Buying Online Pitfalls

[TomKat]

Buying online
It seems a new trend among the Incels in Silicon Valley or China is setting up stores that require no human labour, run strictly by Algorithms.
I had been using a VOIP service called Nettalk for 10 years. The service was cheap and great until I had a problem. I bought an upgraded device which didn't work, and there was no way to contact them. I could have bought the device through Amazon but Nettalk promised to pre-configure it for my account if I bought it directly from them. Fortunatly I had paid with a credit card and was able to file a dispute for the charge (talking to an actual person). Nettalk is trying to operate anonymously; their published phone # on gthe VISA statenent is fake, their company on the VISA statement is fake. Maybe it's part of their no-labour policy -- if you can't contact them, they don't have to help you.

Never buy online without some easy recourse for a refund or ability to talk to an actual person, which means pay with a credit card or using Amazon.

I also think before I buy anything, I will first contact their technical support to see if it's real.

[Sérénité]

They must do so much business this time of year, it’s so easy to be fooled.
I once bought a lovely new bedding set for such a reasonable price but was really confused on its arrival at how tiny the packaging was.
It was at that point I realised I’d purchased dolls house bedding :ROFL:

[Sue (Ayt)]

FB runs some very tempting ads, but I have learned my lesson to never, ever, let myself be conned by them again! Kind of like the old tv infomercials, where I was ultimately disappointed every time.

The last time, I clicked and bought via paypal, a lovely-looking, metal-mesh, free-standing produce storage unit for the kitchen. It was, alas, an ad I saw on FB. It took forever to receive my purchase, but eventually I did get a small package from China. I opened it to find a very silly looking pair of plastic dollar-store type sunglasses with flowers stuck on them. Had no idea why I even got that package!

Well, after waiting for my storage unit, eventually I wrote the company and got an email back saying that I already got my purchase. Paypal agreed. The receipt for the package (dollar store sunglasses) was their evidence!

After some polite back and forth, with both the company and with Paypal, I rec'd no joy. Basically told to "**** off, you already got your shipment" by paypal. GRRRRR
So, not one to back off when I was clearly ripped off, I wrote a series of complaints to paypal, pretty much daily - escalating in silliness, actually... (I had myself LOL'ing as I wrote them!) I just let the silliness rip, like:

"Oh wow! I have a great idea now, paypal! I think I, too, will run to the dollar store and get a whole bunch of plastic child's sunglasses! What fun! And I can sell them through you for $35@ as long as I say they are something really good???? Right? I am so excited that I can do that! Thank you thank you thank you Paypal! Maybe I will buy up some other odd lots from my dollar store, like plastic mustaches, or 3-for-a-dollar lapel pins and stuff. Is that OK too, or do they have to be plastic sunglasses?
It's ok, right? Long as I get a delivery receipt when I send the stuff out! You don't know how much hope you have given me for myself and all my poor neighbors. I will tell them all that we can trick people with nice fancy pictures and it is fine, and we, too, can maybe all get rich, and I am going to go right now to my dollar store and get started. I will make sure to start with the plastic sunglasses until I hear back from you, as I know those are ok.
God Bless you Paypal and Facebook. You are truly a humble service to all humanity."
:heart:

I liked to imagine them passing around my complaint department emails, and laughing and spewing their coffee. And yeah, I eventually got a small response from the paypal complaint dept. saying that on further consideration, they have refunded my $$. Took some effort, though, but I had FUN doing it!

[norman]

Sue, I'm even shocked you had a dialog with Paypal at all. Was it a long time ago ?

I'm effectively locked out of my Paypal account because they demand a mobile phone number to let me through their log-in process. They pretend to have an alternative landline security check but it doesn't work.

It gets worse. They have recently, in the last year, moved their help-chat-dialog box BEHIND the login process. Imagine that, I can't log in and I can't communicate with them about it because I have to log in to even do that.

