I learnt only last week (01/08/2016) that Simplyelectronics in no longer trading, they've either gone bankrupt of taken out of business. Their website has been closed down.
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I started this record as a sort of therapy, 4 weeks into this horrendous experience. Over a month since I transferred my money for the 2-5 day delivery. However, website saying 4 in stock and the price has now been dropped by £15 since I ordered___________________________
Update@ 31st May - Refund processing
Finally gave up and asked for a refund last Thursday. Simplyelectronics got back to me within 2 working days (30th May). They offered me a gift as compensation and asked me to re-consider. I declined both and they got back to me same day to confirm cancellation and to say that an agent would be in touch within 1 working day - which he did today (31 May). Cancellation was confirmed and I was told that the refund would take a few days. My account in the website has also been updated to show cancellation.
I'm as frustrated as everyone else on here but the majority of reviews are complaints without a conclusion, so I don't know whether they are just logistically incompetent or crooks who take your money and keep it. I will therefore keep updating this until there is a conclusion, however, long that takes.
Unfortunately after reading bad reviews about Skrill I did not use my credit card!________________________
Update@ 2nd June:
Request for bank details to process refund arrived today. Details sent same day. Okay so far!_______________________
Update@ 7th June:
"I have forwarded your bank details to our relevant department and once we have an update we will get back to you"
Hmmm - not so good now. All they have to do is enter details an press "send", however, it's only 3 working days since I sent my details over._____________________
Update@ 14th June:
8th June - after another chase-up mail I was told that my refund had been "initiated" on 7th June!
13th June - I asked "what does "initiated" mean - you've sent payment or you've asked someone to send it?" I received exactly the same mail back - refund initiated. I checked with my bank - no sign of payment in the system or my account! I sent another mail to say their response was not acceptable. My account on their website shows status as "refunded".
14th June - received my first" almost personal" mail from Ava, who said she was looking into the reason for the delay. I have now also asked my bank to get involved.
Now just over 2 weeks since refund requested, and 6 weeks since the fateful day I placed my order___________________
Update@ 15th June
Mail today saying that they had initiated the refund on 7th June and they no longer have money but neither do I! They say that I now have to take it up with my bank.
Asked them to confirm details of the account they sent money to before I do that._____________________
Update@ 16th June:
I now sense that I am entering a very tough stage in trying to get my money back. Sent them a mail today asking them again to confirm the details of the account that they say they sent my refund to. My bank says that they may not have provided their bank with formal authorization to release the money - so asked them to check that as well.
In the meantime my bank are contacting their bank and are going to write to them - sounds very tame just now but will no don't wind up. Don't think I've mentioned this before but they have £1115 of my money that I sent them for the non-existent Surfacebook
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Update@ 22nd June:
No reply yet - another reminder. Two more weeks before my bank ramps up the pressure
What a bunch of...
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Update@ 30th June:
No starting to lose the will to live - now 10 week since I parted with my hard earned money.
Seem to be going round in circles and I keep getting the same bog standard cut and past e-mails - the one I don't like is "We would like to confirm that the refund has been initiated in our end last 7 June 2016 and we no longer hold the funds. It will now depend on your bank on when it will reflect back in your account. We suggest you to contact your bank to rectify this matter."
I have told them that this is not acceptable and have now logged a "formal complaint" with them - not that it will make much difference. They are now "investigating"_______________________
Update@ 8th July:
Still no sign of money. Contacted UK and Hong Kong Police_______________________
Update@ 13 July:
Yet another mail to say that my refund will be "initiated " in next couple of days ("hopefully sooner so they say!). Now have my bank, Hong Kong Police, UK Police and Hong Kong Consumer council on the case.
Now 11 weeks since I placed the order and 6 weeks since I requested a refund
(Interesting how all the 5 star reviews are "verified orders" but all the bad ones are not - hmmm. Despite these "special" special reviews, their overall rating has gone down from 4.7 to 4.4 since I began this nightmare)________________________
Update@ 20/07/2016
BIG DAY TODAY I GOT MY MONEY BACK!
Up to today I had the following on the case, in addition to me sending daily e-mails:
- Hong Kong Fraud Police
- UK Fraud Police
- Hong Kong Consumer Council
- First Direct Bank
Im not sure what the final trigger was but key events yesterday were: receipt of a copy of a letter sent to SE on my behalf and a letter from my bank mailed to them confirming that no money had been received. 24 hours later my refund was in my account and a mail from SE, apologizing and saying that the refund had been sent to to wrong account. It looked very generic, just like all the others but past caring now. The last 7 weeks suddenly dont feel so long now.
