I ran into an ad for this company called Auction Road. They appeared to be a company that sold products at wholesale prices to it's members. When I called, that's exactly how Joe explained the program to me. I sell the products on ebay or wherever and then pay Auction Road wholesale price and they take care of shipping the item to the buyer.
Joe discussed the fees with me stating that it would be 9.95 a month for a membership. I asked him specifically "How much will my credit card be billed today?". He said "It's 9.95 a month and you can cancel anytime in the 1st 30 days". So, I decided that at the risk of only losing 9.95, it would be worth at least trying.
The nightmare begins! My credit card got charged 99.95! I called and was told that you pay for the membership a year at a time, but you do get 2 months free. I was upset and wanted to cancel and have my money back. They said that I'd have to wait for my membership packet to arrive and follow the procedures outlined in it to cancel.
I decided to try to make the best of it and at least still try the membership out. I had already been given the website/username/password to see the products and great prices when I initially signed up. The listed prices are very good on some of their items.
I listed several items on ebay and almost immediately started getting questions about how much shipping would be. I called customer service and was told that I'd have to email [email protected] for that information. I emailed them the product number of the item in question and the prospective buyer's zip code.
They emailed me back stating "We don't know what shipping is going to be until you actually order the item". This started a chain of emails betwen myself and [email protected]. I knew that that was impossible for them to not be able to tell me what shipping would be on a known item with the destination zip code. Any human being can go to the website of any shipping company and find out what shipping costs are going to be. The only way they could not know or figure it out would be if they also didn't know where it would be shipped from. BINGO! I made that accusation to them. They responded with rudeness. I can't possibly be the 1st person to get suckered by them and figure out what it is that they're doing.
Anyway, I still wanted to give every benefit of the doubt. I went ahead and figured the shipping costs myself. I used the zip code of the buyer and picked the zip code farthest from them as the starting point.in some cases this came out to be rather high. I told buyers these shipping costs figuring they could either bid or not bid. Some bought anyway!
All buyers paid me through paypal. I emailed [email protected] to ask if they accepted paypal so I could save a step and some time by just using it instead of waiting for the money to come out of paypal into my bank so I could place the orders with Auction Road. They told me no, that they only accept credit cards directly. So I went through the process, payed the paypal fees, got the money and ordered the products. I emailed my buyers that the items were being processed and shipped.
After about 10 days, I started getting emails from the buyers that their items still hadn't shown up. I told them that it should be any time and they'd have them. A few days later, 2 weeks from when I had placed my orders on the Auction Road website with my credit card, I get invoices for every item from [email protected] with instructions that the only method of payment they accept is... PAYPAL!
So not only does the orders department have nothing to do with whatever sold me this stupid membership, but I now have solid proof that the orders department most definately has nothing at all to do with the final transaction.in a panic, I paid the paypal bills hoping the items would just quickly get to the buyers. At this point the whole thing was embarrassing and frustrating. I was receiving very angry emails from all of the buyers by now.
Now, over 6 weeks from when I sold these items, over 5 weeks from when I ordered them from the Auction Road website, over 2 weeks from when I paid them through paypal, the items, you guessed it, have not arrived anywhere!
One buyer has filed a buyer complaint with paypal. This means that I have 7 days to give his money back or provide a tracking number for the shipped item. I did the same against Auction Road since I paid through paypal. This was 6 days ago and there's been no response from Auction Road. So, tomorrow paypal will be taking $300 out of my checking account to give back to this guy. Will they do the same to Auction Road to give back to me? I'm not having any faith in any of it.
I did send their membership packet back to Auction Road with everything they stated to include to get the refund. Of course, there's no word there.
The moral of this story:
Auction Road is doing nothing more taking people's money for a membership. Then when the person orders something, they go out and find the best deal they can on it. Then they bill you the price they had listed on their website.
Then after they get their money, they order the product from somewhere to be delivered to whatever shipping address you had given them. It's all a ripoff and takes a nice long time to feel it.
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