Hi,
Yet one more muppet who placed an order with Micro Direct without bothering to see if the site had been commented on by anyone. Same story as everyone else; no replies to emails, impossible to contact by telephone on any of the numbers published on their website. Thankfully I only ordered a £30 Secure Digital memory card from them, so it's not the end of the world, but it's the principle that annoys me.
The card was showing as in stock so I ordered it on 4th Feb. The same day I received an email saying my credit card had been debited and to expect another email when the card had been despatched. By the 8th I had still heard nothing so sent off an email and then, later that day, another one. No reply. So the morning of the 9th I sent another email cancelling the order and asking for my card to be refunded. (Tried several times to telephone them but no one ever answered, just stupid recorded promo messages). I still hadn't had any acknowledgement from them, so late afternoon I contacted my credit card company and asked to dispute the transaction as I was concerned they were a fraudulent company. I fired off another email to Micro Direct, telling them the transaction was now in dispute and finally they replied, saying that they had sent the card to me on the 7th. They gave me a Royal Mail tracking number. BIG MISTAKE. The Royal Mail website has no record of the number, so the card definitely cannot have been despatched on the 7th. I asked Micro Direct about this in another email and they just replied that they will refund me when I send the goods back. FAT CHANCE . If the card ever arrives, and it is a big if, I will refuse to sign for it, because I can just imagine what the excuses will be when I pay for it to be returned. I have never come across an online company as pathetic as this one and I have bought heaps of stuff online for the past six years or so, here and abroad. This time I got lazy and the result is I now have to put up with the inconvenience and hassle.
For what it's worth, I would like to offer some humble advice to anyone worried about falling into a similar trap.
1. First and foremost, if you have one, use a credit card that guarantees to reimburse you for all "card not present" transactions. You will have to wait for the refund, but a delay is better than an outright loss. If your card doesn't do this, swap it for one that does. Under the terms of the Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations 2000 Credit Act In the UK you have far more legal protection on a "card not present" transaction than you do if you actually sign a credit card slip. I'm pretty sure the card company has a legal obligation to refund you, but it's worth checking the small print of your card agreement to be safe.
2. Again, under this legislation, you can return goods within 7 days of receipt, for any reason whatsoever including "I've changed my mind" and ask for your money back. By law you must be refunded within 30 days. Notice to cancel must be given in writing; email is okay but recorded delivery letter is better.
3. If you don't know the site, check out boards such as this. (see also
www.pricerunner.co.uk for sackloads of complaints about Micro Direct - 20 just in the past 7 days!).
4. Send loads of emails and keep the copies. Your credit card company will want copies of all correspondence.
5. Telephone the company before you place an order and (a) see if they answer and (b) see how friendly they are towards you. If you don't like the sound of their voice, look elsewhere. (Micro Direct would fail this test hands down!).
6. If something goes wrong, you can try telephoning them, but always send up a back up email making the same points. In a dispute it is impossible to use a recollection of what was said over the telephone as any kind of evidence, let alone that the call took place in the first instance.
7. If companies such as Amazon or Pixmania have the same product, give serious thought to buying it from them. They are too big to risk their hard earned reputations screwing you around.
8. It's good reporting these cowboy companies to organisations like Trading Standards, but the world as we all know runs on money. You will cause the company far more grief by complaining to their Merchant Service Provider (the bank or financial institution that processes their credit card transactions). This info is usually to be found on one of the pages during the payment process. If the Merchant Service Provider gets too many complaints, they will put pressure on the merchant to resolve the problems with the ultimate threat that their ability to take credit card payments will be withdrawn. Similarly, every dispute about a merchant that is referred to the credit card company is passed on directly to the Merchant Service Provider. If the Merchant is found not to have supplied the goods, or supplied faulty goods, (the onus is on the Merchant to prove they acted entirely correctly) they will have the whole of the amount of the transaction charged back and, in addition, pay a chargeback fee. If there are too many chargebacks, the Merchant Service Provider will increase their percentage transaction charges to the merchant before finally withdrawing the facility altogether. Increased transaction charges means less profit for the merchant (or higher prices which means the choice of buying from a more reputable company is made easier). And if the Merchant Service Provider withdraws their facility, the company is going to find it hard to sign up with another one.
For those of you who already know all of this stuff, sorry to have been so long winded. But if just one piece of this info is useful to one person on this board and they decide not to place their order with Micro Direct, then I'm happy.
Ps. Nice board.