In answer to my original question yes it is possible to get your money back, even if you dont pay by credit card but its very hard work.
Lessons learnt:
- Never buy anything from Simply Electronics
- If you must, for your own protection, use a credit card
- Always correspond by e-mail dont use their messaging system, otherwise you lose records of your correspondence
- Keep every mail you send and receive you will need them to back up any future claim
- Never give up! I think that is part of their business pan!
Useful contacts:
Hong Kong Police:
UK Police- report online fraud
Hong Kong Consumer Council
((Not allowed to post links, also not allowed to use the G word for fear of deletion - so just use your favourite search engine to find the above - include the word "fraud")
Over and out! - the nightmare has ended!
I wish to file a complaint against the company Simply Electronics with whom I have dealt with over the past seven weeks. After having purchased an item from their website which I had not received eleven days after buying, I cancelled my order due to the shady behavior of the company with regards to my order. Forty days later, I am still waiting for my refund which the company says on their website, will be provided immediately.
"If your credit card has already been charged for the purchase and your order is cancelled, SimplyElectronics.net will immediately issue a credit to your credit card in the amount of the charge." Extract from the Terms and conditions of Simply Electronics
Since the cancellation of my order I have had to put up with numerous excuses from the company as to why I have not received my refund. The past seven weeks that I have spent dealing with this company, have left me with little doubt that this is a company who walks the line between legal and illegal business practices –tricking customers into buying their products through the advertisement of false promises that become evident as soon as the payment transaction has gone through. Simply Electronics is a company who plays with customers' patience and time, in the hopes, I believe, that the dissatisfied customers will eventually give up on their demand for a refund.
I will provide you as attachted, with a chronological outline of my dealings with Simply Electronics.
June 9th, 2012. I ordered 1 x Nikon D7000 DSLR Camera Body (Order Number **************) on the website SimplyElectronics.net without receiving any formal receipt (I have only received an e-mail confirmation and an automatic message after paying the order online, please see the attachment).
June 21st, 2012 I decided to cancel my order and demanded a full refund.
The reasons that I decided to cancel my order include:
• The fact that I did not receive my order during the time frame promised (The item being in stock on the website, the trader guaranteed the item to be shipped within 1-2 working days and delivered within 2-7 working days)
• The shady behavior of the customer service representatives:
The inability or unwillingness of the representatives to give me any clear and concrete information concerning my order.
Their refusal to provide me with a written date at which time my order would be shipped. They only gave me a date for the shipment by phone which was inexact.
Details concerning the cancellation of my order:
• The Customer Service representative accepted the request by phone and asks me to confirm it by e-mail. But, while I was writing my e-mail cancellation a few minutes after my phone call, the online status of my order changed from "new" (I had the misfortune of seeing this for 10 days after my payment) to "packing".
I have a hard time believing that it was just a coincidence that this changing operation happened just right after my call requesting the cancellation of my order, while one of their online Customer Services Agent kept saying to me that the item that I purchased was not present in their stock.
• I nevertheless sent a cancellation email that same day demanding a cancellation of my order. To my surprise, the status of my order the following day was listed as "shipping", please see the attachment). At the same time I received a reply to my cancellation request, from the customer representative stating that I had not given the company enough time to cancel my order and that the product was now being handled by the shipping department and they were therefore no longer able to ‘help' me.
• I therefore asked for the tracking number of my order which Simply Electronics refused to give to me. I had to contact DHL (delivery company) myself in order to obtain information concerning my product. In speaking with a DHL employee I discovered that the time delays that Simply Electronics had given me were in fact false. (I had been told by Simply Electronics that I would receive my refund as soon as the package was returned to them. I found out from UPS that Simply Electronics received that package on June 30th; however several days after this date, I still had no news from them. I thus informed them that I was aware of the fact that they had received the package and I once again demanded my refund).
• Despite my unrelenting pressure to receive my refund, Simply Electronics has put off providing me with my refund both through taking a lot more time to reply to my emails than was previously the case, and by giving me weak excuses as to why the refund has not taken place.
The most recent excuse has been that there is a problem with their credit card processor.
After seven weeks of waiting and countless emails exchanged, I still have not received a refund. I have tried to negotiate with the company itself however as you will see for yourself in reading the emails that I have attached, this tactic is useless when dealing with a company that seems determined to evade any sort of responsibility that they may have towards their customers.
My sole request is to be reimbursed the 819,95 euros that I paid for an item that I cancelled over a month ago.
Run, run away from them.
Fuyez, fuyez. N'achetez rien chez eux. Les problèmes sont garantis!
