kristina t.

We had 4 lines with TMobile. Service was garbage in our area so we switched to Verizon. I paid my final bill and was sent 4 letters (1 per phone) explaining I'd be responsible for the purchase price if I don't return them. I wanted to keep the phones so I was fine with that, especially since it was only $125. Now I'm sitting with a bill for $410 in front of me while I'm sitting on hold waiting on a supervisor. This hold is AFTER spending 40+ minutes talking to a rep that kept putting me on hold to speak with the supervisor that's supposedly too busy to take a call now. As you can see per my screen shot I am now past the hour mark. Apparently nobody wants to address why my $125 purchase agreement for the equipment turned into a $372 equipment payment

I had been with this site a pretty long time. In fact, this month would have been my one year anniversary with them. I thought they were fantastic. Not only did I get unlimited great books, but they had most of my college books under their document sections. At a $9 a month fee, I had saved over a thousand dollars on those college books alone! Not to mention the app worked great with no issues, no ad interruptions, and no shut downs. I have never even had a bad experience with their customer service.

My issue with Scribd is their recent change. I am so distraught over it, my 5 star review has dropped to 2. What happened is, they went from unlimited reading to a credit system. You get 3 credits a month+1 audiobook (most books are 1 credit each). For that price I would rather go back to library visits. This would be okay for some, but I read anywhere from 10-15 books a month. What really angered me about it though, is members like me got no warning of this change. To top it all off, since I decided to opt out of my membership rather than continue it, they decided that I no longer get to read the books that I had already used my credits for (credits that I had already paid for and rightfully deserved to use). I am beyond disappointed in their choice to make such a sudden change and not warn their members before doing so. At the very least, they could have offered a package that still allows the unlimited reading. If it was about cost, I would have gladly paid more to continue the membership I had.

I realized that it had almost been a year since my last review and considering Tophatter is still very much alive (somehow) and that thousands are reading my review a day, I thought I would reevaluate my feelings towards them. Yup, I gave them another shot. I previously warned everyone about the hidden fee system, the overpriced shipping (that Tophatter kept), and the long wait as they put the more senior sellers first. Well I have a few issues that I would like to add to the list. This was my 24 hour experience back on Tophatter... as in my usual manor it is a little long so I try to keep it cynical and humorous the best I can.

First of all, signing in. HA! I went to sign in and was informed that because I deactivated my account I could not sign in until I contacted customer support. Sure, I had no problem honestly telling them while I was back. Well... ok, one problem. When you click on contact us, it turns out you cannot contact them unless you sign in. My oh my Tophatter, what genius did you hire to build your web page?

I was already on a mission though so I did the next best thing, made a new account. I list my item, the first time is still free although they do not move you up like they used to do. I still had to wait over an hour for it to be auctioned off. In the meantime though, I scouted the site. Found some interesting things. I am going to go ahead and mention, if you buy stuff on Tophatter I do not think your an idiot. However, if you copy and paste the item name, plug it into eBay, and STILL buy the item, I will say you're a complete moron. EVERYTHING in that room was not only on eBay, but sold in lots. As in they were paying $5-$10 for 10 of them, and selling them on Tophatter for $8-$10 each. I seen the same seller 'My Electronics' list 37, YES 37 of the SAME '. 999 gold plated dollar with covers' found on eBay for less than a dollar each. The lowest one I seen one go for on Tophatter was $8. The most expensive I seen was $16. Seriously, did these parents not warn their children that they should ALWAYS shop around? I mean, I understand that on Tophatter you only have about 90 seconds to decide if you want it or not but he had almost 40 of them listed for goodness sake! There was plenty of time. By the way, all these dollars is why they did not have time for me to list a second item. This guy and his hundreds of cheaply made dollars was more important. No wonder he has more reviews than new sellers, new sellers do not get the chance to sell anything! I will say though, that my item did finally sell, and for $12 dollars at that. I was impressed considering I just chose something I did not care to eat the cost on. It was a $45 dollar pair of Merika Performance Fitted Capris.

Let's go ahead and talk about this money though. $12 bid with $2 shipping. This gets interesting. I knew Tophatter charged commission of 10%, but turns out they not only commission the bid, but the shipping to. I guess I can get it because some people want to over charge their shipping, but instead of charging the previous flat rate shipping couldn't they just charge the actual shipping cost? You know, like normal places? I mean first they were charging $5 to ship something that costs $2 so that they could keep the extra $3 and people were outraged. To fix that their solution was to commission us for using USPS shipping after we were charged to sell it in the first place?

One last thing I checked out while I was there was the partner auction. That is something I was interested in before but could never get them to admit the cost of it to me. They always like to beat around the bush and feed me BS without the actual answer. You know, like the politicians do. Anyways they asked me about my items and I told them I can do two types. I have 12 different SKUS for about 300 products in electronics as well as over 300 SKUs for close to 1000 products in DVDs and CDs. They thought the house hold DVDs and CDs would be a perfect fit. They then informed me that the cost was going to be $1 entry fee for each item (that is paid regardless of if it sells or not) plus 30% commission on everything sold (and on the shipping to). What the %*^*? Seriously. What. The. *%&$&. On some DVDs? Let's break it down. Let's say I that after bid and ship I sell a DVD for $8 (a pretty fair cost for a DVD). I sell a DVD for $5 I am going to lose $1.50 for the commission and another $1 for the entry fee. I am now down to $2.50. I will also have to charge at least $3 for shipping because it will cost at least $2.60 to mail it to them and after they take 30% of $3 that leaves me $2.90. Out of a grand total of an $8 sell, I get $2.80 depending on their shipping location. My profit margin is a dollar. I could make more than that with a yard sale!

All in all, not much has changed. They are still the same crooked company they have always been. They are still NO match to eBay. By the way, I will not be on Tophatter anymore but feel free to check out my new eBay
http://www.ebay.com/usr/trau_sea?_trksid=p*******.l2559
It's a little low right now, but my seller limit will refill at the first of March!