I have made numerous on-line purchases and, with a few minor exceptions, I’ve been pretty satisfied with the outcome. Recently however, I was attracted to a collapsible travel bag advertised on Facebook (I know, I should be pilloried) by a company called Tomshop. I decided $30 was not a king’s ransom to risk so I ordered the bag. What arrived was a simple, flat garment bag - the sort of thing many retailers include in the purchase of a jacket or suit. They had clearly shipped the wrong item.
I contacted Tomshop and got the following reply:
“We would like to show our sincere apology for this issue. If you would like to return the unit, we will provide you with the return address. But please kindly understand that you need to pay the return shipping fee. And it always costs more than 10 USD. Besides, as we need to issue a refund to you when we receive the return unit which will take more than 20 working days. As the product still can work well, we would like to suggest that we issue a partial refund of 4 USD as compensation and you don’t need to return the unit to us which could save your time and money. Is it acceptable for you? Very sorry for all the inconvenience caused to you and hope for your kindly understanding.”
So, I could keep the piece of junk they sent me and get a $4 refund or I could pay to send it back! Pay for their error!! Further correspondence has not changed their attitude. If I want to return it, I pay.
Heavens knows where Tomshop is located - there is nothing on their website to indicate a location and the communications suggest English is not a first language so options for recompense are zero. All I can do is warn other potential customers - BEWARE!
The website says it is located in Toronto, Canada…which is possible as their website IP is also located in Canada.
It is worth searching online retailers for reviews before spending hard cold cash. It is not fruitful all the time, but for TomShop ones like this will come up…
Maybe try lodging a complaint here…
It is worth filing a complaint as it might prevent others like yourself being caught in their scam like practices.
If it is their error and it appears it was, contact your bank for a credit card chargeback. Your bank will have the full details of what does and does not qualify, as well as the time limits linked on their website or buried in a PDS. Same if it was paypal. If you pursue that route be sure to include that you would be more than happy to return their erroneously shipped product if they send you a prepaid (international) mailing label.
It appears from a few online websites that shipping the wrong bag seems to be a regular occurrence…which seems to be more a scam than a genuine mistake by the retailer.
When making contact, indicate that if they don’t come to the party, you will be lodging a complaint with Consumer Protection Ontario to have their company included on Consumer Beware List so other consumers can search and find that they are an trustworthy business to deal with.
We don’t buy much on-line, however I check ProductReview before I do. Our latest was trying to purchase a filter cartridge for our pool system. The previous owners said the proper cartridge was no longer made and they made do with two smaller ones in tandem. Only two sites had the small ones listed - one “out of stock & no longer available” and the other with a cheap price and a “buy now” discount. We contacted the manufacturer’s authorised reseller who confirmed they were no longer made, and an entirely new system might be cheaper than 2 cartridges. I checked ProductReview for the ‘cheap’ supplier, to find more bad reviews than good, and constant complaints of non-supply & tardy to non-existent refunds. We didn’t order. Instead we got on to a firm who did a 3D print & reputable filter paper duplicate that’s working well. We had time on our hands to trawl through this stuff - otherwise it would have been click & pay, and wait, wait, wait. For some sites, this is their business model.
A belated follow-up to my post. I contacted my credit card provider (Latitude) and they refunded the purchase price with minimal hassle. Thanks to all for your input.
