Worst Experience Buying on the Internet?

[NETWizz]

What is your worst experience ever buying on the Internet???

Here is mine and the vendor was eCampus.com:

... a long... long time ago (2 years ago)...

1. I bought a book for $200 that was listed "In Stock; Ships Next Day" & paid for 2-day shipping. Great!

2. Four (4) days later not shipped,... I called and was told that it is 2-day shipping AFTER they ship it... that the book is not currently listed in stock...


3. I explained it was not only listed "In Stock," but it is STILL listed as "In Stock; Ships Next Day" on the website, which means they are selling books they do not even have.

4. Told them to cancel my order; since, they obviously don't have what they sold me!!

5. They told me there would be a Restocking Fee for the book... to which I responded, "you can't restock something you never had nor shipped."

6. They agreed to cancel and refund my order.

7. Three (3) business days later no refund to credit card... Called and told to wait up to a week for the refund to post... Day 7 NO REFUND...

8. Called back and told that although my order was canceled they got the book and shipped it to me and that after I get it to send it back and I would get a refund LESS the restocking fee. WTF? It was Cancelled... Why are they sending it!!! Arrrhh!

9. Got the book via Ground Shipping (See above I paid 2-nd day)!!

10. Contacted them and told to ship it back... I demanded and they provided free return label told they would waive Restocking fee.

11. I shipped it and added Signature Confirmation, which was a good thing because when I called 3 days after they got it back they claim they NEVER got the book!!! -> Until I pointed out they signed for it... They found it quick (Imagine that)!

12. Then they told me that book isn't eligible for a buy-back and they don't want it. Um... This was a RETURN still shirk wrapped NOT a buy-back! They said that it is my book and the best they can do is return the book to me if I pay return shipping. Hugh???

13. At this point, I figured I would pay them the $10 to ship it back to me and just sell it new on half.com for maybe $149 and just move on because I was irritated..., so I agreed and the $10.

14. Another week and I didn't get it back... Called in and it turns out they sold the NEW (still shrink wrapped) book I returned to another buyer and didn't have it anymore and still kept the extra $10 I sent them to ship it back to me. Effectively they sold the same $200 book to two people. (Makes me wonder if the other person wasn't waiting two weeks and complaining too...)

15. Called in again and they said all shipping fees are unrefundable..., but as a one-time-courtesy they could go against their policy and they offered me $40.

16. I contacted my credit card company and got a full $200 refund after reporting fraud... and disputed their $10 too.


^^^ No doubt the worst company I ever dealt with... and I bought from at least 40+ websites with only occasional, minor problems that quickly got resolved.


Okay, so I was buying a book today and saw eCampus had it for the least amount of money... but I didn't buy from them. Still, it made me think to check their reviews and see if they are doing any better.

Well, to my sock and chagrin, they have 7.8/10 on Reseller Ratings!

http://www.resellerratings.com/store/ECampus_Inc


Well, this can't be! No company that operates like that could possibly be getting these good reviews could they?

I did a little muck raking to turn up some "dirt" and found shenanigans:

1. The vast majority of their reviews are either 1 star or 5 star reviews.

2. They have an average of 1 to 3 reviews per month except January with around 228ish

3. Virtually ALL reviews before December 27th, 2011 and AFTER Janurary are 1 star.

4. They have the same writing style, too!!

Let's examine their "Ratings History":

http://www.resellerratings.com/store...ry/ECampus_Inc



^^^ Wow virtually 100x more reviews in January than ANY other prior month except December which has 20ish (most of which started to be 5 star reviews December 27th)


What do you think? Are they cooking the books and perpetuating Rating Fraud now too?

I filed an abuse report with Reseller Ratings asking them to investigate and look a the writing style, IP address spread, see if they are from the same ISP block etc... and pointed out that they sell Globally and all across the U.S.A., so there so if they examine the IP addresses for their geographical location they shouldn't all be in one place...

[MotzTech]

Wow, you are a more patient person then me. I would have disputed it at 12! Of course I don't have a lot of patience for vendors. I bend over backwards to make sure my customers are happy, I sorta expect the same from my vendors. I guess I'm lucky, I have never really had an experience that bad.

[16k_zx81]

AUSTRALIAN TECH CONSUMERS BEWARE

Megabuy

Megabuy suck

Megabuy are freaking horrible to deal with. Megabuy Australia. Horrible.

MEGABUY

http://megabuy.com.au

Ok so thats the keywords done. Hopefully this will show up in google if anyone searches for Megabuy

Details here if anyone's interested to read about Megabuy's practices.

Note that there are approximately 2000 posts on Whirlpool about MEGABUY. Unfortunately I was not aware of the threads before I was stupid enough to purchase from Megabuy.

Megabuy are epically bad. Oz consumers, you have been warned.

[frase]

I havnt had any yet, though I only trust certain ones.

scorptec (my work uses these guys)
pccasegear (quick and reliable service
ebay (never been ripped)
warcom (rarely use but have been prompt and good service)
nile (for books, quick delivery)

I tend to do a lot of research (quite OCD really). Though I need to nearlly want to know, every detail about the company/seller before I hand over my hard earned.

[coffee]

The worst experience I had with online is the site called charge.com. I signed up for their deal to handle charge cards and they started racking my bank account. I approached my bank and they wouldnt help me. I tried cancelling and got the run around. I tried everything contacted BBB (waste of time) and FTC. I even made plans to start an internet campaign against them.

Finally after months of fighting I got ahold of the Flordia attorney general and low and behold a few days later my account was cancelled. Still lost money though.

What they do is pay people or do their own reviews to look good. Once they get you its hard to get them out of your hair. Lots of posts about this. They also are not truthful in what they tell you. Lesson learned.

[geek12]

My worst experience buying on the Internet happend when I bought small shoes. I was destroyed.