The Bad Shopping Experience Thread

[GerryBags]

I don't actually see the probe tip in the picture, but the listing was for "used" not "useless". 

[rsjsouza]

I am not exactly sure what you call "tip", but in the photograph I don't see a metallic tip on the probe - perhaps a JPG artifact?

If not, the seller did not seem to have removed it after the sale and therefore his message makes sense.

[dunkemhigh]

The photo does show the tip missing, so I doubt if you have a leg to stand on. But if I'd  been buying that I would have completely missed that there wasn't a tip too.

[GerryBags]

I am going to wear it, as I really should have been more careful scrutinizing the pics, I DID get a bargain, however you look at it, and I've found a brand new probe tip in UK stock. The rest of the probe is in great condition so for less than £60 I will have ended up with a good probe. I won't be buying anything else from the dude, though.

Thanks for the responses and perspective, guys! 

[Acecool]

I purchased 2 monitor mounts from Suptek through Amazon...

They were both purchased on a Prime account, and NEW... but I received 2 used items... They were thrown in the box, and one was missing parts... They didn't have user manuals...

The C Clamp desk mounted version ( which I kept but am still fighting with them ) someone screwed the pole into the base and stripped the threads so it's locked in, but it isn't even flush... Additionally, the pole is bent...

Absolutely disgusting - it also whines when I move it - but I need it for my broken neck / back / severe nerve damage issue so I can move the main 4k monitor ( other 3 to 5 are stationary around it until I get more mounts ) so I can lean in my chair and have the monitor come to me..

Overall the unit isn't bad aside from the wining when I move it at times - and the missing cable management for the lower portion - and the upper cable management can only hold a single speaker wire - no room for others and the plastic thing will pop out if thicker or heavier wire is in it....  It is adjustable gas spring / piston or whatever and can hold a heavy weight - my monitor is 28" but I've seen people using these for TVs..


The wall mounted one I bought I returned....


If I can get the pole out, I am going to see about buying a TALL one, then buying another desk mounted one then simply add it to the top of the pole and add a 3d printed bracket to go from the pole to a stud or something... or I'll simply buy a wire thing so the pole won't move... Or I'll just 3D print pucks and fill the pole... that would strengthen them - when I get a 3d printer anyways...

[Jamebonds1]

This is not about me but my brother has accident bought a counterfeiter charger for laptop.  Because of this, it break jack port.  So I had to replaced it.  Really hard.  Always buying ASUS charger. 

[TRN]

Here is my experience with a Chinese online retailer;

Never buy anything from Light In The Box!

LITB is a Chinese company, and my experience with Chinese online retailers is that 1) their sites are confusing and misleading, 2) they never admit if they make a mistake and 3) customer support is a fiction and does not exist.

On 10 May I bought 2 cameras at LITB and they charged the following amounts 2 each cameras: EUR 353.20 Shipping & insurance: EUR 47.86 Import Duties and taxes: EUR 20.10 Total: EUR 421.16 The cameras were delivered by PostNL on 15 May with as sender name LITB Europe in Zwolle. PostNL normally charges EUR 24.50 for a package of that size and weight, incl. Insurance, so when I asked customer service why they had charged EUR 47.86 for the shipment, and on top of that another EUR 20.10 for import duties and taxes, they first gave me all kind of evasive excuses. Then they said the package was sent from Poland, (even though PostNL had confirmed to me that the package was sent from the Netherlands). In addition, LITB said that the EUR 20.10 was VAT, which is impossible because it is equivalent to 20.10 * 100 / 353.20 = 5.69% of the purchase price. While VAT in the Netherlands is 21% and in Poland it is 23%.
To make a long story short, it is now 16 June, and after 30+ ticket messages with their so called customer support, and supervisors, who first of all never read what you have written, and simply ignore your questions / comments, and Second, do not try to solve the problem, but try to make it clear in all kind of ways, that LITB has not made a mistake, but that you as a customer simply do not understand the bill correctly.

So I still have not recovered the incorrectly charged amount.

