Rakuten
reviews and complaints

May this message serve as a warning to all who are considering making any transaction with the company Rakuten. Unfortunately it is a company that does not deliver what it promises.

My name is Luciana, I am from Brazil and I own a travel agency specialized in Orlando / Florida / Disney and for this reason I have a good base of followers on social networks who consider my opinions and my advice on the topic (I have no connection with Disney, I'm not an employee and I don't even respond or have any influence on the company - to be clear)

In early November, with the arrival of Disney + in Brazil, I found out that there was an offer in Rakuten, which offered a cashback of $ 12.50. In addition, new registrants on the site, who made any purchase of at least 30 dollars, would be entitled to a bonus of 30 dollars and the person who indicated this new registered would also earn this bonus.

With a base of followers interested in the topic, this soon caught my attention, but first of all I would need to make sure that the offer was also valid for Brazilians. I promptly read the terms of the Rakuten referral program and finding nothing to forbid foreigners to participate, I took the test, myself subscribing to the Disney + service.

As soon as I confirmed the payment, my account statement already showed $ 42.50 in cashback, which made me very excited. I promptly start to promote to people close to me and also made a video that I published on Youtube on November 3, 2020 (https://youtu.be/5H7dJFbcZcE), a video that has had 906 views so far. I also published the video on my instagram (in an account that has 39 thousand followers @orlandopravoce) and so far 533 watched the video talking about the cashback opportunity (https://www.instagram.com/tv/CHK1CPkp823/?igshid=108z6i0lq8wvy). Finally, I sent a newsletter to more than 9000 people who signed up on my website and approximately 600 people were impacted by this email.

That is, I did a good Disney advertisement, and ultimately Rakuten was also benefited. Through my referral link, 145 people registered with Rakuten and a part of them signed the annual Disney + subscription, entitled to 12.50 dollars in cashback and 30 dollars in bonuses (the purchase was within the rules). For referring all these people, I was also accumulating 30 dollars in bonuses per person and I got to check more than 500 dollars in my statement when the problems started ...

After 2 days promoting the offer and seeing my balance go up, suddenly the values ​​started to disappear. I opened a ticket with Rakuten support, who after a few days responded saying that my account was in trouble. First they wanted to accuse me of making false registrations to register for the promotion. I wrote several emails addressed to a person who identified himself as Catlheen (Member Operations Analyst), explaining that there was no point in spending 30 dollars to earn 30 dollars, I proved through prints and photos all the views I had achieved so far with my videos and showed my profile and how it is directly related to the theme "Disney" and that because of that I had so many interested people.

My Rakuten account was blocked (I was unable to access it at all) and in a series of evasive responses it seemed that the company was trying not to pay me. Even worse than that was discovering that the bonuses of the people I indicated were also disappearing. I started to receive complaints by private messages on instagram and by email, and in all cases people's accounts were being blocked.

Rakuten was not only messing with my pocket, but also with my reputation with my followers and customers (and even friends).

I continued asking for a solution by email until on November 13th I was surprised with a notice on the Rakuten website, informing that from that date, the bonuses in the Rakuten referral program would only be valid for residents of the United States and Canada (screenshot here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ob3o7zdl0zfobx7/image0.jpeg?dl=0). I understand perfectly that the terms can be changed at any time, but I immediately asked about the refarrals made before the 13th, when the rules still did not restrict any nationality or address of the participants.

At that time my account was still blocked and I had no access to any statement information or how much bonus was left. Catleen's response was simply as follows:

Hi Luciana,
Thank you for your reply. We have reactivated your account.
Please note, our program does not allow for bonuses to be earned outside of the 50 United States and Canada. Please refer to program terms Here.

They really reactivated my account but all my bonuses were canceled with the excuse of changing the terms. I contested that when I did the promotion work the rules were different, that I agreed with the change but not retroactively and that I wanted a position on the company about it. Unfortunately I didn't get a reply to my last 2 emails. I even included a screenshot of the old terms in my messages (https://www.dropbox.com/s/s7szc27rupktahi/Before%20Changes.pdf?dl=0), which the company simply took down, without the option of Query. Luckily I had kept that image.

In my opinion, this conduct is unacceptable for any serious company. Not only did they change and hide the rules that were in effect when all the promotion was made, but the support service was horrible.

Since I couldn't find a solution for my case through Rakuten's internal channels, I came here to make the whole story public and today, on December 28, I'm also forwarding this message to Disney, so that my favorite company knows about the behavior of this companies she has been doing business with.

