Dangers of Buying Online Ordering things online can be a trying experience. I remember when I ordered a printer from Amazon for my friend and it came in a couple of days. So far, so good. The problem arose when a second printer came sometime later. I decided I had better call Amazon so I could return it. I called and told the representative they mistakenly sent me a second printer and to send me a prepaid label so I could return it. The agent then said something fantastic to me, she could not give me a label because they had no record of the printer being sent so I should just keep it. I again asked for a prepaid label because it was after all their mistake and I felt I should not have to pay postage to return the printer. She again said I would have to keep it since there was no record. I didn’t believe that so I put the printer which was still in the unopened box in a corner and sure enough I got a call about it from Amazon months later asking me to pay for it. I told them what happened and said I never opened it and I wanted a prepaid label so I could return it and this time they sent me one. A man bought what he believed to be a throw rug online. The picture of it seemed to confirm the fact it was a throw rug. When it arrived, it turned out to only be about 9 inches by 4 inches. When he checked the site again, he realized no size was listed for the item. It was a clear fraud and unfortunately, he fell for it. So many times an item is pictured and it looks great in the photo, but when it arrives it is a piece of you know what. This has happened to so many people. That is why it is important to buy from places you know you can trust. Sometimes false advertising can really take the fun out of a purchase. Some of the sites selling this stuff can’t be touched by the law since they are in countries where the U.S. law cannot touch them. A man bought a cup which was advertised as changing from a night scene to a daytime one when you poured liquid into it. When he got the cup, he noticed it just stayed dark. It turned out it was just an ordinary cup which he paid a premium for. When ordering online mistakes can happen and at least they can be corrected with a little bit of inconvenience when the item comes from a trusted source. I ordered shoes from a usually reliable source and when they arrived, I let them sit in the box for a couple of days, then I thought I better try them on just to make sure everything was okay. I slipped on the left shoe and it was perfect, then came the right and I couldn’t get my foot in. I checked the size on the tongues of the shoes and to my surprise one shoe was smaller than the other. I sent them back and got a refund. I don’t know how many people are ordering food from a restaurant and getting it delivered by a private delivery service, but there have been quite a few complaints about this. It turned out some of the drivers were helping themselves to French fries and such. Now a lot of the food comes in bags which have been stapled shut. There have been quite a few complaints by people who ordered flowers sent from online stores. One person complained that the photo they had online showed a beautiful arrangement with many different flowers but this is not what was delivered after paying a hefty price. What the recipient got was mostly leaves with a few flowers scattered through the arrangement. This is especially insulting when the flowers are going to a funeral home. There seems to be an entire industry creating miniatures which are being put up for sale without the measurement required and sold to people as full size objects as I said above. I hadn’t realized how widespread this practice was until I checked it out. All I can say don’t buy anything without measurements being listed and even better don’t buy from unknown sites. I remember when I bought something from an unknown site and it never arrived. I emailed them several times and they didn’t answer. Finally, I called the credit card company who’s card I used and filed a complaint and got my money back. Another problem some people experience is with electronics. They think they are getting a break in price when they buy something and when it arrives it has problems. One person purchased a smart phone, and when it arrived the screen was defaced. It looked like it had a big stain in the middle of the screen, but it would not come off. They said they would never buy another thing from Ebay. Another person made an Ebay purchase of what they believed was a piece of art. It had been completely misdescribed and when it arrived it was nothing more than a foam cup with a smiley face drawn on it with a pen. One has to wonder how Ebay would allow such garbage to get listed on their site. One scam which some people have been complaining about is online sites which sell tickets for sporting events or concerts and the tickets are either never sent after the payment is received or counterfeit tickets are sent. Some people have said they have ordered things online and received something completely different than what was ordered. This could be an honest mistake if done by a reputable company, but it could also be some sort of scam, especially if it is the first time you are buying from an unknown website. It does make me wonder why people would even bother to send you something else than what you ordered because they could just keep your money if they wanted to scam you, and yet it happens. I guess if they have a problem with authorities, they can just say they made a mistake. Buying online can be risky under certain circumstances. We keep hearing about big companies losing the data of their customers. This means your credit card number is now out there maybe for everyone to see or someone to buy. Sometimes we don’t even find out about these crimes until months later.
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