jshinbot

I recently had, what I would consider, a completely unacceptable experience in middle-man retail and I thought I'd share.

Back story: I am very new the to s2000 community. I purchased a well-cared for, higher milage 2002, Sebring Silver driver in Iowa last month. At the same time, I agreed to purchase an unpainted hardtop (Mugen style) via craigslist. Needing the hardtop painted, I opted to use a professional painter in the area. There happened to be one by my office, so I began researching hardware (the top didn't come with hardware) to install the top and drive it to the painter. After some research, it appears I have a Duraflex brand hardtop, so I began looking for Duraflex/Extreme Dimensions hardware. This is where the problems began.

I found an acceptable kit for a good price on bodykits.com. I placed the order, checked out, and went about my day. A week later, I noticed I had not heard from the supplier. I sent them an email politely asking about the status of my order. I received a response later that day stating (paraphrase):

"Our supplier has raised their prices. Please send us another $70 to complete your order."

What?

A few things really bother me about this. First and foremost, how long would I have waited to get a response had I not reached out? Secondly, after asking a general practice lawyer, it certainly appears a receipt serves as a legally binding contract for the sale of the item. I expressed my discontent with the retailer (again, politely) and received an "order cancelled" email 4 days later.

To their credit, they did refund me the amount I paid. However, it has now been nearly two weeks (13 days) since this ordeal started, and I am no closer to receiving any hardware.

I am beyond frustrated and disappointed with bodykits.com and will certainly not be doing anymore business with them. I hope no one else has had this experience, but I thought it best to share.

sam_spider

That's quite bad, them refunding was the only way out of that mess though.

I've moved this thread to feedback

Chuck S

You expect the retailer to take a $70 loss?

So-called retailers often (maybe usually) don't stock any of this stuff. You order it. They order it from their distributor who may drop ship it to you, or the retailer who ships it to you. I had no problems with a part I ordered from Majestic Honda but found it interesting it went from Marysville, Ohio, to Rhode Island and then back to me in Ohio.

I believe it's illegal for anyone to charge your credit card until they ship the item unless you authorized otherwise. Did you?

-- Chuck

jshinbot

I understand the drop shipping concept. I don't necessarily expect them to take a loss, but I view this as a "cost of business" type situation. That's a fairly poorly managed store though. I think all in all, I'm more upset that I had to initiate the contact to get the any information about my order. And then that the whole process took almost two weeks. I would have cancelled and reordered from another supplier had I known it would take that long.

To answer your question, yes, they did charge my credit card. Obviously it was before the item shipped, since it never shipped.

sam_spider

I believe any seller should honor a price they display, there are laws that protect consumers against it. A price error will result in one of two things, honoring the price, or refunding the sale.

You're incorrect about how credit cards are charged/processed, when you click the little button saying "authorize" that's exactly what you've done, authorized the payment.