Spilly has responded to ZDNet Australia's enquiries after the organisation was contacted by a disgruntled customer of PCAdvantage, Ian Haynes. Haynes described his attempt to purchase a Dell laptop from PCAdvantage as the "worst online buying experience [he'd] ever had".
Spilly, who acknowledged the veracity of some of Haynes' complaints, defended the practices of PCAdvantage. "This is definitely a unique case," he said. Since starting operations in November, PCAdvantage has increased order numbers to 682 for the month of January, according to Spilly. "Our return rate is under half a percent," he said.
In a three-page fax sent to Spilly and ZDNet Australia Haynes outlined his two-week ordeal in purchasing a Dell Latitude L400 Laptop from PCAdvantage. His complaints included confusion over the extent of the warranty, an additional unauthorised charge to his credit card, receiving goods with the wrong specifications and difficulty in obtaining refunds. During the dispute Haynes filed a formal complaint with the NSW Department of Fair Trading.
Spilly put the most serious accusation, the unauthorised charge on Haynes' credit card, down to administrative error. "Basically, he spoke on the phone and faxed the order, so it was entered twice inadvertently by us," he said. "We immediately refunded the second amount." Haynes notified PCAdvantage of the additional charge on the 30 January and received a refund on 4 February.
Haynes' said he chose to order by fax to ensure in writing the laptop came with a three-year warranty, and indicating the purchase order was void if PCAdvantage couldn't provide written evidence of a three-year warranty before or after delivery. When Haynes viewed the Web site detailing the specifications of the laptop it indicated the product had a one-year warranty at the top of the page, but claimed it had a three-year warranty at the bottom.
The laptop only comes with a one-year warranty, and Spilly offered Haynes a discount to compensate.
When Haynes picked up the laptop he found it had different specifications to his order. "I was not able to verify the system configuration or any promised discounts and noted that the unit had a DVD (a more expensive option) not a CD as ordered and chose to terminate the transaction as I did not want to return to Brisbane with many aspects of this transaction unresolved and a system that did not meet the specification of my purchase order," stated Haynes' fax.
"He picked up the unit and it had a DVDROM instead of a CDROM drive, which is better, but for some reason he brought it back," said Spilly. "We've taken the unit back and refunded in full." He said this was outside their normal return policy, as it was considered a 'change of mind' purchase.
Haynes is somewhat mollified by the refund, but is concerned that similar activities "give online retail a bad name". "Even though this matter has been resolved, I think there are other people who may not be as difficult a customer as I am and many not be treated in the same way," he said.
Spilly said that PCAdvantage dealt with the matter very quickly once management became involved. "I would say no retailer in the country would be as responsive as we were in this case," he said.
ZDNet Australia is extremely interested to hear from our readers on their sales and support experiences with tech companies. If you have a story to tell, please e-mail us at edit@zdnet.com.au
Hmmm - nearly identical problems- but not with PCAdvantage- with DELL. One direct,two through"onsellers" (after many calls)Problems appeared to be that Dell was/is "virtual" so all orders are processed through Malaysia. Orders are built to spec, or previous orders put together- but not delivered/cancelled are supplied. Hence discounted prices. Problem is description codes and contents of boxes not necessarily correct. Inventory code and Order code problems.Boxes shipped Malaysia to here - not opened until delivered.So every complaint mentioned in email(except double billing) identical, as well as different storage capacity,desktop not tower,and software not installed, and two of the three registered to other buyers in warranty