Online Consumer Fraud

January 9, 2005 3:05 AM

Online Consumer Fraud: Some time ago I purchased an imported Japanese GameCube game for someone on Buyritegames. However, I was stupid enough to be lured by its pricing on Froogle and did not check its reputation before hand. [More Inside]

Only after ordering I realized that this online store has the worst reseller rating ever and tons, tons of complaints from everybody who bought from them. I contacted them through the phone only to be greeted by a machine (with no option to leave messages), and they did not send any confirmation email after the payment through debit card.

I emailed them to cancel the shipping, but I did not hear back.

I used the online form for Better Business Bureau for North Carolina where their office is situated. BBB did reportedly email them requesting for them to contact us, but they did not respond within that given period of time (around 7 days I think.) BBB also said that since Buyritegames is not a member of BBB, they cannot do anything about this except to publish a report.

After quite some time, Buyritegames replied with an "apology" and asked whether I would still want the game. I said no, and that I would like a refund inclusive of shipping. That was the last I heard from them.

So, what can I do beside paying for a very expensive lesson on shopping online? Thank you very much for your advice.

posted by christin to shopping (11 comments total)

Call up your card issuer and request a chargeback of the payment. Most issuing banks will do so with no trouble whatsoever--they're used to handling this kind of thing.
posted by Drastic at 3:28 AM on January 9, 2005

Hound them. Hound them, hound them, hound them.

Also, I know that if you'd paid with a credit card, you could have had the card company cancel the payment. I'm not sure if that works the same way with a debit card, but contact your card company in any case and speak with them about it. I tend to never use my debit card online unless I'm paying bills, for this very reason. But get in touch with them anyway.

And, you're right, if nothing else, you've learned your lesson. Life sucks that way sometimes.

But good luck!

(Upon preview...)
posted by ruddhist at 3:31 AM on January 9, 2005

You should be fine cancelling your debit card payment, especially since no goods were received. That's an open and shut case. And yes, it's probably better to use your credit card in the future for this kind of stuff.
posted by grouse at 3:42 AM on January 9, 2005

I almost bought something from them myself, under exactly the same circumstances. I didn't check the reviews of them beforehand either, but a big flag was raised for me when the checkout form was non-standard.

They didn't offer the opportunity to enter a separate shipping address, and they asked for the customer service phone number from the back of the credit card i was using.

Those items were hinky enough for me to stop and ask some questions. Online shopping has been around long enough that some best practices have been established, and deviation from them is worthy of a pause.
posted by o2b at 7:07 AM on January 9, 2005

As a general rule, debit cards are supposed to offer you much the same protections as their credit card counterparts, so you should definitely be able to get your transaction cancelled.

That being said, whenever you think you _might_ need that added level of protection, like an online purchase, you're better off using your credit card, since your credit card company ends up being the party with money in play. Not only do they have a lot more leverage and incentive, but you're not fronting the money yourself, either.
posted by LairBob at 7:31 AM on January 9, 2005

I have gotten debit card payments reversed. Bank: WaMu. Store: IKEA.
posted by signal at 8:50 AM on January 9, 2005

Their phone number can be found on this page, along with address. A few other complaints online said that the phone just rings and rings, but it's worth a shot to try and get in touch with them.
posted by GirlFriday at 9:49 AM on January 9, 2005

Slightly OT: For future reference, Play-Asia has a pretty good reputation, and Lik-Sang a slightly-worse-but-still-decent one.

Very OT: As you probably already know, a Japanese GameCube game won't play on an American GameCube without either a modchip or a cheat disc like FreeLoader.
posted by box at 11:53 AM on January 9, 2005

I'd also recommend VideoGameDepot.com, from whom I purchased a Japanese GameCube game and a FreeLoader, and was pleased with their customer service and shipping time.
posted by Danelope at 12:10 PM on January 9, 2005

Sort of tangential, but both "they didn't offer the opportunity to enter a separate shipping address" and "they did not send any confirmation email after the payment through debit card" are not in themselves indication of a bad merchant.

I have an online retail business and for a long time, I didn't offer the opportunity to enter a separate shipping address -- because someone had used a stolen credit card to have me ship product to a separate address. So the billing address matched the card, but the other address did not. It was Christmastime, so I assumed that it was a gift and shipped, and I got screwed a few weeks later when the credit card owner charged back the total, claiming "stolen card". After that, I did not include a "shipping address" section in my shopping cart again until recently, but if people e-mailed me to ask me to ship to a separate address, I usually would.

And as for the lack of confirmation mails -- a substantial number of orders I get don't get confirmations for these reasons:

• Mistyped e-mail address by customer


• Over-agressive spam filtering by customer or customer's ISP. (Hey, Earthlink users? With the challenge-response thing that times out? You are missing a lot of mail.)

The lack of communication and the lack of refund from Buyritegames are definitely a bad sign. But the lack of confirmation and the lack of a "shipping address" are not in themselves damning. I can certainly understand the lack of shipping address fields, since a company selling games is a likely fraud target, and probably wants to make sure that they only ship to authorized addresses.
posted by litlnemo at 10:13 PM on January 9, 2005

(I can spell "aggressive". I cannot, however, properly use Preview.)
posted by litlnemo at 10:16 PM on January 9, 2005