Bizarre NewEgg Customer Service Experience

[Zoinks]

Well, that's not entirely correct. When I called customer service to request the RMA they checked their stock to see if they could replace it (which I would have agreed to) but since they were out of stock the RMA was issued for a refund as opposed to a replacement. So that decision was made when I called the very first time and was not something that developed after NewEgg received my return.

I understand your point, and for the record I was not especially bothered that NewEgg sent me an open box item that I didn't order. A little disappointed to be sure. But certainly not angry or outraged.

EDIT: Actually when I first unboxed my order I was pissed and said as much elsewhere. I knew this would cause a considerable delay to my build. But a few hours later I described it as disappointment. And I actually felt much better about the situation when I got off the phone with customer service. They apologized, gave me an RMA for a refund and a prepaid UPS label. Fortunately for me I was able to get the third Hydro Copper card that I needed for my three way SLI set up

 

[Zoinks]

Now this was an interesting read...

http://www.cardfellow.com/blog/chargebacks/

This seems to conflict with a few things I was told by my bank. It appears that card processors tell their merchant accounts not to issue refunds in cases where the customer has disputed a charge. Had I known this I might have been inclined to wait another day or two.

This has been something of a learning experience for me, I'll admit. That's because I don't make it a habit of disputing charges. In fact, this is the second time ever, and I use my card for all of my purchases.

 

[Zoinks]

A customer service supervisor at NewEgg has reached out to me via email just a few minutes ago. I don't know if we can work this out but I will try to speak with that person tomorrow.

 

[Zoinks]

After a few exchanges with NewEgg customer service and discussing the situation with PayPal this morning I have agreed to close the PayPal dispute. So the ball is now in NewEgg's court.

EDIT: And now more than two days after I have done as NewEgg asked and dropped the PayPal claim there has not been a word from them. In exchange for dropping the PayPal claim I expected to see a refund notice from NewEgg within 24 hours. That time has come and gone. I have sent two emails to the customer service supervisor who reached out to me on Sunday night and there has been no response. Funny how chatty she was when she wanted something from me. But now that I have given NewEgg something it wanted...there doesn't seem to be much of a reason for them to reciprocate. Trying to settle this amicably was a big mistake on my part. Had I just left things alone, PayPal would have decided the claim in my favor this morning, refunded my money, and this would all be over.

This isn't rocket science. And this isn't the first time I have returned something to NewEgg. But this is the first time I have been misled (lied to) by customer service.

Here are a few other return experiences...

5/25/2011 RMA Posted
5/26/2011 Refund Issued

6/28/2011 RMA Posted
6/29/2011 Refund Issued

11/20/2013 RMA Posted
11/21/2013 Refund Issued

In each of these cases the refund hit my PayPal account the same day I received the refund notice from NewEgg. So my advice to anyone having a problem obtaining a refund from NewEgg after an RMA has posted is to wait as long as you think is reasonable and then start a dispute claim. Once you start formal dispute proceedings you should stop responding to any communications you receive from NewEgg, because regardless of what they tell you the relationship has turned adversarial and anything they say cannot be trusted. Let them deal with PayPal or your bank. By this point NewEgg is deserving all of the chargeback fees they will be hit with, and you shouldn't have one ounce of sympathy for them. Let the dispute process play itself out and you will get your money back much sooner than you will by playing their game.

 

[Zoinks]

I received my refund today...almost 3 weeks after the RMA posted. So while the issue is settled I can't say that I am satisfied with the customer service response to this problem, and going forward I will probably being buying most of my computer hardware at Amazon.com.

 

[Soulcatcher668]

I'm glad it worked out for you in the end....

 

[notarat]

I went to the egg today to look at my order history to get the model number for the Samsung TV I bought a few years ago and get some cables, and I found they suspended my account.

I went through a 40 minute wait in the Chat Queue and asked why, and they couldn't tell me why, just that it was suspended.

I told them to just leave the account suspended. I'll just shop elsewhere.

 

[pcgamer4life]

I went to the egg today to look at my order history to get the model number for the Samsung TV I bought a few years ago and get some cables, and I found they suspended my account.

I went through a 40 minute wait in the Chat Queue and asked why, and they couldn't tell me why, just that it was suspended.

I told them to just leave the account suspended. I'll just shop elsewhere.

I'm not surprised by this, it's SOP for most vendors out there. You filed a dispute and then a chargeback while your refund was pending, I'm sure that automatically flagged your account for fraud. In fact, I'm surprised that PayPal didn't freeze your account as well (that's happened to me before in a similar situation with PayPal). Though, the CSR should have been able to fix everything. I'm sure a followup call with someone above the CSR level could solve things, but I doubt you're interested in that.

