‘Tis the season to deal with horrible merchants…

In the past, when ordering online, I have tried to stick with reputable merchants, such as Amazon.com, JCPenney.com, Dillard.com, but this year, I tried two different ones that didn’t turn out so well.

The first one was DVD Donkey. My husband had ordered a season series from this merchant, and when the order was never received we contacted them, and received no response. Since we were charged for this merchandise, we phoned our credit card company to dispute the charges. As we investigated further, we learned some things about DVD Donkey. First, they never respond to e-mail, and second, they have no valid contact number. Even the number provided for the credit card transaction had been disconnected. In the interim, we received the merchandise via registered mail, but only after threatening to have them investigated for fraud. We also found that all television series ordered were just mere amateur recordings from the television show and not an authentic copy. One set even had a duplicate DVD in there. While DVD Donkey did make the effort to edit out commercials from these recordings, it’s evident that these were not professionally done.

We also learned that this company has changed names numerous times, and there was not even a name on the return address. For returns, buyers must go through yet another website, which results in no response. Thankfully, we had the option of disputing this and our account has been credited for this amount.

The next horrible merchant of the season is Buy.com. I’ve known others to order from this online store, and for even something as simple as a flash drive, it takes about 3 weeks to receive, so I made sure I placed my order over a month ahead of time. This merchant, of course, immediately charged me for my merchandise upon ordering. After almost 3 weeks of checking status and seeing this item was still on order and had not even moved to order processing status, I sent an e-mail to inquire about delivery, and Buy.com responded that the item was on backorder. At that time, I was looking at other options to purchase the same or like item from another source, and I received an e-mail from Buy.com stating my item would be shipping in the next couple of business days. Yeah, whatever. Again, I kept checking status, and finally, since this was to be a Christmas gift, I phoned them. This was no easy feat either, since I had to locate a number by searching the internet –there’s no contact number on their site. The first number I found had been disconnected (hmmmm…sounding familiar already), but I finally found a working one. I sat on hold for approximately 45 minutes –at least it was long enough for me to clean a room in the house and fix dinner, so my time on the phone was productive. Finally speaking to a live person, then getting passed to another, neither of which could understand the numerical sequence of my 9 digit order number (okay, I know I have a southern accent, but how hard is it to understand numbers), I was able to discuss my issue.

After finding that neither person could tell me if I would receive the item I ordered within the next 6 months, I asked about a like item that would cost me about $20 more. All the while I had been corresponding with Buy.com, I was receiving e-mail promotionals for this item on a daily basis. I was then informed they were out of stock on that item as well. Funny –I had just received a promotional e-mail about an hour before my call with them. However, they were “nice” enough to offer me a similar item at twice the cost. How convenient for them. I declined, of course. I could get that same item for less than they quoted at Best Buy or Amazon.

After thinking about it and deciding I should probably cancel this order, I sent an e-mail to Buy.com to find out the cancellation policy and how that works. In response to my inquiry, I received a confusing e-mail that I responded to by asking for clarification. Apparently, the person I was e-mailing with at Buy.com cannot comprehend the difference between a request for cancellation and an inquiry for information, because she canceled my order –even after I specifically stated in my e-mail that I did not wish to cancel yet, but rather that I was seeking information.

To end this frustrating ordeal, I phoned Buy.com and spoke to a representative who was exceptionally rude. When I would ask a question, she would talk over me, and I finally had to result to continuing to talk until she finally stopped. This childish game took a few minutes, but was worth it because she finally stopped using that tactic when I would start to speak. In addition to her taking such a stance to handling the issue, she would periodically giggle in the background while I was explaining the history of the issue and what resolution I was seeking. Realizing this was probably the next worst merchant in cyberspace (DVD Donkey being the worst), I told her to go ahead and process the cancellation, to which she replied that cancellation would still be subject to Buy.com approval. Fine, whatever. I opened another dispute with the credit card company and they have been wonderful through this entire ordeal. Imagine that. Good customer service –a concept that completely escapes Buy.com.

It’s unfortunate that merchants such as these ruin opportunities for new online businesses to establish themselves, because rather than trying a new merchant in the future, I’ll stick to those who have proven themselves time and again.