Product not sent, communication poor

Ave Sodalis

Hi folks,


I'm hoping to get a little bit of pre-emptive advice. A month ago, I ordered some small things on an Irish website. At the time, it did say that it could take between 7 and 10 business days to send, and I agreed to that. 10 business days came and went, and there was no sign of anything. I gave them a few extra days before contacting them in case it was An Post that was slowing things down. A few days later (last Friday), I got a generic email stating that my order was still processing as they were working on skeleton staff, and that it would be sent the following week and be with me between 3-5 business days, or they would contact me during the week with an update.



Friday came, and the postman didn't stop at the door, so I contacted the company again via their online contact form, which I didn't get a copy of. I just asked for a refund, as it was things I could have gotten locally but I thought it would be a bit safer to order online. I got no reply from that, but last night I got another email to say that my order was processing again and was due for delivery in 5-10 days. I sent them an email yesterday, outlining all the timelines so I have a copy of it, and repeating my request for a refund.



I have a feeling though, that they might ignore my email and send the product anyway. Is there anything I can do in this situation?

Do a charge back with your credit card company

JustAThought

would you not consider getting in contact with your card provider and cancel the payment. That way the issue is somewhat resolved, once the refund is made you can return the goods should they have been posted and arrive in the interim.

Ave Sodalis

SouthWesterly wrote: »

Do a charge back with your credit card company

JustAThought wrote: »

would you not consider getting in contact with your card provider and cancel the payment. That way the issue is somewhat resolved, once the refund is made you can return the goods should they have been posted and arrive in the interim.

Thank you. I had considered it as I paid with Paypal, but I wasn't sure if that would cause problems.

silver2020

Paypal? - That's very easy. Just open a dispute. You'll either get the goods immediately or a refund

I wonder what the reason could be for the delay.

Ave Sodalis

silver2020 wrote:

Paypal? - That's very easy. Just open a dispute. You'll either get the goods immediately or a refund

Yeah, I'm not too worried about getting money back that way. It's just whether or not this is something reasonable to do at this stage, or if I have a right to do it.

Dav010 wrote:

I wonder what the reason could be for the delay.

The reason they gave me was that they are on skeleton staff due to Covid.

Ave Sodalis

Ave Sodalis wrote: »

The reason they gave me was that they are on skeleton staff due to Covid.

Seems plausible given the current situation.

Wanderer19

silver2020 wrote: »

Paypal? - That's very easy. Just open a dispute. You'll either get the goods immediately or a refund

That's not quite true, PayPal contact the supplier, and base their information on that, and they give the supplier 30 days to respond. I wouldn't wait for PayPal if there was any other way to get a refund.

BeardySi

Dav010 wrote: »

Seems plausible given the current situation.

And?

OP is still entitled to cancel their order. As it's still processing it should be a straightforward matter.

Tried phoning them OP?

Ave Sodalis

BeardySi wrote: »

And?

OP is still entitled to cancel their order. As it's still processing it should be a straightforward matter.

Tried phoning them OP?

I have, but no answer.



I understand that they're on skeleton staff, but I even double checked if they were a legitimate company because of their poor communication, and because they gave my false information regarding delivery twice.



It's stuff I can get in my local co-op, and on Amazon but I didn't want to walk into a physical place, especially with an ageing farmer population, and I thought it would be better to at least go a little bit more locally than Amazon as Irish businesses will need all the help they can get. I've also had 3 or 4 other things be ordered and delivered in that time, or I was contacted to say there would be a delay. I'm even waiting on sport gear from Pakistan and from China (which couldn't be got here) since March, but I've been kept up to date.

It's just all a bit too messy. If they had been upfront from the beginning, I wouldn't have minded as much. I didn't mind when they originally said up to 10 business days. Instead, I'm told nothing until I go looking, get emails from a no-reply address with generic content, get given false information in those autoreply emails, and then only have any sort of movement when I want to cancel (which still hasn't been acknowledged).