On June 11 I ordered seat covers for my Scion XB from the jcwhitney.com website, the item was reported as in-stock, and my credit card was charged $156.54 on June 12 by OEM/Partsbin, Carson, CA. After more than 2 weeks and finding my order status listed as 'processing' on the jcwhitney.com website, I finally phone their customer service number on June 26.
The service rep offered the excuse that the seat covers are manufactured to-order, although I knew this to be false, I accepted the reps explanation that it could take up to 15 _business_ days for the seat covers to be shipped following an order. She also told me that she would request an update on my order status from the warehouse, that would be emailed to me.
On July 5, a full 17 _business_ days (not counting July 4) following my order, and having never received the promised update on my order status, and with my order status still listed as 'processing' on their website, I again phoned jcwhitney customer service to cancel the order. The rep apologized for the poor service and assured me that she had put in a cancellation order. When I asked when I could expect to see my credit card account refunded, she replied that it could take up to 10 _business_ days for the refund to appear on my credit card account.
On July 17, still no credit to my card account, and I'm getting antsy, because I've recieved an email from jcwhitney on July 11 that says my package has been shipped. When I look up the FedEX tracking number provided, it shows delivery on July 6 to Saltillo, MS. It also states the shipping date as July 2. That's funny, I think, they must be referencing the wrong package, because when I called and cancelled my order on the 5th, the website still showed my order as 'processing', and the rep I had spoken to that day had my order info, and said nothing about it having been shipped already, right? Plus my address is in CA, not MS.
So I call customer service for the 3rd time to ask about the credit for my cancelled order. The rep looks up the order and tells me it was shipped to Saltillo, MS. I ask when was it shipped, and she says 'July 6'. I say, 'but that's the day after I called and cancelled the order' (plus the shipping site said shipped on July 2). I say, I live in California, and the shipping address was specified as my address in CA. She agrees, but says she will need now to file a 'lost package report' in order for me to get my refund. I say, but I've already been waiting almost 2 weeks for my refund. Again, more apologies and assurances that everything is being done to rectify my refund, but unfortunately it could take up to 10 more business days for my refund. I try to pin her down, asking 'what is the absolutely latest day I should expect to see the refund?' She insists that she cannot give me a firm deadline. At that point they'd had my money for over a month, and to all appearances, they never had the seat covers and had no intention of ever delivering them to me. But like a good sheep, I wait another 10 business days.
On Aug 1, I call customer service for the 4th time. Still no refund on my credit card account, it's been another 10 business days. I ask to talk to a supervisor when the rep can't give me any information. I wait for the supervisor on hold for about 15 minutes.'Jeff' apologizes profusely, but now it's after 2 PM PST, and their accounting dept is on the east coast, he says, so he can't find out for me why I haven't been refunded the $156.54. I tell him I want my credit card refunded today, he says, I'm sorry that's not possible, because the accounting dept is closed for the day. He promises that his account supervisor will call me the next day (today) with an explanation.
Of course he never called, and of course I have not been credited for the never-delivered merchandise. I guess I will have to file a fraudulent charge report with American Express. I thought JC Whitney was an establish company, I remember seeing the catalogs years ago and friends ordering from their catalog back in the day. It's definitely a fraud shop now, and based on my experience, I would steer clear of them.
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