Buy.com SUCKS – worst internet retailer ever!
July 16, 2005
Buy.com has completely pissed me off now. Here’s what happened:
June 23rd: I placed an order for Etymotic Research ER-6i headphones
June 24th: They shipped the order to the wrong address
June 27th: According to USPS, my order was delivered to some random address in San Francisco, CA 94188
June 27th – July 7th: Even though I know my shipment has been lost, I am unable to do anything about it becuase Buy.com policy says that they don’t do anything until 13 days after the ship date.
July 11th: I try to use their online system to report a lost shipment. The online system is broken; to my knowledge there is no way to report a lost shipment online. I then attempt to contact customer service using the e-mail form. They tell me they will get back to me “as soon as possible”
July 13th: I finally get an e-mail back telling me that they will file a claim. I tell them that I would like them to send a replacement as soon as possible.
As of today, I hadn’t heard back from them, so I looked around on their website for a customer service phone number. AFAIK, they don’t publish their customer service number! (At this point, I am begining to realize why they probably don’t have their customer service phone number posted…)
So I look around online and find that I’m not the only one who’s been looking for the number. Fortunately, I found the number on someone’s blog :). They actually have a few numbers: 949-389-2000, 1-877-780-2464, 877-776-7625.
Buy.com: Sorry, there’s nothing we can do right now. We can file a claim but you’ll have to wait 3-5 business days for the result of the claim before we can do anything else.
Me: Excuse me?!?! There’s nothing you can do for a mistake that you made? Can you at least cancel that order and put in a new one?
Buy.com: We can put in another order, but it will be at the current price of the item.
Me: Well, it seems that since it’s your mistake, you should be at least gracious enough to allow me to re-order the same item at the same price.
Buy.com: Sorry we can’t do that.
Well at this point, my course of action is pretty clear. I’m calling up Citibank right now and disputing the charges to my credit card.
But I have to ask: What kind of company hopes to survive with this type of customer service? The only other time I’ve seen such shoddy customer service is in the wireless service provider space – but I suppose they can get away with it becuase I don’t have too many choices there, I just have to pick the lesser of 4 evils. In the online e-tailer space, I have tons of choices. What makes Buy.com think I’m going to ever buy anything from them again?
plaxoed! 
July 16, 2005 at 2:12 pm
[…] rocks!
Filed under: shopping — markjen @ 2:12 pm
In response to my buy.com snafu, I called up my credit card company. No waiting at all, I was connected immediately to a customer […]
July 16, 2005 at 2:40 pm
I order the same headphones via Amazon.
You will love them. Awesome!
July 17, 2005 at 10:32 am
Buy.com the next Dell?
Mark Jen writes about his horrible experience with buy.com. I see a trend here. It’s a bigger deal when customers discuss their bad experiences on blogs as opposed to message boards, etc. because more people will see it. At least…
July 17, 2005 at 12:45 pm
I agree with Mark Jen. BUY.COM is turning into the WORST ONLINE RETAILER EVER! Sure, their goods are usually cheaper, but their customer service sucks big time!
I made a purchase with Buy.com and they claimed that the item is out of stock. Their website did not mention that. After waiting for 2 weeks, I cancelled the order. Order cancellation takes 4-5 days, NOT 1 DAY as they promised! I gave them a second chance and bought another item. Again it was out of stock, and after 2 weeks, I cancelled the order.
Conclusion:
– Cancelling an order takes 4-5 business days.
– Emailing the customer support and getting a reply back takes more than 24 hours. Their promise is “within 24 hours.”
– If they don’t want to sell things to you, they will say that the item is backordered and they are ordering more. Yea right!
I tell myself that I will never… EEEEVVEEERR buy things from Buy.com again even though their products maybe cheaper.
July 17, 2005 at 1:20 pm
Discount e-tailers don’t need to please everyone, all the time. It’s the rule of large numbers: for every disgruntled customer that they can’t please while staying within their established policies, there are probably ten thousand customers who are extremely happy, got their orders shipped correctly and on time, at the lowest price they can find.
This is the same reason why spammers will never go away: even if you can get 0.01% response rate — on one billion spam, that’s still one hundred thousand responses — at $1/response that’s still great money for almost no effort. And, apparently, response rate to spam is much better than the hypothetical 0.01% I used in my example, and I bet they send a lot more than 10e9 spam.
July 17, 2005 at 2:36 pm
Dossy – quite true. I suppose there are plenty of examples of poor e-tailers that seem to be doing fine (for some reason TigerDirect jumps to mind…)
What really irks me is that I would’ve been satisfied if they would have just let me order the same product over again at the same price. It would guarantee that they got my business and I probably wouldn’t have written this blog entry either. Kind of the straw that broke the camel’s back I suppose…
July 17, 2005 at 7:34 pm
That’s crappy service. I used to purchase a lot at Buy.com but the past 3 years Amazon has almost become my walmart. I’ve had excellent service with Amazon, just keep watching the prices since they seem to change daily.
September 8, 2005 at 6:49 pm
That sucks. I just had a similar case. I ordered an LCD monitor last week, and it got delivered to someone else. From FedEx site, I found it was signed by “P. Parker” ?? (spiderman??) I emailed buy.com and they just filed a claim for me for a replacement. Did buy.com ever get back to you? Should I go and dispute the transaction with my visa?
I wish I read this blog before I ordered…
November 11, 2005 at 2:20 pm
I have never been so angry at a company as I am now. I have worked in customer service and have seen the right and wrong way to deal with customers. Buy.com does it the wrong way over and over again.
I ordered a book Gilbert Morris-Seven Golden Vials. Their web site shows it available and they will be happy to charge you for it and mail it to you, but the book that arrives is a different Gilbert Morris book called the Exiles.
What is nuts about this is I found out that Seven Golden Vials was never printed! It is the third in a series and is about the end times. The Exiles is a book about nineteenth-century New Orleans.
I emailed over and over about this. I did get my money back after receiving the wrong book twice and having to go back to the postal store. I emailed about the inaccuracies and received scripted responses that had nothing to do with my issue.
Finally I called their toll free number. Oh boy! India – you bet! They could not pronounce ‘vials’ or much else. I spoke to the first person for about 5 minutes, took about 10 to get her in the first place. So I asked for a supervisor and after my phone rolled over 30 minutes on the line a supposed supervisor came on the line. She started to try and bully me and before I lost it completely my husband took the phone (which had been on speakerphone the whole time) and let her have it. Funny, when she was speaking to a woman she was all bravado, but when a man got involved she suddenly became submissive. Made me want to scream!
They refused to give him the corporate office information. I found it online and he will be contacting them.
Also before you call the customer service number *BEWARE* the hold music is distorted, too loud and the same song over and over and over.
I will NEVER do business with buy.com again and will suggest to everyone I know to avoid them.
Here is Buy.com corporate office contact info:
Buy.Com, Inc.
85 Enterprise Suite 100
Aliso Viejo CA 92656
Business Started: 10/01/96
File Open Date: 12/29/97
Last Report Date: 08/31/04
Principal Contact: Robert R. Price
Phone: (949) 389-2000
Fax: (949) 389-2837
As of July 2004 – VP of customer service – Travis Fagan
December 14, 2005 at 9:57 pm
I attempted to purchase some Christmas gifts on buy.com, the items stated they were in stock, however they never shipped. The website stated that if I spent over $75.00 I would get free shipping, however when I checked out it charged shipping. I sent an email to inquire about the shipping charge and I never received a reply. I then contacted customer service and here was the reps exact quotes,
“We do not have supervisors here in India, they are only in the US”
“We are not allowed to transfer calls to the US and we do not have access to email”
“We are not allowed to give out the supervisor’s name, phone number or email address even though they will be handling your cancellation request”
“We can not transfer your call to the email department because they do not have telephones”
I will never, ever buy anything from this company, they are absolutely horrible to deal with
When I told them that I had to order the products that were supposedly in stock elsewhere and now I had to pay for expedited shipping because they did not get my order out in time, they had no response what so ever
BEWARE of Buy.com and their practices which are NOT customer service friendly
Theresa
December 23, 2005 at 9:16 pm
I feel the pain of all of you…..the first and the LAST purchase from Buy.com. To save a few bucks over Amazon.com or barnesandnoble.com for a book i wanted to give my wife for xmas, I order from buy.com in addition to a few cd’s I wanted. Items showed in stock, I received the CD’s but not the book after paying for 2nd Day air to get it in time for Xmas. I write them an email since they hide their number extremely well, they respond with an automated response email claiming that the cd’s are scheduled to be shipped by the factory, my email to them mentioned nothing of the cd’s and only the book. ARGH!!! Finally track down a number from google and India answered, I didn’t even waste my time too much and just asked for a credit on the book.
FIRST TIME AND LAST TIME! It seems I am most definitely not alone.
I’ve seen buy.com’s commercial with the CEO on top of the corp. headquarters, now I daydream about a huge group of ticked off customers sneaking up from behind and pushing him off.
December 23, 2005 at 10:37 pm
Wow… these stories paint Buy.com in a pretty bad light. I wasn’t sure how widespread the suckage was, but I guess it’s worse than I thought.
I wonder if their low price/high volume thing is working out, or if this backlash is going to catch up to them sooner or later.
December 28, 2005 at 1:57 pm
Free RAZR on Buy.com…Hmm should have seen this one coming
Placed the order online, requested that my existing number be ported over the “new” Cingular account. I receive my phone, only to discover that my number was not ported over…called Cingular, was told to go to a local store to get the SIM card replaced. Done.
Six months later, time to fill out those wonderful rebate forms…only to realize that the wireless number on my bills don’t match that on the Buy.com sales receipt. I called Buy.com to explain, see what I need to do to ensure the rebate application went through.
I was told because I didn’t contact Buy.com to get the number ported over, that they will not get paid by the carrier and my rebate application is null and void.
!@!#! Not very helpful, and I was really pissed off with Buy.com. Made a conscientious decision to NOT purchase anything from them in the future.
December 28, 2005 at 4:20 pm
Hey Derek – That sounds like quite an unfortunate turn of events. I assume the rebate is for quite a hefty sum so I would definitely fight them tooth and nail for it. At the end of the day, it seems that they were unable to process the original order in its entirety, so they should help you take care of the problem… Good luck!
January 2, 2006 at 8:51 am
Ordered 27″ LCD from Buy.com on November 27. It was lost by FedEx. Today is January 2 and Buy.com and I are still playing e-mail tag. I am asking about how soon i should get my TV or my money back and this is what i get from them:
Thank you for contacting Buy.com.
This is in reference to your email regarding the order #251711
We apologize for any inconvenience you may have experienced with your
order. According to our records, we have already requested a claim on your
behalf and it is under processing.soon you will be receaving a confermation via
phone or email within next few business days.
Feel free to contact for further concerns
Thank you again for writing to Buy.com.
Sincerely,
Buy.com Customer Care Team
http://www.buy.com
Their customer service is somewhere in India and absolutely ignorant. Never ever i would buy from them.
January 3, 2006 at 12:05 pm
A friendly reminder to those who are thinking about the
buy.com 10% off Amazon price guarantee:
call them immediately after you placed your order, make sure with them that they will honor your pricematch, and cancel your order right away if they won’t.
In my case, buy.com played email games with me until three days had passed, then they emailed me saying that they
couldnot honor my pricematch because
“IT HAS BEEN MORE THAN THREE (3) DAYS SINCE YOU PLACED YOUR ORDER!!!”
Here is how this happened:
http://www.djvoo.net/index.cgi?k=buy.com%20sucks
January 22, 2006 at 2:01 pm
I strongly agree everyones comments. I’ve experienced nothing but red tape trying to get some service. Check out my blog, i just posted my experience.
http://www.dualr.com/blog/archives/technology/2006/01/21/worst-service-ever-buycom/
February 2, 2006 at 11:13 am
I bought a $950 LCD TV off of Buy.com. It showed up with a cracked plastic shell from shipping. I contacted India customer support and they told be I would recieve a response in 1-2 business days. After 3 days I called back and they told me to wait another 5 days.
I figured screw that and I disputed the charge through my credit card company and then found this blog had the contact info to Corporate Headquarters. Well I called up the CFO who had the head of Customer Service contact me 10 minutes later. Then very soon after that I was emailed my RMA number and a UPS shipping label.
Once you know who to talk to you can get the ball rolling, but you would completely get the shaft if you waited around for some email response that would have probably just tried to brush me off anyways.
February 19, 2006 at 7:45 pm
Just wanted to say that I, too, have been given the runaround buy buy.com and I will never use them again in my life.
I returned a defective DVD to them and they refuse to acknowledge they’ve received it or send a resplacement… after over a month. I even have a UPS record that shows they signed for the DVD a month ago and that they have it.
There customer service is the pits. They suck. I hate them.
If you order anything from them, kiss your money goodbye.
February 23, 2006 at 10:38 am
My experience seems minor compared to some of the experiences described here. But I am glad that this blog exists because it made contacting someone with some authority in the USA who speaks and understands my native language (American English)a whole lot easier.
I just had a negative experience downloading music and trying to get Buy.com to accept that they have a technical problem and fix or remove the file. Pretty simple but not with their corporate structure. Instead it turns into a waste of time. At least I am getting my cash back right away with little problem.
Obviously buy.com is just another instance of you get what you pay for. In this case you pay for prototypical American corporate greed with nominal commitment to customer service and satisfaction. The customer service jobs are all in India and the agents read the answers off of their screen or cards or whatever. There is no real commitment to quality.
This not the way a business that is dedicated to providing for people instead of themselves operates. No person with integrity would treat others this way.
I keep getting this lesson. Support the corporations as little as possible. If you must buy (as we all do) buy from your independent local store, especially if they act with integrity. It may cost more but remember- in the long run you get what you pay for. As a people we need to end our love affair with the corporations and box stores whether they are real, live businesses with buildings or virtual commercial centers on the Internet. We speak loudest and most effectively with our wallets. That is where we can hurt them and get better service.
END OF RANT
March 7, 2006 at 3:25 pm
Buy.com’s bad customer service is beyong my imagination. We ordered a cellphon in July, 2005. It was supposed to come with a headset. It didn’t came until March, 2006, after numerous phone calls and emails, and complaints.
At one point, one customer service manager was promising to send me a mp3 player as compensation for my trouble, then He disappeared. I even put down his name and id number. Nonetheless he disappeared, because they don’t have a customer service number for wireless department any more.
