Ever Get Ripped Off Buying Stuff Online?

[KAMALARAMBO: BOOMSHAKALAKA!!!]

I’ve had mostly good experiences, but I think if you buy online long enough your bound to have at least one problem.

Not too big for me fortunately. Two that come to mind though...

In the early 2000s (maybe even 2000 or 2001) I wanted to buy a set of the full 1994 Woodstock concert on eBay. I’m not sure if eBay has ever cracked down on people selling things they taped off TV, but they certainly didn’t then. That is actually what I wanted as to the bear of my knowledge other than taping it off PPV there wasn’t a way to get the full concert. So I put on a bid and won it for way cheaper than I thought it would go for. I was only like 13 or so, so my mom let me use her account and even said she’d just pay for it, since it wasn’t very much. Maybe like $10-$15. What I ended up getting though was a Best of Woodstock 1994 commercially sold VHS tape that was maybe like 90 minutes or so. I still watched it and the tape was good quality, but definitely not as advertised.

The other time was much more recent buying an Apple iPhone charger off of Amazon. It says it is sold by Apple and I read differering reviews with some people saying they got the real thing and others saying they got a third party charger that stopped working after a while. I figured I’d take my chance since it was like $7 and they sell crappy third party chargers at CVS for like $20. I really wasn’t surprised when I got the crappy charger, but am still confused about how Amazon can let that happen. I didn’t buy from an individual seller or anything, but from a company advertised as Apple. I don’t know maybe it was a company named Apple running out of some different country or something.

So yeah only about $20 or so were I felt like I kind of got ripped off in about 20 years of buying stuff online. Even then the things I got were somewhat useful.

[Urethra Franklin]

I decided to take a chance on one of those overseas sites that sell ridiculously cheap sports jerseys. They also sold snapbacks for cheap and I ordered a Mitchell and Ness NY Giants hat.

The jersey I got was fine. Nothing wrong with it.

The hat, however, was another story. It was mailed in an envelope just like the jersey was, meaning that it was crushed. No sane person would ship a hat in that manner.

I couldn’t wear it. It was already toast, so I just tossed it in the garbage.

[Cranjis McBasketball]

The ad said Ukrainian, she was clearly Russian.

[LexExpress]

Not exactly on topic but this reminded me of one of the first times I shopped online in the early 00s. I bought a Drowning Pool CD and it arrived in bizarre packaging, wrapped in layers of newspaper and tape. I remember my mum being like, wtf is that, because it looked like someone had mailed me a severed finger for ransom or something.

[Natural Born Farmer]

Sept 12, 2018 17:51:50 GMT -5 LexExpress said:

Not exactly on topic but this reminded me of one of the first times I shopped online in the early 00s. I bought a Drowning Pool CD and it arrived in bizarre packaging, wrapped in layers of newspaper and tape. I remember my mum being like, wtf is that, because it looked like someone had mailed me a severed finger for ransom or something.

I bought Dynamite Kid’s book online last October and it showed up with a Christmas card depicting Cody and the Young Bucks caroling outside of Vince McMahon’s house.

[KAMALARAMBO: BOOMSHAKALAKA!!!]

Sept 12, 2018 17:51:50 GMT -5 LexExpress said:

Not exactly on topic but this reminded me of one of the first times I shopped online in the early 00s. I bought a Drowning Pool CD and it arrived in bizarre packaging, wrapped in layers of newspaper and tape. I remember my mum being like, wtf is that, because it looked like someone had mailed me a severed finger for ransom or something.

Haha I used to sell things on Amazon. It was mostly used textbooks and DVDs. This was back in college when I was super busy, but I usually made time to get packaging supplies to ship things out. Usually. I think a time or two I may have just used whatever material I had handy to Macgyver a package together. I remember one of my buyers commented that the packaging was "interesting" but still gave me a good review because the item was received as described.

[agent817]

Oh, I have a story to tell, though the ending turned out to be better in the end.

Back in early 2014, not long after 2013 had ended, I looked online for the Fast & Furious steelbook Blu Rays. Being that I saw the steelbooks of these movies at Best Buy at the tail-end of 2013, I could not find some of the movies on the Best Buy website at first, except for 5 and 6. As for the other four, I had to resort to buying them through Amazon, even though some were rather pricey until Best Buy put them back in stock. I ordered Fast & Furious 4 through a seller and when I got it in the mail, I ended up getting a copy of the first film, which I had bought previously. I then contacted the seller and they realized that they made a mistake. So I went to a UPS store to return to the sender. Fast forward a week later, the same package came in the mail, with a return-to-sender marking on it. At first I thought it backfired on me, but for some reason, I contacted the seller yet again, and I was told that it was the right item this time. I then opened the package and what do you know, it was the right one. Some people are just clever.

