Someday I will listen to my own advice.
I know that over the years, I've warned everyone I know against buying anything they see advertised on Instagram. I'd been burned more than once, yet I kept throwing caution to the wind, but since those first couple painful lessons, pretty much every subsequent purchase went off without a hitch. When the item arrived, it was as described and I never felt like I'd been cheated. The only recent exception was that poster, and even then, after providing proof that the quality of the product was shit, I got my money refunded.
So about a month ago this clock showed up on my stream:
To be honest, the price at $19.99 did seem suspiciously low. I figured the worst case would be that it was half the size it was advertised or not of the quality the photos indicated. Against my better judgment, I ordered the clock.
I didn't really think too much about it again until I got notice that the item had shipped (from mainland China, of course).
When the package arrived—even before unwrapping it—I knew something was up.
This is what was in the package:
Okay, I thought. Maybe this wasn't the package I was expecting, and it was a strange gift sent by someone. But there was no note enclosed, nothing to indicate who had ordered it. Then I checked the tracking number on the package against the one on the receipt for the clock.
It was the same.
Obviously it was an honest mistake, so I emailed the company (with photos and tracking numbers) and I got this response:
Dear Customer,
Sorry, I didn't reply to your message in time.
I'm sorry to hear that you are very dissatisfied with the product you received. In order to express our sincere apologies and reduce your losses, we hope to refund 50% of your total order as compensation. can you accept it?
If you cannot accept the compensation I provide and want a full refund, you need to return our product. However, returning the product to China can be cumbersome, requires you to spend a lot of time and effort waiting for the refund, and you must ensure that the returned product is not damaged in order to receive a full refund.
If you agree with my proposal, I can pay you immediately. Hope you consider my suggestion.
Looking forward to your reply.
What the actual fuck?
I replied that I didn't want a refund; I wanted the product I ordered. In the meantime, I started doing some research on these Nixie Clocks as they're called, and not only was $19.99 low, it so low as to be ridiculous. There was no way this company would be selling them at this price because they typically sell in the $200-300 range and without exception, almost all of them come from various locations in the former Soviet Union.
I'd been had.
I filed a claim with PayPal. I decided to just "let them sort it out."
Within a day of filing the claim with Paypal, I got a second email from the seller:
Dear customer，
I'm very sorry to hear from you.
Due to the global epidemic, courier services are no longer able to be shipped abroad.
I applied for a 70% refund discount from the company. If you agree, I will give you a refund as soon as possible.
If you do not agree, please send the product back to our company, and we will give you a full refund after receiving the courier.
The address is: 7th Floor, Easy Handling Center, No. 1, Lane 3, Changtang Avenue, Yantian Village, Fenggang Town, Dongguan City, China
Thanks for your understanding.
Yeah, I'll bet you're very sorry to hear from me.
I'm not responding. It's up to Paypal to extract their pound of flesh from this motherfucker and issue the refund.
I guess this is just something else to be thrown in the "If It Sounds Too Good To Be True, It Is" folder—and to humbly realized I can get scammed as easily as anyone else.