They are really pissing me off. We need to orgnize together and do something about this. Anybody has any clue where I can start from?
March 14, 2006 at 5:22 pm
I called the Buy.com 800 number and the Indian guy said they had xbox 360’s in stock. I place the order online. Guess what….. it aint in stock. An Indian lady whose command of the English language is even worse then the first Indian’s tells me very rudely “you have to wait”. No way….. If they say they have it they should have it and if not then they should let me cancel. I promised my kids one for xmas and still I cant get one. I could be waiting weeks or months with the bill on my credit card and still no xbox.
I call the number for the head office in Aliso Viejo (949)389-2000 and press 0 for the operator. I complain (politely) that I had wasted an hour with Indians who don’t speak English worth a damn and “can I speak to someone who speaks understandable English….” She puts me through to Heather Servas (spelling may not be right) on x2309 who was most helpful. I got strong sense that the poor operator had a LOT of such calls and they had some real customer service staff on hand.
Interestingly enough if you get to their voice mail system on the 949-389-2000 number and press 1 for “Dial by name” you can to the desk of Brent Rusick
Senior Vice President of Operations. Guess if ya need to escalate it…..
It looks like Brent Fagin either is not there any more or has his voice mail offline….
Naturally I will never use buy.com again and having googled them I find a VAST number of very dissatisfied customer.
Cheers
March 23, 2006 at 9:28 am
preaching to the choir here. I had my own buy.com experience last fall. My wireless router was in shipment for weeks while I played tag with india no support. Finally I tracked down the shipping company that they were using and contacted them directly. I spoke with a lovely woman who explained that the number I was given was just a reference number given to shipping companies of an intent to ship item. The item hasn’t been dropped off at the shipper. Just a number to let them know that something, sometime, might be showing up. After I mentioned that the company was BUY.COM she sighed and said they got that a lot from them and the worst part was that THEY (the shipping company) had no contact information for the company. I told everyone in my office about it. Naturally one of them forgot the company I had named and is now watching the nightmare unfold for them as well. At least it was over a cheap mp3 player and not anything expensive. I just sent them the contact info from this page. Hopefully they escape with just a few bumps and bruises.
April 11, 2006 at 9:32 am
I ordered some DVDs from buy.com They sent the wrong item. I returned it–they sent the wrong item again. this went on for THREE TIMES. TO-date I still don’t have the correct item, although I called them, emailed them and wrong letters. THis company is PATHETIC. Can’t wait for them to out of business. Don’t EVER buy from them. ANy way most of their prices are higher than your local retailer, they charge sales tax AND their customer service is in India.
April 11, 2006 at 5:57 pm
I used a $10-off courtesy coupon to purchase a DVD set. My card was promptly charged and I got an email stating my item was shipped 3/27/06. It is now 4/12/06 and nothing. Tracking info just says the USPS has been notified to expect my shipment, which I gather means nothing. I try to email customer service about this but surprise! their email system doesn’t seem to work. LOL.
So I am guessing that this is a scam by buy.com to burn my $10-off coupon as it will probably expire by the time this mess is sorted out. They will eventually cancel my order, credit my card back (hopefully) and get out from having to honor the $10-off coupon.
Never again.
April 13, 2006 at 10:58 am
Update
i was able to get an email to customer service and they replied with the usual automated responses. eventually i was informed that they would open a claim for a lost package and “investigate” the issue. i then got two emails sent one minute apart, the first said they had started their investigation and the second said my claim was approved. LOL! so it looks like they knew it hadn’t ever been mailed, how else wcould complete their “investigation” within one minute.
long story short, they say they have mailed a “replacement” to me and this time they gave me a valid UPS tracking number, which is actually useful as opposed to the dumb USPS tracking info for the first package, which i know they never sent or even tried to send.
i will never again willingly deal with this company. they are dishonest and underhanded in their business practices, throwing the burden of babysitting orders on to their customers.
die buy.com die!
April 23, 2006 at 4:54 pm
Wo0t! I hate buy.com —
I used to visit their site religiously when making online purchases… but some horrible mistakes on their part cost them my business forever (and got a complaint to the BBB). Now, everytime I make a purchase at one of their competitors… I email them to let them know that their business practices cost them money.
May 3, 2006 at 6:19 pm
Buy.com price match policy is a sham.
I purchased Thinkpad T-60. On the next day, price dropped by $50. I requested a price match, but received an email reply that simply repeated its price matching policy and denied my request. It did not point out which restriction applied to my order. Of course, as every one here knows, you can never reply to their email.
When you think about it, it is kind of stupid for everyone here, me included, to shop at a website which
1) Does not list their contact phone number
2) Does not have a functional email address
May 21, 2006 at 9:18 am
Yes, I agree – buy.com is a biggest scam of online retailers with the worst customer service. (wipe off your smugs amazon.com lovers, amazon is crappy too)
After closing my account with buy.com I kept receiving all kind of junk mail from them, until one email that stated that buy.com wants me back and gives me $10 off my next purchase. Great I said, I will give them another chance. So I order a CCNP book I needed, about $15 less for what amazon sells it for. It took 2 days for the book to leave the warehouse and 10 days(!) for it to get delivered. It came in a damaged box, poorly packaged (actually, not packaged at all, just stuck in a carton box bigger than the book itself). So anyways, the box had holes, the book got all damaged and dusty (!?) while in shipping. I emailed buy.com customer service and told them about it.
By the way, every time you submit your question or a complaint through the website you get an automatic response/confirmation of the message that gets delivered. Then, it looks like a live person follows up on your ticket. NOOO! WRONG! You get a “predesigned” response with a random name thrown at the end (Alex, Cindy, etc) You would ask how do I know? Well, in a course of two days, I’d received se veral emails from buy.com absolutely identical to each other regardless of my initial question, statement, etc.
Anyways, I told them I was not pleased with their service and was going to keep the book anyway. After several emails back and forth they apologized and offered me another $10 card which I decided to use anyway. I ordered some mp3 downloads from them, but the account was shortly deleted after the purchase.
Now I get pretty steamed up at this point. Some guy from India calls me back, says he can’t help me but promises to escalate the issue to the corporate office. 2 weeks later, no response, no money back, nothing.
So, concluding this long message I’d like to warn you all and ask to stay away from buy.com Learn on the mistakes of others.
GT
June 2, 2006 at 8:04 am
Here’s my copy of the letter I sent to Buy.com – doubt it will do any good, but at least I’m able to vent.
I purchased these on May 24, 2006, using my Buy.com Visa gift certificate. Your online system kindly input my gift certificate number and amount, asking if I would like to use it for my purchase. Of course I did! Who wouldnāt? My computer screen showed me owing a balance of $0.00.
I anxiously awaited arrival of my goods. They arrived on time. As these were a surprise, I hid them away, waiting to give them to my husband.
Well, at the end of May, as I typically do, I checked my credit card & bank balances online. Certainly you can imagine my dismay when I got to my Buy.com Visa and found charges totaling $44.64 on my credit card. I promptly went to the Buy.com website and sent an e-mail to customer service to inquire about these charges. I would have phoned, but there is no phone number to be found on the website.
After several e-mails back and forth between myself, Cynthia, Ronald & Warren, I was told that I had not requested my gift certificate be used. Funny, they would say that, since all the info was in the proper boxes when I ordered the items. Well, obviously this was some computer glitch that needs to be corrected. However, according to customer service (and I use that word loosely), the payment method can not be changed after the order has been completed.
Now, I work with credit card transactions on a daily basis. Let me tell you, that is a flat-out lie. I have had clients come to me saying they intended to use one credit card and not the one they actually did use. You will be shocked and amazed to know that we miraculously are able to credit the purchase back to the original card and charge the new card. We are also miraculously able to apply coupons. No problem.
Well, several e-mails later, your customer service rep suggested that I call and talk to someone. Remember, there is not a phone number on the website, so it had to be e-mailed to me. How ridiculous is that?
Now comes the fun part. I call your toll-free number to speak to a representative of your company. The first person I spoke to was either Petra or Peter. Iām not really sure because I am no master of foreign accents. Anyway, I explain to this person about this computer glitch and that I just need the $44.64 credited back to my credit card and the funds taken from the gift certificate, which this person can apparently see online. I am told that I did not request the certificate to be used. Well, yes I did, I saw it with my own eyes when I ordered the item. We go round and round and this person does not have the authority to do anything. Okay, how can one be of service to a customer if one has no authority? So, I ask to speak to someone who has some authority. I am then transferred to another foreign accented person who claims to be a supervisor. I donāt know if she gave her name or not, as I was extremely frustrated by this point. I explained everything all over again to Ms. Supervisor, getting the exact same answer ā that she had no authority, it was not possible, etc. Her basic response was that I should pay for the purchase, even thought it was processed incorrectly, and use my certificate another time. I asked to speak with her superior and was informed that she was the highest I could go. Again, title, but absolutely zero authority. This, after an hour burning up my cell minutes.
Yes, this could have been taken care of in much less time than I spent on the phone last night. Itās very simple ā you post a credit to the card, which leaves a balance on the account. Then, you use the certificate to satisfy the balance. Or, if you need to go a different route to satisfy the computer system, you simply process a return, then re-process the sale using the certificate. Itās all very simple and saves a lot of grief.
So, it appears that my only alternative here is to return said items for a full refund of $44.64. You see, my intent was to take advantage of my gift certificate for these items. Otherwise, I could have just run down to my local Walmart and purchased the items without having to wait for delivery.
Throughout this ordeal it has become painfully obvious to me that Buy.com does not believe in customer service. Buy.com does not care whether I ever shop their store again. Buy.com does not care that this long story will be relayed to all of my friends, many of whom do shop online. As for me, I am crushed that Buy.com feels this way. It was an excellent source for Christmas shopping that will be missed this year.
July 9, 2006 at 4:00 pm
July 12, 2006 at 7:44 pm
here is another good buy.com scheme…
i ordered a video card and emailed before i ordered to see if they price matched. i wanted a price match because unfortunatly i got a gift card for my birthday to buy.com. they respond and say the do pricematch to compusa (where it was cheaper) so i place the order. 3 days later they say they wont honor the price match because i used free shipping and that counts as a promotion on their part therefore i am out $90 because i didn’t pay $7 shipping.
never again will i use buy.com
July 19, 2006 at 11:33 am
Man do they ever bury their numbers! THANK YOU for publishing them again here- I actually got thru to Joe (a dude with a heavy Indian accent-hmmm) and he was……actually pleasant if not bored -maybe not enough people are getting his number because they can’t find it on that useless website!
He said my item was in transit- umm yeah I believe that- They have 3 more days before the credit card company tells ’em the goods arent getting paid for.
BTW I couldnt send an email as the form on submitting would only come up with “Page can’t be displayed” so I guess that “solves” their lack of email response.
Back to Ebay and Amazon. And hmm I might shares in those companies as they have their shite together.
July 19, 2006 at 2:37 pm
Me too! Buy.com come has the worst service ever. If you have any problem at all your out of luck. You will regret buying there.
July 21, 2006 at 11:37 am
I placed an order with Buy.com on June 22, 2006 when the camera was on sale and listed as “in stock”. I was so excited that I was able to snag this camera at such a great price! Two days later, the item was still “processing”. I went back to investigate the item and the site said that this camera was “not in stock”. Okay…well surely they had enough to fill my order since I had placed it two days prior and they had plenty of time to notify me that my item was “out of stock”. Nope. That meant my order too… I’ve sent email complaints because everytime I tried to call, I had to search for the one of the many “I HATE buy.com” sites (which I very regretfully did NOT investigate prior to making my purchase) dig out the customer service number because they don’t have it listed here on the site; which I cannot comprehend because they just transfer you to someone in India who doesn’t understand you anyway. On top of everything, they JUST sent me an email notification that the camera was “out of stock” a week ago!!! Today my order was finally canceled after putting the request 3 days ago. It is now July 21st, almost exactly a month since I placed the order. If they didn’t have it in stock for a month while I waited for it, I doubt that it will be in-stock for you now. Don’t order from Buy.com at all! Anything positive you read about them is stuff that their own staff puts on the message boards and they delete negative ratings from their sites….WORST…CUSTOMER SERVICE…EVER!!!
July 21, 2006 at 4:59 pm
I was a happy BUY.COM customer until the last transaction which involved returning an item. I requested for a RMA online and I got a RMA# and was instructed to ship to the Warehouse in Fremont, CA. Since I live in the same city, I went there directly to return at the Warehouse by Synnex. I double checked with the lady whether I can hand return and she said it is okay and she signed the paper.
After a week, I still didn’t see the item was returned. Sent various emails and got the same response and then asking for tracking number. I wrote a detailed email giving all the background. Then I went back to Warehouse and asked the lady who accepted my return and she told me that she was not able to enter into the system with the given RMA and she asked me to talk to Buy.com to get a new RMA.
As usual, as there is no other way of support, I sent an email with these details and I got a response stating that they were working on this and gave the customer support number which when I called went to call center in India who are totally useless as they don’t have any power and they won’t give away any contact information of the Corporate office. I could not even get transferred to the Supervisor there.
Finally, I talked to the lady who accepted my return and she was nice enough to check with Buy.com and told me that I should be getting the refund next week. I would like to believe this and expect to get the money next week. If not, I am going to start calling the corporate office.
For people who were wondering what to do about this, complain at BBB.org
July 26, 2006 at 3:38 pm
LOL LOL LOL
July 31, 2006 at 10:00 am
Like many other people who have vented their frustrations with buy.com on this site, I have had nothing but great things to say about them. Until…I had a problem with a shipment. I ordered something for a friend of mine and was having it shipped to him. Almost immediately after I placed the order I contacted buy.com to change the shipping address. Of course I got the standard email response and they tell me that they cannot alter the shipping address after an order has been placed unless it was to the billing address on the credit card used. I told the (completely useless) customer service rep that all they had to do was contact fedex and give them authorization to change the address and I would handle the rest. They wouldn’t even do that! So, as you may imagine they delivered it to the wrong house and due to fedex’s new policy (unless specified by sender they can leave packages without signatures) the package was left and dissapeared. When I contacted buy.com the said “they could enter a claim on my behalf”. I said I didn’t need them to do anything on my behalf, i wanted them to replace my product because I tried to tell them that the package would be delivered to the wrong house if they sent it. Well, after getting off the phone (furious!!) with them I get an email telling me that there was nothing they could do because the package was shipped to the address specified and no further action would be taken. Thanks to this site I have a phone number to the corporate office (Not in India!) and I will be giving them a call to try to rectify the situation. I’ll keep ya posted on how it goes. I just needed a place to vent my frustration since it doesn’t seem to fase the customer service reps at all. The idiots just keep apologizing and not fixing the problem.
