Ebuyer Buy at one price get at another?

Clockwise7

The other week on the 5th I ordered a hdd from ebuyer(2tb samsung) for £56.xx and then it turned up broken, being a good customer I sent it back using the RMA they have. During the RMA I decided to get another hdd a 2tb WD one which was £59.xx on the site(at this time the same as the samsung one). I expected to get charged the £3 difference(no biggy) but a couple of days later when they got around to processing "my request" they used the new price of £63.xx. According to the messages going back and forth it was my request to have the replacement and as they processed it 2 days later they can "legally" charge whatever they like(clearly this is BS, I have been looking into the DSR and other laws and it is total BS). I am now looking to return the hdd as it was shipped out and they have taken money from me I didn't expect to be taken and I am told I will have to pay £10 for that to happen.

Messages back and forth.

xxx
16/09/2011 14:59 When I sent my return the replacement/swap was of equal value to the faulty
product, now my partner has noticed an additional charge and that since the
request and today when your returns have processed it the price has
changed. Is that even legal? Neither of us had been informed on the phone
of an additional charge by your technical support team.

I am using the enote system to avoid paying your premiums for calling you
as I honestly think if I took into account the calls to ebuyer and parcel
force for the original delivery and then the calls to your tech support and
then more calls I could have easily got it from another retailer(and I
still might).

Your site says a "48hr enote reply"
ebuyer forum link

but actual users of the system seem to say more like a week.
ebuyer forum link

We have also been given no choice of shipping address and can't be certain
anyone will be home, when we spoke to your returns team and used the RMA
system it seemed shipping too/from my partners work would be fine. It seems
like it will be another week if not more before parcel force allow us to
collect it from a depot as the delivery driver refused to deliver to
flats.

Atleast it will only be 1 parcel unlike the original order which was split
and sent on different days.

The entire order is becoming a joke. Sarah
16/09/2011 15:53 Dear xxx,

Thank you for your contact with our Customer Support Team.

I have looked at your RMA and can see that you requested a different item
as replacement. This was a higher price than the item returned and so the
difference was requested from your card. Payment was thus split as
follows;

16762594 16/09/2011 Debit Credit Note xxx £56.79


16762594 16/09/2011 Debit Visa / Mastercard xxx
£6.23

The address used to ship replacement goods is as selected when the return
request is submitted.

I apologise however for any inconvenience or annoyance caused.

Kind Regards,

Sarah

Ebuyer Customer Support Team xxx
16/09/2011 16:04 The price of the item at the time I requested it was the same as the
samsung f4. My partner has made a more detailed description on your forums
that he often uses.
ebuyer forum link

If you would also read the visa/debit card you have taken money from you
will see it is that of Chris Townsend my partner. Neither of us had been
notified of this prior to it being taken and as a result we will be
treating it as theft. If you check your system you will find that at the
time we phoned your returns department during the RMA both the samsung f4
and the WD hard drive had been £59 and something pence.

It is disgusting to see such a poor response from ebuyer given the
situation is entirely of ebuyers making. Sarah
16/09/2011 16:24 Dear xxx,

Thank you for your response.

The prices for items on our website fluctuate on a daily basis. This can be
for different reasons such as some items being sourced from other
warehouses, or the cost price to us may be less therefore the item can be
sold at a lower price. We are only able to sell an item for the price it is
at the time of placing your order. Unfortunately we cannot advise if or
when these price changes will occur.

The item was requested on your RMA so please be assured that this is not
theft, the replacement order was created according to your instructions.






Kind Regards,

Sarah

Ebuyer Customer Support Team xxx
16/09/2011 16:43 Can you please give the prices at the time of my request(10am on the 13th)
and not the prices you have decided to use(2pm on the 16th). Your prices
may change daily but I requested what at the time was a 59.xx hard drive to
be replaced with another 59.xx hard drive.