My advice is to buy nothing LIGHTINTHEBOX because if something goes wrong with the purchase, you can shake it, and you need to hire a lawyer to achieve your right!

[Kjelt]

Sometimes these companies sent complete containers with inventory to Europe and ship it locally to customers. They do pay vat when the container enters Europe, only exception I heard of is if it is sent from HongKong to Great Brittain, not sure if that is correct though. From GB to any other EU country is then 0 vat.

[TRN]

Yes that is correct,

Light In The Box has local warehouses in Europe, but they don't tell you where these are, and it is impossible to find any information about the whereabouts on the internet.
The point is that even if they ship goods container-wise to Europe, they will have to pay VAT; and VAT for electronic goods is 23% in Poland, and 21% in the Netherlands and Belgium.
So the EUR 20.10 they charged me as "import duties and taxes", and later claimed that this was VAT cannot be correct, because it represents only 5.69% of the purchase price.
Furthermore they claimed that the package was shipped from Poland, although the package label was from PostNL, and a return address in the Netherlands.

[Kjelt]

The point is that even if they ship goods container-wise to Europe, they will have to pay VAT; and VAT for electronic goods is 23% in Poland, and 21% in the Netherlands and Belgium. So the EUR 20.10 they charged me as "import duties and taxes", and later claimed that this was VAT cannot be correct, because it represents only 5.69% of the purchase price.

So actually you are complaining that they made you pay too little tax ? 
It is weird yes, that they pay less tax can be because they deduct the shipping costs, storage costs, administrative costs and net profit before paying import duties. So say they put $100 on their camera for import and they have to pay $30 tax and duties, if they sell the camera from the Netherlands for €353 they should put 21% on top of it. So yeah something fishy is going on but it looks like you profit from it ?

[ez24]

Funny as I think about experiencing bad shopping, I see this thread.  My bad experience is driving to my local Costco which is about 5 miles away.  The roads are in such poor condition that they make me drive slowly and I am afraid of getting into road rage because I slow for the pot holes.  I am amazed how fast people drive through pot holes.  I live in San Diego and fear for my life because of the roads.

[Kjelt]

Easy solution, if a civilian here gets damage to its car due to a bad road, the city pays the damage.
We have excellent roads 

[jotrinelectronics]

i buy electronic parts by steady distributor

[MrMobodies]

In 2014 I brought a hard drive on Ebay described as new old stock from some seller I think Portugal and they have been around for a couple of years but started selling things.

Seagate stopped selling 2.5inch 7200 rpm drives for a while until recently. One of my customers wanted the drive that I used to disk image all the stuff across from his broken drive as he noticed it was much quicker on his laptop when came round to get some work from it. Can't have my as it was for my work. I told him I can't get hold of 7200 rpms drive anymore and the if I can look on Ebay as I got the other parts from there for his laptop.

The seller was selling some low capacity drives I think it was a 200gb or 250gb new and advertised as old stock and I paid a little more.
No negative feedback from the seller so I ordered it.

A drive turned up in a jiffy bag in some sealed anti static bag.
There was a returns label with an address from Portugal on the back so it had be from that seller.

I told the seller that it was inadequate but I got some arrogance back that it was "acceptable" nevermind whether it was crushed depending on what was put on it by chance.

Out came the camera to picture every step of the way from unpackaging to testing. Coloured and brown copper joints and date of manufacture was in 2011. In 2011 there was hard drive shortage due to floods, supplies ran out the prices went up so just looking at that there was no way it could not have been old stock.

I connected it up and no clicking.
All the sensors showed 0 no power on hours and started to count on Gsmartcontrol.
It looked suspicious. Connected to up to the other one that I use just for MHDD in dos.
Many slow and bad sectors were showing up.

I looked at a tool called HD sentinel, it reported about something about some altered checksum value.
Obviously they hooked up to the serial port on the drive to reset the counters and make it not to count bad sectors.

I made a case on Ebay with all the pictures and testing and I notice lots of new negative feedback appearing on the profile.