August 21, 2006 at 11:36 am
I ordered a $1000 projector from buy.com and had the same problem with shipping. I was trying to change the shipping address to a more secure place and the order had not even been processed yet. Oedered Sun, changed address Monday… I sent them the corrected address the day after I placed the order. Karen Carcano “Address Verification Supervisor” is a joke! She e-mailed 3 days after the order to say it could not be released until I add my son’s address to my credit card which I did, with the corrected address,and she still sent it too the wrong adress!
Thier customer service sucks! Those guys are in India and have the same stock answer to any question, we’ll get back to you. I called 3 times and never got an answer as to if the address was changed, when the order would go thru and when it would be shipped. The day the item was to arrive I got and e-mail from “Karen” saying we’ll let you know when it will ship, She even had the attached e-mail on her e-mail with the correct address right there. We’ll see if we ever get it and what shape it’s in. I WILL NEVER EVER ORDER FROM THEM AGAIN.
August 30, 2006 at 2:22 pm
Buy.com messed up my order, so I called the 877 numbers above. I though it was going to be easy strike from here. Nope son of bic* told me the same thing I had to wait 3 to 5 days since I noticed them that my order was messed up. They made it seem like it was my own fault. Next thing I talked to a supervisor named Ruts Wilson who told me I could wait three to five days on the phone in order for it to be credit back to my card. Bitc*, later I called back and talked to another supervisor named Adam Gilchrist. Who are these guys playing, they are using English names. I know these people are just fakers like Buy.com It is just a scam to take your money and run.
October 1, 2006 at 2:31 pm
I ordered a Aandisk Mp3 player from Buy.com about 2 months ago. Website did not say it was out of stock.Two weeks later ,I still not recive anything. So i called them and they told me it was out of stock. SO i told them to cancel the order, and they did. 3 days later. I recived the item and my card was charged extra 10 dollas (they canceled my coupon code $10 value). BUT they did not cancel my whole order. Anyway, I had to send it back AND pay for shipping back to them ,since i bought the same item from different place , becuase they told me that they cancel the item. So i send my item back. And I contact customer service about 10000 times about my refund, and till this day (10/01/2006) I still did not get my 150.00 dollars back (they recived my item a month ago). Buy.com SUCKS Big time. Why the hell they got customer service in india, they don’t even speak enlish.
October 2, 2006 at 9:55 am
I have ordered numerous items from buy.com without a hitch. I have had items arrive broken, and they promptly replaced them BEFORE I even sent them back. I had one order lost, and they replaced it immediately as well. I am sorry for your bad experience, but I have had nothing but good experiences, good products, and good prices from them. I HAVE found items they sell on buy.com cheaper at other sites at times, and I purchase them instead, so I am not drinking the buy.com kool-aid at this point! š
October 3, 2006 at 7:45 am
I just went thru similar prob, tho not nearly as bad as some of you.
Has anyone been able to find (or figure out) ceo’s email? Scott Blum is president/founder. Maybe he needs to get copy of this blog, or emails directly from some of us?
He started new biz 6 mos ago:
This was on CNN Money site:
Wednesday, May 10, 2006
Buy.com chief launches Internet TV startup
Instant Media, the brainchild of controversial Buy.com founder Scott Blum, launched its HDTV-over-the Internet service yesterday.
so I guess we can all assume he’s not paying attention…
October 3, 2006 at 9:19 am
Ken,
Trust me. They will get you back. someday you will have to contact the customer service in india.
October 6, 2006 at 11:22 am
Another retailer that treats customers like dirt is On The Web Marketing Group, http://www.otwmg.com.
I returned a purchase via FedEx, which On The Web Marketing Group refused because my package did not have some number written on the front. I got ready to resend it and they told me my 30-day return window had expired.
I do all my shopping on line these days. But I’m going to be sure I only buy from retailers who take care of their customers.
If a retailer is willing to beat me out of about $90, I’ll certainly never again give him my business or give him good word of mouth.
Buyer Beware of On The Web Marketing Group!!!
October 19, 2006 at 2:23 pm
I’ve had many uneventful, satisfactory transactions with buy.com until this last one. I ordered a Garmin GPS (shown to be instock)from their website on Sunday. It usually goes from Processing to Sent to warehouse within 24 hours.
After noticing that is was still processing after 24 hours I emailed them, and got the canned response of we haven’t forgotten you and giving me their 800 number. I called the 800 number and got nowhere. The Indian guy had no information and said he would escalate to corporate.
At this point I was still gullible and was hoping by the next day I would see Sent to Warehouse. No such luck and another call to customer service the next day was fruitless and no supervisor available till 9am pacific time.
There was more emails back and forth and last night (wednesday) the Indian guy says the problem is resolved and it would be Sent to Warehouse last night or lastest today. Well today I finally see Sent to Warehouse followed a few minutes by an email telling me there is a problem fullfilling my item and that they are searching the world for my Garmin GPS. Mind you the web site still shows it in stock.
I called indian and cancelled the order and immediately placed an order from Amazon, which is what I should have done to begin with.
I think this processing delay is just a ploy to string people along in the hopes of getting some product in. I won’t be fooled again by this trick.
October 19, 2006 at 4:41 pm
Wow! Thank you for this post. My experience with buy.com is hands down the worst that I have ever experienced, online or otherwise.
I ordered a memory module with buy.com on August 19th, 2006, which was in stock when I placed my order. I received an email several days later indicating that it was on back order. They emailed me twice a week for several weeks stating that the item was still on backorder and that I could cancel my order if I wanted to and purchase a similar memory module for over twice the original sale price. Not a chance!
The memory module I ordered was on sale for $58.00, which normally retailed for $143.00. I knew immediately what they were trying to pull – the classic bait and switch. I replied to every one of their emails indicating that I would never cancel my order. Their emails then stopped coming in. I continued to email and call buy.com customer service in India and they gave me the same boilerplate responses over and over again.
Nearly two months passed and I finally got an email indicating that they were finally sending my memory module. It arrived 5 days later and it was the wrong sized memory module! Another phone call to customer service and this time the customer service representative said the item was out of stock and she would issue me a refund and cancel my order. Unbelievable!
I told her – “Don’t you dare cancel my order, I’m getting what I ordered if it takes forever.” I finally talked with a supervisor who assured me that the item was in stock and as soon as they received the wrong item they sent, they would send the correct item immediately.
Today, 5 days later, I received the following email (truncated):
I went through the roof. This has become a complete nightmare. I cannot believe that any company can be this incompetent. I can only interpret these actions as their continued attempts to wear me down so I will cancel my order. Not a chance!
I’ve already contacted the Better Business Bureau and the Federal Trade Commission about all of this and would suggest everyone reading these responses do the same. It’s a relatively easy online process that takes less than 15 minutes. The more complaints they receive the better the chance a real investigation will follow. Just Google the Federal Trade Commission and the Better Business Bureau.
October 19, 2006 at 4:52 pm
Also to corroborate what Rob (above) and others have already mention, my particular memory module (EDGE Tech 1GB DDR2 SDRAM Memory Module – 1GB – DDR2-667/PC2-5300 – Non-ECC – DDR2 SDRAM – 200-pin SoDIMM ) has been in stock according to buy.comās website from the day I place my order. Again, the classic bait and switch.
October 24, 2006 at 6:10 am
I got burned on a Rebate for $30 after the vendor OnRebate.com said I didn’t give them the correct information. I gave them everything they asked for but was beat anyway.
November 2, 2006 at 11:04 am
I signed up for the Visa on checkout and got a message saying it would take time to approve, and the order was cancelled.
Then I ordered and paid for that printer on another Visa.
Guess what? I got delivery of 2 printers, yet nothing says I was even approved for the charge card.
Now I have to return the one I paid for with my other cc, and I have to pay shipping when this is all their fault !!!
November 5, 2006 at 12:25 pm
Wow. I type in buy.com sucks and came directly here to discover, not at all to my surprise, that I’m not alone. I had almost the exact same experience and will NEVER purchase from buy.com again.
November 7, 2006 at 2:09 am
Hi Sphear, I didn’t know that this was the top Google search result for “Buy.com sucks”. Pretty interesting (and that would explain the sheer number of hits/comments on this page) š
Thanks for visiting!
November 9, 2006 at 2:08 am
Looks like ca.buy.com is doing the same shady practices of its US counter part. Offering up AMD Opteron 165 for under 100 bucks. But not shipping them and giving the old “Item is on backorder, you will receive it when it comes in stock” routine.
Read this thread and you will see! We need more people to open up the eyes of the public to buy.com’s horrible business practices.
http://www.redflagdeals.com/forums/showthread.php?t=358644
November 13, 2006 at 11:57 am
I bought 2 games from buy.com using google check out. Gears of war and Neverwinter Nights 2. I got $10 discount each from the google check out making the deal pretty good. It’s been 2 weeks now and I still haven’t gotten the items. They still haven’t been shipped and they are giving me the “Item out of stock, and on order” line. I know that the items are not out of stock and that there are no shortage of either games. These 2 things will be the last things I buy from them.
November 16, 2006 at 12:10 pm
After rading your posts, I dicided to call corporate headquarters at (949)389-2000 and I have an English speaking person and my money was refunded in 2 minutes. I would suggest to call headquarters for all CUSTOMER SERVICE related issues.
November 17, 2006 at 11:30 pm
I ordered two opteron processors from ca.buy.com and got this idiotic email from them yesterday:
“We apologize that the delivery of your order is taking longer than expected. Due to a setback from the manufacturer, item #202068416 and 202068416 on your order are currently unavailable.
However, we do not have an estimated time of arrival. You will receive an email from us once the product you ordered ships. Please note that your credit card will not be billed until that time.
If you decide not to wait for the products, you may request for a cancellation by visiting our Web site.
We thank you for your patience in the matter.”
This is the absolute worst service I’ve ever had from any e-tailer.
December 1, 2006 at 8:56 am
I couldn’t agree more with the people on this blog. I have been trying for 3 days now to get an RMA via the “contact buy.com” link on their website. I requested an RMA for a Linksys WVC54GC Wireless Camera. I ordered the camera on the 14th and requested the RMA on the 28th. As far as i know that would put me within the 14 day window that they have for RMA’s. Well not if you work for teh customer service department. For 3 days now i have been getting the same “block” email response, “you are out of the 14 day window and would need to contact the vendor”. then they proceed to paste the link to their RMA section on their website. I then cut and paste the section and reply to them with an explanation of the 14 day window. Guess what? I get another email stating I am out of the 14 day window.
I guess they don’t read the emails we send them or they are so bombarded with complaints that they don’t have time.
Now that someone here has posted their US number i will be contacting them and explaining to them once again what i’ve been trying to do via emails.
Thank you for this blog!!
December 12, 2006 at 7:39 am
Let us remember that these complaints will not actually reach Buy.Com’s Customer Service Manager: they do not have one.
We should be putting pressure on buy.com’s affiliates and sites that promote them, such as dealnews.com. Also these responses may be discovered by an analyst or buy.com stockholder who DOES care about the trend.
My problem:
1) Minor: No “order details confirmation” page before you order. You should not be editing details on the same page with a (final) Order button. It’s not intuitive and prone to both design errors and user errors. For example, there’s a pulldown “Choose alternate address” which does not do anything unless the 2nd address was previously added, which may not be how the user interprets the text.
A well designed menu would have the choices “Use the Billing Address” AND “Choose Alternate Address”. If you select the latter and no 2nd address exists, the user gets that form before checkout concludes. Easy.
2) No UNDO or Cancel on an order.
3) Absolutely poor customer service – so bad that you know that corporate US headquarters are not in the habit of randomly evaluating their outsourced New Delhi customer service folks.
I actually had a perfect case where all 3 problems happened in a single incident. You could sum it up as:
me: my order was sent to the wrong address. I realized this the second the order completed, but I could not find a cancel button. Please divert or cancel.
buy.com (3 business days later): There is no cancel button because your order had already shipped. Have a nice day, ‘Rose’.
me: my order was sent to the wrong address. Please divert or cancel.
buy.com (1 weekend and 2 business days later): We’re sorry you did not like the product you have received… following are the instructions to RMA and return your product.
Can anyone think of a worse response, one that would be more distressing?
Eventually the mail arrived (late), but by this time their customer service was such that I need to tell folks. You can’t deny that they have well priced promotions and there are some buy.com fans here — but I think the every one of those people have luckily avoided dealing with their Support.
I don’t necessarily have a problem with outsourced support or a corporate policy that attempts to hide this by slapping fake English names on their reps. What’s bad is poor Support training, no Support empowerment to fix things, no management reviews of Support. These are not vested employees and no room for promotion — all they care about is a passing grade. What incentive is there for buy.com support to show initiative or proaction, or even asking questions of the customer to clarify your issue…
‘buy.com service sucks’ and ‘NewEgg.com service rocks’. Buy.com’s could learn something from NewEgg. Google Checkout seems to promote buy.com which is sad.
Be careful when using buy.com — you can never be 100% sure your order will not require ANY Customer Service. Buy.com is like an sketchy eBay.com reseller.
December 12, 2006 at 7:43 am
PS to the folks who got the wrong Edge memory part from buy.com: Contact the US Postal Service’s Mail Fraud division. While buy.com may not engage in deliberate fraud, this is not what you ordered. It is not legal to “substitute” another product in this manner.
December 13, 2006 at 6:00 am
I agree with R. Pittman about On The Web Marketing Group. If Buy.com is the worst than otwmg.com is second worst. I wanted to buy a center glass for my ceiling fan. I saw one on their site that I liked but the most critical measurement — the opening of the globe — was missing. I called and was told it was 3 1/4″ which was exactly what I needed. When I got it and tried to install it, it was too big. I measured it and it was 3 5/8″. When I asked to return it they said they’d refund the full price (which they got wrong) minus some $5 for something-or-other AND I had to pay the shipping to send it back. They also recommended insuring it. I told them I shouldn’t have to lay out a penny because I purchased it based on misinformation from one of their own moronic employees. Since then I’ve called 4 times and e-mailed 3 times. They keep telling me a supervisor will get back to me. So far all I’ve received is an e-mail that restates their return policies and doesn’t address my specific situation. I think they’re waiting for the 30-day return period to expire. THESE PEOPLE ARE CROOKS! DON’T USE THEM!