Your prices may change daily but if it is after the request I placed then I
(a) don't see how it should effect me and (b) find it rather unlawful to
request funds from anyones cards. Sarah
16/09/2011 16:55 Dear xxx,

Thank you for your response.

I am truly sorry for the upset this has caused but the price the item was
when the RMA was submitted has no bearing.

We are only able to sell an item for the price it is at the time of placing
the order.

If you no longer require this item you can refuse delivery and goods will
be returned to sender for a full refund.





Kind Regards,

Sarah

Ebuyer Customer Support Team xxx
16/09/2011 17:08 It still has pick in progress so shouldn't even need to leave ebuyer.

Can you cancel the order and give a full refund.

What will happen to/with the postage cost(which I am sure you will now add)
for the other part of the original order(2x £3 keyboards), I only got
them as I would be going into the £50+ free postage bracket and they
had been cheap.

After this a previous RMA for another relative and the refused order the
other week my views of ebuyer have plummeted. xxx
16/09/2011 17:19 To late it seems, dispite all the enotes you still went on full steam ahead
with shipping and I guess it will take atleast a week before it does it's
tour of royal mail and I can get a refund. Sarah
16/09/2011 17:20 Dear xxx,

Thank you for your response.

Your Order status is at " Invoiced" status which means that your order has
been fully dispatched. This has shipped directly from our supplier but as
advised, you can refuse delivery if no longer required.

No carriage charges will be added to your original order, these are also as
quoted at the point of ordering.




Kind Regards,

Sarah

Ebuyer Customer Support Team xxx
16/09/2011 17:24 I have to be honest this is one of the worst systems I have delt with for
online orders across all the ones I use. Sarah
16/09/2011 17:44 Dear xxx,

Thank you for your response.

I am sorry that you feel this way so please again accept our sincere
apologies.


Kind Regards,

Sarah

Ebuyer Customer Support Team xxx
16/09/2011 18:24 I have contacted citizens advice and they have ensured me that a change of
price and acceptance of that is required by law under the distance selling
regulations to have been sent to me. Legally I am told I put forward an
offer(of which mine was 59.xx pounds the price the 2nd was displayed as)
and then ebuyer(or whoever the seller is) takes that and the order or
notifys me that it will not be enough and cancels/renegotiates ect. Taking
additional money from my account is entirely unlawful and the date ebuyer
processes it's requests has no legal bearing to the amount I offered.

We will be contacting the bank monday and then either small claims or other
legal services. Sure it is £6 but next time it could easily be
£600. xxx
17/09/2011 09:51 Can you provide more information on the order generated by your
returns/sales/customer service/whoever which is slowing my request to have
my money returned.

The tracking information provided(parcel tracking number 7046996278) is in
no way reconised by the parcel force website(at the current time of 9:45am
on sat and has not displayed tracking at any point since the previous
replys to this enote saying it was with the(a) courier. xxx
17/09/2011 11:27 After reading the terms it says that authority for payment must be given at
the time of order. The order was processed and authorised by ebuyer staff
and not myself some days after at a higher price. The 2 sections of your
terms and conditions that are most applicable follow(8.4 and 8.7).

8. Price and payment
8.4
Our site contains a large number of Products and it is always possible
that, despite our best efforts, some of the Products listed on our site may
be incorrectly priced. We will normally verify prices as part of our
dispatch procedures so that, where a Product’s correct price is less
than our stated price, we will charge the lower amount when dispatching the
Product to you. If a Product’s correct price is higher than the price
stated on our site, we will normally, at our discretion, either contact you
for instructions before dispatching the Product, or reject your order and
notify you of such rejection.
8.7
Your credit/debit card details will be encrypted by us to minimise
the possibility of unauthorised access or disclosure. Authority for payment
must be given at the time of order. If there is a problem taking payment
for all or part of your order, we may contact you by telephone or e-mail.
We will charge you an administration fee of £5 each time your
bank is unable to process your payment. Sarah
19/09/2011 10:01 Dear xxx,

Thank you for your response.

