Japan. I ordered it Jan.22, 2023 and it finally arrived in mid-April. It’s a good thing I wasn’t in a hurry. It even had the tobacco decals (and no non-tobacco decals!).

Based on my experience with the Ferrari kit I did a parts inventory. Two small parts were missing and one part was broken. The missing parts I could easily fabricate and the broken one could be easily repaired so I wasn’t too worried. I emailed MFH (cus@modelfactoryhiro) April 25th but got no reply. I emailed again in June and early July but heard nothing back. When I read about the passing of Misao Hiro I thought maybe his illness and death might have been the reason for no responses so on July 15th I sent another email. This time Kyoko Hiro responded the same day and said the parts would be shipped out immediately. Five days later I had the parts! But no origami swan this time!

I would not hesitate to recommend MFH to anyone based on their customer service alone. Hopefully they will be around designing new kits for a long time to come.