Using various price-comparison sites, I found TheWeb-Shop.com to have some incredible prices on audio/video equipment. I placed and order for some Bose speakers and a Sony DVD player, and almost immediately received an email confirmation. TheWeb-Shop.com's company policy is:
"All accounts are billed 3-5 business days before we are ready to ship you. All accounts must be verified for address matches before we ship. There are no exceptions."
Since I am able to access my credit card account online, I noticed that I was billed over $1200 the day after I placed my order.
No problem, I figured, I am getting a great deal. Well, I wanted to amend my order (actually I wanted to increase the quantity of items ordered) and that is where it started to smell fishy. There is no telephone number listed that gets answered by a live person. My emails started getting returned as "blocked". When I checked the "Order Status" page, I see that my order has been shipped. But now I start receiving emails saying parts of my order have been cancelled and other items are back ordered. I send emails to every address I can find associated with this company requesting my order be cancelled (which supposedly it already had been) and that my credit card be refunded. No response.
I contacted my credit card company and initiated a dispute. The merchant billing my credit card is a company called InterPort and a phone number was listed. However, the phone number is to an InterPort that handles phone service and is an ISP in the New York area—they have never heard of TheWeb-Shop.com, nor are they affiliated with them. Their security division was very interested in hearing what I had to say, and have initiated their own investigation.
I then filed a complaint with the New York Better Business Bureau stating that all I want is $1200 refunded to my credit card for merchandise that was never shipped. I suspect TheWeb-Shop.com has never shipped a single item in it entire existence. They probably make money off the interest they earn in the float—the time they have our money, until the time they eventually are forced to refund it.in my case, this has been over 2 months.
I purchase items online over 50 times a year, and this is the first time I have been burned. I caution everyone to beware of seemingly legitimate companies offering great deals. If you've never done business with an online vendor, perform a search on them.
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