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Report: #1101884

Complaint Review: alsotao.com - Internet

  • Submitted:
  • Updated:
  • Reported By: xtofury — Victoria British Columbia
  • Author Not Confirmed What's this?
  • Why?
  • alsotao.com Internet China

alsotao.com bait and switch -- tried to gouge me with unreasonable shipping rates after I sent payment for the transaction ,incl shipping Internet

*REBUTTAL Individual responds: Response to email request for removal

*General Comment: Email Communications

*Author of original report: some visa activity

*Author of original report: stalling tactic

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Purchased the item for $3.20, bought 5 of them, when I paid for my order the total came to $16.00 + $1.33 shipping (so $17.33 total).

This was not good enough for them, they wrote me the following message after charging my visa for the total amount of $17.33:

S1122203425 Dear friend,
For the order S1121203424
Regarding the item A-203424-1 alsotao.com/product/12271481674/--pneu
the seller advise us the actual weight is about 1.5kg,so we advise you should pay the shipping cost difference $(29.67-1.33=28.34).and we will recalculate the actual accurate weight before shipping, hope you could understand.
If you agree to pay,for your convenience, we hope you could add money to your account. Our system will deduct the price difference automatically.
Looking forward to your early reply.
If you have any other questions, please feel free to let us know. Thanks!
Best Regards,
------------------------------------------------------------
Rebacca from alsotao.com team
AlsoTao.com Support Team(Original SmallTao)
Tel: +1(315)6008992
E-mail: sales@alsotao.com

Interestingly if one clicks on the link, the price has gone up to $4.80 (and while I was writing this it went up to $5.00) and the weight is now 13g, instead of 11g which is what it was for my order.

Something really stinks about this website.  If the weight per unit is off, and it actually is 300g, then you would think they would have updated it to 300g rather than update to 13g.

I have advised them to refund my card, if they do not I will report back and let everyone know just how hostile they are, and will be disputing the charges via the credit card company.  I offered for them to send it and to pay $15 shipping when I had what I wanted in my hand (as I was not going to trust them with $30 of my money after they screwed around with $17 of it), they declined the offer.  Doing some math here $17.33+$15 would have totalled $32, I could have just about bought my 5 valves from ebay for that price, and I certainly was not going to pay them $30.  No FREAKING WAY.  So I purchased the exact same item from ebay for $7.01 each, free shipping.

This company conducts some dishonourable business, and I will not be shopping with them ever again.

This report was posted on Ripoff Report on 11/24/2013 03:05 PM and is a permanent record located here: https://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/alsotaocom/internet/alsotaocom-bait-and-switch-tried-to-gouge-me-with-unreasonable-shipping-rates-after-i-1101884. The posting time indicated is Arizona local time. Arizona does not observe daylight savings so the post time may be Mountain or Pacific depending on the time of year. Ripoff Report has an exclusive license to this report. It may not be copied without the written permission of Ripoff Report. READ: Foreign websites steal our content

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REBUTTALS & REPLIES:
2Author
1Consumer
1Employee/Owner

#4 REBUTTAL Individual responds

Response to email request for removal

AUTHOR: Ryan - ()

POSTED: Friday, December 20, 2013
Unfortunately rip off reports once filed do not get removed, though successful resolution of them can dampen their impact.

As for how I am doing, I ordered 3 valves for $22 from ebay, the exact same model, with free shipping from China.  Two of which still had water in them from what I am assuming testing.

 

Even if I could take it down, why would I?  It portrays an accurate representation of a model that favors buyers after the funds have been secured and is bad business.  Furthermore, I had provided the opportunity for a remedy when I had sent the URL to customer service, expecting that it would make them feel embarrassed about the poor public relations with how the transaction had taken place.

 

One of the key features of ripoffreport is that even if an individual who files a report wants it taken down, it won't be taken down, and even if you attempted to appeal to them directly they won't take it down, even with threatening legal notifications and such.  This puts things into an interesting situation as I am now obliged to take these communications, update the report,, and leave the ball in your court when it comes to successful resolution of this issue.  I will duly note that the refund took 4 days.

 

What I would expect at this point is a review of your policies, and if the shipper makes a mistake it's on them, if your software makes a mistake it's on you, if a customer purchases and pays for something it is up to one of those two parties to ensure that it happens, and this is a suitable demonstration of your business's ability to manage customer relations -- alsotao's reaction will be very revealing and could make this into a positive, or a negative; that part is all on you.

 

Cheers,

Ryan
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#3 General Comment

Email Communications

AUTHOR: Ryan - ()

POSTED: Friday, December 20, 2013
Dear Ryan Elson
How are you doing?
We apologize that we could not advise you the exact weight, but approximately weight before you make an order.
We are a tao bao agent, so the weight of products listed on our website is estimated, we will recalculate the final weight when the item arrive in our warehouse.We are afraid that we need our customers to add the freight difference if the weight is heavier and return the freight difference if the final weight is lighter.
This is the limitation of our operation mode,
hope you can give us some understanding and support for this.
How about this? In future, could you please kindly show us link of item first?
Then we will help you check the actual weight of this item with seller in advance
Meanwhile, could you please kindly remove it
We appreciate your great cooperation in advance
If you have any other questions, please feel free to let us know. Thanks!
Best Regards,
------------------------------------------------------------
Lily from alsotao.com team
AlsoTao.com Support Team(Original SmallTao)
Tel: +1(315)6008992
E-mail: sales@alsotao.com
Join our facebook fans club to get more discounts^^
http://on.fb.me/11KU0bG
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#2 Author of original report

some visa activity

AUTHOR: xtofury - ()

POSTED: Monday, November 25, 2013

Last night when I had gotten that message from alsotao regarding a refund, I noticed that the transaction was in the "authorization detail" section.  Today it moved.  Does this look like the intention to refund (it's highlighted in the image, the higher than $17.33 USD amount is with exchange rates on the card at $18.32 CAD).  Either way, notice the date is today, so now they have entirely finished taking money for a cancelled order, after they said they would cancel the order and provision the refund.  I will be contacting VISA to make arrangements to report their fraud.

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#1 Author of original report

stalling tactic

AUTHOR: xtofury - ()

POSTED: Sunday, November 24, 2013

I have no patience for this.  They snatch up the money instantly but then slowly give it back? What a bunch of theives!

 

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