December 23, 2006 at 10:22 am
12/23/06 – And the music still goes on. I ordered three items with the Google $25 discount. One item was incorrect. 10 days of calls to customer service and all I got was an immediate disconnect. When I finally reached the “Indian connection” I was told it was too late to get a return. Went to my account data on Buy.com and couldn’t find any order listed. Went to Google and couldn’t find any order info. Finally got my credit card statement and now used the best ploy, I challenged the billing price and will go through the drudgery of paperwork and hopefully an authorized return of the incorrect software. What really irks me is that all the rebates and discounts are now invalid. I have had excellent service from Amazon and they really are customer oriented. I represent an 800 member technical organization, guess what I will send out to the membership……..AVOID BUY.COM !!!!! Note that the financial/business news indicates they are in trouble and they let go many employees in the last month.
December 23, 2006 at 11:40 am
Buy.com must be in some considerable financial trouble. They have been trying to have a IPO floated for over a year and still no go by their financial backers. the info on their situation is from the Yahoo Finance data.
I agree, stay away from them.
Yahoo! Finance Finance Home – Yahoo! – Help ThomsonFN
Registrations | Pricings | Withdrawals | Performers | IPOs
Buy.com Inc Proposed Symbol – Nasdaq: BUYY
Address:
85 Enterprise
Aliso Viejo, California 92656
Financial Links
Ā· Recent News
IPO Information as of 22-Dec-06
Offering Information
Expected Date Postponed
Proposed Exchange/Ticker Nasdaq: BUYY
Security Type Common Stock
Lead Underwriter Thomas Weisel Partners LLC
Days In Registration 696
Date Filed 25-Jan-2005
Form Filed S-1
Fundamentals
(Year Ending December 2005)
Industry Pers/Bus/Rep Svc
Business Description Provide ecommerce retail services offering a range of brand name computer hardware and peripherals, software, books, videos, DVDs, computer games, music, clearance equipment, golf-related products and consumer electronics
Revenue –
Net Income –
Shares Outstanding (post-offering) 18.91M
Contact –
Number of Employees 196
Original Filing Information
US
Shares Filed 4.17M
Secondary Shares Filed –
Ā· As a Percent –
Primary Shares Filed 4.17M
Ā· As a Percent 100.0
Overallotment Shares Filed 625.0K
File Amount $50.0M
File Price Range $13.00 – $11.00
File Mid Price $12.00
Copyright Ā© 2006 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy – Terms of Service
IPO information Copyright Ā© 2006 Thomson Financial Securities Data (TFSD)
Data and information is provided for informational purposes only, and is not intended for trading purposes. Neither Yahoo nor any of its data or content providers (such as Hoover’s, Inc.) shall be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon.
December 31, 2006 at 2:02 pm
I would never buy anything from buy.com. I purchase a christmas present, when the person I got it for said it was the wrong item, I wanted to exchange it for the right product. They told me that I was over the 14 day return policy. Didnt matter that it was a christmas present. I WILL NEVER BUY FROM THEM. Customer serivce isnt important to them, only there bottom line.
January 2, 2007 at 4:13 pm
BUY.COM is by far the worse F***** sight I have ever used in my life. I am a big person on customer service and their customer service is by far ONE OF THE WORSE!! Honestly, you are better off spending ten or even fifty bucks somewhere else. I will ever buy anything from buy.com and will advise all my family and friends not to buy anything from their website. Buy.com will lose many customers from hearing my story and the sad thing is that it was over twenty bucks. PLEASE BE ADVISE that BUY.COM SUCKS!!!!
January 2, 2007 at 7:13 pm
I’ve had two issue with Buy.com and that’s enough for me to never deal with them again. They have two big issues: shipping problems, and dealing with problems.
I’m still in a dispute with Buy.com now on a double order that happened because Google Checkout is even worse than Buy.com. I only wanted one item, but received two. I tried cancelling the order within FIVE MINUTES of the double order being placed but they said it was too late because it was already sent to their warehouse. The next day I got the tracking number. I called FedEx and they hadn’t received the package yet so they told me it would be easiest for everyone if the shipper would just not ship it. I told them that wasn’t possible.. they didn’t believe me. Even FedEx thinks Buy.com is stupid. Two days pass and FedEx still did not receive the package from buy.com.. but I can’t cancel the order. WTF? So two of these things get shipped to me. FedEx botched the rejection of the package so I got them both. So I had FedEx come back out to take it back to Buy.com. Buy.com denies still to this day that they received it. Yet I have a signed digital receipt from the FedEx website proving that they received it. I have contacted Buy.com over 40 times about this double order and they can only say “There’s nothing we can do about it”. WTF? So I sent an email yesterday stating that if they are going to charge me for something they won’t refund and I haven’t received, I damned well better get it and pronto! They promptly said they found the returned package in their warehouse and are sending me another one. I immediately went to their website to cancel the shipment. Too late.. because the order has already been sent to their warehouse. WTF?
By the way.. if any of you don’t know.. Buy.com sucks big time!
January 18, 2007 at 1:04 pm
After a long wait and poor customer service, Doug, the Director of Customer Service helped. Call 949-389-2000 and ask for the Director of Customer Service, Doug.
January 23, 2007 at 10:42 am
Here’s my complaint that I contacted the Better Business Bureau with on 12-21-06. I just love seeing these kinds of blogs so I know I’m not the only one out there who had serius issues with Buy.com’s customer service.
I placed order with Buy.com on 11/27. Choose 7-9 business day shipping and choose Google Checkout. Received email from Google on 11/28 that order was being processed. Received email from Google on 11/29 that order was shipped, but they provided no tracking number. I waited 9 business days for shipment to arrive. On business day 10 I called customer service to see where my order was and was told it was shipped on 11/28 and delivered on 11/29 via FedEx with no signature required. This info was in direct conflict with the Google’s 11/29 email. I then realized my order had obviously been stolen from my front porch and called customer service to remedy the situation. Was told they would file a claim, I needed to wait another 3-5 business days for claim to be approved and then replacement order would be sent. Was now 2.5 weeks since order was placed and I now needed to wait another week. Turns out, they never filed my claim that day and until I called on December 16 to find out why I had not been contacted yet that they then filed the claim. During this process, I was hung up on, put on hold for 20 minutes several times trying to reach a supervisor and given 3 seconds to leave a voicemail. No supervisor ever contacted me. I then received an email on December 17 that my claim #154798 had been filed and I would have to wait another 3-5 business days for approval. Finally on December 19 I received an email telling me my claim had been approved and that my replacement order #31466769 would be shipped. It has been 3.5 weeks since I first placed my order!
Obviously the Google Checkout started this whole mess and they don’t want to own up to it. I just wanted the $28 I paid for the item back after having to wait 3 1/2 weeks to get it. Buy.com’s Director of Customer Service is Doug Pearce and he has yet to respond to my BBB complaint. So with the help of this blog – I have called the Buy.com corporate office just now and left him a message. As I mentioned in my voicemail to him, I would be astonished if he called me back. But I wanted to put that dude on the spot for blowing my complaint off. Although I’m sure he’s sifting through 1000s of them.
January 24, 2007 at 6:10 am
My turn! I purchased three items on November 30, 2006. One actually shipped the same day I ordered and was received with no problem. Another shipped a few days later and was received with no problem. The third item shipped two days after ordering and was the wrong item (ordered a 200 sheet pack of photo paper and received a 50 sheet pack). I contacted buy.com using the email form on the customer service page and received a reply a few days later telling me that they are sending me an RMA and shipping label and that the RMA will expire in 10 days. 9 days later, not having received anything in the mail, I wrote back to them and eventually received a reply that I had to go to the order section of their web site and click on returns. There I would find my RMA and return label. They should have told me that from the get go. The item has been sent back and has been signed for by someone at their warehouse two weeks ago. Several calls to India later, wherein I’m told that it is being processed and I will receive an email with shipping info within two days, nothing has happened. Each time I call they tell me that I will receive this mysterious email in about two more days. Now it’s time to write a hard copy letter to corporate and carbon copy the BBB, Federal Trade Commission, Virginia and California State Attorney Generals, and the US Postal Service. In the letter I will give the link to this blog. Never, ever, ever again will Buy.com see a single penny from me.
January 31, 2007 at 11:15 am
test
January 31, 2007 at 11:24 am
I ordered a video game from them, the next day I changed my mind and canced it online as well as via rep. The status of the order stayed at “Sent to warehouse” for the next 4 days, and then changed to “shipped”. I complained about not about to cancel it for 3 days via a email. The next day, received an email instructed me to refused the package. Three days after I refused the package, it reached buy.com. Three days later, I called buy.com to check if they have refunded money for the order I returned. The rep told me she was requesting it, the money would be credited to my credit card in 3 to days. Five days later, I received an email stating the refund is being sent to my credit card company.
Bottom line is that buy.com is not as great as amazon.com. However, every once a while, they have better deal than amazon.com. You basically trade money for convenience. To me, I get thing done with buy.com, just a little painful.
February 9, 2007 at 8:05 am
This is my first purchase with buy.com and it has been the WORST experience of my life. I placed an order, typed in my office address as the shipping address and later that day they called to have me verify my shipping address, and gave me a number… I called said number and it was disconnected so, I called the 800 800 0800 and waited on hold forever only to get some stupid person that said they would forward my request to the appropriate team.
Next day, Still on processing order so I call again and wait on hold only to get what appears to be the same stupid person “Michelle” back on the line and she gives me the same rediculous line of crap. So I tell her “this is crazy” why in the hell do you need me to verify my shipping address when I typed it in the website, I order stuff all the time from oter sites without a problem” and she says “have you verified this address with your credit card company?” and I replied “come again? why the hell do I need to do that all it is, is a shipping address.” so I tell her that if I don’t see it shipped within the next 2-3 business days I am going to cancel the order and what does she say… “sir, so you would like to cancel your order?” ARRRRRRRRR I wanted to reach through the phone and wring her freaking neck… I said “NO, but I will if this continues”…
I am NEVER EVER buy from these jokers again.
February 10, 2007 at 2:02 pm
I found some information on Buy dot com. check out:
http://ipo.nasdaq.com/Fundamentals.asp?cikid=68513&fnid=43050&coname=BUY+COM+INC&selected=BUYY&market=Nasdaq+National+Market
there may be a telephone number of use. Its Saturday so I got no answer. But the voicemail is for “Bev in claims.”
February 10, 2007 at 2:05 pm
Initial Public Offerings
Key Data
BUYY BUYY
BUY COM INC Nasdaq National Market
Company Name : BUY COM INC
Company Address : 85 ENTERPRISE
SUITE 100
ALISO VIEJO, CA 92656
Company Phone : 9494255230
February 12, 2007 at 8:08 am
I submitted them to the Better Business Bureau today.
Thank you for submitting your complaint. We will begin processing your complaint within 1 business day and you should receive verification that your complaint has been forwarded to the company in question within 7 business days. We recommend that you click on the āE-mail Complaintā button below to receive a copy of your complaint that you may save for your records.
Once the company has had an opportunity to respond to your complaint (this may take 14 business days or more), you may view the response by accessing our Home Page, then clicking on the āConsumerā button in the lower right hand section titled āRespond to a Complaint or Check on the Status of a Complaintā.
February 12, 2007 at 9:55 am
Please ignore post number 73 from me, as I have made a mistake with “Bev in claims.” NOT BUY.COM CLAIMS! I just got satisfaction with Nick from buy.com at the corporate office in California. Just call up 949 389 2000 and wait on the line, don’t push any buttons, wait until you hear a person and explain that you don’t want to be transfered to India, explain that you want to talk to a person there. The girl asked for my order number and transfered me to Nick. He approved my claim in like 2 minutes. So be persistent. buy.com sucks
February 15, 2007 at 7:53 am
I’m sitting here on hold trying to reach buy.com’s customer service. Out of frustration for the length of time I’ve been on hold, I typed “buy.com sucks” into a google search. WOW!! I had no idea that this company sucks as bad as it does.
Here is my story from my last bad experience with this company.
Last year, I ordered a portable DVD player. It was on sale for $59.00. Knowing my sister also wanted one, I called her and let her know about the good price. She procrastinated and didnt place her order for another 5 days. By that time, the sale price was no longer valid and the price was now $79.00. She placed the order anyway. That very day (5 days after my order), I received an email from buy.com telling me that the DVD player is out of stock. I was enraged that they waited for 5 days to tell me this. I sent them a complaint letter letting them know how I felt about them waiting 5 days to inform me. I then called my sister and told her that she will be getting an email letting her know of the cancellation. The following day, she called me and told me that she did not receive the email. I told her to check the order status online and her order was still open! After giving it some thought, I figured out what these crooks were up to. They obviosly had a higher demand for this item than they could supply, they cancelled all orders for customers who purchased the item at the lower price. My sister paid the higher price, so her order wasn’t cancelled, even though I ordered mine 5 days before she ordered hers. She refused to do purchase from a company with such shady business practices, so she cancelled her order. I then sent buy.com another email letting them know that I am very aware of what they had done. They replied with one of those generic emails, so I replied asking them to at least have the decency to manually type the email back to me. Several emails went back and forth with me trying to get them to realize that what they did was wrong and they should burn in hell for it.
Then……about a week later, I receive a DVD player from buy.com, but there was no invoice with it. I thought they sent it to me as a good will gesture for all of the aggravation they had caused.
FOUR MONTHS LATER, I see the charge for the DVD player on my credit card statement. Normally, I am very honest and would never take anything that did not belong to me, but with all of the frustration they caused me, I decided to dispute that charge. I sent buy.com an email demanding that they credit my card IMMEDIATELY! They said they would, but after about 3 days, there was no credit. I contacted them again and told them that if I did not see the credit when I check my statement online the following morning, I was going to not only dispute it with my credit card company, but I would file a complaint with the BBB. They replied and told me that they had done some research and found that the item was shipped 4 months prior. I never signed for it and I had all of the documentation stating that the item was cancelled, so I disputed it with my credit card and I filed a complaint with the BBB. The very next day, I received an email from buy.com letting me know that they had issued the credit, and the day after that, I saw the credit.
I would urge anyone with issues with this company to FILE A COMPLAINT WITH THE BBB. It seems to work, and hopefully if enough people do this, they will be forced out of business.