I phoned Ebay up and they had some team look at it.
They said I'll have to wait some weeks to get my money back.

Four hours later the seller wanted to pay me back small little amounts.

The next day Paypal refunded me full out of surprise and his account disappeared.

[rsjsouza]

Thanks for sharing. I have seen so many mess ups with mechanical drives (HDDs, CD/DVD/BR) that I tend to be very afraid of buying any NOS drives. I am always afraid of having a working drive but with severely reduced reliability.

[Richard Crowley]

i buy electronic parts by steady distributor

Then all you have to do is depend on your trusted distributor to not source any counterfeit goods.
We have seen counterfeit stuff get into the distribution channel at almost every point.

[peteb2]

Funny as I think about experiencing bad shopping, I see this thread.  My bad experience is driving to my local Costco which is about 5 miles away.  The roads are in such poor condition that they make me drive slowly and I am afraid of getting into road rage because I slow for the pot holes.  I am amazed how fast people drive through pot holes.  I live in San Diego and fear for my life because of the roads.

Sounds like a trend to save Public Money when it comes to roadway maintenance. Here in wee Auckland, New Zealand the City Council has virtually given up on Pothole repairing and adopted paying those who complain with a smashed-to-bits-alloy wheelrim off their car that cost 1000$ to replace, should they have hit a hole. You can also hassle them for the cost of a wheelalignment but it's all a huge fight. As a result some enterprising folks paint warnings on the roadway around the real nasty Potholes with a HUGE dick-pick in spraybomb bright pink paint that lasts all of a day as the Council sends out a roadway repair gang to paint it out with black paint and do zip-nadda about the actual pothole!

On the shopping side, many carparks aren't being maintained to the point that the businesses who rent the building spaces take it upon themselves to fill the holes with colourful potted flowering plants and new roadcones as a warning to motorists.

[TiN]

Beware ebay buyer pacifictesteq. 

They bought an item (I've accepted their offer on auction) from me (PCBA from HP DMM) and didn't pay, nor didn't reply any communication attempts. Waited 2 weeks till ebay allowed unpaid case to be closed. Not a bleep from seller. 

[syau]

Got a extremely bad experience with an evilbay seller. Bought a tektronix dual x-y scope 603 + 604, received on a tight fitted cartoon box with just cardboard and plastic wrapping around the scope.

After spending some effort to unwrap and  found glass sliding inside the unit. Large piece of glass start falling out from the end cover. Contacted the seller and he claim that the glass was left over from previous CRT replacement. Power applied and the 603 side surely dead and the 604 come up with dual dot which the center dot not movable !

Contacted the seller again and he said the 604 side is normal with 2 dots and the 603 side need some time to warm up. 

After escalated the case to evilbay, he suddenly send me money to my paypal account asking me to ship the unit back. 

I bet I shouldn’t send the unit back unless evilbay instructed me to do so. Without sending the unit back, I at least have a broken one. If send back and the seller didn’t refund then I am in a double lost condition.

Am I right ?

[dunkemhigh]

This may vary by country, but I think you're OK to send it back providing it is tracked (so you have proof that you did send it and that he received it). Make sure the funds he's sent cover that cost and ensure you have photos.

However, before doing that I'd get in writing that he will refund your entire transaction (including original shipping). If you need to escalate to Ebay then that's a pretty good guarantee you'll win it. And don't do any of this via email - always send messages via Ebay so they have a record of them.

[syau]

Thanks for the advise, will have his written guarantee that he will refund my entire transaction (including original shipping) but he is the type of person very difficult to deal with as he just send me the shipping cost with the value he think suitable (I told him that I will get a quote first but he not listen)

[FrankBuss]

Some bad batteries:

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/dodgy-technology/9900-mah-18650-accus/

But I got a full refund.

And adeleparts2010 is selling fake ICs. I bought some YM2151, which are fake, already sent one to Zeptobars for decapping, including a working genuine one. Refund request started. He writes back that he wants me to send it back. I answered that it is illegal in my country to send counterfeit products, so I can't send it back