Beware - Simply Electronics Scam? advice plz 2 February 2012 at 4:09PM edited 2 February 2012 at 8:17PM in Praise, Vent & Warnings 67 replies 100.1K views

Cornucopia

I've bought plenty of things from the Far East, but I would never trade directly with a company, when the same goods are available through eBay or AliExpress, with their built-in protection from fraud and defects.

AliExpress, particularly, is excellent in terms of protections as your money is held by them (a process called Escrow) until your purchase has arrived and you are satisfied that it is complete and as described. You then approve the release of funds to the seller. This really is the best way to trade with shipping that takes 2-4 weeks.

I appreciate that the Website is somewhat deceptive, and it might be worth someone who has been scammed reporting this to the Advertising Standards Authority though I am not sure what authority they have over sites hosted overseas.

Jimgl09

This company is positioned in such a way as to limit action of redress.

I am wondering whether anyone who has had a problem with Simply Electronics were to write to their and other credit card/ debit card companies advising them of their own particular difficulties it would put Simply Electronics on the radar for them as well.

I am sure that if the debit and credit card companies were alerted they would chose to avoid dealing with this company as well.

I am sending an advisory note to all my bank contacts and PayPal on a rolling basis starting from tomorrow .

Obviously it's important to be specific and accurate so that it's not actionable but you could always draw their attention to these and other forums.

Whilst I am not a lawyer...is there a problem with this format of action?

benyboyayme

I came across Simply Electronics through Google shopping - which I assumed meant that they had been vetted. I bought an Ipad pro and made a payment through skrill. After 2 days my money had been debited but the order was still showing as processing payment and, as I was going away for a few weeks, I feared that it would not be delivered in time. I therefore cancelled it using their website email form. It took 48 hrs and a few reminders before they acknowledged the cancellation. This was 7 weeks ago. I have emailed them weekly and they keep saying:

My sincere apologies for the delay in processing your refund. I know this has caused you much inconvenience and I sincerely apologize for this delay.

Your refund is on priority status and has been escalated to our accounts team who are working with our payment partners to expedite your refund. Again, I apologize for the amount of time this is taking and pull no punches for the delay.

I am hopeful that your refund will be initiated in the coming days ahead (if not sooner). A refund confirmation email can be expected upon completion.

Please let me know if there is anything else I can do to help,

I keep getting the same email response every week and still no Refund. I will report them to Google, Skrill and all European consumer protection authorities and do my best to close them down. I will only stop if they refund me. Please do the same!

Cornucopia

Jimgl09 wrote: »

Whilst I am not a lawyer...is there a problem with this format of action?

The only issue would be if you were fabricating your reports to damage their reputation unjustly (which would be defamation). As long as what you are reporting to regulators is true, and ideally backed with evidence, there is no issue.

Timalay

benyboyayme wrote: »

I came across Simply Electronics through Google shopping - which I assumed meant that they had been vetted. I bought an Ipad pro and made a payment through skrill. After 2 days my money had been debited but the order was still showing as processing payment and, as I was going away for a few weeks, I feared that it would not be delivered in time. I therefore cancelled it using their website email form. It took 48 hrs and a few reminders before they acknowledged the cancellation. This was 7 weeks ago. I have emailed them weekly and they keep saying:

My sincere apologies for the delay in processing your refund. I know this has caused you much inconvenience and I sincerely apologize for this delay.

Your refund is on priority status and has been escalated to our accounts team who are working with our payment partners to expedite your refund. Again, I apologize for the amount of time this is taking and pull no punches for the delay.

I am hopeful that your refund will be initiated in the coming days ahead (if not sooner). A refund confirmation email can be expected upon completion.

Please let me know if there is anything else I can do to help,

I keep getting the same email response every week and still no Refund. I will report them to Google, Skrill and all European consumer protection authorities and do my best to close them down. I will only stop if they refund me. Please do the same!

There is nothing any European consumer protection authorities can do, as they are based in Hong Kong.

unknownwoman2016

My experience is same as of most others. You order a product, then after looong weeks of chasing and being offered a usb key fob as a "compensation" they tell you that whatever it is you ordered is out of stock. You request a refund and weeks later still nothing. When you chase them they keep saying they are sorry for delay in "initiating" your refund and its is on "priority rank". Clearly this is a scam/fraud operation. I am yet to find a person who actually received a refund from them - the only ones that get their money back are the ones who go to their banks. I reported them to the Auction Fraud, to my bank and visa, and to Hong Kong Customer Affairs and Hong Kong Cyber crime Police. I'm amazed they've been going on for this long ripping people off! I urge everyone to start reporting on them. They ripped me off, they ripped you off - together we can stop them!

unknownwoman2016

The more people reports them the better!!