By the way, I’m still on hold waiting for someone to answer. I placed an order 4 days ago and the status still shows as sent to warehouse. I’m thinking it will never ship, but they wasted no time in getting it charged to my credit card immediately.
I thought the first problem was a fluke, but having a problem a second time, and after finding this web site, I now see this is very common.
i hate this company!
February 17, 2007 at 5:03 pm
Ordered a GPS (NAVMAN)What a piece of crap.Would not work properly.Found the phone # someone posted rather trying to get anything done thru e-mail.Call the 877 # and talked to Hadji or Babba wanted to beat my head against the wall trying to understand the English if thats what you call English. They will let me send it back at my expense and 15% Restocking fee.So i will try and get back on my CC what i can.Word of mouth will spread anyway i can .NEVER AGAIN will they get anything more out of me or anyone i can tell.
February 24, 2007 at 1:29 pm
buy.com Canada might even be worse!
Three weeks ago they had advertised an MS VX-6000 Web cam for the low price of $23.99. I placed an order for two and crossed my fingers. Almost a week went by until they finally discovered their mistake and raised the price to $88.99. It’s been three weeks now and they have not shipped my order or tried to cancel it. When I contacted them about it they told me the item was backordered. What a crock of BS, It’s still listed on their site as in stock. I’m tempted to order one at the current price just to prove they’re lying.
They don’t even seem to care that they’ve been caught lying to customers! Their customer service is a joke.
February 26, 2007 at 10:16 am
I would never buy from buy.com again either. I ordered a dvd. They held the order for some stupid reason. I then canceled the order. Then they sent it out almost 2 months later, and it was in the wrong format. They refused to change it. The order was not only canceled, but they then sent the wrong thing. I talked to about 10 people, and they were like robots
March 5, 2007 at 1:13 pm
I called today and asked, Can you please tell me of the LSAT books you sell, which has the highest ratings and the most sales, this ROBOT doesn’t answer me she states the name which she states the obvious and then the author i could NOT believe it. I asked if she was in the USA, she stated no in the Philippines. Before all this I asked her quite a few times to speak with a manager and each time she refused, refused her id#, ext#. Buy.com should be boycotted immediately. This is not a company it is a sweetshop and should be revealed as such publicly!
March 7, 2007 at 10:36 am
I couldn’t agree more that buy.com sucks. I ordered a portable dvd player from them. Figured it break soon, so I bought an extended warranty. Well, 6 months later the player broke, so I contacted buy.com, and they sent me a gift certificate to cover the cost. I redeemed it online, and ordered another player. Figuring this new one need a little warranty help, I added another extended warranty to the shopping cart. A side note here: you can only buy the warranty on the same order as the product – no placing an order for the player, and then placing another order for the warranty. Anyway, when I went to check out, it complained that I couldn’t use the gift certificate to buy the warranty. I could only buy the player. I called to ask if I could buy the player with the certificate, and the warranty with a credit card, but they wouldn’t do that either. Bastards. Their gift certificates are Monopoly money. Run! Flee! Never buy from buy.com.
March 7, 2007 at 3:46 pm
Deja Vu !
I am having EXACTLY the same problem with Buy.com. UPS lost my returned item & B.C will not lift a finger to do anything about it. In five days they have not even seen fit to trace the missing package. Obviously they have learned nothing in the intevening seven months. Guess they don’t need customers!
To Buy.com I award a giant middle finger,
March 9, 2007 at 11:27 am
I have another horror story in the works. Ordered 2 EXT. HD’s for work on my Corp. CC and paid for overnight delivery. They charged my card and the item arrived C.O.D. for some strange $$ amount that I couldn’t even remotely correlate to my order and UPS won’t leave package without payment. Called Cust. Svc (you can get them through the 800 number) and have spent 4 days waiting for them to “Escalate the issue to a Claims Rep.” In the mean time UPS came 3 times and my box is now on its way back to CA and I have no product. Their Customer Service is completely incompetent! Never, Never, NEVER AGAIN!!!!
March 9, 2007 at 5:25 pm
Ordered ATI 650 tv tuner “in stock”. 4 days later still not shipped. Emailed customer service and get robotic non helpful or informative response. Problem still not resolved.
March 16, 2007 at 1:16 pm
[…] all got on my bad side at some point, and I blogged about it (buy.com, 24 hour fitness, msn messenger, q-cup). No big deal I thought, but then I noticed something […]
March 27, 2007 at 1:32 pm
UPDATE: From BBB and Buy.com’s LAME excuse!
Complaint Description
This is my first purchase with buy.com and it has been the WORST experience of my life. I placed an order, typed in my office address as the shipping address and later that day they called to have me verify my shipping address, and gave me a numberā¦ I called said number and it was disconnected so, I called the 800 800 0800 and waited on hold forever only to get some person that said they would forward my request to the appropriate team. Next day, Still on processing order so I call again and wait on hold only to get what appears to be the same person āMichelleā back on the line and she gives me the same rediculous line. So I tell her āthis is crazyā why do you need me to verify my shipping address when I typed it in the website, I order stuff all the time from oter sites without a problemā and she says āhave you verified this address with your credit card company?ā and I replied ācome again? why do I need to do that all it is, is a shipping address.ā so I tell her that if I donāt see it shipped within the next 2-3 business days I am going to cancel the order and what does she sayā¦ āsir, so you would like to cancel your order?ā I said āNO, but I will if this continuesāā¦ 2/12/2007 Order still on processing, clicked cancel order, now set to “Cancellation Requested”… 7-10 more days for them to decide to cancel my order. See this Blog for other customer complaints:
http://blog.plaxoed.com/2005/07/16/buycom-sucks-worst-internet-retailer-ever
Customerās Desired Settlement
I want them to change their website so it is easier to cancel, revamp their customer service team so when you call you get someone that can actually help and not “Forward” to the appropriate team. Respond to their emails in the “24 hours” they have posted on the website.
They state that a cancellation can take 7-10 business days… I believe it is so they can ship it and charge you when they decide they want to. I want to cancel immediately.
Companyās Response
We apologize for the delay in our response. Because you were a first time customer and the order was a high dollar amount, our Address Verification Department needed to verify your information for security reasons. This is for both you as the card holderās protection, and for us as a business. Our records show that our Corporate Office contacted you on 2/09/07 to verify the purchase. You then requested to have the order cancelled on 2/12/07. This order was successfully cancelled and you were not billed. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience.
Customerās Rebuttal
Just because they called one time didn’t make the process easy. 1. I called numerous times trying to verify and got the same woman telling me that it is “getting forwarded to the proper dept” which never happened. 2. I canceled online and it took a long time to process and should have been instant. 3. I ordered the item on 2/2/07 and it was “in processing” until 2/12/07 I bought the same item from Amazon.com without hassle as a first time buyer and received it within a week. I suggest you take a look at the website I linked above so you can get the big picture of how many unsatisfied customers you have and how much business you have lost.
Companyās Final Response
We sincerely apologize for the poor impression you received. It is our hope that you will allow us another opportunity to be of service again under more favorable circumstances.
March 29, 2007 at 3:34 pm
What a coincidence! I’m in the middle of trying to buy the same earphones from Buy.com, but they shipped FedEx, who only delivers during work hours and won’t change the shipping destination until I get a hold of buy.com and make them tell FedEx to change the shipping location. At least you got a response, so far I’m getting stony silence from Buy.com. Make one wonder if maybe Buy.com is actually some retailer from Lagos Nigeria.
March 30, 2007 at 4:33 pm
Buy.com SUCKS. I just ordered a computer hard drive from them, and as soon as I made the order, I noticed that I made a typo in the zip code for my shipping address. Immediately after, within a couple minutes, I sent them the corrected zip code through their Address correction form.
The next day I get an email back from a rep saying that they can’t change a shipping address once it has been processed. Really, they CAN, they just WON’T.
I hope my package gets here.
April 5, 2007 at 10:07 am
buy.come is horrible. I just had a nightmare experience with them – i will never buy from them again. I placed an order for an LCD TV from them in early March. Their website said the TV was in stock (it wasnt). Two weeks later, the TV arrives with a whole in the box and the LCD screen shattered. They wont ship me a replacement right away since they are again out of stock – even when they get some more, they refuse to expedite the shipping (so many opportunites for them to make things right – but they say the “can’t” – but of course they can, they just won’t). They do promise to ship me a TV (via ground) as soon as they get some in stock. More time goes by, they get them in stock and they don’t send me one. They say i should place another order, which i do. Still nothing. They then say their distributor didnt get the order (even though i got an order confirmation!). At this point nearly a month later, i just give up and order from someone else that gets me a working TV in 3 days. Buy.com has yet to pick up the damaged TV. With this kind of service, i am amazed they can stay in business.
April 5, 2007 at 10:10 am
buy.come is horrible. I just had a nightmare experience with them – i will never buy from them again. I placed an order for an LCD TV from them in early March. Their website said the TV was in stock (it wasnt). Two weeks later, the TV arrives with a hole in the box and the LCD screen is shattered – i send them photos of the damage to prove this and they approve the claim immediately. They wont ship me a replacement right away since they are again out of stock – and whenever they do get some more, they refuse to expedite the shipping (so many opportunities for them to make things right – but they say the “can’t” – but of course they can, they just won’t). They do promise to ship me a TV (via ground) as soon as they get some in stock. More time goes by, they get them in stock and they don’t send me one. They say i should place another order, which i do. Still nothing. They then say their distributor didnt get the order (even though i got an order confirmation!). At this point nearly a month later, i just give up and order from someone else that gets me a working TV in 3 days. Buy.com has yet to pick up the damaged TV. With this kind of service, i am amazed they can stay in business.
April 5, 2007 at 4:45 pm
ordered a nintendo wii legendary bundle from them, and the shipment was sans extra wii remote. strangely enuf, the shipping invoice in the box just had ‘Zelda’ on it. Go figure. Contacted customer support via email (BIG MISTAKE) and just got smoke blown up my ass for three weeks. They even had me contact NIntendo, and Nintendo laughed at me, claiming they don’t sell products directly to consumers, and that Buy.com was in the wrong. Well, now after reading this, I am contacting the CA office tomorrow.
April 10, 2007 at 8:19 pm
My experience with ca.buy.com was a positive one. I ordered two Kingston flash drives on a Saturday. I decided to change the shipping address so cancelled the order on Sunday morning. 12 hours later it was confirmed cancelled. I ordered again that evening and received the package 5 working days later (free shipping).
April 11, 2007 at 12:30 pm
I purchased a Buffalo Terastation Pro 1TB NAS from buy.com on the 21st of March, implemented it for my client on the 4th of April and it promptly crashed on the 7th, and never recovered. The timing put me outside the buy.com 14 day refund window, and my attempts to pleade with their automated email support resulted in the exact same responses quoting their return policy.
I read several online posts like so many comments on this page, and was feeling pretty gloomy about returning the device. I called the 949-389-2300 number, expecting to get the run around, asked for a Customer Service Supervisor, was connected to Jamie who again quoted the 14 day policy, but said she’d run it by her supervisor and get back to me. Of course I was thinking “yeah right, I’m sure you’ll get back to me”, but she called me back in about 10 minutes to tell me that I would be issued an RMA for the device and a full refund.
SO, I feel fortunate to have my problem resolved in the manner I was hoping for (of course, I don’t have the refund YET…) and wish the best of luck to those who have similar problems with buy.com.
April 27, 2007 at 5:47 pm
I purchased a Zen Micro MP3 player from Buy.com in 2005, two weeks after purchase I decided to get an extended warranty which their website clearly states that i could do. Well now that I need to use that warranty I called Buy.com (after a hour wait on the phone) and they tell me my extended warranty order was canceled way back in aug 2005, noone ever emailed me about this. Now i’m stuck with a broken Zen and no warranty. I HATE BUY.COM
May 31, 2007 at 1:54 pm
buy.com sucks big time – their customer service is the worst I have *ever* experienced from an online retailer in the 10 years I have been buying things over the internet. They frequently list things things for sale that they do not have in stock and when you ask when they expect to have them and ship them – they simply do not know. Did they charge my card for all the items? You bet. When will I get them? Who knows? They don’t – and they don’t care.
June 7, 2007 at 3:50 pm
Attemped to contact buy.com for a GIFT I received. Battery was dead, and NO instructions…..They wanted me to return the product….then they ask the card number of the person that bought the gift…??? when I could/would not supply that information. I was told there was nothing to be done…….
July 2, 2007 at 1:21 pm
I have, in the last week bought 4 Lexar 512MB Memory Stick Pro cards from Buy.com that were represented as the “Professional 80X” versions which have GOLD lettering. However, what I received was the standard grade cards that are 40x and have white lettering.
Upon looking a little further, I found many people on eBay selling the same 40x memory that I received, and representing it as the 80X as they thought they got. But photos of the cards in the sealed anti-static bags confirmed that this was the memory that I had received.
I emailed one man on eBay, telling him that the memory that he was selling as Professional 80X was in fact 40X and not the Professional version of this memory.
He called Buy.com and was given an RMA immediately, and he is getting a refund. I on the other hand, want what I ordered, and they will ship it to me before these wrong ones get returned.
*** Oh I did not mention, Buy.com stated on the page that this memory was not returnable nor was it available for refund for any reason. **** And now they are doing hand springs to get this back
under a “Satisfaction Guarantee”. And the BS keeps coming.
Well I am waiting for Corporate to get back to me as to whether they actually have the Professional memory in stock. If they can replace this with the right memory then they will get the wrong memory back. And I will never shop there again.
July 21, 2007 at 5:50 pm
My first and last experience with Buy.com happened this month. I ordered the book “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallow” deluxe edition. I got a confirmation order that it would be shipped on or around the 22nd of the month. I got an email on 7/21/2007 6pm stating, we canceled your order. It appears they never had or could get that particular book. They charged my credit card the day of the transaction and credited me back the money on 7/21/20007 (has not been posted yet). My complaint with them if I had known weeks ago that they were unable to deliver, I would have sought out another source. Two, they should never have charged my credit card until the shipped the product. This is nothing but fraud, and I am still waiting for a reply (non automataic) from them. Next stop, credit card company, teh book companny, a stop at google corp hq, oh and the fed trade commission. Companies like this thess to be put out of busness…some sort of nice long court case bleeding them dry…
August 16, 2007 at 8:15 am
I too have had a huge problem with buy.com. I work at a university and ordered a 22″ Samsung monitor and external hard drive for back-up for university work; and the items came in as ordered, no problem there. However, my department was scheduled to move to another building shortly after I received the items so I decided to wait to hook them up after the move. Unfortunately, the move was delayed several times. Once in the new building we hooked the items up and the external hard drive would not work – period – and we tried it on several computers. The monitor was a widescreen and I had asked to EXCHANGE IT for a regular screen. I didn’t even ask for a refund on either item.