In any event, I'm glad you eventually got your refund!


[edit]

My mistake, though the person that I quoted was the OP. Ignore

 

[mrgoodkat]

I have not heard from NewEgg in several days.

Currently waiting for them to respond, myself. Seems a little ridiculous, Holidays or not.

and I found they suspended my account.

Oh, just wait until you 'abuse' RMA/returns too much. Merchants chalk that up to fraud. The loss prevention team will not only freeze your account, but will be on your *** about actually using the system they designed.

I'm banned from REI because I used their return policy several times. They wouldn't even return my calls. I tried for months to get in contact with them. Been a member for nearly 20 years. So now when I bought a new tent and sleeping bag, I felt great about not doing $700 worth of business with them.

I try to only shop at places like LL Bean and Kohls who have amazing return policies. They are worth my business. All the power in the world as consumers. Just don't -truly- abuse it and give them a reason to change it.

 

[Zoinks]

I'm not surprised by this, it's SOP for most vendors out there. You filed a dispute and then a chargeback while your refund was pending, I'm sure that automatically flagged your account for fraud. In fact, I'm surprised that PayPal didn't freeze your account as well (that's happened to me before in a similar situation with PayPal). Though, the CSR should have been able to fix everything. I'm sure a followup call with someone above the CSR level could solve things, but I doubt you're interested in that.

In any event, I'm glad you eventually got your refund!


[edit]

My mistake, though the person that I quoted was the OP. Ignore

If that is directed at me you are probably not going to agree with this reply...but I don't really care what you make of it.

We all have varying degrees of tolerance for poor customer service, and we may define what constitues poor customer service differently. I noticed in the UPS thread you made something of a big deal out of the driver not ringing your bell when delivering a package. To that I would say that ringing your bell is not an integral part of the service. If UPS, FedEx, USPS are delivering packages that do not require a signature then they can leave them at the door and don't have to ring the bell or knock. So while I think you are making a mountain out of a mole hill over that it really doesn't matter what I think. If that makes you less than satisfied with the service then it is what it is. You probably can't do anything about it short of making sure all of your packages are sent with signature required.

In my case, there was something I could do about the problem I was having with NewEgg. I might agree that had I waited another day or two NewEgg might have resolved the situation on its own. The operative word here being might. NewEgg did nothing to set my expectations of when I would receive my refund beyond what is stated in its policy. And the real issue for me was since I was not getting anything meaningful from customer service I did not trust that NewEgg was on top of the situation. The operative word here being trust. Since they lost my trust I took the actions I did, and have no regrets whatsoever.

The good news for me is that I have my refund. The bad news for NewEgg is they have been hit with a chargeback even though they posted the refund back to my PayPal account. This is a problem with my bank. When I filed the chargeback dispute with my bank I expressly asked what would happen if the merchant posted the disputed amount back to my account while the case was in process. I was told that I did not need to do anything: the temporary credit would be automatically reversed and the claim would be cancelled. So now NewEgg is going to be inconvenienced. I have already contacted PayPal this morning since they created a chargeback claim and I cancelled it. I will call my bank tomorrow morning and tell them that I have already received a refund from NewEgg in the disputed amount and will request that they cancel the chargeback claim.

I will also say that I don't have a shred of sympathy for NewEgg. This was their own doing, caused by poor customer service that was underscored by their failure to communicate effectively and set my expectations. An example of the latter would be "Your refund will post back to your original form of payment by December XX. An example is not "We are working on your issue and hope to resolve it soon."

And to anyone who has a problem with me filing a PayPal dispute and a credit card chargeback concurrently...that's just too bad. They are not mutually exclusive. When it's your money at stake you can do as you see fit. Had I known that PayPal was going to give NewEgg 10 days to respond to the open case I would not have bothered with PayPal. Since I wasn't satisfied with the speed of PayPal's dispute resolution process I took the matter to my bank, and got a much more satisfying response. By the following morning, a temporary credit in the disputed amount was posted back to my account.

The argument put forward in this thread a few times that a chargeback = cardholder fraud lacks any merit whatsoever. Chargeback protection is subject to cardholder abuse, to be sure. But merchants also can and do abuse the system as well. That doesn't make every card holder and every merchant a perpetrator of fraud. If a merchant seriously wants to reduce its exposure to chargeback claims then it should take a very close look at how it is doing business and what it is specifically doing to satisfy customers when problems arise.

