MBNA won't help with unscrupulous online merchant

dappyd

I went online and purchased a product from SuperEZstore.co.uk. (Note: ".co.uk" is not just the website address, but actually part of the store name - check it out). Pretty standard looking online store, the product was advertised for £25.88 + £8.00 shipping = £33.88. Brilliant. Placed the order, received an immediate e-mail confirmation receipt showing order for £33.88. (At that stage I don't notice a small sentence on the receipt that reads "Orders may be exchanged into US currency during the payment process". Why would I expect this from SuperEZ store .CO.UK?)

2 weeks later the product hadn't arrived. Hmmm. I check my MBNA credit card statement - transaction is listed as "ISHOP 626-3099137 CA" and the amount charged is £35.19. Oops! !!!!!!??? I go back to the website. No physical address given. Only an e-mail address. Doh! But it's superEZstore.CO.UK. It MUST be a UK store, right?

Next day I get a postcard from Royal Mail telling me they are holding an item that requires custom duty of £11.17. Oops x 100! Doh x 1000! So I call +1-626-3099137 - it's a fax line.

So:
1) They overcharged me for the product; and
2) I must pay an extra £11.17 before I can actually get the product.

I contact the superEZstore.co.uk e-mail address and ask that they refund the customs charge to me before I collect the item. Surely this is reasonable? Their reply: "We shipped from US,the custom cost not charged by us, We couldn't do refund for that."

I scour the SuperEZstore.co.uk website. No mention of US except in an obscure link to a RMA .pdf that must first be downloaded. No mention of possible customs charges. No mention of exchange rates that might change the billed amount. I'm not a happy camper.

I tick the box on the Royal Mail postcard to return to sender and return to Royal Mail. I contact MBNA explaining this charade and ask them to reverse the transaction.

MBNA Reply 1: We can't help you "because the goods are available for collection".

I politely write back and explain, yes, but not for the agreed sale price.

MBNA Reply 2: We can't help because it does state on the order confirmation that orders may be exchanged into US currency.

So I have now written letter 3 to MBNA explaining that I don't care what currency they exchange the order into, as long as I receive the product and am charged the AGREED sale price of £33.88!

Is it just me or is this just nuts? I have bought HUNDREDS of items online and every time I pay the agreed price and the item is delivered to my door.

Sorry for the long post but please can someone tell me:

a) Is it wrong for a foreign e-store to masquerade as a UK store? What can I do about this?
b) Should MBNA not be protecting me against this deceit? What can I do about that?

Any advice will be greatly appreciated. I don't have the product I ordered (back in Feb) and I'm £35.19 out of pocket. Not a huge amount, but there's a principle...

shelovestobuystuff

Just because its a co.uk doesnt mean its a U.K. company.Anyone can buy any available web domain.People buy .org addresses who are not an organisation but the name they wanted was only available as a .org.
There is not much info about on the site about the company,no business adress I can find BUT In the terms and conditions section 15 it states they are governed by US law.
Also on the page before checkout there is this
Quick Store Policies:
• All sales are subject to our Terms and Conditions of Sale.
• We reserve the right to refuse any order.
• We offer No technical support.
• We do not process orders during weekends.
• We issues refunds in the form of Gift Certificates.
• We will not be responsible for typographical or other errors or omissions regarding prices or other information.
• Original shipping is a service already paid to UPS and used. Therefore it will not be refunded under any condition.
• All orders require 24-48 hours processing time. Please allow one extra day for alternate shipping address verification.
• No Shipping Status will be provided if shipped to P.O. Boxes.
• Customer pays return shipping on all services.

International Orders:
The freight charge is an estimate for most of orders in US domestic. The freight charge for heavy items or international orders may be different from our estimates. We will e-mail you the freight charge after you place an order if it is different from our estimate. Please note wire transfer is required for certain areas.


If I were you I would pay the import tax and service fee and take the item,especially as refunds are only in the form of gift vouchers.

shelovestobuystuff

actually you are lucky its royal mail who are holding the parcel as any other courier or delivery company would deliver it then bill you for the customs charge plus a service fee of about £20 on top of that.

Ah,but you have already asked rm to return to sender.They only offer gift vouchers as a refund.

