Buy.com loses a customer

By James Gaskin, NetworkWorld.com, 04/14/04

Roland B. followed my rebate columns and related his issues with Buy.com. Here's the resolution:

Check arrived today. Four months and three days from the date that I mailed the request and twenty-one days after they said they mailed it. I think that I have learned my lesson . NO more purchases involving a rebate.

Roland got his check, but Buy.com and RebateStatus.com lost another customer. How many are they losing? Roland quotes a Buy.com support person, one of many Roland dealt with to get his money, about customers:

We'll never know how many buyers are going through this same experience with these two companies. Chris at Buy.com admitted that there were "many." Many folks will probably give up the fight and Buy.com will pocket the money.

Isn't this supposed to be a service economy? Where is our service?

James

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Comments

I've also had a very negative experience with Buy.com. I bought a hard drive that was supposedly guaranteed for a year, only to find that there is NO WAY to contact anyone there to deal with the problem two months after it arrived. No telephone for customer support. This is no way to succeed in this business. I won't buy from them again, and suggest others don't as well. They seem to simply exist in a void that allowes for orders and no way to talk about problems.

Posted by: Ira Abrams on June 13, 2004 03:36 PM

Buy.com has always been a pin to deal with. The main mistake we (customers) do is that we do not realize the fact that these people do not have a cusotmer service phone number and they want to do things through email. When we have an issue (as always whenever you make a pruchase from buy.com), we are stuck. I had sent them emails many times about serious issues but always recived an automated reply saying blah blah. Enough is enough! If you want value for your hard earned money, go somewhere else. Its really difficult to find someone worse than buy.com.

Posted by: Tom J on June 23, 2004 10:48 AM

Buy.com delay the order and they are not responding by email,and no way to contact to them.
Suks!!!
Never buy again.

Posted by: Rauf Leshchinsky on June 24, 2004 01:08 PM

I've located a phone number for Buy.com 877-780-2464. It's an India call center and they wouldn't help me with my order problem, but it makes me feel good to call them every day and waste their time.

Posted by: Dave P on July 21, 2004 11:51 AM

Same here... worst online experience I have ever had... How do they get away with this??? The call center is definately in India and they have absolutely no power to do anything.... anything at all. NEVER BUY from from BUY.COM.

Dave P. I am definately going to bug them every day... I did find the name of their VP of customer service.. Travis Fagan... I am going to see if I can find him and bug him now!

Posted by: Matthew Smith on July 26, 2004 09:37 PM

i have had many great experiences with buy.com low prices and my sutff arrives fast but this last expience has been hell they havent shipped my order for 2 weeks (it is in stock) i go to 3rd party websites for their phone number and god darn it they suck

Posted by: John Smith on August 6, 2004 04:10 PM

this is the kind of shit michael moore should be doing something about, rather than trying to f*ck with an election.

Posted by: former buy.com customer on August 7, 2004 04:50 PM

I have had a similar bad experience with buy.com recently. Before buying from them, read what other people have said about them at Reseller Ratings. http://www.resellerratings.com/seller2107.html

You can call them at 1-949-389-2000, but the the foreign people who answer the phone are both clueless and powerless.

Posted by: mchabot on August 11, 2004 11:33 AM

I had a bad experience also with buy.com. I bought a camera and a Memory stick(256MB) that qualifies me for a $50 mail-in-rebate. The stick never arrived (but camera did) before the rebate date. I tracked their corporate office and called in my own dime to California. They promised that the rebate center would honor this. I sent the copy of the e-mail along with rebate submission after the product has arrived. I have to follow-up atleast 10times to get my money.

I WOULD NEVER BUY AGAIN IN BUY.COM

(Even now their sale end dates and rebate dates are so close in their web site)

Posted by: Chandiran Palanisamy on August 16, 2004 12:26 PM

This is a follow up from my first post...