Another example was that I had ordered a specific CD through a seller on Amazon, only to see that it was the wrong item. For some strange reason, the sticker for the item I had ordered was on the CD I ended up getting. I contacted the seller and they gave me a refund, but told me to keep it (Which I have yet to listen to, but it seems like drum/bass album, so I'll give it a go). I ended up using the money I got back to order the correct item through another seller and got it that time.

[Spider2024]

I'm sure I can think of one, since I've bought tons of stuff over the years online.

Now I choose to mention how in 2014 my dad wanted a gramophone from Spain. $400, plus $200 shipping. We're still waiting for it to arrive. We bought from eBay, but apparently the seller wanted not to use PayPal. So we used a credit or debit card, I forget which. Anyway, we emailed the eBay people after about a month and a half, but they really couldn't do much of anything.

Anyway, I might get a good story of my own soon, if it turns out that I don't ever get my rewards checks from this FreeShipping.com site I've been trying recently.

Ah, and I just thought of one. I did just settle a dispute over a CD with a seller... for a total partial refund of 25 cents. The CD was sold as "Brand New" but it came with a big crack in the front of the CD case. Seller said they'd give 25 cents essentially for the replacement of the case. It was either that or to ship the CD back for the full refund of $4 total. I didn't want to do that, since the cost of sending it back would reach around $4 anyway, so I'll take the quarter for doing nothing. (Secretly though, I was only looking for blood because I mistakenly bought the wrong CD. Thought I was getting a 14-track album, instead got a 2-track CD single of the song from the album that shared the same name as the album. Not really the seller's fault, since the image of the auction was of the CD single and not the album, which I didn't think to research. Then again, a track listing in the auction description mighta helped, mister seller sir. )

[jagilki]

I've been lucky.

Then again, never bought from any risky type places, until I started collecting Third Party / Knock Off Transformers. Need to be a little more careful there. But so far the places I've bought from have been ace. Newest place has been great, with shipping on one package getting here from China faster than Amazon gets things to me.

[Deleted]

The real and replica wrestling belt collectors groups (products ranging from $250-5 digits) are notorious for bootlegs, bait and switch trades/sells, and people waiting upwards of 5 to 10+ years for belts they commissioned to have made to be delivered and this is by the actual trademark holders of top company belt designs...It's a total crap shoot

[DZ: WF Legacy]

Don't order from Teefury right now. They're not fulfilling orders, and they made a blog post over the summer apologizing and promising that things will get better. It's been several months after that post, they're still selling merch, and that post is full of complaints from people who haven't received their order. I never had a problem with them in the past until this past July.

[ayumidah]

I honestly can't think of anything significant. There was one where I ordered my brother something for his birthday, just for it to arrive so late that it basically came on MY birthday two months later. So the seller contacts me and asks if I could review the item, and I replied that I hadn't received it yet but would when I did, and at that point, it was a month past the estimated date of arrival (I was trying to be patient because it was a Belgium seller) so she refunded me the money, and then ignored me when I informed her that I received the item after all and asked if she wanted to undo the refund. So I got the item and the money.

Other than that, beyond refunds or whatever else, I've never had significant problems, probably because I'm overly paranoid and only buy from certain shops that I know are safe.

[Deleted]

Sept 12, 2018 22:40:08 GMT -5 DZ: WF Legacy said:

Don't order from Teefury right now. They're not fulfilling orders, and they made a blog post over the summer apologizing and promising that things will get better. It's been several months after that post, they're still selling merch, and that post is full of complaints from people who haven't received their order. I never had a problem with them in the past until this past July.

I'd make the mistake ordering something from them a couple weeks ago. I didn't know they were having any problem until recently.

[El Hijo de Mr. Ass]

More so feeling just a bit ripped off in my case. I remember getting Dead or Alive 2 for Dreamcast from a seller on E-Bay and it ended up being a bootleg copy of the game. It was super cheap and played just fine, so I wasn't too mad at that.

[Derk!]

While I never had any issue with them aside from their horrible customer service, the original version of wrestlecrate, had TONS of complaints about people not getting their orders and having their emails ignored altogether. They've since changed ownership.


Another one was when I ordered SFV on Amazon, during their prime specials, I got a really good deal on it. Got home, opened the case, put it in my PS4 and got a disc-read error. I took it out and noticed the disc was a CDR with cheaply printed label on it. I emailed them immediately and got my money back right away. What's crazy was that the case and the booklet were the real deal..

[Rumble McSkirmish]

There was the one time I got a non functioning Mac Book off of Ebay.

Now if it were just as simple as that I could have simply made a claim and got a refund, but what occurred kicked off a chain of events that made up what I considered one of the most stressful months of my life.

It started off well; saw a refurbished Mac on Ebay, the price was right, the seller was repeatable and was a store based in my province as opposed to an individual from some far off corner of the world. So I went ahead and won the auction and paid via credit card...that's when the trouble began.

