Consumerist
misleading
Posts Tagged “
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misleading
ebay
Counterfeit Smackdown! EBay Ordered To Pay $61 Million
That headline is the good news. The bad news is the $61 million in damages ordered by a French court isn't meant for regular shoppers who have been defrauded when shopping on eBay. Instead, it's been awarded to LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, the French luxury goods company behind Louis Vuitton purses (among other fancy things, as you can see from their name). LVMH argued that "90 percent of the Louis Vuitton bags and Dior perfumes sold on eBay are fakes," and that eBay profited off the sales without doing enough to stop them. EBay can appeal the decision, or simply click the "Pay It Now!" button. More »
uhaul
Angry U-Haul Manager Says You Stole A Truck
Now that it's summer, many people are doing the moving thing. For some, this might mean renting a truck or trailer from U-Haul, like reader Ryan. He reserved a truck from U-Haul online well in advance of his move, but when he went in for pickup was told none were available. Ryan called corporate, who called the store and convinced the surly manager to give Ryan a truck. Three days after Ryan returned the truck, he got this voicemail from from U-Haul: “This is Alexandria U-Haul Rentals. Your rental truck was due three days ago and you haven't returned it. If you don't return our truck today I will call the police." See how Ryan handled the situation, inside. More »
bannings
Newegg.com Holds Woman's Account Hostage Until She Gets Her Brother To Reverse Chargeback
Newegg seemed to think Jenn was responsible for her brother's chargeback with them. When she tried to place an order using her own name and credit card number, but with the same shipping address as her brother, her account was suspended. Jenn figured she could resolve the problem with a conversation or two with Newegg's customer service department, but as you'll see from the transcript below, Newegg's CSR blatantly says Jenn's account won't be approved until her brother reverses his chargeback. More »
bait and switch
Dell Reduces Instant Discount By $200 Somewhere Between Shopping Cart And Order Confirmation
Before we get to the typical bad-company shenanigans—in this case, Dell's $599 discount mysteriously shrank to $400 between when he placed it in his shopping cart and when he reached the confirmation screen—we want to share this bit of ridiculousness. Dell's CSR Vanessa gives us the scoop on Dell's sophisticated order fulfillment system:
More »Jack: Can you look at sales history today and verify whether you sold this system at $599 off today? This was to be my third dell purchase, now I will not purchase again!
ATG Vanessa: There isn't a cart history unfortunately.
Jack: Sales history! Actual people who purchased this system today!
ATG Vanessa: We don't keep record of that.
Jack: You're telling me dell does not know what it has sold today?
ATG Vanessa: Remember this is done online and there's some confidential information we usually erase to protect customers.
Jack: Like what computers you have to build?
ATG Vanessa: So no, there isn't a record where you can see how much have been sold.
Jack: How do you know what you have to ship?
ATG Vanessa: It depends on what we have available at the moment.
hotel ratings
Hotwire Facing Possible Class Action Lawsuit For Selling 2-Star Rooms As 3-Star
A reader forwarded us an email that indicates a class action motion is being prepared against Hotwire, the discount travel company, for promoting hotel rooms at artifically high ratings. On Hotwire, you can't preview the hotel before booking, so the star rating is really all you have to go on—and there's at least anecdotal evidence online that Hotwire has been known to be more lenient in its rating system. Though Ryan says he's gotten some good deals through Hotwire, he adds, "I do recall booking a room around Christmas in the 2.5 to 3 star range and getting La Quinta (which as we all know is spanish for 'near a Denny's'), which is listed as a two star hotel." More »
windows
Microsoft And The $1,632 Copy Of Vista
Microsoft charged Bill $1,632 for a single Windows Vista Ultimate upgrade license. Each time Bill, an IT Manager, tried to his enter his payment details through Windows Live Marketplace he was told that Microsoft could not be contacted, and to "please try again later." What Microsoft really meant was, "Ha! Got your money! How 'bout some more?!" More »
websites
Man Tries To Buy From "The Camera Professionals," Fails
"The Camera Professionals" are not actually that professional, nor do they have cameras to sell you. That's what ZDNet reporter Josh Taylor discovered when he decided to take their Google AdWord bait and buy a camcorder they were offering for nearly $300 less than other stores. He didn't expect much success, and he was richly rewarded:
More »While stories like mine are sadly not that uncommon, I’m still absolutely stumped at what kind of scheme The Camera Professionals is trying to pull off. They never tried to upsell me, they never charged my credit card, they simply appeared to have taken an order for an item they seemingly have no intention of trying to fill.