I emphasize that I do not see any fault of Disney or the Disney + service in any of the problems reported above. On the contrary, I continue to recommend the services and I even hope that this report will help them to clarify what happened, because it is a problem that affected me and dozens of other Brazilians.

Don't even bother joining Rakuten. Its a complete waste of time. I made numerous purchases with them but most of the rebates I should have received don't even show up. Then when I send an email and ask "Where's my Rebate"? I get the same runaround about how to properly make the purchase. I have followed these every time but still don't see the rebates. They tell me I have to fill out a form and take even more time to see a little reward that Rakuten promises. For all these hassles of having the go to their website, then find the store you want to shop at, then click on another link and wait. Then most likely don't even see a reward. DON"T WASTE YOUR TIME. EBATES was much better but still waste of time.

Rakuten is as bad as Ebates. I'm out $40.00 and counting. I did not connect the two companies until I started having trouble getting customer service or any kind of help with a company called banggood.com I give both companies a zero star. Also when I signed on to complaintsboard.com, the Rakuten button stopped the logon and took over. I let my security system take them out. My advice do not deal with either companies or you are going to have to fight for moneys spent and Rakuten rebates.

This. Company. Is. A. Huge. Mess.
I am sure of this.
First of all, what's the most important thing that every reputable company should have? Right, the customer care department.It doesn't have to be huge, but it should operate at least. This company can't provide a normal support, so when you deal with them, be very careful. Once you got an issue, they won't help you with this.

I have ordered an item from Rakuten and when it did not arrive I decided to contact them and ask about my order.
Their rep said that my order was cancelled a long time ago. But the fact is that no one ever bothered to tell me bout that! All these weeks I was waiting for my order which was cancelled the whole time!
And even thought they cancelled it they never contacted me and did not offer a refund! I suppose they just decided to keep my money and did not care about me.
Such a terrible company!

I ordered a watch from Rakuten website as a present from my brother. It was described as brand new, but when I received it I was extremely disappointed, because it was obviously used before! Package was dirty with several spots, and watch was horrible! I tried to contact customer service many times, but they ignored me! Later I received a message from them stating that there will be no returns and no refunds. I could not give that horrible thing to my brother! So I had to go to a local store and buy something else. I'm so disappointed and mad! No words can describe how disgusted I am! I am super embarrassed. I'll never order anything from them again!

I purchased a Samsung watch from Rakuten as a birthday present for my boyfriend. When I received the watch I was very disappointed because it was obviously repackaged. Package was dirty, there were many spots and tape had been pulled off. I was really embarrassed. I contacted their customer service and they offered an exchange, but it would have taken two more weeks to receive it. I didn't have time to return it because my boyfriend's birthday was in two days. I just hope he didn't notice that it had been repackaged.

I ordered a Samsung watch as a present from Rakuten website. When it arrived and I opened the package I was very disappointed. The watch looked used. It was billed as "new", but it was obviously repackaged and there were spots on the box where tape had been pulled off. It was delivered at the last minute and I didn't had time to return it back. I tried to call the, explained that it is not my fault that shipping took so long, but they still refused giving my money back. Very disappointed.

I purchased one toy for my nephew from www.rakuten.co.uk. This company cancelled my order and indicated that my card was invalid. When I contacted the customer services, they really didn’t know what to tell me, because they told that they had such situation for the first time. I asked to return money back, because the card was charged, but the rep told me to wait and they would tell me what they have decided.

I am a small business owner and full time stay at home mom of two young toddlers. My husband is a professional musician and drum instructor. He is very talented at photography and I wanted to buy him a nice Canon camera so he could make additional income for our family since his drum teaching business had slowed down quite a bit. I found an incredible deal on Rakuten and was a bit skeptical of the seller because when I went to check out and there was a $299 shipping charge. So I sent an email to the “real customer service” Rakuten and they replied back the following to ease my concern about the seller (see quote below at end of this email) in essence saying that he was a verified seller and encouraged I reach out to them directly. Anyways, from their this “verified” and highly rated seller told me that the order had been processed through Rakuten and to check my spam mail for order details and directions. Anyways, it was a fake Rakuten document with order support link that went directly to the thieves...so the rest of my correspondence was through them thinking I was talking to customer support at Rakuten (the order had links that clicked to customer support at Rakuten). Anyways, after much hesitation and many emails being confused on why I could not process through a credit card they said it was a safe transaction and that this particular seller only accepted Wire Transfers. So I told the fake customer support at Rakuten I was confused because the on Rakuten’s real website I saw credit cards were accepted. After researching and realizing that Rakuten also did take Wire transfers as a form of payment I thought ok this is just a weird way of purchasing. The fake Rakuten CS said they were a verified seller and had been with Rauketen for 7 years and I did notice on the real Rakuten Website they were highly rated with good reviews. Furthermore the theives told me that the Wire Transfer would be held with a Rakuten Agent until I received the camera. I know I feel like a fool now but I did research Rakuten and saw this was a really big company like Ebay and again over and over again Rakuten encouraged me to work with the seller directly.

