Techondigital.com Techondigital Stay away from this company Brooklyn New York

I can't believe I fell for it.

On Saturday 5/31/2008 I placed with Techondigital.com an order for a Tomtom GO 920 GPS navigation received online for $265 + shipping costs of $24.95. I immediately received by email an acknowledgment that the order had been received.

On Monday morning, I received an email requesting that I "call scott from our order confirmation department at ext: 207 to confirm your order at 800-958-0054", which I promptly did. Although I did not get "scott", I sales associate took the call, and proceeded with a high pressure pitch to get me to fork out a whopping $179 for a 1GB ultra-high-speed class 6 secure-digital (SD) card, arguing that one of the flaws of the Tomtom is that it had not built-in memory (a quick online search will confirm that in fact, the machine comes with 4GB built-in).

While the associate was talking, I looked up the prices for these cards, and found that one could buy a Toshiba-branded class 6 1GB card for $20.99, or even a Kingston-branded class 6 4GB card for $29.99. When I pointed out to the representative that the price was higher than what I could find online, he had the audacity to suggest that most SD cards sold online were prone to fail, except, of course, Techondigital's, but that he would nevertheless throw a free case, for which I should consider myself happy.

He then tried to trick me several times into saying either "yes" or "okay", asking me unrelated questions to the matter at hand, such as how my day was going, etc. Then out of the blue, he told me he was about to bill me for $479.99, including shipping charges. When I answered that I would not allow him to bill me for the unwanted extra, particularly an overpriced one, he argued that on several occasions, in the course of the conversation, I had said "yes" and "okay" (which I had, to questions such as how my day was going, or if the weather was nice outside...). I insisted that I just wanted the original order. He answered that he had already processed the revised order, because I had "mislaid" him with my "yes" and "okay". He further stated that it was beyond his control to remove the extra, unless I cancel the entire order.

Moreover, h warned me that my name would be flagged, as a result of which I would never be allowed to purchase from the company again. We argued for about 5 minutes. Finally, I advised him that I worked for a financial institution, as a result of which the conversations were likely recorded. He immediately backed off. In an angry and exasperated tone, he said "fine, you'll have that GPS as ordered by Friday, after which he hung up.

Low and behold, earlier today -- that is, 5 days after the rather unpleasant altercation with the sales associate -- I received the following poorly drafted email from the company:

"We thank you for your order and appreciate you shopping with us. Due to the product you ordered being out of stock for 6-8 weeks from today's date. We regret to inform you that the order is canceled due to the product being on backorder. when or if we get the product again in stock soon will send you an email to place an order please do not resubmit your order again . sorry again and thanks for your understanding."

Of course, I promptly verified the claims on the company's website and found that, of course, the very make and model I wanted IS AVAILABLE and can be had for $279!!! http://www.techondigital.com/product.asp?productid=tom920&tab=1

Just in case, I took the precaution of canceling the credit card I had used in making the purchase -- just in case some employee of the company nurtured the ill-conceived idea of using my card for nefarious purposes.

Stephen
Tenafly, New Jersey
U.S.A.