So last year, I bought a Strymon Cloudburst on day of release, "in stock and delivered tomorrow," from a major UK retailer with a penchant for YouTube. Money taken and confirmation email received. Then nothing.
Wading through the syrup of their "help" centre, it finally transpired they didn't actually have stock and my order would be for the next shipment in a couple of months. No ta, followed by my constant nagging for a refund.
Benefit of the doubt, these things happen.
Couple of days ago I received an email from the aforementioned establishment, saying they had a new drop of Wampler Germanium Tumnuses (Tumni?), "in stock and delivered tomorrow". Money taken and confirmation email received. Then nothing.
Can you see a pattern yet?
If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different outcome, then I must be in the bag with the frogs!
Turns out the money was taken but the order failed to download to the system. Tumnus long since sold out.
WTF? It's 2024. How can a major online retailer that ploughs so much into digital marketing have an e-commerce back-end so entirely unfit for purpose?
And while I appreciate this is a very first world problem, it has left me miffed enough for this rant.
I never bothered with the Cloudburst in the end and in all likelihood I'll never get a Germanium Tumnus.
Lesson learnt.
“Don't bore us, get to the chorus!”
Comments
You should name and shame. Then we can avoid them.
I only buy in stock now. But lots do it.
If you have an automated message after purchase set up surely the homepage could have a message saying that before you spend your money.
They did refund straight away.
You should name and shame though!
That, and I find their entire schtick painfully cringe-worthy.
Hope OP resolves soon. I am having a right headache with Musicstore.com. Damaged MIDI keyboard - sent pics and they keep fobbing me off
He said he wanted to look into it further as it might be a problem caused by having multiple accounts. I'm not aware if I do have multiple accounts (can't think why I would) and even then it doesn't explain why the system happily took my money and emailed me an order number/confirmation.
I think the reality is their website probably doesn't run real time stock, so they might have to go through this nonsense every time there's a limited edition or hyped new release.
I did suggest that since the owner has two real Klons which he won't stop banging on about, he could probably let me have his Wampler, but haven't yet had a response to that...
I know nothing about trades description or indeed if it’s still a thing but surely ex demo / customer return cannot be sold as new legally ?
Unfortunately, a minority of punters take the piss and heavily 'trial' an item before returning under distance selling regs.
It's the retailer's responsibility to check the condition of returned items, but in this shiny new world of e-commerce, where people buy knickers from M&S to wear for a week before returning them, few retailers have the resources. So stuff goes straight back into stock and resold. Back in the day, the best retailers sold all returns as B stock, just in case, but that just isn't financially viable anymore.
You clearly received the pedal equivalent of heavily soiled grundies!
Fortunately you're covered under the same distance selling regs, so a refund will definitely happen... eventually.
Good luck!
Who was it then OP ?
But they're far from alone. I didn't mention in my first post that DV247 took my money last December for the first drop of Germanium Tumnus, when they didn't have stock. No apology and they blamed Wampler!
So that's three strikes and out with this online pedal purchase malarkey.
I've come to terms with the fact that my life will remain Germanium Tumnus free. And I should just make better use of what I've already got. A lesson for life there.
mind you there’s always a chance they could have a problem.
online buying is addictive because you can identify just about anything that you might want, see the prices new and used and hopefully get it delivered straight to your home .
access to actual shops is difficult for a lot of people and also the choice though good at the shop can’t compete with the net …..
I had one and sold it on Reverb for a nice little profit