So now I am out of all of our money to pay my families bills is gone. I contacted Tasha at the fraud department and I told her I did a wire transfer...and then she immediately said where to Italy? I said yes, and she said I don’t know how they keep getting on their site. So this seems to happen all the time. Anyways, I was mad...she said I had no recourse and that Rakuten could not give me my money back since the order was not put through the company. Don’t you think think that Rakuten has some responsibility in the fact that their so called verified sellers are completely fake fraudulent accounts? From here I went back on the site to see what was going on and did some research...and now I see the same scam is back up on a different name (I have proof of this because I took pictures of the site and also set ups a sting operation to see if it was the same sellers and indeed it was) So I sent Tasha an email notifying her that they have done nothing to stop the fraud at Rakuten. Within five minutes the Director of Operations, Nick Thompson, calls me….which is funny that for over 24 hours I was waiting for a manager to contact me back. Now I had Nick Thompson calling me asking for the new name of the account. I said I will help you out if you can go back to your guarantee that I will get my money back from your company since I never received my product. He said, well, I can’t guarantee that but if you tell me the whole story then maybe I can help you. I said you know the whole story and he then stated he needed the new name of the seller scamming now so he could get the full story to tell to the CEO. Don’t trust him at all and was a total jerk to me on the phone. Well, it’s funny of the thousands of sellers on there I found them pretty easily...I should be working for the fraud department at Rakuten so maybe someone could pay me some salary from Rakuten and I can tell you exactly what these scam artists are doing. Anyways, I was pissed off...I mean seriously you are going to let the scam artists sell more fraud to the public out there to save you $1400. I told him it’s a million dollar company and you are not going to help a victim out and the general public out. He said big or small companies have to watch their numbers no matter how much money they make. I guess he is willing to let the scam artist stay on the site so he can save money for the company. Furthermore, I asked the Director of Operations, what the process is for seller verification and he said he wasn’t exactly sure and that he’d have to research it. Anyways, this company has a huge PR problem. I am going to tell my story to whoever will listen including the Attorney General, the higher ups of Rakuten, and the media. The customer service so far has taken no responsibility for this breach of security and the site is now completely run by thieves. I hope you are able to notify the CEO and top management of what is going on Rakuten site. Thank you for your time and sorry for any anger that might come across this email it is not directed at you.

Also, it seems that no one at Customer Service is aware of these scams, as Wella, a CS person I spoke to several times over the phone told me there was still a chance I might get the camera even though I Wire Transferred a person in Italy. Why isn’t there training and an alert going out to all personnel at Rakuten warning of Wire Transfers. The website also has no warnings of Wire Transfer payments like Craigslist does...it just says they accept Wire Transfers as a form of payment.

Thanks for your time,
Jeanette “Jenny” Wilson
I am sorry for the confusion about getting the order placed for SKU [protected].

In an effort to provide our customers the broadest selection of products, Rakuten offers listings from independent sellers in our marketplace. When you place a Rakuten Marketplace order, you make a purchase directly from the seller throughRakuten's checkout process. Rakuten charges your method of payment and coordinates the shipment with the seller, who ships the order directly to you.

Your security is our priority, so Rakuten does not share your payment information with a seller. We also take pride in carefully protecting our customers with our Marketplace Guarantee should any issue arise in the process of receiving your order.

We encourage you to reach out to the sellers to confirm any information regarding the item or the independent seller's policies. You may contact Ballhogjoni Enterprises via email at:

BLH.[protected]@aol.com

You may contact them directly about the shipping fee of the item they have listed in our website as at is currently offered at higher price than the $11 shipping charge mentioned in their email.

Rakuten holds its marketplace sellers to high standards of quality, so you can expect a response back from the seller by the close of the next business day.

Please let us know if there is anything else we can do to help you.

