Scammed in to ordering rubbish

DullGreyGuy

eskbanker said:

DinosaurDennis said:

I checked out the website independently and it looked great - loads of great reviews, pictures looked amazing, implied it was a small good quality UK based business

SECTION 18 - GOVERNING LAW
These Terms of Service and any separate agreements whereby we provide you Services shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of United States.

https://www.yourlittlescientist.com/policies/terms-of-service

Which should be an immediate redflag because there is no "Laws of the US", it's a federated country with each state having its own laws. Any company based there knows that so would name which state applies.

They fluffed up the copy paste of the various terms from wherever they stole them from. T&Cs are a mess and suddenly in their Privacy Policy they're changed their name to Stylex

theoretica

Little microscopes like that can be great - if this one doesn't work out, it still may be a great idea - the one I know was branded for the Natural History Museum.

DinosaurDennis

eskbanker said:

DinosaurDennis said:

I checked out the website independently and it looked great - loads of great reviews, pictures looked amazing, implied it was a small good quality UK based business

SECTION 18 - GOVERNING LAW
These Terms of Service and any separate agreements whereby we provide you Services shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of United States.

Yourlittlescientist.com/policies/terms-of-service

Very interesting!

Can't say I read these on many websites but this part made my eyes roll!

"We do not warrant that the quality of any products, Services, information, or other material purchased or obtained by you will meet your expectations, or that any errors in the Service will be corrected."

There's a chance of course it might meet my initial expectations but I'm expecting the many 1* Trust pilot reviews are probably more accurate than the 8000+ happy parents or whatever it is the website claims 🤦‍♀️

DinosaurDennis

Bradden said:

Slightly off topic but Mark Rober has some interesting science projects.

crunchlabs.com/

Thanks, useful to know and hopefully helps others. My son is too young for them at the moment sadly.

eskbanker

DinosaurDennis said:

eskbanker said:

DinosaurDennis said:

I checked out the website independently and it looked great - loads of great reviews, pictures looked amazing, implied it was a small good quality UK based business

SECTION 18 - GOVERNING LAW
These Terms of Service and any separate agreements whereby we provide you Services shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of United States.

Yourlittlescientist.com/policies/terms-of-service

Very interesting!

Can't say I read these on many websites but this part made my eyes roll!

"We do not warrant that the quality of any products, Services, information, or other material purchased or obtained by you will meet your expectations, or that any errors in the Service will be corrected."

There's a chance of course it might meet my initial expectations but I'm expecting the many 1* Trust pilot reviews are probably more accurate than the 8000+ happy parents or whatever it is the website claims 🤦‍♀️

If you're wanting to do some basic due diligence on a company you've never heard of, then even just a few minutes of 'checking out the website' (not sure what you mean by 'independently'?) will be time well spent, so if you're looking to find out where the company is based then the fact that it's not prominently stated should ring alarm bells, and reading further in any 'about us' section, plus terms, legal, privacy, etc, pages should swiftly indicate where they are.

Murphybear

marcia_ said:

 If you have not received it how do you know it's rubbish? I've ordered from china and received perfectly good items and other times tat. 

It’s interesting how many people assume that everything from China is automatically tat.  I have a friend who has friends in China and she visits them often.  She brought me back a few things that are beautiful and well made.  Ordering things online is very different, one of the biggest problems is trying to return items to China.  I buy lots of things online, mainly from eBay and Amazon.  On rare occasions I am suspicious when it says the delivery time is something like 10 days, that’s a red flag.  

user1977

Murphybear said:

marcia_ said:

 If you have not received it how do you know it's rubbish? I've ordered from china and received perfectly good items and other times tat. 

It’s interesting how many people assume that everything from China is automatically tat.

Especially as much of the "reputable" stuff ultimately comes from China anyway! The only difference being that a retailer elsewhere has done the importing bit.

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

Hello OP

Just as pointers rather than judgement this is the same as the blow heater ads that have been doing the rounds, website only sells one product, reviews are obviously fake (way too over the top), product value is over stated, there are a few things that would breach our regulations (countdown timer for a sale that doesn't end, claim of a limited discount that isn't limited, false claims of low stock, invalid price comparison).

These seem to be £8.99 on eBay, £12.99 on Amazon, maybe as low as £3 on Ali Express, if it arrives whilst you may now view it with scepticism your son probably won't notice and it will probably function within the limitation of a cheap toy, basically it's just over priced. 

On the other hand Trustpilot reviews suggest non-delivery in some cases, if that happens chargeback with your card provider as per:

born_again said:

Visa 15, Mastercard 30 days from date of debit. Although if you have a fixed date for delivery (not delivery in 4 to 5 days) then it could be done from that date. But is safer to wait till day after timescales. To avoid any technical rejection.

DinosaurDennis

Murphybear said:

marcia_ said:

 If you have not received it how do you know it's rubbish? I've ordered from china and received perfectly good items and other times tat. 

It’s interesting how many people assume that everything from China is automatically tat.  I have a friend who has friends in China and she visits them often.  She brought me back a few things that are beautiful and well made.  Ordering things online is very different, one of the biggest problems is trying to return items to China.  I buy lots of things online, mainly from eBay and Amazon.  On rare occasions I am suspicious when it says the delivery time is something like 10 days, that’s a red flag.  

Thanks, just to clarify I'm only expecting rubbish after reading the more legitimate sounding reviews that say this is the case. Id very much like to be wrong. But I probably should have avoided judgement by not mentioning China at all in my original post.

DinosaurDennis

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

Hello OP

Just as pointers rather than judgement this is the same as the blow heater ads that have been doing the rounds, website only sells one product, reviews are obviously fake (way too over the top), product value is over stated, there are a few things that would breach our regulations (countdown timer for a sale that doesn't end, claim of a limited discount that isn't limited, false claims of low stock, invalid price comparison).

These seem to be £8.99 on eBay, £12.99 on Amazon, maybe as low as £3 on Ali Express, if it arrives whilst you may now view it with scepticism your son probably won't notice and it will probably function within the limitation of a cheap toy, basically it's just over priced. 

On the other hand Trustpilot reviews suggest non-delivery in some cases, if that happens chargeback with your card provider as per:

born_again said:

Visa 15, Mastercard 30 days from date of debit. Although if you have a fixed date for delivery (not delivery in 4 to 5 days) then it could be done from that date. But is safer to wait till day after timescales. To avoid any technical rejection.

This is really helpful thank you! Chargeback info etc is what I was hoping for, given it might arrive around the busy Xmas period I was hoping to get info on anything I can do in advance with expectation it won't come / won't be as promised.

If it does come, my son is 3 so likely won't care too much about quality but if it's too rubbish then he won't get in to it at all and it won't last long if it's not as robust as the amazing reviews suggest 🙃 I looked at the other sites but thought I'd get a slightly more expensive one with hope it would be a bit better and I'd be supporting a less mainstream site. I think that's half why I'm annoyed at the site as I thought I was being nice🤦‍♀️

As others have said, I may be being too pessimistic! We can hope 😊