a bitter online shopping experience

ajay0722

Active Member
Joined
Jul 19, 2012
Messages
182
Points
28
Location
bangalore, india
Greeting friends,

I am writing this to share my recent shopping experience with "iShopinternational". I am not sure it would be fair to name a organization in my review or not, but i think when we can praise or recommend one here, we can also share there inefficiency and bad practices. My intention is not to defame someone but rather to let my friends know about the issue, so they can practice more caution while dealing online-
Dear Moderators: Please remove the Post or part of it if this does not in complaince with the forum or sounds offensive.


I decided to buy a BR player from Amazon.com on 30th December and ordered through ishop. Before I placed the order, i requested for a quote from iShop and they sent it. Later they called me and asked to pay and confirm the order. During the call, they also mentioned that there will be an additional discount, which is not reflected in the quote. They asked me to pay the quoted amount (which was bit higher) and excess amount will be refunded.

Once that is done the pain story begins-
30-Dec:
I paid the quoted amount using my CC, got an email from them saying the extra amount will be refunded within 7-10 working days. The same thing confirmed by there representative over the phone.

9-Jan:
I Got the item i had ordered, had tough time to track with ishop, a small scratch on the front.... well but that all is not the matter here. I have written about it on another thread...

14-Jan:
sent email, asking the status of the refund. There was no response which made me to call them and check.
Surprisingly.... they said the refund is almost half of the amount and not what they have mentioned earlier. The reason give was .... the weight of the shipment was not correct, so shipping cost increased. I got confused... i had quoted the shipping weight mentioned in Amazon (9 pounds), what other way i can find the right weight?
Also, if I have mentioned the weight wrongly, i have given the URL of the item, shouldn't they had looked into the URL and verified?
Moreover... the quote they sent doesn't show anywhere what is the shipping weight they are considering. For me, there is no way to confirm if I have given wrong weight while requesting quote, Amazon mentioned it wrong on their website Or ishop itself is using this gap as a tool to get more money, once customer has placed a confirm order and paid for it.


But anyway, I told them whatever is the amount, just refund and close it fast.

I expressed my frustration, mostly about the bad customer service, poor response to call and emails, they connected me to their manager/lead, and she accepted the delay very politely. She Also agreed that, if actual shipping weight was high, it is not buyers fault and I will get full refund and it will take 7-10 working days to do it and i got an email stating the same.

28-Jan:
I called them to check if this issue has moved forward. Explained each and every thing to their customer care from beginning. They got me another lady this time ( presenting as their floor manager). She said she will be escalating this and I would get a refund withing 3 working days. I requested her to drop me a email with her official email-id. I got the email from her, but again 7-10 days mentioned on it. Nonetheless, I thought at least I have a point of contact in there, to whom I can directly communicate and ask for status.

10-Feb:
I did not called them or write to them for almost 12 days, was just waiting to see something happening on this. But no action taken it seems. I called them on 10th Feb, again all the repeated questions, very frustrating and waste of time for a small amount of refund. i wrote email to them, as my last email on this issue highlighting their ignorance, pool customer-service, lack of communication and un-ethical practice, I think as a customer I have at least the right to express the experience I have got dealing with them. There is no response on it yet.



Though I have lost hope of getting this refund, following are my lessons from this incident.

1. Always confirm about the item, shipping weight, shipping location, currency conversion rate etc before paying anything. If possible get the quote as detail as possible or ask them to send email with breakup.
2. If someone offers you that if you pay quickly you will get some benefits (like refund), please verify this. Ask for a new quote, or wait and think before you pay.
3. Check the fine prints, what are the terms and conditions if the actual shipping cost/customs etc are higher than the quoted value.


Thanks for reading

BR
/Ajay
 
Sorry to hear about the refund and I hope you get your refund as promised by them. There customer service is very active to get the deals done, they even call you at night and also very promptly follow it up once the quote is given to you, checking when are you going to pay. But when you pay it all changes the immediate second and the ordeal starts with the tracking information, getting the details about the item and if there is any delay then the follow up will never happen from there side. So far I had some issues with the delay and no proper tracking or communication from there side but did not have any issues with the items that I have ordered but most of them are small items and light weight.
Regarding their online calculator it does not show all the aspects of the shipping that they consider like the volumetric weight etc., Borderlinx is very good in this aspect but costlier than ishopinternational.

Thanks
 
I keep away from ishopinternational since the last incident with one of my items which never reached me.
 
Yes, some part of it.

Looks like you did not share the ordeal on the forum. Bad luck! I am hanging in between with snapdeal but they are handling the situation as per my satisfaction as of now. Hoping for a resolution soon.
 
Looks like you did not share the ordeal on the forum. Bad luck! I am hanging in between with snapdeal but they are handling the situation as per my satisfaction as of now. Hoping for a resolution soon.

I did share the ordeal in the forum. It was about the RCA attenuators through amazon.com. The thread must have been buried by the newer threads.
 
Few more followups, no change in the status.
Rather, i was disappointed when i called them and asked me to transfer to the Lead/Manager (i knew her the name/email) who committed me refund last time, but was told she can not come on the call.
Few minutes later, I got another email repeating the same lines:

"You will see this amount refunded to you on your bank statement withing 7-10 days. In case this does not appear, please check with your bank as it is their responsibility to reverse the payment. "

:):):)

a BIG 'NO' to iShop forever...
 
Few more followups, no change in the status.
Rather, i was disappointed when i called them and asked me to transfer to the Lead/Manager (i knew her the name/email) who committed me refund last time, but was told she can not come on the call.
Few minutes later, I got another email repeating the same lines:

"You will see this amount refunded to you on your bank statement withing 7-10 days. In case this does not appear, please check with your bank as it is their responsibility to reverse the payment. "

:):):)

a BIG 'NO' to iShop forever...

Sad to hear about this, I would say raise a charge-back on your CC if paid by credit card. Let your bank know the reason and if they ask provide them the details of the complete history of the transaction and how the online transaction (contract) was not adhered to by the seller (second party). In 99% of the cases banks take this seriously and do revert the amount back to your credit card and they will follow-up with the lead bank/payment gateway the mediators in this transactions through whom ishopinternational would have got the payment.

Thanks
 
Thanks for sharing your experience. I do get e-mails from iShopintl regarding special offers and sales. Now I wouldn't spend time to read it.
 
Buy from India's official online dealer!
Back
Top