"Igia online or Cyber Sales" will be referred to herein, as "Igia." The advertisement at the top of Igia's website states: "Same Day Shipping!" and on the order web page (under product description) states: "Order by 1PM EDT (M-F) for same day shipping!" The day after I ordered 2 Singer Lazer Storm Vacuum cleaners online, Igia informed me that my order would not ship for 7 to 10 days and offered no compensation for the delay.
Nine days after placing my order, I called Igia's customer service phone number which they advertise on their web site as being available M-F, 8-5pm, only to hear a recording say that no one could take my call so please call back later.
I tried calling them many times but got the same recording each time. I spent 2 hours looking for "other" (more legitimate) phone numbers but heard the same tape recorded message at the other phone numbers, even at the phone number to their headquarters in Nicholasville, Kentucky. I started calling Igia at 2:45PM right up until 5PM.
A recording at one of Igia's toll free phone numbers instructs the customer to call their "fulfillment center" due to overwhelming call volume, and they offer yet another phone number to that fulfillment center.
When I called that phone number about 23 times, I got a busy signal each time except for 3 times in which case the phone just range continuously until my call was cut off abruptly. Not one time today was I able to speak to a representative at Igia, despite their web site's advertisement that customer service hours are 8am to 5pm, Monday through Friday.
I called UPS to find out if my order was on its way, but UPS insisted that I call Igia to obtain a UPS tracking number for my order. I asked UPS if they had a valid phone number to Igia and they said they did not.
I finally called Better Business Bureau (BBB) who informed me of several complaints against Igia and they gave me the same useless phone numbers I'd already been calling unsuccessfully. Igia had supplied BBB with one additional phone number that I had not yet tried, which turned out to be a "wrong number" to a residence. When I called that number I woke a man in the middle of his sleep, as he apparently works nights.
I called the Singer Company whose name is attached to the product I ordered, only to find that Singer does not make the Singer Lazer Storm Vacuum cleaner, but simply allows the manufacturer, a company named Tactica, to use Singer's name. When I asked Joanne in Consumer Affairs at Singer Company for the phone number to Tactica, she said she did not know it.
I asked what city and state Tactica was in, and she did not know. I waited on hold 10 minutes while Joanne if anyone at Singer Company knows anything about Tactica but she finally said, no one here at Singer Company knows anything about Tactica or where that company is located.
I asked to be transferred to Singer's company CEO, his secretary, or some one else more knowledgeable, but Joanne resisted. After I pressed to be transferred to ANYONE else, she put me on hold another 5 minutes and finally transferred me to an answer machine. I pressed zero on my phone and was immediately transferred to Laura at Singer Company's main switchboard.
Laura said she could not transfer me to any department other than Singer's Consumer Affairs dept. (i.E. Joanne) who had already told me they knew nothing about Tactica, the company that uses Singer Company's name to market the Lazer Storm Vacuum cleaner. I repeated to Laura every claim that Joanne had made as to "Singer Company not knowing who or where Tactica is, " and Laura confirmed Joanne's claims.
I asked again: Laura, you are telling me that NO ONE at Singer Company knows ANYTHING about Tactica, the company using Singer's name (apparently hijacking the name) to market the Lazer Storm Vacuum cleaner, not even the city or state out of which "Tactica operates?
She answered, That's correct, no one at Singer Company knows who Tactica is, or where Tactica is located. No one here at Singer Company knows anything about that company which uses our name. My own search for a connection between Tactica and Singer Company as well as any valid phone number to this mystery company called Tactica also proved futile.
The website at Igia states that they will charge the customer's credit card on the day that they actually ship the order to the customer. My credit card has not been charged hence my order has not yet shipped.
So, the 2 vacuum cleaners I ordered, which Igia advertised would ship the same business day that I ordered them, have still not been shipped and now, 9 days after ordering them, I have no way of contacting Igia to find out when they plan to ship my order. Meanwhile, my carpets are filthy and my husband warns that the vacuum cleaners are probably just junk, anyhow.
If I cannot successfully speak with a representative at Igia tomorrow, I will place a call to the attorney general and I will file a complaint with BBB as well, based on the fraudulent claims made on Igia's website.
Since their web site claims cannot be trusted, it would be another lesson in futility to trust any emailed response they might offer me in the way of explanation. Besides, I would probably wait another 2 weeks for an email reply from them anyhow.
A full two-way phone conversation between customer and company is in order, especially since they've already failed to fulfill their advertised claims which are printed on their web site.
Janie
Walton, Kentucky
U.S.A.
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