Liquidation Services - Liquidity Services - Liquidation - GoWholesale - Government Liquidation - LiquiBiz Deceptive selling practice Washington, District of Columbia

Well, here is a story that ends well: After many complaints filed (BBB, FBI, FTC, etc.) I finally received an email from Liquidity Services saying they had decided to refund my money! Do you believe this? Just like that, yes, they did! They asked me to return the 40 iPods I had purchased and that, after receipt of the goods, they would refund the money...

A funny thing happened next: I re-packed all the iPods and shipped them to the address Liquidity Services had given me in the email (in the email there was even an attachment that was a UPS shipping label--prepaid!) Now, remember all the iPods were bad, except for 2 of them. When I came back from the UPS store I found one of the iPods on the floor! So, by mistake, I had shipped only 39. I didn't know what to do with the extra iPod (one of the bad ones--worthless) and I was afraid that one iPod missing would either delay my refund or void it altogether. I was also afraid that sending it now would create even more confusion and give Liquidity Services an excuse to delay the refund even more. So, I decided to wait and let them come back and ask for the missing iPod.

Well, guess what happened folks? Liquidity Services acknowledged receipt of the package and about three weeks later--it took that long because I had cancelled my credit card on file with them--I received a check in the mail for the full amount, including shipping, buyer's premium, etc.

Now, isn't that a great story with a happy ending? Wait! That's not all...

I had read somewhere in another complaint on this site that they had cancelled the account of a client who had filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau. So, I logged into my account just to see if I would be allowed in. And I was. So I looked at the original invoice they had sent me. And it was there, marked "cancelled!" I was very impressed, really! Surrender at dawn? Hardly so! Read on...

I did an iPod search on the auction pages. Not that I wanted to buy anything ("Fool me once, your fault! Fool me twice, my fault!") but I just wanted to know how many other fools like me were unsuspectingly bidding on lots of bad iPods and how much they were willing to pay. There were several lots of 40 iPods and they all had many bids.

One, however, attracted my attention because it had just been listed a few days earlier. And yes, you guessed it, it was the only lot with 39 iPods! So I looked at the manifest to see how many were listed as being DOA and how many were listed as working. The manifest listed only 16 as failing the power on test (a major improvement though from when I bought them, the original manifest listed only 2 as failing the power on test!) A coincidence? I sincerely don't believe so...

I expect to see on this site, in the not too distant future, a complaint from a guy who bought 39 iPods from Liquidity Services (blah, blah, blah, you know the rest...)

There you are folks. The lesson here is that if you persevere, you have good chances of getting your money back. But you have to show some teeth.

I hope this is helpful. I wish you all good luck in recovering what you've lost.

Signing off.

Outraged2007.

Regarding consumer electronics, it is becoming clear now that what Liquidity Services, Inc. calls "Returns" is not returns in the traditional sense like you and I would understand. There are indeed recycling collection boxes for discarded consumer electronics equipment at the front door of Best Buys stores. They are advertised as being donated to charities. It is the stuff that is in there that Liquidity Services sells as "returns." I don't know how they get hold of it. Maybe it is Liquidity Services that collects them from the boxes, maybe it is the charitable organizations that it is meant to help that do. One thing that is sure, however, is that the pictures given of the lots being auctioned off show that the goods are in the Liquidity Services warehouses, packed by them and described on the auction pages by them. Yes indeed, literally taken, these goods were returned to the stores--at least all the way to the front door! And the deception continues, and no one does anything about it...