Sincerely,

Wella | Customer Support
Rakuten.com Shopping

Buy.com emailed me stating that my order was on hold because the shipping and billing address did not match. I contact my bank and the bank contact Buy.com. I was in a 3-way conversation for about 15-minutes. My bank could not even understand why the billing and shipping address had to match. I contact Buy.com 2-days later. The customer rep told me that the order was still on hold because the address was not verified. I expressed that the bank contacted Buy.com to verify the address, just like they wanted. The rep said "Yes, I see that your bank contacted us. I see it in the notes." Then she told me that the verifcation department had to contact my bank to verify address and for me to provide a phone number. IF THE NOTE SAYS THAT MY ADDRESS HAS BEEN VERIFIED, WHY DOES IT HAVE TO BE VERIFIED AGAIN?!?! The rep could not give me an answer. Later, I decided to cancel by order because the process was taking WAY TOO LONG. Then, I received the email below:
==================================================================
Hello *********,

We regret to inform you that your order ######## has been cancelled. This was because our Address Verification Team was unable to verify vital shipping or billing information in your order. Since we are not able to hold an order open indefinitely, after a certain amount of time, our system had to cancel your order.

For further information regarding the reason for cancellation, please contact us at:

[protected]@mail.rakuten.com

We regret having to cancel your order and sincerely hope that we are able to do business with you in future.

Sincerely,

Rakuten.com Shopping Customer Support
www.Rakuten.com
==================================================================
Terrible company and horrible customer service. They even took my money already and my order was on hold. Unbelievable! And very unethical. I would rather take my chances and purchase elsewhere, even if I have to pay more for it. Thanks for ruining my graduation gift Buy.com!

I HAD PURCHASED A GRADUATION GIFT FOR MY FRIEND. I RECEIVED AN EMAIL STATING THAT THE ORDER WAS ON HOLD BECAUSE THE BILLING AND SHIPPING ADDRESS DID NOT MATCH. I WAS NOTIFIED TAHT UNTIL THE SHIPPING ADDRESS WAS ADDED TO MY BILLING ADDRESS, THE ORDER COULD NOT BE PROCESSED (HOW DOES THIS MAKE SENSE!?!?!?! I DO NOT UNDERSTAND WHY I CANNOT SHIPPING TO A DIFFERENT ADDRESS!). I THEN CONTACTED MY CREDIT CARD COMPANY AND THE CREDIT CARD COMPANY CONTACTED BUY.COM CUSTOMER SERVICE DIRECTLY. WE HAD A 3-WAY CONVERSATION FOR ABOUT 15 MINUTES. MY BANK VERIFIED THE ADDRESS AND EVERYTHING WAS GOOD TO GO! WELL...AS SO I THOUGHT. I CALLED BUY.COM CUSTOMER SERVICE AGAIN AND I WAS TOLD THAT THE VERIFICATION DEPARTMENT HAD TO CALL MY CREDIT CARD COMPANY TO VERIFY THE ADDRESS. THIS WAS ALREADY DONE! THEY HAD ALREADY TAKEN MY MONEY AND MY ORDER WAS ON HOLD. HOW IS THIS ETHICAL? I HAVE READ A LOT OF COMPLAINTS ONLINE ABOUT BUY.COM AND I DO NOT UNDERSTAND WHY NOTHING IS DONE ABOUT IT BY THE COMPANY. I DECIDED TO PURCHASE MY ITEM THROUGH BUY.COM BECAUSE IT WAS CHEAPER, BUT I SHOULD HAVE PURCHASED IT THROUGH AMAZON, EVEN THOUGH I MAY END UP PAYING $100 MORE FOR THE ITEM. THIS IS A NIGHTMARE...

Placed an order for an item with play.com, it sat on pending in warehouse status for 4 days until i contacted them to confirm what the problem was. Then I asked for them to confirm it would be with me before Christmas (as i had ordered it before the Christmas cutoff date) and was told they couldnt guarantee that!
Extremely unhappy with this as now I have had to source the item from another location, paying premium next day delivery to ensure its with us before christmas and loosing out on quidco cashback too. All because they failed to deliver on their commitments.
There should be some way to make companies who fail to fulfill their commitments pay for the costs for sourcing from an alternative seller. They said it was in stock, delivery times were within acceptable timeframe for Christmas delivery and yet they failed and im having to pay the cost for this. Not acceptable!