RobertoMoir

dappyd wrote: »

2 weeks later the product hadn't arrived. Hmmm. I check my MBNA credit card statement - transaction is listed as "ISHOP 626-3099137 CA" and the amount charged is £35.19. Oops! !!!!!!??? I go back to the website. No physical address given. Only an e-mail address. Doh! But it's superEZstore.CO.UK. It MUST be a UK store, right?

Nope. Just words that mean nothing. Kinda like that local business that acts like its really a big company in its yellow pages advert but its actually owned by pete the grocer who keeps it going during the quiet spells in the store.

dappyd wrote: »

Next day I get a postcard from Royal Mail telling me they are holding an item that requires custom duty of £11.17. Oops x 100! Doh x 1000! So I call +1-626-3099137 - it's a fax line.

So:
1) They overcharged me for the product; and
2) I must pay an extra £11.17 before I can actually get the product.

The first one I have sympathy for. The last one... well that's how these things work I'm afraid. If you read their website carefully its pretty clear that they're a grey importer, and paying custom charges is something you have to expect when that happens. They've not exactly been up front about this, which is bad, but have they actually crossed a technical line into actual deceit?

dappyd wrote: »

I contact the superEZstore.co.uk e-mail address and ask that they refund the customs charge to me before I collect the item. Surely this is reasonable? Their reply: "We shipped from US,the custom cost not charged by us, We couldn't do refund for that."

I scour the SuperEZstore.co.uk website. No mention of US except in an obscure link to a RMA .pdf that must first be downloaded. No mention of possible customs charges. No mention of exchange rates that might change the billed amount. I'm not a happy camper.

I tick the box on the Royal Mail postcard to return to sender and return to Royal Mail. I contact MBNA explaining this charade and ask them to reverse the transaction.

MBNA Reply 1: We can't help you "because the goods are available for collection".

I politely write back and explain, yes, but not for the agreed sale price.

MBNA Reply 2: We can't help because it does state on the order confirmation that orders may be exchanged into US currency.

So I have now written letter 3 to MBNA explaining that I don't care what currency they exchange the order into, as long as I receive the product and am charged the AGREED sale price of £33.88!

Is it just me or is this just nuts? I have bought HUNDREDS of items online and every time I pay the agreed price and the item is delivered to my door.

Sorry for the long post but please can someone tell me:

a) Is it wrong for a foreign e-store to masquerade as a UK store? What can I do about this?
b) Should MBNA not be protecting me against this deceit? What can I do about that?

Any advice will be greatly appreciated. I don't have the product I ordered (back in Feb) and I'm £35.19 out of pocket. Not a huge amount, but there's a principle...

a) Define "wrong". All they did was write ".co.uk" in their domain name. That isn't really "masquerading" as anything. Are Microsoft and Google pretending to be UK companies when https://www.microsoft.co.uk and https://www.google.co.uk both work?
b) Not sure. If you're talking about the credit card protection rules, doesn't the transaction have to be £100 or greater? If you're talking about them doing a chargeback in general, I really don't know about that, probably depends on their internal processes.

I'd certainly try your credit card company again and push for it a bit more, maybe try to get some clear guidelines on what they can and can't do for you. I'd also ditch them if I was unhappy, but its a good question as to whether or not anyone else would be better.

This might, sadly, be one of those times you have to chalk up to experience and move on.

dappyd

• Original shipping is a service already paid to UPS and used.

So they have broken their own T&C by using Royal Mail. (just an observation)

Thanks very much for the reply. Reading the long list of T&C more closely (you have highlighted just a few), there are a few references to the United States. So as a UK consumer, going to a store called SuperEZstore.CO.UK and seeing everything, including shipping listed in Pounds, with only a few references to the United States in the T&C (NO explicit statement that the store and shipping is from the US and payment will actually be taken in USD), means that I have NO rights by failing to infer from the references to United States that:
1) I will end up paying more for the item because the product is actually priced in USD and a weakening pound is my problem;
2) I will have to pay customs duty.

I accept your comments gratefully, but this just seems VERY wrong.

Yes, I have asked RM to return to sender, so I guess I can kiss £35.19 goodbye.

I guess the lesson to others is LOOK for a UK address and telephone number on a site before you buy (although how easy is that for an unscrupulous foreign trader to set up?).

I still cannot quite believe that such obscure references in the T&C mean that I have no rights and have taken for a complete ride!