On the 18th of December, I ordered a telephone from simplyelectronics.net, based on their guarantee that it would be delivered in time for Christmas. When it had not arrived on the 22nd of December and still appeared on the website as "processing" I e-mailed them expressing my concern that their guarantee would not be fulfilled. The following day, having received no response, I phoned the company, and after an hour or two of waiting managed to speak to a customer service agent who told me it didn't look like I would be getting my item on time but she would try to get it sent in the next batch. After some coaxing, she agreed to call me back within an hour. She did not do this so I called back and was told that in fact I wouldn't be getting the item on time. The agent was unable or unwilling to explain why this was the case, or what were the terms of the guarantee I had been given. She refused my request to send the item by overnight delivery despite the fact that this was the last chance to fulfill the guarantee. I asked for a supervisor but was told that none was available but one would ring me back within an hour. This never happened and by the time I called back their office had already closed.
In the meantime I received an email response from the company, apologising for the "slight delay" in the order and was told thatI could probably expect to receive it "after the holidays". Again, I requested overnight delivery and again my request was ignored.
The next response I received was on the 28th of December where I was told it would probably be despatched the following Wednesday and was offered a free cleaning kit if this would somehow help.
Despite the appalling service I had received up to this point I agreed to accept delivery of the order if it was sent immediately by overnight delivery. This did not happen and I received no response so the following day I cancelled the order and requested a refund.
The following day - as a direct response to my cancellation e-mail - I was told it was scheduled to be despatched that day and would be sent by overnight delivery. I reiterated that I no longer wanted it and had already cancelled the order.
A day later (31st December if you're lost), I was told it had already been packed and they may not be able to get in touch with the courier company to prevent it being sent (yes, really!). I was told to refuse delivery and that when they received it back a refund would be processed. I requested an immediate refund as I had already been waiting almost two weeks and they had taken my money under the false pretences of having the item in stock and being able to deliver it in a timely manner.
I continued to request an immediate refund while they continued to tell me that they had to wait until the item was returned. Later the same day I received a cheery email telling me my item had been sent. However, this was also a lie.
By the 4th of January, I still had not received the item and demanded an immediate refund. The company continued to insist that they could only process a refund after receiving the item back from the courier. As they had taken my money before sending the item, I knew that this was not the case. Further, as the item sent by overnight delivery had not arrived after four days and the courier company (DHL) had no record of it, I realised that this went beyond simple incompetence.
On the advice of many of the negative reviews of this company, I e-mailed their customer services manager requesting her to sort out the mess immediately. However, unlike some of the other reviewers, I received no better treatment from her. After three days I had received no response and phoned the company again. After waiting almost three hours to get through to a representative I was told that the matter was being dealt with. I asked for either an immediate refund or to speak to a supervisor. Both were denied. After almost an hour on the phone where I refused to end the call, I was eventually allowed to speak to a supervisor who told me that on the day the item was allegedly despatched there were problems with DHL tracking numbers. She then told me the matter was being dealt with by another department and I could expect to receive an email within an hour. This is the only time that someone from this company told me something that turned out to be true; I received an email (from the manager's email address but not from the manager) with another empty apology, and a request to allow a few more days for them to sort out the problem with DHL. I refused this as I had no contract with DHL and had in fact cancelled the order two full days before it was supposedly sent. I requested an immediate response to the effect that I would get a full refund. No response was forthcoming.
Three days later, the manager finally deigned to respond to me. She explained that there was a technical issue with her email as if this somehow explained something, and then declared that I had now received the item and she hoped I was enjoying it -and that I had enjoyed my experience so far.
After my response threatening immediate legal reprisals I finally got confirmation that a refund was being processed, and today, over a month since I made the order and a full three weeks since I cancelled it, I finally got my money back.
I generally live by the maxim: "Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence" but I find it hard to explain this mess away as mere incompetence. Certainly the guarantee of delivery by Christmas was made in bad faith, the company simply had no intention of fulfilling this obligation. The fact that my credit card was charged before the item was despatched was certainly immoral and probably illegal. The fake tracking number I was given is very difficult to explain as anything other than deliberate fraud. It does appear that on occasion this company does deliver items as ordered but this seems to be a rare occurrence. If what I experienced was at all unusual I would have received more than empty apologies and false promises but it seems to be par for the course with this company.
As a result of my unfortunate dealings with this company my Christmas was very nearly ruined (fortunately the intended recipient was very understanding and I purchased a replacement from Amazon which arrived promptly) and I had to spend a considerable amount of time and money sorting out their mess. This is the worst company I have ever dealt with in over a decade of online shopping. Stay away from them! Pay a little extra for a reputable company that values its customers.