I got a message from the seller saying they had a problem on their end processing my card and that I should pay another way. At this point I got cold feet and decided maybe I should back out of the sale. (After all no money had changed hands at this point.) This prompted the seller to call me directly and explain what happened and that I should in the words of Jake Roberts, Trust Him. Okay so I went ahead and paid another way, only a day or so later I learned that the credit card did go through it's just for some reason it took longer than normal. So at this point I paid twice for something I hadn't even received yet.

So I had to go and cancel the credit card payment which would take a few days. In the mean time I received the computer and when I turned it on...it stayed on the loading screen for over an hour. I went to Apple's online tech support, couldn't resolve the issue so they set me up for an appointment at the nearby Apple store. I went in told the guy my issues he had a look under the hood and of course brought up the worse case scenario there was an issue with one the cables inside the motherboard and of course since this was a refurbished model they couldn't do anything about it.

I took this information back to the seller and they went ballistic on me, accusing me of not paying for the computer (Even though at this point I had paid twice for the sodding thing and had the transaction records to prove it.) and threatening to go to the cops.

I replied in kind, boxed up the computer and sent it back to them, then made claims with both Ebay and the online service I used to transfer the money. Neither claim was disputed so I managed to get all my money refunded.

What a mess that turned out to be.

[The 1Watcher Experience]

I had the same deal with the charger. Saw a cheap one for $5 and took a chance. It was listed as compatible but it wasn’t. I gave it away since I couldn’t use it. I don’t order replacements online anymore.

I had one seller freak out on me after I paid them insisting that they wanted me to send the money as “friends and family.” I told them they were neither my friend nor my family and I don’t do business like that. They told me they had a great reputation. I told them I didn’t know them and they could just refund my money if this was going to be a problem. They changed their tune and sent my package right out. Everything was fine. They asked if I could send money as friends and family next time but I didn’t respond. I won’t be doing business with them again. I would never put myself out there where someone could just keep my money and claim it was a gift.

I ordered an item from Japan that wasn’t cheap. It was packaged extremely poorly so it was crushed when it was delivered. I contacted them and received no response. I left them a somewhat nasty review and they contacted me immediately and gave me a full refund. They asked me to change my review. They sent me a request to change it. Once the money was refunded I changed it for them. They did the right thing so I had no problem doing the right thing in return.

Pro Wrestling Tees left me waiting a few months for a shirt to arrive. One shirt. Not a complicated order at all. It was fine once it finally arrived but I don’t order anything from them anymore. If they’re that successful there’s no reason for that kind of delay in service.

Those are the only times I’ve ever had any problems with sellers. I’ve ordered a lot of stuff and everything is usually as advertised and is shipped to my satisfaction. Most sellers live and die by their reviews. There’s a lot of competition out there and they want to keep their customers happy.

[clifford]

Ordered the Rise and Fall of ECW DVD off a 3rd party through Amazon years ago. Never got it and couldn't get in touch with them. Have never used a 3rd party since.

f***ing cowboys

[KAMALARAMBO: BOOMSHAKALAKA!!!]

Sept 13, 2018 0:39:47 GMT -5 ayumidah said:

I honestly can't think of anything significant. There was one where I ordered my brother something for his birthday, just for it to arrive so late that it basically came on MY birthday two months later. So the seller contacts me and asks if I could review the item, and I replied that I hadn't received it yet but would when I did, and at that point, it was a month past the estimated date of arrival (I was trying to be patient because it was a Belgium seller) so she refunded me the money, and then ignored me when I informed her that I received the item after all and asked if she wanted to undo the refund. So I got the item and the money.

Other than that, beyond refunds or whatever else, I've never had significant problems, probably because I'm overly paranoid and only buy from certain shops that I know are safe.

If the item didn't have to be given that year and you wanted to be a real cheapskate you could just hold onto it until your brother's next birthday then give it to him

P.S. I went to Belgium for the first time this year. Beautiful country and super nice people

[KAMALARAMBO: BOOMSHAKALAKA!!!]

Sept 13, 2018 1:32:08 GMT -5 Derk! said:

While I never had any issue with them aside from their horrible customer service, the original version of wrestlecrate, had TONS of complaints about people not getting their orders and having their emails ignored altogether. They've since changed ownership.


Another one was when I ordered SFV on Amazon, during their prime specials, I got a really good deal on it. Got home, opened the case, put it in my PS4 and got a disc-read error. I took it out and noticed the disc was a CDR with cheaply printed label on it. I emailed them immediately and got my money back right away. What's crazy was that the case and the booklet were the real deal..

For Wrestlecrate was that the one Wrestle Circus bought? I heard the complaints about the original owner, but that things improved once the Wrestle Circus people took over. I'm not sure if the Wrestle Circus people has since sold it as at least the Wrestle Circus promotion seems to be on indefinite hiatus.