 

[Zoinks]

Currently waiting for them to respond, myself. Seems a little ridiculous, Holidays or not.

My advice would be to wait as long as you think is reasonable, then call NewEgg customer service and tell them in no uncertain terms that you will file a chargeback claim with your bank if they don't take action to resolve your problem. If you paid with PayPal don't bother going through the PayPal dispute resolution processes since NewEgg does not respond to PayPal claims.

 

[pcgamer4life]

If that is directed at me you are probably not going to agree with this reply...but I don't really care what you make of it.

We all have varying degrees of tolerance for poor customer service, and we may define what constitues poor customer service differently. I noticed in the UPS thread you made something of a big deal out of the driver not ringing your bell when delivering a package. To that I would say that ringing your bell is not an integral part of the service. If UPS, FedEx, USPS are delivering packages that do not require a signature then they can leave them at the door and don't have to ring the bell or knock. So while I think you are making a mountain out of a mole hill over that it really doesn't matter what I think. If that makes you less than satisfied with the service then it is what it is. You probably can't do anything about it short of making sure all of your packages are sent with signature required.

In my case, there was something I could do about the problem I was having with NewEgg. I might agree that had I waited another day or two NewEgg might have resolved the situation on its own. The operative word here being might. NewEgg did nothing to set my expectations of when I would receive my refund beyond what is stated in its policy. And the real issue for me was since I was not getting anything meaningful from customer service I did not trust that NewEgg was on top of the situation. The operative word here being trust. Since they lost my trust I took the actions I did, and have no regrets whatsoever.

The good news for me is that I have my refund. The bad news for NewEgg is they have been hit with a chargeback even though they posted the refund back to my PayPal account. This is a problem with my bank. When I filed the chargeback dispute with my bank I expressly asked what would happen if the merchant posted the disputed amount back to my account while the case was in process. I was told that I did not need to do anything: the temporary credit would be automatically reversed and the claim would be cancelled. So now NewEgg is going to be inconvenienced. I have already contacted PayPal this morning since they created a chargeback claim and I cancelled it. I will call my bank tomorrow morning and tell them that I have already received a refund from NewEgg in the disputed amount and will request that they cancel the chargeback claim.

I will also say that I don't have a shred of sympathy for NewEgg. This was their own doing, caused by poor customer service that was underscored by their failure to communicate effectively and set my expectations. An example of the latter would be "Your refund will post back to your original form of payment by December XX. An example is not "We are working on your issue and hope to resolve it soon."

And to anyone who has a problem with me filing a PayPal dispute and a credit card chargeback concurrently...that's just too bad. They are not mutually exclusive. When it's your money at stake you can do as you see fit. Had I known that PayPal was going to give NewEgg 10 days to respond to the open case I would not have bothered with PayPal. Since I wasn't satisfied with the speed of PayPal's dispute resolution process I took the matter to my bank, and got a much more satisfying response. By the following morning, a temporary credit in the disputed amount was posted back to my account.

The argument put forward in this thread a few times that a chargeback = cardholder fraud lacks any merit whatsoever. Chargeback protection is subject to cardholder abuse, to be sure. But merchants also can and do abuse the system as well. That doesn't make every card holder and every merchant a perpetrator of fraud. If a merchant seriously wants to reduce its exposure to chargeback claims then it should take a very close look at how it is doing business and what it is specifically doing to satisfy customers when problems arise.

My post in the UPS thread was just me saying that it was a gripe of mine, I didn't say that I disagreed with what they are doing. Financially, they're making the right move in doing it that way. Something that saves the company hundreds of thousands of dollars over time is going to win out over a few people like me that would like to have their doorbell rung. Putting packages in my open garage and saying "left at front door" is another issue, though. Again, nothing for me to get worked up about, but something the company shouldn't be doing (unless there was bad weather, and leaving at the door would result in damaged packages or something.. but that wasn't the case since our doorstep is covered and pretty well out of sight.)

In any event..

My response above was to the guy that I thought was you, whose account was suspended. I was only saying that (again, I thought he was you when posting) I could understand why his Newegg account was suspended due to it being flagged automatically for fraud. I'm sure most retailers have systems in place that automatically flag an account for suspected fraud when a refund is requested, then a dispute is filed, then a chargeback is made. The retailer is just covering their *** to make sure nothing bad happens. I wasn't saying that he (you) actually committed fraud, just saying that I could understand why Newegg might see it that way given the events... but then I found out that he wasn't you, hence my edit at the bottom saying to disregard the post.