Third party dealers on Amazon

[andsome]

I have no problem with buying from Amazon, but have learnt a couple of lessons with third party dealers on their website.

I recently placed an order for a squirrel feeder on 16th October. Delivery was promised for 20th October, but the website was still showing it as in packing on the 19th, so I chased it up. A reply was eventually received on the 22nd saying that it had been dispatched on the 16th, the same day it was ordered. I was given a tracking number, which Royal Mail did not recognise. I took this up with Amazon who contacted the dealer. I then received another e mail from the dealer offering to resend it. I cancelled the order as I did not believe that they had ever had stock, as the website had originally showed one only in stock. It has now been credited.

A few months ago I ordered an electrically heated mattress cover, from a third party dealer. The control packed up after three weeks, and was replaced. The replacement soon played up too. I contacted the importer to see if there had been a lot of other complaints. They asked for serial numbers etc, and it turned out that the control and the mattress cover had been manufactured in 2007. They suggested that it was probably a used item. After threatening the supplier with trading Standards, I was refunded.

For obvious reasons I will not post their names on here, but if anyone else is in the market for similar items, they can PM their home e mail address and I will advise them of the names of these two companies.

[Belatucadrus]

I've had more problems with third party sellers than direct Amazon or Play who operate a similar system but have generally had no problems sorting the problem. Most of the third party orders have been fine, with goods exactly as described being delivered in a satisfactory manner. The main source of errors in my case have been when bar code errors haven't been spotted and the item described on screen doesn't match the stock. In the three times when this has happened only one supplier was dense enough to process the order. The others spotted the error immediately and were prompt in contacting me and most apologetic.

[Gandalph]

I have dealt with third party suppliers from Amazon quite a few times. Nothing bad to say about them at all at this end.

I have recently taken delivery from one, which according to Amazon's site was due to be delivered on 23rd October, it actually got here on the 20th. I only ordered the item on the 18th. Two days isn't bad at all.

[andsome]

I understand what you are all saying. Until these two occurrences I too have had no problems. However, should you need to buy anything to do with pets or bedding check with me first, it may save some hassle.

[catgate]

This little tale concerns buying through eBay, but what's in a name?

We decided, shortly after moving into Seaton Ross, some 18 months ago, that we needed to get a water softener. The water is so hard that everything that comes into contact with tap water ends up with a coating of white chalk if it is not dried immediately. So one day, when we were beginning to see the end of the bathroom refitting shambles coming into sight, I bought one through eBay. The seller was an outfit called “Water2buy” and their “UK headquarters” were in Derby, according to the information on their eBay listings.

Something seemed to indicate that all was not just quite normal when we first took delivery of the long-delayed item. Despite the claim of "Our UK base is in Derby, England.", my water softener had been shipped from an industrial unit on a site in Ballycoolin, Dublin, and had taken far, far longer than the "3 to 5 days" originally quoted. The name of the company in Dublin that had shipped the softener was The Water Store.

We cut the sticky tape and lifted the softener out of its rather flimsy cardboard box only to find that the “overflow pipe” coupling, which protruded out of the back of the assembly, had suffered from the lack of protection offered by its “rather flimsy cardboard box”. So it now became necessary to speak to someone about rectification of the situation. Should I speak to Water2buy or the actual sender//The Water Store.

I did a Google search for The Water Store and was led to a large company in Canada and concluded that the Dublin set up was an offshoot. An email to the Canadian outfit shot down this idea. They had no connection with any company outside Canada.

I went and looked again at Water2buy's eBay entry and found that in addition to having “ our UK base is in Derby, England” they said that they had a “Head Office” at a Business Centre at Five Oaks Green, Tonbridge, Kent. I sent a couple of emails to Water2buy, without any response, so eventually rang them on an 0845 number. (Not liking 0845 numbers I had tried to look up an alternative on “http://www.saynoto0870.com/” and had found that there was a series of 0845 numbers allocated to some company that rehired them out again, in a manner similar to hiring out a Dress Suit.)

I spoke to an Irish man whose brogue was thick enough to make conversation a bit difficult. Not only was his accent a problem, but he was very vague/puzzled/under-the-influence-of-something. Nevertheless, the outcome of this strange conversation was that he would send me a new overflow pipe coupling so that I could replace the broken one.

