I ordered two USB external floppy disk drives thru Amazon.com from a company that appeared to have a very high rating for customer satisfaction. The external drives were about half the price of other sellers. I ordered two because I needed two. Yes, I know data is now stored on CD, but we have some old equipment that uses the 3.5 disks. Since I work on two computers in different locations I wanted this external floppy drive to be on EACH computer.
The 2 drives arrived in one box with each drive packaged in smaller boxes. But first thing I noticed is that one of the drives was in a box that appeared to have been previously opened. I immediately took both drives to one computer to test them. One worked just fine, but the other obviously had a read operation defect. It would not read any disk I inserted, blank or otherwise.
I immediately notified HDE thru Amazon.com that one of the two drives was defective. I now see that others had the same problem. HDE was excessively slow in responding to my request to return the item. It took the better part of a week to receive the return authorization and return label. When I printed the label I noticed that I was expected to pay for shipping to return the defective drive! I paid shipping for them to ship it to me, so now I am paying for the return as well? The problem was not of my creation. The drive was DEFECTIVE!
I complained directly to HDE as well as thru Amazon.com. Once again it took days to respond.By this time I had packaged the defective drive and shipping it back USPS. However, what HDE did not anticipate was that I shipped it "delivery confirmation". It cost MORE to add this little feature to the shipping charges.
I notified Amazon.com and HDE that I had shipped the package... With the delivery confirmation.in less than 24 hours I was notified that the cost of the drive plus the original shipping charge would be credited to my credit card. I thought it noteworthy that the response to refund my credit card came QUICKLY compared to the other responses. I was still angry that I was out the return shipping plus delivery confirmation. But at least I am supposed to get the refund. Yes, I have already disputed the charge on my credit card so this I do not intend to let this rest, at least not yet.
The reason for paying an additional fee for the delivery confirmation was that I didn't trust HDE by this time. The USPS notified me today that the package had reached its destination, but was NOT deliverable as addressed. Strange, don't you think? I used the label sent by HDE, paid the postage as required so why would the package be undeliverable? What if they intentionally shipped me a defective drive? Like I said, one of the drive boxes had obviously been opened previously. The HDE cost for one drive was about half what other sellers wanted for their drives.interesting. I ordered TWO, so the cost of the one working drive was now as much as the other sellers. And what if they intentionally issued a label they knew would not be deliverable? Without the delivery confirmation to prove I had shipped the drive back, HDE could claim I was victimizing them!
Based on what I have read from others, HDE dodges customers who want to return items. If my suspicions are correct, then there are others out there who have been caught by this scam. Hopefully, we can do something to put an end to them victimizing customers.in the meantime, do not order anything from these people. IF you have received defective products and have attempted to return them, contact your State Attorney General.
0 comments