And worse . . . although I can't confirm it (can anyone?), I've heard that Paypal changed ownership sometime in the covid era, to Chinese ownership.

[Mashika]

Sue, I'm even shocked you had a dialog with Paypal at all. Was it a long time ago ?

I'm effectively locked out of my Paypal account because they demand a mobile phone number to let me through their log-in process. They pretend to have an alternative landline security check but it doesn't work.

It gets worse. They have recently, in the last year, moved their help-chat-dialog box BEHIND the login process. Imagine that, I can't log in and I can't communicate with them about it because I have to log in to even do that.

And worse . . . although I can't confirm it (can anyone?), I've heard that Paypal changed ownership sometime in the covid era, to Chinese ownership.

This reminds me of when i tried activating my credit card on paypal a couple years ago. It was not possible but i would not get a valid error message or anything of value, so i called paypal support, some guy answered in perfect spanish (i was in Mexico at that time) and then it went something like this (translated to english):

x: Let's review your card
x: Oh you are from Russia, i don't speak Russian, i don't think i can help you, please contact your bank in Russia
Me: But we are speaking Spanish right now, i can speak Spanish..
x: I'm sorry, i don't know Russian, we don't have Russian speakers
Me: But we are communicating in Spanish, right now, on this call! You understand what i'm saying?
x: Yes i do, but I'm sorry, i don't speak Russian, i can't help you...

.... Brain not engaged

I had to get someone else involved and we figured out the problem in 30 minutes or so, there was *nothing* on that process that required to know one single bit of Russian, he just saw my name in the card and panicked because it wasn't written in Spanish or English :)

That's the usual kind of logic at Paypal, brain dead

[Mashika]

FB runs some very tempting ads, but I have learned my lesson to never, ever, let myself be conned by them again! Kind of like the old tv infomercials, where I was ultimately disappointed every time.

The last time, I clicked and bought via paypal, a lovely-looking, metal-mesh, free-standing produce storage unit for the kitchen. It was, alas, an ad I saw on FB. It took forever to receive my purchase, but eventually I did get a small package from China. I opened it to find a very silly looking pair of plastic dollar-store type sunglasses with flowers stuck on them. Had no idea why I even got that package!

Well, after waiting for my storage unit, eventually I wrote the company and got an email back saying that I already got my purchase. Paypal agreed. The receipt for the package (dollar store sunglasses) was their evidence!

After some polite back and forth, with both the company and with Paypal, I rec'd no joy. Basically told to "**** off, you already got your shipment" by paypal. GRRRRR
So, not one to back off when I was clearly ripped off, I wrote a series of complaints to paypal, pretty much daily - escalating in silliness, actually... (I had myself LOL'ing as I wrote them!) I just let the silliness rip, like:

"Oh wow! I have a great idea now, paypal! I think I, too, will run to the dollar store and get a whole bunch of plastic child's sunglasses! What fun! And I can sell them through you for $35@ as long as I say they are something really good???? Right? I am so excited that I can do that! Thank you thank you thank you Paypal! Maybe I will buy up some other odd lots from my dollar store, like plastic mustaches, or 3-for-a-dollar lapel pins and stuff. Is that OK too, or do they have to be plastic sunglasses?
It's ok, right? Long as I get a delivery receipt when I send the stuff out! You don't know how much hope you have given me for myself and all my poor neighbors. I will tell them all that we can trick people with nice fancy pictures and it is fine, and we, too, can maybe all get rich, and I am going to go right now to my dollar store and get started. I will make sure to start with the plastic sunglasses until I hear back from you, as I know those are ok.
God Bless you Paypal and Facebook. You are truly a humble service to all humanity."
:heart:

I liked to imagine them passing around my complaint department emails, and laughing and spewing their coffee. And yeah, I eventually got a small response from the paypal complaint dept. saying that on further consideration, they have refunded my $$. Took some effort, though, but I had FUN doing it!

