I’d like to briefly break away from the normal assholes that disrupt the world and get into internet sales for a few minutes.
I’ve been buying from eBay for several years and have racked up about 100 purchases. I’m lazy, so I go for the buy now, free shipping option and have never had any problems, mainly due to a rating system that they have for they’re venders that will also list complaints against them, if they have any. So, I buy from the best people, mainly computers and parts.
I had an opportunity to purchase some inexpensive Kingston RAM from Amazon.com. This was DDR2-8500, which isn’t cheap, due to it’s low usage in the OEM trade. Picked up on the good price and ordered it.
Well, took a few days for the vender to get it in gear, shipped Fed Ex and arrived in a box 10 times too large for 2 sticks of RAM, with virtually no packing material. Also it appeared to have been played football with. Opened the box, RAM was fine. Problem was, that it was DDR3-8500.
So begins the struggle of man versus vender. Turns out after several emails that the description on Amazon was for DDR2, but the stock number, in fact, was for DDR3. So, then we do the dance of return postage, ship the correct item, what happened?, whose fault, and on and on. Finally, this morning, I get an email from the vender, who states that the order for the correct RAM is now back ordered, for who knows how long. I then instruct him to send me the RMA and return postage, and credit my card.
I then call Amazon, who refuses to take any responsibility for the error or their venders, as they have no way of customers rating their experiences with their venders thus, and bad venders could be selling on their web site for years out of the trunk of their car and they would never know.
MY ADVICE TO ALL OF MY READERS IS ‘BUYER BEWARE’ IF A DEAL LOOKS TOO GOOD TO BELIEVE, IT PROBABLY IS JUST THAT. I AM ONE PERSON WHO WILL NEVER PURCHASE ANOTHER ITEM FROM AMAZON.COM AGAIN FOR AS LONG AS THEY REMAIN IN BUSINESS. A COMPANY THAT TAKES NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR ITEMS THAT THEY LIST ON THEIR WEB SITE IS A PISS POOR COMPANY.
Look on the web and my3cents.com. They have thousands of complaints. Wish I had before I ordered!
Have you seen the reports on working conditions at Big A’s warehouses? Although of course A claims they are not responsible because they contract the work out.
I avoid anything net and $ related as much as possible. Never even been on Amazon and PayPal ripped me off. I had Bartcop on PayPal and decided I wanted to just send him an occasional check for the good work he does. They kept pulling out of my account. I complained. They said they’d fix it. They kept pulling out of my account. I told them how as an entertainer I have to keep a lawyer on retainer and they finally stopped.
I had my laptop tell me I had several viruses and had to update my protection. Come to find out that was the virus. No, I didn’t send them a cent.
I think, by definition, net is mostly “unsecure.”
Sorry you had any problems with PayPal, Ken. They’ve been great to me, but I keep them at arms length where they can only get what I give them.
Joyce, funny you should mention the working conditions in their warehouses. I posted the entire article over on my Damspot site just the other day.