In calling buy.com, I explained my situation and they would NOT under any circumstance issue me an RMA# so I asked to speak to a Customer Service Supervisor, well they said JENNY wasn’t in yet (she must have been sleeping in…) but she was SUPPOSE to call me back but of course, she never did. I called back the next day and JENNY WAS in fact there but I was informed that she WOULD NOT speak to me. They said that NONE of the other supervisors were available either. They said that the Customer Service Supervisor’s supervisor WOULD NOT speak to me either. I was informed that there was no one in the company outside of the guy answering the phone that would speak to me and/or be willing or able to help me with an exchange.
I will make sure that everyone at the university knows NOT TO BUY ANYTHING FROM buy.com, THE MOST CUSTOMER UNFRIENDLY COMPANY ON THE PLANET.
DO NOT BUY FROM buy.com UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE – IT’S NOT WORTH THE FEW DOLLARS YOU’LL SAVE!!!!!
August 17, 2007 at 1:46 pm
I really, really appreciate Sherry’s (no. 9) providing the corporate info for buy.com. Thank you. I returned software, intact and unopened, over a year ago. They have never credited the refund to my account. Like everyone else, when I wanted to take action, I found them hard to locate. Many, many thanks.
August 25, 2007 at 10:23 am
2 days. after placing order, received email stating item was on indefinite backorder and they’d email me when it became available. further, the item was ordered through a marketplace vendor, which you cannot cancel through their website… you have to contact the vendor directly to cancel. seems they are reeling in orders by misrepresenting availability, and keeping their warehouse costs down.
ordered once previously from them with exactly the same experience.
August 28, 2007 at 3:52 pm
I purchased 4 mp3s through them. They have this crappy music downloader you have to use to download them, but it’s not downloading anything!
It keeps saying “Gathering Info”, “Try again later”, “Unable to get Info”.
It’s suppose to be instant downloads! Yeah right!
September 10, 2007 at 1:23 pm
Having seen a deal on techbargains.com for a Canon MF8180C Multi-functional Color Laser Printer, I hopped at the chance to replace my inkjet. I was redirected to Buy.com and proceeded to place my order. Everything in the purchase process indicated a nice new printer.
Days later when I had not seen any sight of the item, I check it’s status online. Strange, now my order refers to a Canon MF8180C CareKit. What the hell is that? I email customer service and days later get back a cryptic message that in no way answered my questions.
I decided to wait it out. Well today the package arrived. I knew immediately it was not my print. Not by the huge dent in the packaging as if UPS had punted the box to my front door, but by the size of the book that could barely hold a book. I took a picture of the packaging in case I need to place a claim with UPS and check the contents. What did I find but a credit card size extended service card for a Canon MF8180C. I immediately boxed it back up in the original packaging and printed a RMA# and a return label.
That not satisfying my anger about the buying experience, I emailed the CEO and described my dissatisfaction.
What is the moral of this story? Don’t buy from Buy.com as if it sounds like a good deal, they will bait and switch and provide no explanation.
September 13, 2007 at 5:55 pm
totally agree with everyone.
ordered a whole bunch of stuff including a webcam for its rebates at buy.com and it never arrived.
1) I called FedEx a week after the order, and they told me Buy.com issued a shipping order (which I received too), but they never sent them the package to ship. I emailed Buy.com, and they said they couldn’t check until 2 weeks after because that’s the latest the package should arrive. EVEN THOUGH I mentioned what FedEx told me. So 2 weeks later, I emailed again, and bingo, FedEx never received the package.
2) So they said they will issue a claim for replacement. And they did, except they screwed up again, and they issued the claim for three out of FOUR items. Great.
3) And I asked them, what can they do about the rebate (25 bucks) for the webcam, since it was past the rebate deadline. Guess what? They told me to contact the rebate center since it is not their problem. Since when does the customer have to clean up the MESS the service provider makes?
Moral: Don’t BUY from Buy.com even if it saves you a couple of bucks. They suck! BTW, anyone knows how I can contact senior management?
September 16, 2007 at 4:15 pm
Will the CEO work?
Neel Grover (neel@buy.com)
September 17, 2007 at 7:44 pm
The order entry person could change an order – OK thats stupid but also couldn’t speak english. I work with a bunch of guys in India everyday. I speak to persons in Ireland, Mexico, Poland and Malaysia weekly. This chick was from Mars – I don’t know if she just had her tongue pierced or what but OMG! Then I got customer service — I thought that one was going to pierce my tongue. Maybe if I wait two weeks then it will feel better.
Maybe this is my punishment for giving that guy in traffic the bird — Anyway local retailers are not that much higher priced and I can at least look them in the eye
September 28, 2007 at 5:47 am
I had a horrible experience with buy.com too.I ordered a product..a cordless phone with speaker.Then after I placed my order,it suddenly went on a backorder.When I contacted buy.com,they said the product was actually unavailable when I ordred but the wrong information about its avaiabilty was being displayed online.SO anyways,I finally had to wait a month before I got my order.Well, but how can that be the end of it all.The phone did not have all the features that buy.com stated it had.It did not have a speaker at all!!! so I contacted buy.com people..and believe me,its not so easy to get hold of one easily.You have to wait for 30-35 minutes for it.The only response I get is ,”we can refund you”.Now what they dont understand is that I used google check out(valid only for the 1st checkout) on that order so if I get a refund,my 10$ off from google check out would be wasted.Besides in the whole 1 month that I waited for this product to arrive ,I did not obviously order a similar product online ,since I was expecting one from buy.com.Now if they refund me,I have missed out on the other offers in the last month of my waiting.Its easy for them to make a mistake and then give a refund.But I guess refund is not the only solution every time u mess up.Another problem is that buy.com’s senior representatives are unresponsive.They would not give you a call back.they would not contact you even if the customer service people said they would and you cannot get in touch with them directly.Its like they are some secret service people who cannot be reched directly.That leaves the customers at the mercy of the customer service reps who basically cannot do anything except say “I understand, but we cannot do anything about it”.Horrible horrible company,horrible people and horrible service.Keep away!!!!!!!
October 8, 2007 at 3:40 pm
I had posted about my unfavourable experience with buy.com and then decide to write to its CEO Neel@buy.com.I really did not expect any response/action in return but I was plesantly surprised when I received a call from Doug Pearce
and he convinced that my issue would be looked into.I must say that I was more than happy with the way he handeled my complaint and resolved my issue.My wrong product was exchanged with another one with the same features that I was looking for but did not get in the first product that was shipped to me.The entire transaction was hassel free ,and fast.Thanks to buy.com for its excellent customer service,thoug)ht after a long wait(but its better late than never) and so I think I am ready to give buy.com a 2nd chance.Its worth it!!
October 9, 2007 at 12:10 pm
UNLESS you want to be disappointed, Do not make a purchase from BUY.COM I’ve given them 2 chances to satisfy me and both times they screwed up. The wait time to talk to their support is unbelieveably long. (On top of that, you may need a translator since the support is located in the phillipines)
October 13, 2007 at 9:26 am
First time buyer on buy.com, ordered a Nokia n800, it says that there
is a $10 coupon. Went through the process, coupon showed at Check
out, $10 discount was never applied. Okay, fine, I just want my toy.
Day two, received email saying the item was shipped. I thought, not
too bad… They are at least on the ball.
Day three, UPS tracking shows that my goodie is on its trucks and
scheduled for delivery… Waited until 9:00 pm. Nothing.
Day four, UPS tracking now shows “re-scheduled for delivery”, hum…
at 9:00 pm, still no package. I thought it was a UPS problem. Called
them. UPS tells me that some bonehead at Buy.com sent the package out
without a street number and street name on the delivery address.
Can’t deliver the package. Contacted Buy.com immediately stating this
fact.
Ordered another replacement, making sure this time that I put the
Street address on one line only. Somehow price jumped $5 between day
one and day four… Still coupon was not applied.
Day five, heard nothing. Now I am pissed.
Day six, email from Buy.com that their record shows that UPS has the
package and gave me the useless tracking number again.
Day seven. Still nothing from these sucky people. Second order is
still not processed…
Stick with Amazon… Buy.com SUCKS ASS!
October 25, 2007 at 8:55 am
I ordered a microwave from Buy.com and they lost it in the mail. When I called them 10 days after the item supposedly shipped out and they told me to wait five more days before filing a lost shipment claim and then they would review weather or not to refund my money (and that a refund would take approx. 10-14 days from that point. (Hey, I paid ASAP! Why should I wait almost three weeks for a refund when they screwed up! At any rate, I finally received the item today via one day shipment. Apparently they found it so they express shipped it from wherever it had been. At any rate it was dented in three different places. SEVERELY DENTED! The microwave looked like it had been dropped numerous times. So I called Buy.com and waited on hold for over a half an hour before I got a live person. The customer service representative told me I would have to take pictures of the damaged item and e-mail it to: jamieb@buy.com and then they would review the pictures to determine weather or not they would even send me a re-turn authorization for the damaged item. And that if they determined AFTER reviewing the pictures that I qualified for a receipt that they would START the return process FIVE days from the review. (WHAT A CROCK). Who ever heard of having to take pictures of damages BEFORE they send you a RA#. God knows when I will be getting a refund. All I can say is “I WOULD NOT RECOMMEND BUY.COM TO ANYONE.” Customer service is a JOKE! Their return policies are an even bigger JOKE! I would recommend that you stick with the tried and true companies…
Good luck if you decide to purchase from Buy.com
October 25, 2007 at 9:07 am
We ordered over 40 Trendnet TV-IP 301 cameras from them at $319.99 each, which totals over $13,000, and 6 of them out of the bunch were defective. We made the mistake of thinking we could do what every other retailer does and that is to get an RMA, mail in the defective ones, and get new ones in return. We mailed in the 6 defective cameras and got 1 back. We have not had any luck with anyone there and have apparently just given them 5 free cameras.
November 9, 2007 at 12:26 pm
For anyone that would like to try to speak a ” Customer service” Rep you can try this #.
When you get to the prompts, do not say or do anything and it should take you to a “live” person.
I am not associated with Gethuman but it is an awesome site and resource.
November 9, 2007 at 12:28 pm
oops. 1-800-800-0800
November 20, 2007 at 6:15 pm
I purchased a Survivor 10 in 1 Solar-Powered Crank, LED Emergency Lamp, AM/FM Weather Band Radio with Cell Phone Charger – 00064, but the radio doesn’t work. Buy.com’s site says to contact the manufacturer for exchanges/repairs, but when you click on link for the manufacturer it leads no where except to another product page, but with no contact information. I also sent an email to buy.com, telling them that my product was damaged/not working and they responded back telling me to contact the manufacturer, which of course I can’t do. So they basically put me in a go no where loop. Very TERRIBLE Customer Service, I’m so glad this was not an expensive item.
December 7, 2007 at 2:15 pm
“Buyer Beware”
Better Business Bureaus of California:
Complaint Classification: Ad Practices
Complaint Description – Posted 12-3-2007
On November 3rd, 2007, I bought Microsoft Streets & Trips 2008 with GPS Locator for $36.98 from their website but what was sent to me was a different less expensive item, Microsoft Streets & Trips 2008 (no GPS Locator). I spoke to three customer service representitives on three different occasions who all advised the product image is correct and I would receive Microsoft Streets & Trips 2008 with GPS. I was shipped the incorrect item twice. The customer service manager advised the product model number and price are correct but the product image is wrong but she would call me back with a decision to honoring the web advertisement after she checked with corporate. Instead, I got an email requesting I return the product for a refund.
Complaint Summary
Web site falsy advertises a product.
Resolution Sought
I feel they are intensionally misrepresenting the product on their website. I feel strongly that Buy.com should be held accountable for their advertising and send me Streets and Trips 2008 with GPS Locator for the advertised price of $36.98 as compansation for my time and energy. Also, they should correct their website by matching the model number to the image advertised.
Additional Information
Date Problem First Occurred: 11-3-2007
Product or Service: Mapping Software and GPS Hardware. What’s missing is the hardware.
Model Name or Number: Streets and Trips 2008 with GPS Locator
Date Purchased: 11-3-2007
Order Number:
Company’s Response
Initial Response – Posted 12-5-2007
We apologize for the image error posted. We have processed the refund to your original payment method instead waiting for the RMA to be processed.
Consumer’s Rebuttal
The right thing to do is to deliver as advertised. I feel mislead and had a bad experience with Buy.com and they should honor their advertising. What was the cost to you for honoring this add? $20? You may have saved $20 but lost future revenue from me and 10 of my friends.
December 14, 2007 at 3:04 pm
BUY.COM is a bad business who do not really care about their customers. They want the people who trust what they say to pay for their mistakes. They lack of honor and definetily do not recommend them. If they do not recognize thier error, I wil NEVER buy from them again and will spend my time sharing my experience online. They can be sure of that. It will be BYE.COM for me and my friends. They failed to ship one of the items bought and denied my claim saying that they did. I had evidence of what I received but they could not back up their poor arguments. What a waste of time and money. I pitty them for being a fraudulent business. That is why our society is what it is now. LESSON LEARNED? DO RESEARCH AND DO BUSINESS WITH GOOD COMPANIES. THEY REALLY DO DESERVE TO HAVE THE CUSTOMERS. AND SPEAK UP AND SHARE YOUR EXPERIENCE. MAKE IT WORTH IT BY SAVING SOMEBODY ELSE.
JORGE RIVAS
December 17, 2007 at 7:57 am
WOW – wish I had read this before ordering – my printer was sent to the wrong address – got the confirmation from Fedex – and Buy.com – after 2 email claim requests and 2 phone calls (both times on hold for 55 minutes) said – no it was delivered to me – so now I have to file a claim with credit card company – UNBELIEVABLE – how do they stay in business if this is a common happening???
December 19, 2007 at 7:26 am
I am really aggravated that Buy.com pushes emails with sales items that after ordering, never arrive. I bought a Zune player on Nov. 23rd after receiving a hot email alert. To Date, they cannot tell me when it will ship or if it will ever ship. To make matters worse, they had the nerve to send me another new email today advertising the same Player on sale in White (my order was in black). So obviously they have players in stock but not willing to offer me a switch in white. Could it be because I bought mine for $84 with my Google Checkout discount? Could it be false advertising? I very irritated and will not ever buy another buy.com product.