Reminds me of this
https://projectavalon.net/forum4/attachment.php?attachmentid=48055&d=1638911539

:ROFL:

[Brigantia]

One thing I learnt over the years is always to check reviews on Trustpilot with a business that I've never heard of before; if it's a dodgy outfit from China that rips people off, the reviews will say that.

[Scorpio Girl]

Thank you guys for giving me my second laugh of the day. The woolen blanket was priceless along with the dolls bedding, I'm still laughing now. I've not had any horror stories about buying online but I do comb through reviews on nearly everything I buy either online, restaurants and overseas purchases which I know can be a tricky. Once upon a time there use to be programmes on the telly exposing dodgy companies, tradies doing below standard work, not to mention rip off businesses, where are they now. That's right they've vanished into the ether. If you can get your money back great but if you can't maybe stinging reviews and a love bomb of cut and paste complaints to the companies concerned. A Youtube video on the product and disatisfaction would be a great idea as well.

[Mashika]

Thank you guys for giving me my second laugh of the day. The woolen blanket was priceless along with the dolls bedding, I'm still laughing now. I've not had any horror stories about buying online but I do comb through reviews on nearly everything I buy either online, restaurants and overseas purchases which I know can be a tricky. Once upon a time there use to be programmes on the telly exposing dodgy companies, tradies doing below standard work, not to mention rip off businesses, where are they now. That's right they've vanished into the ether. If you can get your money back great but if you can't maybe stinging reviews and a love bomb of cut and paste complaints to the companies concerned. A Youtube video on the product and disatisfaction would be a great idea as well.

One possible issue with that is, those fake companies have multiple fronts, they continually create new ones, so if one gets burned, they just drop it and keep going with the other ones and keep creating new fake 'stores' online non stop. Most times they just reuse pictures for a real seller, and then turn off the account after a while, create a new fake company and restart the process in facebook and other sites. They need to be smacked hard :)

[Sue (Ayt)]

Sue, I'm even shocked you had a dialog with Paypal at all. Was it a long time ago ?

I'm effectively locked out of my Paypal account because they demand a mobile phone number to let me through their log-in process. They pretend to have an alternative landline security check but it doesn't work.



Norm - Actually, it was about 6 months ago, I think. They have a place to file a complaint for any order, with an order resolution link. They assign you a case #. I just kept re-opening the case repeatedly with my silly notes, because it was a true ripoff.
Also tried to report the bad ad to FB, but found nowhere to contact FB about that.
For some unbeknown reason, I thought FB was more discriminating about what ads it accepted, fool that I am!

I found this for you at the paypal site, Norm. Possibly might help?


Paypal
1-888-221-1161
Customer Service Hours

6:00 AM PT to 6:00 PM PT Monday through Sunday
1-402-935-2050 (if calling from outside the U.S.)

[TomKat]

They must do so much business this time of year, it’s so easy to be fooled.
I once bought a lovely new bedding set for such a reasonable price but was really confused on its arrival at how tiny the packaging was.
It was at that point I realised I’d purchased dolls house bedding :ROFL:

Years ago there were eBay vendors pulling a scam. I bought a sheet set for $1, plus $20 shipping. Then they would refund you $1 after you shipped it back to them at your cost.

[TomKat]

Sue, I'm even shocked you had a dialog with Paypal at all. Was it a long time ago ?

I'm effectively locked out of my Paypal account because they demand a mobile phone number to let me through their log-in process. They pretend to have an alternative landline security check but it doesn't work.

It gets worse. They have recently, in the last year, moved their help-chat-dialog box BEHIND the login process. Imagine that, I can't log in and I can't communicate with them about it because I have to log in to even do that.

And worse . . . although I can't confirm it (can anyone?), I've heard that Paypal changed ownership sometime in the covid era, to Chinese ownership.

Ah, that sounds like what I went through with Nettalk. Apparently it's the Chinese who are doing this.

[Le Chat]

I will first contact their technical support to see if it's real.

What I tend to do is do a search (for whatever company it is) with "are they legit or a scam"