I ordered a pen recorder online and agreed to pay $22 for shipping. I also had the item shipped to my billing address, which is my home address, since the company stated several times on its order form that I must do so. The rate seemed exorbitant given the size of the package and that it was being delivered using ground shipping. The fact that I couldn't ship to a location where I could actually be there to receive the shipment also seemed a bit rigid. But I completed the transaction figuring it wasn't that big of a deal.
After receiving a FedEx door tag, I learned that The Spy Store required a signature in order to fulfill the order but did not provide for any sort of time frame for delivery. This fact was not stated anywhere on the company's order form, nor was I ever asked to agree to these terms. I contacted the company and asked them to either remove the signature requirement as my neighborhood is very safe and my mailbox is secure or to remove the requirement to have the item shipped to my billing address and reroute the package to my office where I could sign as they requested.
These issues alone weren't terribly different from the approach many other companies take. However, things quickly degraded. The Spy Store demanded that I pay an additional $10 to reroute the package or that I pick the package up at a location that is 30 minutes from my home. I explained that it was unreasonable to expect me to sit home for days on end waiting for them to deliver a pen recorder, that it was unreasonable to charge me $22 for shipping only to demand that I drive for an hour to pick the package up and that it was equally unreasonable to charge me more since they originally stated that I must deliver to my billing address. I told them that I just wanted them to deliver the pen as agreed and if they didn't, I would ask Visa to cancel the transaction.
They said they would assess a $300.00 charge for their response to my credit card company, claimed that they would file suit to enforce the sale and claimed that I would be assessed legal fees, court costs, collection fees, judgment enforcement fees, real and personal property lien fees, etc.
I paid $151 for a pen and this is what I got. Who knows whether the product worked as advertised? I never received it. Who knows how much further they would've gone had I agreed to allow them to charge more to my credit card. On principle alone, I refused to pay more than I already had. At the moment, I have contested the charge through Visa and expect that they will help resolve the dispute.
Still, this company made no attempt to reasonably resolve the problem and actually threatened me when I asked for their help. I don't know about you, but that's not the kind of company I want to do business with, which is why I am warning future prospective customers of what to expect from The Spy Store.
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