But thanks again for taking the time to reply. Appreciated.

dappyd

All they did was write ".co.uk" in their domain name.

Hi Roberto. No, not just in the domain name, but in the NAME OF THE STORE. It is called "SuperEZStore.co.uk" (which also happens to be the URL).

To my mind this is really pushing that it is a UK store (perhaps "masquerading" is a bit dramatic!). If you go to microsoft.co.uk, the NAME at the top of the page (i.e. the company logo) is "Microsoft", not "Microsoft.co.uk".

I am continuing to push MBNA, but not sure I will get anywhere.

Thanks for your comments! Cheers.

The_Pedant

Unfortunately, as stated, they are doing nothing wrong by having a UK website & selling from overseas. Yes, over here they would probably fall foul of being a little misleading; however as they are trading from the US (presumably) it would be their home legislation that counts.

From the small amount I know about trading in the US, I would probably consider fowarding details onto the Better Business Bureau:
http://www.bbb.org/
They operate a little like Trading Standards here but are a not for profit, private organisation.

Looking at the details from the returns PDF, their address appears to be in California, and so the nearest local BBB would be Los Angeles:-
http://www.la.bbb.org/Home.aspx

For the address I looked at the PDF for a returns form. As they're not a UK company, I guess they don't have to have their full contact details easily available.

I think that might be a good starting point.
Whilst the company is probably not doing anything illegal, they are being somewhat less than transparent about their origin and true costs.

Personally, if there are not readily available contact details with a full postal address, I tend not to deal with the company. In this case, as they are not in the uk, you cannot fall back on the excellent consumer protection legislation we have here.

chattychappy

Personally I think the OP has a small issue over the charging currency which he could use with MBNA.

If the prices really were stated in GBP, then that is what should have been charged. They had no authority to charge an amount in USD. I suppose the only legitimate dispute would be the difference, but it's worth a try.

Just because the "order confirmation" says they will convert is not good enough - that is after the event - and they can't "add in" terms you've not agreed to. Of course, it would be a different matter if the T+Cs stated their might be a conversion - I didn't spot it.

The T+Cs do refer to the governing law as being the US. Also in section 9 it gives a California address for notices - so really there was some suggestion that the firm was in the US.

My guess is you might have a claim under US law. The look and feel of the site implies it is a UK company - the .co.uk address, and the fact that this is used as the title on the home page (though the spelling "catalog" is a giveaway). Also the pricing is in £. Taken together, I think this could amount to a mispresentation as to the location of the seller - and as a result of this you have suffered a loss. (Not getting the goods for the price you expected.) Not sure if US law would help here, but UK law would. (Of course in the UK there would be other remedies anyway - distance selling etc.)

Posters are right to point out that .co.uk doesn't necessarily mean the firm is in the UK. But a UK court would look at the site as a whole - and the mentions of the US wouldn't exactly help. Personally I think it would be difficult to say which way it would go - and as I say UK law wouldn't apply anyway.

Good luck - for the amount involved, I would just go the routes suggested but have another go at MBNA.

Jemma-T

That is a dodgy website run by dodgy people.

They are using other people's graphics and advertising (and secure links) without any actual hyperlinking. It's dodgy for lots of other reasons so I'm not sure why anyone would give them their [formerly] private details.

Yes, it's dodgy.

chris.hoops78

Buying off that website is just asking for trouble.

dappyd

Thanks to all for your comments and advice.

I had a useful discussion with Consumer Direct about this. They agree that the store has tried hard to disguise the fact that it is not based in the UK, but as shelovestobuy pointed out, tucked away in the T&C is that the site operates under US law, which means it is based in the US and there's nothing that any authority in the UK can do about that.

However they did persuade me to keep on at MBNA because the amount charged on my card is not the purchase price. Actually, I am VERY disappointed that MBNA has been so unwilling to help protect me as a long-standing customer. But I will keep trying.

A lesson to all: be VERY certain that you're buying online from a UK store if you want to be protected by UK law. I have certainly learnt my lesson.

A final interesting snippet for those interested:

Google: superezstore and then gizmos2go - and who knows how many other countries have the exact same store with a different name?
Now look at: gizmos2go dot wordpress dot com (sorry, can't post a link)

Even the Americans think these guys are DODGY!