A week or so went by and no replacement arrived so I decided to ring him again. The 'phone number I had used previously did not work and a visit to his website revealed a different number. The ensuing “conversation” resulted in a promise to send another coupling and I would be sent an email with a tracking number thereon.

Neither email nor coupling ever appeared and as a result I went seeking his "Head Office", which was supposedly in a Business Centre at Five Oak Green, Tonbridge, Kent.

Through the use of Google Maps and Street View I was able to see that the Business Centre was largely to do with storage, and I was able to see a 'phone number on a sign outside the buildings.

A 'phone call to this number revealed that Water2buy had absolutely no connection at all with this Business Centre, which, it transpired, was really a storage warehouse business renting out space.

The manager of the business rang me back later to say that he had taken the matter up with Water2buy, and the man to whom he spoke (who fitted the "profile" of the man to whom I had spoken twice....very strong Irish accent and very vague/puzzled/under-the-influence-of-something) had said that "he thought it was their address".!!!!

The manager of the warehouse business rang me back again later that day to tell me that Water2buy had suddenly changed the address of their "Head Office" in their eBay entry to “Draper Street, Southborough, Tonbridge Wells”.

Whilst I waited for the replacement, replacement, overflow thingy to arrive I thought it might be a good idea to have a little peep inside the softener body to see just what was going to be involved in replacing the thingy, when/if it arrived. What I saw was the prospect of a total rebuild, because it looked as though the first item to be fitted when the assembly was assembled had been the overflow coupling, and as a consequence the entire thing would have to be dismantled and rebuilt. This of course was not an option, so I emailed Water2buy telling them that I still had not received the coupling and that I was not really prepared to rebuild the unit, so I would be pleased if they would deliver a new one and pick up the defective one.

After several more days of waiting for a response I contacted eBay and asked them to look into the matter and “Raise a Case” (I think that is their expression for it).

Within but a few hours of this I received an email from Water2buy saying :-

I hope everything is going OK with you with the water softener

If you need any help

you can email me

once again many thank

This came from Steve.

I can only think that someone from eBay had been in touch with Water2buy and had given them the hard word. Some days later I got a message from eBay to say that they would refund me the total amount I had paid Water2buy (goods and carriage) and the “Case” would be closed as soon as they found the return address to which I would have to return the defective softener.

The following day I got an email from Water2buy, from Steven, saying that they were sending me a new softener and would pick up the old one. Of course, like his other promises, this never materialised.

The following day I got an email from eBay with a return sticker and instructions to attach the sticker to the defective softener and go and present it to the Post Office. I was to make a note of the tracking number allocated to the package and forward this to eBay who would pay the money back into my account as soon as they received confirmation from Postal Farce that they had delivered the package.

The snag that now presented itself was that the address on the label was :-

Thomas Camera Services, No.1 Draper Street, Southborough, Tonbridge Well

I rang Thomas Camera Services to see if they were expecting it, thinking that this might be another “Storage Warehouse” con. The lady I spoke to was the manager of the Thomas Camera Services shop, which was not on Draper St., and she knew nothing of Water2buy. Thomas Camera Services Ltd have a workshop in Draper St. but that again had no connection with anything called Water2buy. She would have a word with Mr Thomas when she saw him on Monday morning (I had rung her on Saturday morning.)

I decided to get in touch with eBay and find someone I could talk to, because I did not want a duff water softener floating about in a parcel that no one would accept, with my refund riding around on top of it, and so on the Monday morning I managed it.

By virtue of a lot of being transferred from one disembodied voice to another, and pressing this button for that, and another one for something else, and listening to snatches of tuneless excerpts of non-music, I arrived in America (well it certainly was not Yorkshire, nor even England). I eventually managed to explain my concern to the female at the other end of the wire, and of course as always, she could not deal with it, and so I was passed on to a male of the same ilk (he was either a Herb, Ed, Chuck or Hank). After struggling to get him to understand the situation, and him not knowing what to do, I was told to just post it as directed and providing Postal Farce tracking system proved I had posted it I would get my refund.

Just where "No.1" Draper Street came from is a mystery because a return 'phone call from Mr. Thomas Camera Services himself, very shortly after my leaving Hank/Ed/Butch/Herb/Chuck, resulted in the information that there is no No1 in Draper Street . There is a building where No.1 might be expected to be, and it has in it a number of little businesses, but his is not one of them. During my 'phone call with him I learned that Thomas Camera Services had no desire to “receive a bloody defective water softener” and “who is going to pay for this refund. It was certainly not going to come out of my bloody account” and so I should not send it.

