1 Washington Place, Suite #7
Sandy Hook, CT 06482
Telephone: 860 903-1030
I am a BIG fan of Amazon.com and use them almost exclusively to purchase books, CDs, and DVDs. Until recently I have never had a bad experience. My purpose for creating this page is to serve as a heads-up to other loyal Amazon customers who may be thinking of purchasing an item from AlphaCraze.com through Amazon Marketplace. While my story has a happy ending (I got my money back), it took perseverance and persistent follow-up. Others have not been so lucky (Read what others experienced at: 1) Amazon.com Member Feedback, and 2) eBusinessRate.com).
While it may be true that many have had good experiences with this company, it is also true that many others have not. So the question becomes; with so many other quality vendors to choose from on Amazon, why take a chance with this one? I made the mistake and let me tell you, it is one I will never make again. Here is what I experienced....
On July 7th I went to Amazon looking for a copy of: The Successful Business Plan: Secrets and Strategies by Rhonda Abrams. (An excellent book if you ever need to write a business plan.) Anyway, AlphaCraze listed that they had a used copy available and that it was Available to ship by 07/09/2003. So I placed the order and promptly received my Order Confirmation email from Amazon, my credit card was charged $24.70 for the purchase, and I sat back and waited.
I expected the book to arrive in the mail within the next 10 days. It is the level of service I've come to expect from Amazon Marketplace sellers from numerous positive experiences. After two weeks I started to wonder why it was taking so long. Being a bit anxious to get the book I wrote to AlphaCraze to inquire as to the status of my order...
Date: July 23, 2003
Dear Alphacraze:
Just a quick follow-up on the Amazon Marketplace order referenced below for 1 copy of The Successful Business Plan: Secrets and Strategies by Rhonda M. Abrams. I had not received it yet and was wondering if it had been shipped. Please let me know.
Warmest Regards...
On July 28th, after 21 days, when I still had not heard anything from AlphaCraze, I wrote again:
On July 7th I ordered The Successful Business Plan: Secrets and Strategies by Abrams, Rhonda M...
I have not heard anything from you nor have I received the book. It has been 21 days. Is there a problem with the order? Please let me know as soon as you can. I've got a business plan I need to write and I'm anxious to begin.
Thank You...
The same day I received my first response from AlphaCraze (if you want to call it that). To read the full text by clicking here. I found that I had to hunt through the message to find the relevant text, that being that they were checking into my order and that they would get back to me "within 48 hours." A promise they would fail to keep.
The same day I received a response to my second email to AlphaCraze (click here to view) telling me, again, to expect a response within 48 hours.
Both messages indicated that I could check the status of my order by visiting their Order Status website. I visited the site and found my order listed as pending. When you click on pending you get a pop-up box that says:
Pending:
Waiting for information back from our warehouse
Please check back soon.
I checked back several times and found that the order status never changed. Check out this screenshot of their order status page taken on August 7th. At this point, my order has been supposedly cancelled and my purchase price refunded. Anglefire reduced the size of my file which makes it a bit hard to read, but if you look closely you will notice that the order still shows as pending. Real helpful!!!
On August 4th I began looking through the Amazon.com site to see what my options were through them. After a bit of searching I came across their A-to-z Guarantee Protection page. Here I learned that I needed to wait 30 days before I could submit a guarantee claim form. At this point I had no illusions that my order would be filled, but, as it had not yet been 30 days, I sent one final email off to AlphaCraze and waited for the clock to run out. Here is what I said:
On 7/28 you wrote promising me a response within 48 hours. That was a week ago and I still have not heard anything. Please advise as to the status of this order no later than by close of business today. If I fail to receive an acceptable response as to status I will be forced to seek other remedies available to me under law. These may result in charges to your account and an unfavorable rating being posted to your Amazon Marketplace account.
As you can tell by the tone of my email messages, I'm beginning to loose patience with AlphaCraze. But, I wanted to do the right thing. On August 6th, 30 days after I placed my order with AlphaCraze, having received no further response from them, I attempted to fill out the Guarantee Claim Form on Amazon. What reminded me to follow-up was an email from Amazon congratulating me on my order and asking me to rate the seller. However, after filling out the form I received an error message telling me I had to wait 30 days before I could submit a claim under the Amazon A-to-Z Guarantee Protection program. The fact that it had been 30 days did not seem to matter. When I contacted Amazon.com they responded:
Hello from Amazon.com.
I have researched your order and found that it was placed on July 7,
2003 therefore the 30 days will end on August 7, 2003.
I would encourage you to submit your A-Z Guarantee after August 7,
2003.
Now, this may sound harsh and perhaps it is. Maybe I expected more from a company I've come to love and trust. Anyway, I don't know what kind of calendar they use in California, but here in bumpkin middle of the country where we count using our fingers and toes, having to wait until after August 7th would be 32 days. A minor point perhaps, but non-the-less aggravating. I assume they are counting July 7th as day zero since they talk about the order shipping in two days and they give the date as July 9th. So how they can count 30 days as August 8th is beyond me.
Then comes the surprise. I must have stirred something up at AlphaCraze because at the end of the day on August 6th I received an email from them. Remember AlphaCraze's first email on July 28th when they promised to get back to me "within 48 hours." Well, on August 6th (9 days later) I get an email saying that they are out of stock and will be refunding my money. In the email they said that they responded to me on August 1st. Funny, I received all of their other emails but not this particular one. I think they fabricated the email to make it look like they had sent a response they never sent. Check it out and see if you don't agree. Notice how all of the earlier threaded messages have HTML tags except for the supposed August 1st message. Looks to me like their covering their you-know-whats.
Faked message or not, the question you have to ask yourself is: Do you want to take a chance doing business with this company? Do you want to deal with a company that takes your money and then takes 30 days to figure out that they are out of stock? Even if it costs a few dollars more to go with someone else the savings in aggravation will more than make up for the added cost.
Epilogue: I received an email today (August 7th) from Amazon indicating that they had initiated a refund in the amount of $24.70 for Order # 058-2277685-5514747 from partnerorders@alphacraze.com. I'm hoping the credit does indeed come through. I'll post back if it doesn't.
On Amazon's A-to-Z Guarantee: While I endorse Amazon's policy of attempting to work things out with the seller, when a buyer makes a good faith effort to resolve an issue and the seller is unresponsive, a buyer needs to have confidence that the market maker will step up to the plate and support them. I would hope that Amazon will revisit this policy and make a clear statement of support for the people who have made Amazon what it is; their customers!
As a side note, I don't know what the value of the Amazon A-to-Z Guarantee is over simply contacting your credit card company and filing a complaint that way. They will charge-back the vendor for the amount plus an additional fee (usually $25) while the dispute is being resolved. If the buyer has a good case, I don't see the value in running things through Amazon, but maybe I'm missing something. I also find it interesting that those buyers who pay by check or money-order are offered no protection under the A-to-Z Guarantee. Good a reason as any not to pay by either of these means when dealing with anyone other than Amazon.
I support Amazon and the great job they have done with their site. I am and will continue to be a loyal Amazon shopper. My advice to others is to take the time to read the feedback responses others have left and avoid vendors with multiple negative feedbacks. Don't base your judgment on a single negative response. Even the best vendor can come up against the customer from heck. But multiple negatives should be a red flag to stay away. The stars don't always tell the whole story.
Happy Shopping!
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