charged but received no product or replies
Complaint
C Lukens
Country: United States
Purchased a DVTPAL DVR from DigtialStar.com 9/23/2009. When I ordered the unit there was no mention of the item being out of stock or I sure as HE-- would not have placed the order. I inquired about the shipping status of the item on10/3/2009 to which I received an email stating the unit was due to be in stock 10/15/2009. After a couple more weeks I started emailing the company but received no response. In checking other electonic sites I noted the DVTPAL DVR was being sold only by Sears. I ordered the unit from Sears which was delivered in 3 days. I had used Paypal to purchase the unit from DigitalStar.com but because it was over 45 days Paypal would not assist. I contacted the BBB in IL to no avail there either. I would stay away from this company!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Comments
Here is their BBB report, rated "F".
http://www.bbb.org/chicago/business-reviews/e ... ook-il-88267047
Legitimate merchants don't charge your account on a back-ordered product.
It also appears that if this product is sold only through Sears, that this company may not be a franchised dealer authorized to sell it, or may be running a scam to get paid for product they have no intention of shipping.
If your account is charged immediately, but you haven't received it within the normal shipping period after that, that is a red flag you may be dealing with either a scam or a financially shaky company running on its customer's capital.
If you haven't received the package, or at least a tracking number, within 2 weeks, that was time to contact them. If no product arrives within 4 weeks, file a payment dispute for non-shipment. Alternatively, finding out they charged when they were back-ordering would have been an appropriate point to cancel and dispute the charge.
In addition, it appears that if Paypal limits disputes to only 45 days, then your fraud protections are severely curtailed compared to debit or credit cards, which under federal law, require banks to accept disputes up to 60 days from the statement date of the statement showing the disputed charge.
It appears that with Paypal, you better dispute at 30 days from the charge, regardless of promises.
Paypal would appear to be a poorer payment product compared to normal credit payment methods.