bad company
This Online Pet Store Has Rabies
On the surface, Hands-N-Paws caters to owners-n-their-dogs, but the company's real stock in trade is being hilariously rude to its customers. When someone asked them to cancel an order immediately, they wrote back, "No..not immediately, when we can get round to it." When another person threatened to report them to the Better Business Bureau, they wrote back, "File it. Blackmail gets you nowhere, honey." They even have a "Hall of Shame" on their website where they list the email addresses of customers they hate most of all. This is why we make all of our cats' clothing out of old newspaper. More »
shipping problems
Amazon Screws Up Mother's Day Order
When Amazon works, it's a great example of what man and machine can do together to make shopping easier. When it doesn't work, you're stuck with a higher-priced camera from Wal-Mart and a second camera you thought was canceled shipped from Amazon, with a refund taking 3-5 days to go through. More »
follow up
EBay Decides To Contact Tim About His Laptop Auction Problems
Timothy, our hapless eBay seller who kept having problems listing his laptop on the auction site, was contacted by a Real Live Human from eBay the day after we posted his story. "Garrison" apologized for the frustration, and said he'd be making a note on Timothy's account to keep it from getting shut down by other agents. He also suggested several listing options that were pretty well-covered by our commenters in the original thread. More »
Nigerian scammers
It's Now Completely Impossible To Sell A Laptop On Ebay
The cool thing about eBay's support system is it will always answer your question; unfortunately, that answer will always be a form letter on how to reset your password, as Timothy discovered when he tried to figure out how to sell his laptop to someone who wasn't a Nigerian scammer. Timothy has learned the awful truth behind today's eBay—something many readers here already know—which is that it's become virtually impossible to sell any sort of medium-to-high end electronics there anymore. More »
unexplained fees
Expedia Freezes $964, Says "Don't Worry, It Will Be Released Within 72 Hours"
Expedia thinks it's okay to place a total of $964 on hold on Nicholas' and his girlfriend's credit cards, even though they've already paid for their $3,000 trip in full. When he contacted Expedia to ask them what gives, they told him it would be released within 72 hours. Maybe this is Expedia's way of combatting travel inflation by creating a make-believe rebate-y feeling when you buy an expensive vacation package. More »
fake reviews
ResellerRatings Cracks Down On TheCellShop.net's Review Bribing
The CEO of ResellerRatings, Scott Wainner, emailed us to say they're busting TheCellShop for bribing customers to submit perfect reviews on his site. He wrote:
ResellerRatings does not condone fake reviews. For the past 13 years, we have worked hard to develop anti-fraud tools, both automated and manual, and we disable fraudulent reviews every day. When we heard about the Cell Shop's actions, we immediately began contacting all Cell Shop reviewers to verify that they were not, in fact, offered money for their positive reviews, and to obtain proof of their valid transactions (order invoices, credit card statements, etc) and we have disabled reviews where money was offered for positive reviews.
Word up Steve-o, make them go outside and pick out their own switch from the hickory tree.
(Photo: Getty)
fake reviews
TheCellShop.net Caught Bribing Customers To Submit "Perfect" Reviews
If you use resellerratings.com to check out companies before doing business with them, don't take any perfect ratings for TheCellShop.net as legitimate. A reader forwarded us the following email that shows they bribe their customers to leave them perfect ratings in exchange for a $5 coupon. More »
travel
Calculate The "Emissions Cost" Of Your Next Flight
Enpalo is an online calculator that lets you estimate the flight emissions of your next airplane jaunt—you choose an airline, enter your origin and destination, then sit back and light up a cigar while you laugh about how many baby polar bears you're drowning. More »
readers
Amazon Screws Up Refund, Charges $2,288.44 for $750 Of Gym Equipment
Reader Craig ordered some gym equipment from Amazon, but he accidentally used his debit card instead of his credit card. Realizing his mistake, he immediately tried to correct the problem. He went through the change payment process right away and figured all was well. Of course it wasn't, and he ended up getting charged $2,288.44 for $750 worth of equipment when Amazon got the refund process backwards. Twice. See how it happened after the jump. More »
privacy
