Complaint Rating:

Company information:
eCost.com
Texas
United States
www.ecost.com

I ordered a Sandisk Sansa e280 Refurbished from eCost. The one I received had scratches inside the screen. It was not an issue if all you were doing was listening to music but when you watched videos it was rather distracting. So I sent it back. ecost doesn't do exchanges so I waited for a return label and was told by the rep that if I reorder the item I would not have to pay shipping again, after all I wouldn't have to order the item again had the first one not been defective.

So I called back to reorder and the rep, keep in mind I contacted them four times, always had the same rep (seemingly of Pakistani/Indian descent), and now all of a sudden he changed the story so there was never an offer for free shipping. I knew that was untrue but I figured as long as they refund shipping on the defect then I only paid once and I am fine with that.

The item finally gets back to them and they look it over and deem it is not a defect because there are not scratches on the outside of the screen. Not only do they not refund my original shipping but they also dock me 15% for a restocking fee.

Obviously that is not what I told them so I told the guy what the problem was again and he argued it's a defect of the LCD screen but not the defect I stated so he was going to deny the refund.

I stated, you just said it was defective... once it is declared defective I should be issued a full refund. The guy refused and I angrily asked for a manager. I am fairly certain there is no manager at ecost. I am also fairly certain there is one guy at the phones making decisions at ecost.

He says he'll have their warehouse take another look and they'll respond in 2-3 days of their decision. 5 days pass and I hear nothing. So I call back and he says they decided it was not defective and he refuses to give me a manager on the phone (probably because none exists). It was apparent to me that they had planned on bilking me out of 15% and shipping on the return all along and I doubt they ever even looked at the item. What's worse is they restocked it and will now screw some other customer over with this item.

Ecost is run by people with zero ethics, no customer service skills and are a sham of a business set up to dump off refurbed electronics, whether or not they are in good condition at seemingly cheap costs. Once you buy the item they get to keep 15% of your money regardless so whether or not you send it back is of no consequence to them, they already made their money. In fact they can pull this scam off again and again by resending defective merchandise to people and getting them to eat 15% restocking fees for products they never get to keep/use.