As we state on the website, prices are liable to change at any time.
However changes will not affect orders in respect of which we have already
sent you an Acceptance Confirmation.

You requested a different item on your return request and so we created an
order, according to your authorisation.

The price charged was as specified at the time the order was created, as is
usual practice. We do not accept offers on price.

The order has shipped and is travelling with Parcelforce;

Parcel number:
PBCV2260388001

I have requested the order be recalled however delivery may be attempted
meanwhile. If so, simply refuse the delivery. A refund will be processed
once the return has been completed.

Kind Regards,

Sarah

Ebuyer Customer Support Team xxx
19/09/2011 11:33 As I have stated multiple times the price at the time of my request(on the
phone during the rma) and the price at the time of ebuyers processing some
days later had been different.
It isn't very hard to understand. xxx
19/09/2011 11:33 As I have stated multiple times the price at the time of my request(on the
phone during the rma) and the price at the time of ebuyers processing some
days later had been different.
It isn't very hard to understand. Sarah
19/09/2011 11:53 Dear xxx,

Thank you for your response.

This has never been disputed. Prices for items on our website fluctuate on
a daily basis but as explained, the price of goods when your RMA was
created is not guaranteed to be the same at a later date. We are only able
to sell an item for the price it is at the time of actually placing your
order.


Kind Regards,

Sarah

Ebuyer Customer Support Team xxx
19/09/2011 13:31 So your agreeing that you placed an order at a later date with a higher
price, ergo without my authorisation?

I seriously suggest you redesign your returns process so this doesn't
happen to more people. My own one had a few pounds difference but if it had
been a special offer it could have been lots more and turn a "oh ill grab
a bargain the week long return isn't to bad" into "!!!!!!". Sarah
19/09/2011 13:36 Dear xxx,

Thank you for your response.

If you request a replacement, we will ship your replacement after we
receive and process your returned product.

Once goods have been returned to Ebuyer the normal turnaround time for a
return is 3 to 5 working days.

We shipped the item as per your request, once the return had been
completed.

Customers are given prior knowledge that item prices fluctuate, this
information is available on the website.

Kind Regards,

Sarah

Ebuyer Customer Support Team xxx
19/09/2011 16:09 Ebuyer would not have got the order had we not been regular forum members,
using the forums we felt somewhat obliged to look to ebuyer as a 1st place
to shop but with the last couple of orders being this 2 week long ordeal
and the previous ignored order and enotes ebuyer just isn't the same as it
used to be. Had ebuyer asked I might have been more respondant to the extra
charges or even just gone with the original samsung drive but I am just fed
up with ebuyer and think it was a very cheap trick to get £3, you will
probably parrot that it is due to warehouses and stocking or something but
in all honesty that is just as bad as "haha we already got your money"
and not even once in these dozens of enotes has ebuyer seen a problem with
the way your returns are processed so the price is not clear to the
customer or simple human error in rushing it into the system which could
have been helpful but backfired.

Can you please just process my refund. I am unsure if it has also been
rushed or what has happened with it but when/where has the collection been
booked from? I asked in a new enote but it seems to have been ignored and
whatever way this seems to have been processed it didn't give me the
address option like the samsung one did. Sarah
19/09/2011 19:10 Dear xxx,

Thank you for your response.

Regarding confirmation from yourself that you require a collection, this
will incur a charge of £10.00 as the item is not faulty.

If you do require your goods to be collected, please append this enote to
confirm and on receipt of this, we will make the necessary arrangements
with our couriers for your goods to be collected.



Kind Regards,

Sarah

Ebuyer Customer Support Team

I am looking at sending it to small claims court, would that be the best step forward?

CoolHotCold

So long as they are not charging you one price while charging everyone else a difference price there is nothing wrong with what they are doing.