Here is Buy.com corporate office contact info:

Buy.Com, Inc.
85 Enterprise Suite 100
Aliso Viejo CA 92656

Business Started: 10/01/96
File Open Date: 12/29/97
Last Report Date: 08/31/04
Principal Contact: Robert R. Price
Phone: (949) 389-2000
Fax: (949) 389-2837

You have to insist that they don't transfer you to india and they will put you in touch with someone in the California office... It may take a week or two but stick with it. They resolved my issue completely and I am now very satisfied.. My second order came immediately and without a hitch... A little perseverance works..

Posted by: Matthew Smith on September 1, 2004 10:43 PM

Very poor customer service. I guess when you get to be a big a they are, you just don't give a damn.

Posted by: David Berger on November 8, 2004 02:35 PM

I sent an email asking not to cancel my order I had mistakenly hit "cancel" on. I received a generic email a day later telling me that the order was most certainly cancelled. "We apologize that you needed to cancel your order."

I called the Customer Service and "Hazel", the Indian rep. answers. I'm already having trouble understanding her while she repeatedly tells me the policy of Buy.com not being able to resume an order within 30 minutes of it being cancelled. I told her I already knew that and I wanted to know why the order was cancelled anyways and then replied back to one full day later. She just emotionlessly apologized and told me to place the order again.

mchabot is right in the post above, their support is both weak and powerless. He didn't mention rude .

Posted by: Upset with Buy.com on November 22, 2004 05:59 PM

Yet another very disgruntled customer of buy.com, after having had several flawless purchases prior to the past couple of months. Having never had to access their "customer service" (a joke)I didn't previously realize what a serious representation they are to the most negative implications of the computerized world.

We ordered a laptop two months ago and, when it arrived, it was faulty (the keyboard didn't work properly). So we quickly sent it back and awaited a replacement. No problem thus far...read on:

About 3 weeks later, having still not received the item I called the customer support number and was, of course, routed to the India call center, where the woman told me that our replacement item was currently not available from the manufacturer. She gave us the option to cancel, which I chose to do ONLINE a day later, being told both by the India person as well as the text on the website that I'd get a confirming email in a few days.

To sum up, we're now a month later (2 months since the initial purchase!), still no cancellation confirmation, after several discussions with Indian technicians and their assurance that they will forward our concerns with HIGH PRIORITY STATUS to the cancellation dept., AND STILL WITH BUY.COM HOLDING $1,300 of OUR MONEY FOR 2 MONTHS!!! India will NOT give customers a direct phone or email access to the cancellation department, so it's absolutely useless.

Today I finally sleuthed on this site for the phone number of the corporate office in Aliso Viejo, California and, after once being transferred to India (AGAIN!), I called back and insisted on that not happening again. The receptionist took my info. and assured me that someone from her management team will call me back. Still waiting.

This is the worst of outsourcing, destroying consumer trust in the name of convenience and profit for the corporation. If there are no glitches, then no one knows. But, God forbid, you should have a problem...Avoid Buy.com for these reasons until they get the message (dream on).

Posted by: David on December 6, 2004 02:58 PM

My first buying experience with Buy.com was a good one, because it did not involve a backorder or delay in shipment. The books were available and shipped promptly. However, my second (and last) experience with this outfit is not turning out so well. When I called last Sat. to try to cancel an order that I was told was on back order, one book shipped anyway today, 12/7. I've written them two notes and made a phone call to try to stop the other 7 items from shipping, but I have no idea if they will ship anyway. In the meantime, I ordered these same books from Barnes and Noble on Sat. thinking the Buy.com books were all cancelled (Barnes and Noble has shipped those books already, by the way;) Now the person the books were shipped to has to write "refused" on the book(s) and, if she is not home, will have to trek to the post office. Then I will have to wait until the book(s) get back to Buy.com (if they ever make it) before my credit card can be credited. And what happens if she's not home for an extended period of time and the books just sit there for two months? Don't waste your time by dealing with this company; it's not worth the time and money you may lose, in my case that could be up to almost $100.

Posted by: Gail Russo on December 7, 2004 12:26 PM