December 19, 2007 at 7:27 am
I am really aggravated that Buy.com pushes emails with sales items that after ordering, never arrive. I bought a Zune player on Nov. 23rd after receiving a hot email alert. To Date, they cannot tell me when it will ship or if it will ever ship. To make matters worse, they had the nerve to send me another new email today advertising the same Player on sale in White (my order was in black). So obviously they have players in stock but not willing to offer me a switch in white. Could it be because I bought mine for $84 with my Google Checkout discount? Could it be false advertising? I am very irritated and will not ever buy another buy.com product.
December 26, 2007 at 3:06 pm
Terrible Terrible Terrible! Their return policy is terrible! I bought a product under the assumption that it would work, as a Christmas gift, and it was beyond the 14-day “return period”, which is utterly insane to begin with, so I was given the Heisman. Terrible business policy.
December 27, 2007 at 8:10 pm
I feel violated.. and so powerless… I just wish there was something more I could do. There has to be another way to fight back at these big companies. I mean, I will never shop there again, but it doesn’t stop other people. I suppose all I can hope for is that more and more people post/read blogs like this and get wise to crappy etailers. Don’t trust buy.com!!!
December 28, 2007 at 2:48 pm
Buy.com Problem
It happen to me too..
They ad. something in main page as What’s Shakin’, I order that on Dec. 22, 2007 (http://www.buy.com/prod/nokia-n800-internet-tablet-w-sandisk-v-mate-video-memory-card-recorder/q/loc/101/206225401.html) for $229.99
It was $100 less than normal price.
Hour after I order, it show “Sent to Warehouse” for next 4day
5th day it was change to Out of stock.
By the way, 4days after I order. it’s price change to $329.99.
6th day they just cancel my order.
When I order this they had in stock.. Actually 4more days..
Even now they are still taking order. How can they just cancel without my permission?
My guess is that they made price mistake and didn’t want to give me for that price. Or Just taking order and make interest out of it.. or something..
Before they cancel, I call and ask their supervisor and they told me there is no such thing as supervisor. I send Email, always Computer Gen answer saying “Not in stock No ETA.” Why the hell in the world they still taking order from people? (Temporarily Sold Out.
More inventory may be available. Place your order today and be one of the first to receive this product when it arrives!)
When I order it was “In Stock: Usually Ships in 1 to 2 business days.”
This is really bad. They should at least explain why they are cancelling.
Let say, if I buy something from them and if next day price goes down, are they gonna give difference back? We know the answer “NO”
But since price goes up they can just cancel… Very convenience..
I made report to BBB and no answer from them. Basically saying I give you money back shut up bitch attitude.
I was great customer for them many many years and they just lost it.
I guess we didn’t make buy.com great…. They were great from beginning.
I believe, I spent over $30,000 at buy.com last many years…
Really sad…
It is good place if you are not expecting any kind of customer service.
January 4, 2008 at 6:26 pm
I had a terrible experience with buy.com. I ordered a product as a Christmas gift. I paid. Not until three weeks after I ordered was I told the item was out of stock. Avoid buy.com. Their order cancellation process can take as much at 7-10 days before you’ll get a refund.
January 25, 2008 at 12:52 pm
Buy.com sucks big time.
They must hire the most retarded customer support people. I got transferred to CS in India and Philippines, and these people didn’t seem to have any common sense, they give you canned answers.
FUCK BUY.COM, NEVER AGAIN.
They can sell their stuff overseas.
January 26, 2008 at 7:32 pm
I returned an item that didn’t meet my needs. It took three weeks to get them to respond. THey also sent me an e-mail telling them to respond to their e-mail which was a “do not respond account”. They finally gave me a credit minus the 15% restocking fee. I know for a fact, anything returned is sent back to the manufacturer and they don’t have to pay a thing. Needless to say, this is my first time returning something and I’m very disappointed and will never shop with them again. Amazon blows them out of the water and I will shop with them from now on. I was so livid I almost took the BART to Freemont to give them a piece of my mind!
February 1, 2008 at 7:12 am
BUY.com sucks. They take forever to give you a refund and cancel your order without even calling you.
We need to report them to consumer reports because dealing with them is a night mare. Its not the customer service its more of thier procedures and system.
BUY.com SUCKS…
February 1, 2008 at 3:10 pm
I try to make an on-line purchase of a $109.00 item, but received an “error” screen after I clicked the last button to make the purchase final. So, I call the offshore 800 support number (accents are very thick and difficult to understand) and told the Buy.Com person what had happened — she assured me the order had not gone through, so I placed the order on the phone.
Well over a week later (free shipping, can’t complain too much, right?), I get TWO of the items. I quickly go back on line to my account and only see ONE, but my VISA statement shows two.
I call the offshore 800 number again and am told there is nothing they can do — even though THEY made the mistake. I get a return number (after 40 minutes of waiting for an available “Customer Non-Service” agent), but am told I have to pay the shipping.
I get nowhere, so I try “Customer Non-Service” on-line.
I send an e-mail, explain the Buy.Com error … what do I hear? Sorry, since it is not defective I can’t return it on their dime for full credit. I CAN return it, but I have to pay to have it shipped back …
The most horrific non-customer service I have ever experienced, and no matter what the price, I will NEVER shop Buy.Com ever again!
February 4, 2008 at 11:47 am
December 2007…I purchared a laptop for my daughter which I ordered on the 12th. It was “in stock” and I paid extra for 2-3 day shipping to ensure it arrived before Christmas. Guess what, it didn’t ship until way after so I cancelled the order.
Buy.com sent it anyway but told me to to just refuse the order and I would have my Visa credited. That never happened. I researched alot and found the cust. service number which is NOT on their website. (1-800-800-0800). I complained that the charge was never taken off and they assured me that it would be…in “2 to 3 business days”.
In 4 business weeks I discovered that the Visa charge was still there and called “customer service” again and was assured that the charge would be taken off in, you guessed it…”2 to 3 business days”! as a side note, customer service is staffed by employees who do not speak fluent english;I suspect it is a call center in a 3rd country like india. It appears they communicate with the company via email.
They were no help so I found the corporate HQ number (1-949-389-2000) and they finally appeared to comfirm the proble and take care of it. I advised them that there are alot of very disgruntled former customers and that their “customer service” system is feckless. She replied ‘we are aware of that”. My advice would be to never make a Buy.com purchase. If somthing goes wrong…you will have little recourse.
February 6, 2008 at 9:24 am
Months of dealing with the 1-800-800-0800 buy.com
customer service (joke there).
Lots of promises of returned phone calls by
supervisors. Number of returned supervisor phone
calls received — NONE.
Luck with calling 1-949-389-2000 – LOTS. Took care of
issue while on phone. Also did not seem surprised
when I complained about the Customer Service folk.
I told the nice lady that if the CS staff wasn’t
overhauled, customer would start leaving in droves
and the business wouldn’t be anymore …
FYI.
February 13, 2008 at 12:00 pm
haha good for y’all!!
February 13, 2008 at 12:06 pm
wow this is a freakin boring site
February 20, 2008 at 5:45 am
Just wanted to say that I, too, have been given the runaround buy buy.com and I will never use them again in my life.
I had placed an order for laptop to be shiped within one business day by paying extra and i am doing regular followup since two weeks but none of the executive know why it has been delayed and they also suggests me to cancel this order.
What a great customer representatives!
There customer service is the pits. They suck. I hate them.
They dont deserve to be in the
March 3, 2008 at 7:00 pm
Scott Blum of THINKTANK HOLDINGS LLC of Jackson,WY is the grand poohba of this wonderful group which includes buy.com, sell.com, ThinkingBig Media, TechSpace, YogaToday, yub.com and he probably has others in the cooker. The address in California is a call center with links to India and others. The first IPO of buy.com ended up losing its initial investors all but 17 cents on their investment which dear boy Scott bought back(he sold earlier for over $150+ million which he uses to loan buy.com to keep it’s bowels moving). buy.com has NO intelligent human contact to the outside world.
March 7, 2008 at 7:45 am
buy.com stinks. i’ve had an order for the same produce CANCLED 3 TIMES. Every time because they are “unable to verify my phone number”.
I called the credit card company and they had no problem verifying the phone number. i spoke to sales person after salesperson. Customer support after customer support nothing.
I had a simlar problem with shippment. Buy.com said they had shipped the item and gave me a ship date and
FedEx tracking number. After 10 days I still didn’t have the item. FedEx insisted that Buy.com never gave them the item.
Buy.com finally acknowledge that they didn’t have the item in stock. And they hadn’t shipped the item.
Two days after the item suddenly arrived. But it was missing stuff e.g. no software disk, no manual, and the plastic bags had been opened. It was a used item.
This is the worst company I’ve dealt with short of together dating. Stay away from those folks also.
dd
March 18, 2008 at 5:18 pm
Yeah Buy.com is a shady company. They blasted me with the Revolution card promo and now will not honor it.
Buy.com canceled my order 3 times with stock emails and I am getting nowhere. Same issue they say on the side “can’t verify the phone number” since I used a cell phone and the Revolution card. They just do not want to pay out and my next step is the BBB.
I urge all NOT to just post on a blog but to actually complain to the BBB so that Buy.com might wake up.
Now I too have fantasy of someone pushing Scott Bum er I mean Blum off his building. Do not buy from Buy.com
March 20, 2008 at 9:49 pm
I fell for a $10 dollar off Google Checkout scam- the one where you never receive your item and then they file a claim for ya… ha ha- Any way they tell me I’m SOL as the claim is denied because usps address label matches my address proving it was delivered. Did you check the leasing office? Is the only help five calls got me…
Now do you want the proof they have their heads up their butt? They sent me a come on for ” 20 off 80 ” with google checkout coupon. Guess they figure I’m an easy mark. I had to call the Corporate office with that one- just to share the funny bone.
Buy.com is simple to deal with- don’t go to their site- if you did just call your credit card company and dispute the charges.
March 26, 2008 at 5:38 pm
Buy.com has awful customer service. They have no idea what they are talking about and never answer the question you ask. They are incredibly incompetent; I would rather speak with Dell customer service, which should speak for itself.
April 2, 2008 at 1:29 pm
BEWARE of REBATES on BUY.COM!!!!! I bought 2 items with them that have rebates savings. I did everything correctly to claim rebates as instructed. Both came back with lame excuses like no Proof of purchase included and past the due date. Both are not true!!
I was a sucker for rebates, but Buy.com is a big fat liar….
April 30, 2008 at 1:58 pm
These people are the sorriest online company I have ever dealt with. Their telephone customer service is in the Philipines and read all their replys directly from the corporate script. WAIT, WAIT, and WAIT SOME MORE. I am still waiting for an item I paid for a month ago. The original item was defective and I returned it. It has been 16 days since they received the RMA item in their facility and I am still WAITING. Several phone calls and multiple emails to them and I am still waiting. They say they have shipped a replacement item two days ago, but the shipping confirmation they gave does not work and the orger number they gave does not show up on their web site. I will never do business with these idiots again unless I just feel like WAITING……
May 2, 2008 at 10:13 am
I was shopping around for an Antec 900 computer case and came across buy.com’s website offering $50.00 off your 1st order if you sign up for a revolution card. Seemed like a great offer. I placed an order on 03/20/08 and used a 5% off coupon. Later that evening I received an email stating the item shipped via FedEx Ground. WOW, that’s service. Early the next morning I track the package and status shows on truck for delivery. Very exited I wake my wife up and tell her that FedEx will be coming today and to listen for the doorbell. I leave for work at 10:00am and get home about 6:00pm. No package yet. Track package online and status shows delivered on front porch at 9:09am. Nothing there when I left at 10:00am. Called FedEx and buy.com to trace package. 2 days later, FedEx driver confirms that he did leave the package on my porch. I live in a high foot traffic area and carriers usually leave a door tag if nobody answers the door. buy.com doesn’t ship with the signature required option so it’s at the drivers discretion to leave the package. buy.com says there is nothing they can do, the package was delivered and also, once it leaves buy.com liability has been transfered to the consumer. There is no option at checkout for the consumer to protect their investment, buy.com controls the shipping method and therefor should be held accountable for secure delivery. Saving .75 cents on shipping by not requiring a signature is absurd and not looking out for the customers best interest. The revolution card statement came and there was no $50.00 credit reflected. Customer service says promotion can’t be combined with any other offers like the 5% off coupon that I used. Filed a complaint with BBB yesterday. Good times, buyer beware!
May 27, 2008 at 7:20 am
Just ordered a buy now through ebay the retailer was buy.com. suppose to ship in 1-2 days. A week later I get an email that the item is out of stock. Now I’m fighting to get my money back so I can order from somewhere else. Stupid me payed with by bank account through paypal.
June 12, 2008 at 6:26 pm
And as of June 12th, Buy.com STILL sucks! I ordered some myvu ipod video ‘glasses’. The ad says they work with several ipods, and mentionend my 80gb. When it arrived, it said on the box it worked with 5th Generation Ipods. Mine is a 6th generation – so- didn’t work. I returned it-paid my own S&H- and when refund time came, they deducted a $9 restock fee! I explained they advertised wrong, and I really should have gotten teh full amount -PLUS my S&H. “Sorry – read our policy on returns” – – AVOID THEM!
June 20, 2008 at 9:43 pm
Warning: don’t ever buy at buy.com. They obviously suck because their employees don’t work. They chat on the phone or with other co-workers about their “personal” problems. I, unfortunately, witnessed my friend who knows of a couple of people that work there and we visited that office for her to meet with her friends at buy.com. I was shocked and amazed about the under qualified people that work there! The owner(s) of the company should be ashamed of him/her/themselves. Consumers beware and go to their competitors like amazon.com and pay a little more….it’s well worth it and it will ALL save you the headache. Buy.com is cheaper because most of their employees are well, uneducated and don’t do and/or can’t do their JOB! I’ll never shop at buy.com. The employees are unorganized and care more about their personal drama.
July 1, 2008 at 8:58 am
Buy.com is officially off my online retailers list. I tried to order a couple items before the $10 google checkout went away. 1 was a cd player for $50 & another was a SD card. Both orders were cancelled & I can’t get the items at the previous price. A big F*CK YOU to buy.com & the C*CK thats on their commercials.