But to be fair, I only read the but not in quotes as it appeared to be a lot of waffle

TL:DR

arcon5

They have told you to reject delivery whereby you will be refunded in full. They've solved the problem?

What are you sending to the small claims court exactly?

If you reject the delivery they will put you back in the position you was before; if you accept delivery they will deem you to have accepted the price and have proof you knew the price before taking delivery of the product.

Clockwise7

arcon5 wrote: »

They have told you to reject delivery whereby you will be refunded in full. They've solved the problem?

What are you sending to the small claims court exactly?

If you reject the delivery they will put you back in the position you was before; if you accept delivery they will deem you to have accepted the price and have proof you knew the price before taking delivery of the product.

A parent who was expecting another delivery signed for it...

tomwakefield

CoolHotCold wrote: »

So long as they are not charging you one price while charging everyone else a difference price there is nothing wrong with what they are doing.

I disagree. If I order a part at £x, I expect to be charged £x or, worst case, have the order cancelled. I haven't offered to pay higher than £x, even if the price has changed since I made my offer so there is no contract at the higher rate.

CoolHotCold

tomwakefield wrote: »

I disagree. If I order a part at £x, I expect to be charged £x or, worst case, have the order cancelled. I haven't offered to pay higher than £x, even if the price has changed since I made my offer so there is no contract at the higher rate.

Like I Said, I didn't read all the waffle and the OP summed it up as

"I returned one item at X price, expected to take Item Y at X+£3, but when they processed the query (enote?) Item Y was X+£7"

Clockwise7

tomwakefield wrote: »

I disagree. If I order a part at £x, I expect to be charged £x or, worst case, have the order cancelled. I haven't offered to pay higher than £x, even if the price has changed since I made my offer so there is no contract at the higher rate.

This.

If you read down I do actually refer them to the terms they have about authorisation and prices but they seem to feel it is all ok as "someone authorised it" but it was some ebuyer person some days after I spoke to them on the phone and at a higher price.

Clockwise7

CoolHotCold wrote: »

Like I Said, I didn't read all the waffle and the OP summed it up as

"I returned one item at X price, expected to take Item Y at X+£3, but when they processed the query (enote?) Item Y was X+£7"

I setup the return for the first item and then called them(as you must) they accepted that it was faulty(DoA) and then advised me to post it back, at this time I asked for the swap. Some days later the hdd arrives with them and they process the return and the swap but at the new higher price.

alistair.long

2 things.

Firstly when you sent the first item back with RMA were you charged? and how long after your bought it was it faulty?

secondaly the new hard drive is what you wanted but ended up being more, if they notified you of the new price I would accept it, however if not it would not seem fair to accept it (I assume a delivery note would have been attached)

if the item you sent to the back was dead on arival or died within a few days, then the case is that the item should be refunded included your postage so that you are not out of pocket,
the second item is diffrent and you can send it back and their postage is refunded but your postage is not.

arcon5

Can't you request a second return then?

Clockwise7

alistair.long wrote: »

2 things.

Firstly when you sent the first item back with RMA were you charged? and how long after your bought it was it faulty?

secondaly the new hard drive is what you wanted but ended up being more, if they notified you of the new price I would accept it, however if not it would not seem fair to accept it (I assume a delivery note would have been attached)

if the item you sent to the back was dead on arival or died within a few days, then the case is that the item should be refunded included your postage so that you are not out of pocket,
the second item is diffrent and you can send it back and their postage is refunded but your postage is not.

The 1st item I ordered on the 5th and it arrived on the 12th and was dead on arrival so didn't work from the word go. It was then shipped back on the 14th with the 13th taking up the phone call and things for them to setup/accept the return. The 1st notification I got of the new price was on the 16th when it was taken from my bank and I had an email to say they had accepted the order and would be shipping it out soon, I looked on the account and sure enough they had gone straight for the bank account and that is when all the notes start going back and forth. They knew before it was even shipped out that I was angry and yet still sent it.