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Mmmm, scams!
AlyceInWonderland
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So, I have a question for you ladies and gents. I believe I have been scammed.
About a week ago, I bought a Chi Flat Iron from this website. I kind of had a bad feeling, as it seemed mildly sketchy (cluttered site. No real sense of organization), but it was at a good price, so I ignored my gut feeling and went ahead and bought the flat iron, cause my hair was taking over my face.
WELP, it was shipped from China (lawl), and I got it several days later, only to use it once, have the ceramic plate fall off, and then not be used again. AWESOME! 75 bucks down the drain.
BUT WAIT! They have a return policy, and I can return it! I just need to contact them, tell them why, and I get my money back. Fare enough, I can do that. So, I do.
I tell them the problem and get this response back:
I don't want a new one, I want my money back. Not to mention that the response I got was shitty and unprofessional.
SO MAD! So. Mad.
ANYWAY, I sent them another email saying that I don't want to buy another shitty product. I want my money back for a crappy piece of equipment that didn't work.
My question is, what can I do if they refuse to give me my money back. What if I get the same ridiculous response back (if any at all). Is there anything I CAN do? They're in fucking CHINA.
Thanks, guys.
About a week ago, I bought a Chi Flat Iron from this website. I kind of had a bad feeling, as it seemed mildly sketchy (cluttered site. No real sense of organization), but it was at a good price, so I ignored my gut feeling and went ahead and bought the flat iron, cause my hair was taking over my face.
WELP, it was shipped from China (lawl), and I got it several days later, only to use it once, have the ceramic plate fall off, and then not be used again. AWESOME! 75 bucks down the drain.
BUT WAIT! They have a return policy, and I can return it! I just need to contact them, tell them why, and I get my money back. Fare enough, I can do that. So, I do.
I tell them the problem and get this response back:
I am sorry to hear that. Every day we have a lot of customers buy our products, they do not have such a quality situation. I think it is not worthy to return the chi flat iron. You know you will have to pay for the dear round shipping fee. So i suggest you buy a new one , it will safe you money and it is more convinient. We will give you a discount, the price will be lower . Plz let me know your decision.
Best regards
I don't want a new one, I want my money back. Not to mention that the response I got was shitty and unprofessional.
SO MAD! So. Mad.
ANYWAY, I sent them another email saying that I don't want to buy another shitty product. I want my money back for a crappy piece of equipment that didn't work.
My question is, what can I do if they refuse to give me my money back. What if I get the same ridiculous response back (if any at all). Is there anything I CAN do? They're in fucking CHINA.
Thanks, guys.
AlyceInWonderland on
0
Posts
...basically how you pay for anything when you purchase something online.
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If they are used fraudulently, it's a huge pain in the ass for you until it gets straightened out. If a real credit card is used fraudulently, it's much less of an issue - no money gets drained from your accounts in the meantime.
So your debit card had a Visa or Mastercard logo on it, and you used it as one would a credit card, yes?
Visa, and yeah.
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Then chargeback. Your credit card company will be on your side for once. Enjoy it while you can.
Amazon has them as well and is pretty good about helping you if a seller rips you off.
http://www.folica.com/ might have deals for you too if ebay doesn't work out. But yeah in this case never ignore your gut feeling, ever.
But for situations like this, it is perfect. However, if you used a debit card, Im not sure you CAN charge back. I dont know much about that. Seems to be using a debit card is closer to writing a check then using a credit card...but I could be mistaken.
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If you cant do a charge back on your card, there isnt anything you can do. Like you said, theyre in china. I mean, you could sue them, but its going to cost you huge money and youll have to go to china. Not really worth it.
In the future, if youre going to buy counterfeit stuff, just go to your local flea market. At least if it breaks after one use, you can go down there and yell at them in person if necessary.
*edit* actually the guys didnt say he wont refund it, he just said if you do, with shipping charges, you wont really be getting any money back. Hes right, itll probably cost 30-40 dollars to send that back to china. He also said he'd give you a discount if you buy another... Try and work it out with this guy first. If you chargeback on your card and the guy says he tried to work it out with you but you never took him up on his offer, you will lose the dispute.
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You should be covered, even though it is a debit card. I've had to do this before. I just went into my bank, got an account statement, and told the bank manager I wanted to do a chargeback on the fraudulent line item.
Good luck!
Yeah you can also let the bank know it was a counterfeit item and wasn't what you really bought, or what they advertised.