I’d like to recommend supermediastore.com & newegg.com. They have excellent support & service.
July 9, 2008 at 7:35 am
I ordered a GPS unit that supposedly shipped 6/30. it did not arrive as expected on 7/7. I called Fedex and it had NEVER shipped. I called and spoke to someone in the Phillipines. Blah.blah…blah…you have to wait for us to research. I was very upset. I am out this money in my checking account, not even a credit card. I waited two days and called for an update. I was told they would contact me…once again spoke with someone in Phillipines. I called the 949 # and got a woman in California! Yeah! Renda was wonderful. Reviewed my complaint and approved my refund. Said I should have it in 2 days. THANK YOU RENDA! You have reaffirmed my belief that things might be better than they appear. I will hopefully follow up in a few days to confirm the refund is here. Thank you again!
July 18, 2008 at 10:11 am
I ordered a 32″ Westinghouse TV from buy.com on June 29th. Payment for my order was accepted and charged on June 30th, and I received an e-mail stating my product was shipped on July 1st with an expected delivery of July 8th. On July 8th I received nothing!
I called FedEx and was told the shipment information was submitted electronically, however no item had been picked up from the location for shipment because it was not presented to their driver.
I then called buy.com to ask where my TV was and spoke to a customer support representative. He said the TV was in stock, however they would need 3-5 days to do an investigation to figure out why it wasn’t shipped. I told your employee to ātake 3-5 years to do the investigation, because I donāt care, they have a TV, send the damn thing to me! Donāt waste more of my time trying to figure out how buy.com (or your supplier) screwed up.ā I was then told that this was impossible. I asked for the vendor to be contacted immediately, and to have them overnight the TV which is now 2 days past due, again I was told this is not possible. I asked for the vendors information so that I could contact them myself, again told not possible. In the world of telephones and e-mails why must something so simple take so long? So damn frustrating. The customer service was awful! All I asked for was communication, and he kept asking me if I was looking for some sort of compensation, and I keep telling them no, I want a product I paid for, and I want to be treated as a paying customer should. I should have just gone to the store and bought the damn TV. Buy.com should be embarrassed of their customer service.
It has now been 20 days since i placed my order and 10 days since it was supposed to be delivered. My claim was escalated to the highest level. At this point I am convinced that trained monkeys or worse yet, untrained illiterate human beings run buy.com because monkeys would have figured it out by now.
F**K YOU BUY.COM!
August 5, 2008 at 10:20 pm
I ordered an external hard drive on Sunday night (Aug. 3) for $155.99, which was a pretty decent price, and it included free shipping.
Yay!
But the VERY NEXT DAY (Aug. 4), they put the EXACT SAME item on sale for $131.99. And it still included free shipping.
I e-mailed and asked if I could get the difference refunded under their “best price guarantee.” Someone wrote back and said because I took advantage of their free shipping offer, I couldn’t get a refund.
So I wrote back and said, but the reduced price also has free shipping so it’s not like I got a one-time only free shipping offer. I got another response which said the same as the first so they obviously didn’t understand my point about the free shipping. Makes me think their e-mail customer service reps are also outsourced (nothing against people from those countries, but I think everyone would agree a sometimes lack of comprehension is the biggest frustration with outscored CSRs).
Needless to say, I won’t be back at buy.com. And it looks like I’m not alone!
August 15, 2008 at 2:25 pm
I too think they suck. Pre-ordered an MSI Wind through Buy.com. After couple of weeks they emailed me to say the product had been “discontinued”. Then I go to their web site and find it that it has not been “discontinued”, they now are offering it at a higher price. The manufacturer had a price increase and 1. Buy.com did not honor their original price 2. did not notify me that it was still on their web site 3. did not give me the option of keeping my place in the queue and paying the higher price.
August 19, 2008 at 4:02 pm
Here’s my story:
6 months ago, I ordered 2 Sansa E250’s as gifts. Everything was great until the box was delivered… UPS showed up and handed me a pristine package. I immediately opened the shipping box to discover to my dismay there was only one item inside. Everything on the label indicated there should be 2 inside, but alas, only 1. I immediately contacted buy.com to explain the problem… I figured if their customer service was anywhere near as awesome as everything else had been (ordering, shipping time, price, product) there would be no problem and I could still hand my brother his long-awaited gift with only a few days delay. However this is not the case. After contacting buy.com and meticulously explaining the situation and the condition the box was in, they told me to contact different departments, which I did. All said and done, they basically told me āsorry budā and gave me the canned script about not being responsible for packages left unattended after delivery. They still owe me $40. I will never purchase from buy.com again.
September 2, 2008 at 6:24 pm
ordered a 16gb pro duo mem stick for my psp – model part number msmt16g.. they sent me a fake.. literally – model number doesnt exist with sony (msx m16gs/x) which is what they sent me.. even tho they are advertising the real deal msmt16g memory stick.. and for psp users to tell if you have a real stick you go to information on your psp and magicgate should say supported.. if it says unknown it is 100% fake.. well guess what!? its fake.. packaging does not even match the real product that i went and ordered right away from amazon.. im pissed off. i just hope i will be able to get a full refund and return this false product just fine.. i could not believe such a big online store really sent me a fake stick.. should they not check the model number and such when they get their shipments and before they send one out? ..buy.com straight ripped me off.
September 5, 2008 at 6:41 am
I had the same experience. They claim my order was delivered… I never recieved it. They say its my responsibility to ensure someone is home…. there were 4 adults and 2 children in my house when supposedly it was delivered. I filed a dispute with my credit card company AND filed a complaint with the BBB.
September 7, 2008 at 10:44 pm
All I can say is that worthless Karen Carcano SHOULD BE FIRED! She doesn’t know anything from her ass! Buy.com is awful from their customer service to that idiot employee.
I am still WAITING for them to credit my card!!!! It’s been almost a month. I’m going to the BBB. These people should be put out of business!
September 12, 2008 at 11:48 pm
I am sitting on a bad laptop they’ve sent me. The display is not on. Unfortunately I’ve got to unpacking the package after 14 days of their shipment. So now they won’t take it back. It’s amazing that such business exists in California and not some bloody Iran. Or maybe it is run by Iranians? It’s a bloody sham!
STAY AWAY FROM BUY.COM!!!
September 27, 2008 at 7:18 am
I purchased a Maxtor 300g External drive in 2006, and the extended warranty. Last week the AC Adapter died. I tried to apply the warranty and was told the adapter is an “Accessory” and is not covered. Accessory? It won’t function without it! I complained and was told Buy.com isn’t the warranty provider.
This is their reply:
Hello,
I am writing you in regards to the item you purchased on our website (Maxtor OneTouch II 300GB FireWire / USB Hard Drive – E01W300). You purchased this item with a warranty which was sold by WaCa Warrantees.
Unfortunately, Buy.com does not have any authorization in resolving warranty issues sold by WaCa. We are also unable to provide any replacements for the adapter at this time.
I’ll never deal with these crooks again!
October 2, 2008 at 5:22 pm
Stupid Buy.com, I have been waiting for my package for 10 days and have not received it yet. Tracking info says that it is with USPS in Indianapolis that is it. Tracking info never updates and keeps saying the same thing even after 10 days.
Stupid buy.com…NEVER NEVER use buy.com
October 3, 2008 at 10:48 pm
Ordered a 282 dollar router but requested a cancelation the next morning. The charge was pending and the item status was Sent to Wharehouse. I was told I would be notified in 7 days if my cancellation was approved. Yes, a week to know if I can cancel an order that is not shipped or charged.
They quite obviously from all the complaints all over the web are stalling me so they can charge and ship the item to get me wrangled into thier scam process with returns.
I am calling the corporate office Monday.
Some advice (and I’d liek soem also) from me – do not refuse a package from Buy.com because they may reship it to you again as they have a record of doing or claim it never showed. Refused deliverys are returned with no tracking of insurance.
Is the corporate number in this thread still a good number?
December 4, 2008 at 3:45 pm
WaCa is the problem. Buy.com isn’t the only company selling WaCa warranties. Before you purchase any extended warranty check to see if it is backed by WaCa; if so don’t buy it. By the way the TigerDirect reseller InfoTel has, in the past, sold WaCa warranties. Make sure the warranty is based on a factory service warranty. In the case of TigerDirect and InfoTel that is Systemax. Systemax builds PC’s for many resellers, Systemax’s service is excellent and fast.
December 27, 2008 at 5:13 pm
nothing changes at buy.com. I had a very similar problem.
I ordered roxio toast at their sale price, way less than could be had elsewhere.
I received their confirmation email.
Over a week later (after the sale was over, of course) they tell me they cancelled my order due to a “payment error.”
They didn’t offer to let me re-enter the transaction in case I made a typo. Indeed, they already confirmed my order.
They didn’t offer to let me buy the item at the sale price.
Their support was TERRIBLE!! Just TERRIBLE. Every email I received back from them completely missed the the point of my inquiry. I will NEVER shop at that place again!
January 1, 2009 at 8:21 am
I am living/working overseas with the US Government and this is what I got from BUY.COM’s “customer service” after placing an order: “We are no longer accepting orders placed outside the US so if the IP address comes back as an out of the country IP address, then our system will automatically cancel this order. You have to place the order from a computer in the US.” This is great service for the tens of thousands of US military/civilian personnel stationed overseas! What a way to recognize the men and women who serve our country! Their loss.
January 4, 2009 at 4:33 pm
Claims? Buy.com’s SOP is to initially deny all claims. Burried in the Ts&Cs, it says that once the item(s) leave the warehouse, it becomes the buyer’s responsibility. That any issues should be taken up with the carrier, which is pointless because the carrier usually requires cooperation from the shipper and they (Buy) typically don’t play ball. So, BUYER BEWARE!
The best way to hurt Buy.com and get your money back if they screw you over is to file a chargeback with your credit card company. The credit card companies are sympathetic to situations with Buy.com. What Buy.com knows, but won’t tell the customer, is that the Ts&Cs on their website for the customers are different than that of the Ts&Cs between Buy and the credit company. Credit card distributors have a separate contract and policy, so fight it, fight it, FIGHT IT! They’ll fight back but keep on it and they generally have to accept the loss. The department to fight your chargebacks is almost non-existant so the odds are in the customers favor. Now you know!
If all else fails, spend a couple of bucks and have an attorney draft a letter threatening further action. A letter from you, as a customer, threatening to get a lawyer will simply be filed away. They get these all of the time. So you’ll actually have to have a real lawyer send it. They’ll Google the lawyer and the address on the letter, so don’t try and fake it. Once they see it’s legit, it will most likely go your way.
Returns? Send it back to the Aliso Viejo office if the RMA request is denied. It’s not likely that they’ll ship it back to you again. Once the property is theirs again, you’ll have more leverage with a chargeback if they refuse a simple credit.
Not that they pay too much attention to it, but filing a complaint with the Better Business Bureau is a step in the right direction. If their grade dips down low enough because of blanket poor service, they’ll be forced to do something. It just may take a while.
January 19, 2009 at 11:12 am
I ordered an Item on buy.com 12/04/08. Received the item on 12/14/08. Buy.com shipped me 2 of the same item and shorted me another item. I called them, had to find the phone # on a blog. Waited 1 hour 8 minutes on the phone only to be told that I must ship the extra item back before they can ship me my orginal order. They provide a shipping label, shipped on 12/19/08, arrived in CA. on 01/07/09. Called buy.com again to ask the status. They acknowledged they received the item BUT DID NOT FILL THE ACTUAL ORDER YET. What are they waiting for. I was told they would esculate the order. I will never purchase another item from Buy.com again. I don’t care how cheap it is.
February 11, 2009 at 2:46 pm
yep they suck,I also typed buy.com sucks into google and got this sight.They told me my order would ship in 1-2 days,after 3 I called and was told they are still verifying my address,this was after they cancelled my pay pal order and I called back with a C.C. and they said there wouldnt be any further problem,I order things online every week 2-3 items per week on average,never had a problem with my pay pal address not being verified and never had any problem with my C.C. not being verified either.I cancelled my order and bought the same item elsewhere.NEVER AGAIN will I shop at BUY.COM.
July 24, 2009 at 8:27 pm
Agreed. Buy.com sucks ass. They sent me the same wrong product 5 times before I finally told them to cancel it.
I hope they go out of business
July 24, 2009 at 8:28 pm
http://news.cnet.com/8301-11424_3-10295380-90.html
October 5, 2009 at 3:46 pm
I just got off the phone with their “overseas” customer service. 40 minutes and a whole lot of hassle for a replacement order error they made, not me! The long and the short of it is this, CALL CORPORATE!!!!
I called this phone number: (949) 389-2000 from an earlier post. I got someone here in California who listened, researched and corrected their error in less than five minutes. I now have a UPS return shipping label sitting in my email box and all it took was calling the right person.
Buy.com isn’t a bad company, they just have a bad customer service department stuck overseas somewhere that has a limited ability to correct anything.
October 23, 2009 at 8:31 pm
Buy.com shipped a $500 graphics card with NO packing material in this huge box; It looked like shit, it was so damaged.
January 9, 2010 at 3:13 am
I cannot believe what these idiots put me through!
HORRIBLE customer service and Im pretty forgiving but now Ill be writing all over the interent about them! THEY SUCK
October 13, 2010 at 1:53 pm
I totally agree my friend. They suck big time. Nor do they give a damn when you complain or are p**sed off. They got your money and thats all they care about.
February 11, 2010 at 7:26 pm
I too have had a terrible experience with these people. They sold me a laptop computer that was supposed to come equipped with Windows XP Pro, instead it came with a 60-day trial of MS Office. They admitted they were wrong, but told me to take it up with the manufacturer, whom they have the relationship,or I can accept a $70USD credit. The product costs $286USD retail. The simple solution is to either give me a product key code or send me the disk in the mail. After admitting they were wrong and presenting me with those two unacceptable responses, they have continued to ignore my e-mails. Now I have taken the issue up with the BBB, and hopefully they will make them give me what I paid for!!!
October 13, 2010 at 1:35 pm
Shitty company and shittier service. Never again will I buy from these bastards.
Shame on the CEO Neel Groover. Your company is a disgrace.
October 13, 2010 at 1:42 pm
Rip of Shisters. This company is a disgrace. Neel Groover its CEO should be ashamed of himself.
October 13, 2010 at 1:54 pm
Shame on the CEO Neel Groover. Your company is a disgrace.