No amount of explaining to him would calm him and he passed me over to his shop manageress and stormed off, which according to her was his usual way of behaving. I went and handed the parcel over to the Post Office.

Within a couple of days my refund appeared in my account. At this point I realised I had not left any “feedback” for this transaction, so I thought I might make other Ebay users aware of what Water2buy could be like. I did not write much. I simply said “An appalling mess. Unkept promises and as far from satisfactory as a broken leg.”

As far as I was concerned this was the end of the matter, but about a fortnight later I received a telephone call from Water2buy. It was an Irishman, who sounded very much like the one I had dealt with before, although maybe very slightly less undertheinfluenceofsomething.

He said he was the manager (or managing director) of Water2buy and he had only just become aware of the mess that had been made with my purchase from them. He said the problems had all been due to “the two lads downstairs who do the despatching”. When I asked him who Steve/Steven was he said that Steve was the one who organised things!

He said that he was terribly sorry, and all that sort of hand wringing grovelling nonsense, and he would like to send me a new water softener totally free of charge to make up for all the trouble I had been through. He prattled on for a while whilst I listened and tried to follow what he was saying. Eventually I said that if he wished to send one I would accept it, though I did not tell him I had bought a fairly new second hand one from a chap in Goole.

About an hour after he rang off he came back saying that he had been reviewing the matter all over again and asked if it might be possible for me to alter the “feedback” because it might affect the way people viewed Water2buy. I said I did not know if it would be possible but I would certainly look into it.

An hour or so later got an email from him, with a Fedex tracker number on it, or at least that is what he said it was. When I enter the number in the Fedex tracking site it simply says “invalid”.

The following day I rechecked the Fedex tracking number and again it said it was invalid. So I think the status will remain very quo.

….........................................

The day after I wrote the above long saga I wondered what would happen if I contacted Fedex and enquired about the validity of the tracker number. I found the 'phone number of our nearest depot (Haxby) and enquired. The young lady on the end of the line immediately said it could not be a Fedex number because it had a digit short.

I explained why I was enquiring and she asked for my name and address. She then went away and rummaged through records and came back to say that there were two parcels for me on the van today. “Just a minute”. Then I could hear her talking to someone in the back ground. She came back and said, “I have just been talking to the driver and he will be with you later in the day with two cartons.”

You can guess the rest.

It was a new softener, of a higher specification than the one we bought originally.

I was duty bound to contact the man and say thank you, and again he brought up the matter of feedback. I felt that in as much as he had taken the time to try to correct the situation, even though it was for his benefit rather than mine, I should at least take some of the barb out of my original feed back and leave a very “Neutral” comment. This I did.

The next part of the saga will not be available until it is plumbed in and tried....and that will not be for a week or two!!

…...............................

It was finally plumbed in and fired up, and has now run through three complete 900gal. use/recharge cycles with no apparent problem and the kettle has never looked so well.

[andsome]

PHEW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[AlanHo]

Me 'ed 'urts

[Gandalph]

What a bloody carry-on Catgate. They should have given you one for nothing.

[catgate]

What a bloody carry-on Catgate. They should have given you one for nothing.

He did, Gandalph.

About 3/4 of through the way through above long and tedious taradiddle you will see the bit about "yer man" ringing me to "appologise" and get me to alter my feedback.

I had to get in contact with him again after he sent me it, to find out which way up the brine control float valve should be.

The "manual" that came with it was not worth the paper it was rotton on, and contained more spelling mistakes than information.

So I emailed him and asked him. The reply I got was a just a photograph, poorly lit and scarcely in focus, accompanied by the words "Sent from my iPhone". The picture was useless so I had to guess.It could only have been one way up or the other, and fortunately I guessed right first time.

[-pops-]

I'm always very careful to check the transaction count and feedback score for Amazon Market Place and ebay sellers.

[Gandalph]

So he did catgate. By the time I had finished reading it I had fogot that bit. It must be an age related thing.

[andsome]

The company that messed me about with my order for a squirrel feed have just sent me an e mail. They have offered a £5 voucher, but say that they cannot activate it until I have deleted my critical review. THEY CAN STUFF THEIR VOUCHER.