It's heavily abused, but this is the sort of situation chargeback exists for. Charge that the hell back. Block the merchant from your email. Problem completely solved. They do have your debit card number, so be sure to keep an eye on your account to make sure they don't charge you again after the chargeback, or better yet cancel that card, shred it and get a new one.
Besides, it doesn't even matter. If you fill out a chargeback request, the bank is obligated to follow through with it.
Not that they would have a great reason to; chargebacks actually mean the merchant gets fined from the bank. If they get excessive chargebacks, they can start getting fines up to $100 per chargeback transaction from their own bank. This is presumably to give incentives for good online customer service. Which, you know, the email Alyce received isn't exactly a shining example of.
Really, the system screws small businesses and creative type industries hardcore (chargebacks are a small-mid sized web development companies worst nightmare. "Oh, you want to add all these features to your site. Ok, thatll be $3000. Oh...you want it for free because you "thought" you were getting that even though we specifically broke down exactly what youd be getting. Hmm. Ok. Well we cant do that. Oh, you are going to charge back your initial site now. Well then...")
But thats a discussion for D&D or another time. Point is, charging back will almost definately work here. Just call up the customer service number on the back of your card. You have two options for why you are charging back, you could claim fraud, but thats much easier for them to prove it wasn't. Likely you should just go with dissatisfied.
Actually, in this instance, Quality is the reason code you want to give them.
Telling the customer they will sell them another defective knock-off at a discount is not trying to working it out.
This is exactly the reason I don't want to 'work it out' with them, besides getting my money back. Now I know their products are crap, and I don't want anymore crappy products. If it were the actual chi site, then yeah sure, send me a new one, but these are crappy knockoffs made in China, with equally crappy customer service. No thanks.
I'll be doing the chargeback. It doesn't seem like it'd be a hassle. Thanks guys, I really appreciate the help!
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So whats the resolution dealing entirely with the business you bought the product from? Theyve told you that you can send it back (but its not worth it, and its really not), or theyve offered you a discount if you want to rebuy the same product. I can see them making nice and letting you keep the broken item and offering you your money back, but theyre under no obligation to do that. Their return policy is pretty clear on their website.
All im saying is if you do a charge back and the guy disputes it, your CC company investigates and finds out "Yeah, damn, she did issue a charge back before fully pursuing all avenues", then you'll still be on the hook for the money and theres no recourse at that point.
*edit* what you could see though, is if your CC company offers a warranty on items purchased with the card. If so, they will reimburse you the cost without having to file a chargeback.
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This. I accidentally bought a pair of counterfeit Sennheiser in-ear phones off of a third party Amazon seller. They knew they were selling POS counterfeit stuff, but if they want to continue selling things through Amazon they have to play REALLY nice about it. I had my money back about a week after I'd mailed them off, and they sent me a pre-paid label to send them back.
If they'd pulled the same shit as they did in your email Amazon would've said "no dice" and given my money back with or without their permission.
It's still fucking stupid that Amazon is an Authorized Sennheiser Dealer but they let 50,000 third party companies sell counterfeit stuff through their site. The one I bought from was actually on Sennheiser's Unauthorized Dealer list. Fishy as hell.
Counterfeit goods suck, and are a huge problem with online shopping, even from seemingly reputable sources.
They are most likely, without a doubt, counterfeit items. Just because a business has a return policy on their clearly fake goods doesn't mean that policy has any legal bearing on protection for the buyer. I mean a $80 straightening iron shouldn't fall apart like that no matter how jostled it gets while shipping. It's meant to withstand enormous amounts of heat ffs.
So me selling fake goods and saying "hah dick faces, you buy it you keep it and you can't contest it" works fine if I'm selling top end merchandise and the buyer breaks it. But me just saying that doesn't mean the buyer isn't deserving of protection. And me offering to take it back and send you a new one at reduced cost that's probably going to break after the first use too isn't really an acceptable response. That's actually a pretty legitimate way to scam even more money from the buyer.
Most businesses will send you a return label for an RMA like that, free of charge. But I imagine that's a foreign concept for a sweatshop throwing together counterfeit items for $1 a piece and selling them for $75.
It isn't like Alyce ordered the wrong size or color or something and it is reasonable to ask her to pay to ship hers back and for the new one.
The difference here is that Alice was tricked into buying a knockoff. The dealer knows noone is going to want to spend 40 bucks to return a 75 dollar item, so they are free to send anything at all. Alice could have received a dollar store hair straightener spray painted like a Chi for all intents and purposes. Just because a refund was offerered in a manner noone is going to accept doesnt mean the dealer tried to resolve the issue.