UBID / You have to hold their feet to the fire
This company can zap a customer's credit card immediately for a purchase, ship a DAMAGED product necessitating a return (it was supposed to be refurbished), incur a major undertaking on customer's part to get an RMA issued, and then in so many words tell the customer that it will take a massive technical operation to properly refund the customer's funds.
Unfortunately, this has become a way of life in dealing with so many internet sales companies.
This company IS a member of the Better Business Bureau (don't laugh). According to the BBB, uBid has had 201 filed complaints over the past 36 months and 63 of those were closed over the last year. (They have still managed to maintain a satisfactory record with the BBB but of course those reports don't tell you how much time and trouble customers had to incur in order to receive rightful service.)
After some weeks of monkeying around with uBid (and getting the run-around), this customer finally got their attention by threatening to contact organizations including, but not limited to, The Better Business Bureau, the Attorney General's Office of customer's home state, the Attorney General's Office of Illinois (uBid's domicile), The Federal Trade Commission, and other regulatory agencies having jurisdiction over internet abusive sales practices. It also helps to tell them you will file reports on them with various consumer complaint boards (such as this one) and report them in applicable trade journals warning others of their shenanigans.
After convincing uBid it would be in their best interest to act on my return without further delay, they finally made due and proper refund. Of course the refund directly from uBid finally posted to my credit card account AFTER I had already officially disputed the charge directly with the credit card company. Then I had to go to the trouble of getting the credit card dispute reversed.
Such a shame customers have to work this hard and go to this much trouble to receive due and proper service.
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My first order from ubid was a Blutooth with no volumn and this spring I ordered two plants advertised as Arundo donax 'pepermint stick' and the plants just put out leaves and I have no idea what the folks sent me but now I have to dig them up. There is no one at ubid to contact about this problem and to try to send the plants back would end up costing me more of my hard earned money and precious time.
How on earth do folks like ubid keep getting away with scaming customers?