I can forward emails to you if this was to move forward

I decided to buy a product from play.com to then find that they had decided to change the delivery address to an old address on my list instead of my new one. i sent them up to now 4 emails stating that i didn't choose that address as i have not lived there for over 3 years. i paid extra shipping costs so that i could get the product asap. and that i would like a refund for both postage and product as i have not received it.

I only received a response from the first email, in which i have not received any others.
THEY have taken my money and not delivered a product or given me a refund. basically stealing.

NEVER NEVER NEVER purchase anything from PLAY.COM since September 2011, Japan-based Rakuten, Inc. purchased Play.com for £25million, and it was gone down hill the customer service department simply ignores customers and never returns emails or letters sent out, customers are just left dangling on the line its a complete shambles, if I had been aware that play.com had been purchased in September 2011, there would be no-way in hell I would have made orders for christmas yes thats right my first order was 8th December 2011 paid for items for christmas and its 23rd January 2012 and no items have arrived, all the emails and telephone calls dont change the fact that since the buy out the company has sunk too well below its previous glory years.

Mark my words DON'T PURCHASE ANYTHING FROM PLAY.COM its not worth it your be out of pocket and chasing for a refund like me

my complaint is about (VAT) i live in jersey ci, i purchased 2dvds total cost £42ish i recieved one which was £8 first and they didnt take the vat off which they should off.ive contacted them several times by email with no succese.ive even phoned them only to talk to a woman in the bloody phillapines, who didnt have a clue what i was talking about.this is a company i will stay clear off next time.

Ordered an SD memory card from Play.com on the 27th July 2011, PLay took the money out on the 4th August. Checked status, said it was packing. After a week of waiting I sent Play and email asking where my item was. I received a generic email back saying it was still being packed and it would normaly be delivered in 24 hours. A week later on the 16th August I sent another email asking agan where my item was and how I was not impressed by the service i was receiving. I got a reply the same night with the same email would for would of the one I received a week earily. Needless to say I rang play on the 17th and the man I spoke to could only say it was in packing and should be despated shortly and that he would put me through to the correct department for my answers. At this point I requested he cancel the order and i would go somewhere else that would value my custom. He told me the money would be refunded.
What sort of customer care is it when, when you have a problem a generic email is sent out.

A truly awful experience. If you think the customer service is bad for buying things on play.com, don't ever use Playtrade, certainly the worst experience of my life...listed 100 listings, all say they are active but none actually are, sent 12 e mails so far and had no reply, they wont let me transfer what's in my play account to my bank, quite frankly I want nothing to do with play.com or its a abysmal customer service. If you order from them, don't expect your delivery to be anywhere near on time, delivery used to take 3 days but is now nearer 10 days. Very poor experience indeed! Very very unhappy and considering legal action!

I ordered a graphics card from play.com for the sum of £177. I was given a tracking order for a courier company called Hermes, who were handling the item while it was abroad and were shipping it to the UK so Royal Mail could then deliver it to me. I checked the tracking and it appeared that Royal Mail never actually received the item.

I contacted play.com about this and they told me to contact Hermes, so I contacted them and they told me they couldn't do anything and that I should contact the company I ordered the item through. I eventually was allowed to make a claim on the item to get a refund and they sent me a Royal Mail item recovery form to fill out and return, which seemed pointless as it never went in to the hands of Royal Mail.

2 weeks later and I still haven't been refunded for the item, my numerous e-mails are read and left unreplied to and I'm £177 pound out of pocket. Just to rub salt in to the wound, I recieved an e-mail from the play.com CEO saying that they have had a security breech at one of their customer information branches and all of my personal details have been stolen.

Ordered a camera from play, at the most competitive price, the item is listed as 4-5 days dispatch time - 3 weeks later, I still do not have the camera, I received an email on the 5 day advising the camera was out of stock. I phone Customer Services, they advised it would take 4-5 days, after saying I have already waited 2 weeks he said they have a stock rotation every 29 days and it might turn up then but was unable to give any information about my actual order. I have contacted the complaints department twice by email and not even had a response.
This is the second time something similar has happened with play, they seem to offer cheap deals and then never fulfil them (I have noticed they have relisted the camera at a more expensive price, so wondering whether they every plan to send the camera). Play is suppose to be a recognised company and in the past it use to be great - but now it's become a joke, am I suppose to keep on waiting for my order or cancel it but then if i cancel it - they probably charge me for it in the future as suggest in other posts!? I'm sure something illegal is going on here and they must be something against trade descriptions allowing them to do this!