Have you ever been screwed over by seemingly legit companies?

I have. Earlier this year I ordered a Red Ryder and a lot of other stuff from KingofSwords.com. Never do that. After several months of "We haven't gotten the items from our supplier yet" I canceled the order. For some reason they had already charged my credit card. So I asked for a refund. After several months of saying "Sorry, we are going to refund you within the week" I got sick of it. I didn't get a reply on several of my mails, so I sent a complaint to BBB. Not even that helped. So I don't know what to do. I lost 250 dollars dealing with that company, and I don't think I will get it back. I can't afford a lawyer, and I don't even live in the US.

My main reason to make this thread is to warn other people. The site looks totally fine, and they have a lot of things which is hard to find other places. But they will scam you. After a few months of no refunds, I searched the web. Seems like I am only one of thousands. So please, spread the word about that site. I want it to crash. Hard.

But to make this into a discussion as well, I repeat my question:
Have you ever been screwed over by seemingly legit companies?

I never order things off anything but Steam and Ebay. And only Ebay when I know it's legit and only use Paypal.

Ain't no yella belly getting my hard earned cash.

Here in the UK there's this company called British Telecom (or BT for short)

They're a big phone/internet provider and they're really famous. They've been going for about 40-50 years now and my family's always trusted them up until now. We were going over our download limit by quite a lot these past few months, and it costs about 1 pound per extra GB. We've been downloading Blu-Rays and shit - so you can imagine how expensive these bills were becoming.

Anyway, they called back in June to ask if we wanted to renew our contract with them without telling us we were going over the bandwidth limit in such high excess, and we obviously agreed very unwittingly.

Then it got to about late August when we received a bill for about 1000 pounds (about $1600 USD) and a letter saying if they didn't receive the money then they'd be sending round the debt collectors.

WHAT THE FAAACKKK??!?!

Since then my aunt's been calling and heavily documenting all their conversations to try and sort this out. They didn't send any letters or advise us to change accounts or anything - just letting the bill get higher and higher for 5 months. They even told us to stick with that program when we renewed the contract. The employees all apologise and agree we shouldn't have to pay that money, but it's almost December and we've been getting more and more debt letters recently.

Fuck BT.

Furburt:
I never order things off anything but Steam and Ebay. And only Ebay when I know it's legit and only use Paypal.

Ain't no yella belly getting my hard earned cash.

I only order from places I know is legit. And someone I know have shopped at this place before. Guess he was lucky.
So now I am pretty watchful. Not going to order anything from a online store without research.

And man, you are always among the first posters... do you live here? >_>

pewpewz:
-snip-

Wow. That company sucks. Hope that works out. Just the fact that they haven't let you know should indicate that they have done something wrong.

Jaqen Hghar:

And man, you are always among the first posters... do you live here? >_>

Yep. I live in the server room.

Furburt:

Yep. I live in the server room.

Explains why your avatar looks the way it does...

Jaqen Hghar:

Wow. That company sucks. Hope that works out. Just the fact that they haven't let you know should indicate that they have done something wrong.

Yeah - it's mostly about bad communication (HAH communications company!!) between departments. But also it's a LOT of money.

And apparently it's happening to a lot of people who use their service.

Thanks though, I will now go cry softly in a corner.

I've been screwed over by Microsoft. They sold me a faulty product that died within a year.

(Can you guess what it was?)

Paypal never returned my $1.9 >_>

Here in France, a cellphone provider called Orange billed some bloke for over 45000 € (that's about $67000), the guy allegedly went over his 1GB download limit on his 3G while his phone was switched onto a foreign network, unbeknownst to him and despite the fact that that he was still in France, although he lived close to a border. It made the headlines.

Jaqen Hghar:
Have you ever been screwed over by seemingly legit companies?

you can challenge the charge on your credit card, call the company and explain the situation to them. they'll go after the company for you

Your use of "legit" instantly makes me hate you. "Legit" Is not a legitimate word.

Xyphon:
I've been screwed over by Microsoft. They sold me a faulty product that died within a year.

(Can you guess what it was?)

A computer? No wait! A zune! That's it, right?

akilae:
Here in France, a cellphone provider called Orange billed some bloke for over 45000 € (that's about $67000), the guy allegedly went over his 1GB download limit on his 3G while his phone was switched onto a foreign network, unbeknownst to him and despite the fact that that he was still in France, although he lived close to a border. It made the headlines.

Something similar happened to me. I was in the Olympic Mountains and somehow connected to a cell tower in Canada. It was under $1000 extra, and Verizon eventually ate the cost, but still I had to go through five asshats before I got a hold of one lady of checked and said that yup I never left the states and I never should have been connected to that tower.

Xyphon:
I've been screwed over by Microsoft. They sold me a faulty product that died within a year.

(Can you guess what it was?)

Hah! Yeah :P I to had that problem. But they fixed it by fixing it for free. :D

cleverlymadeup:

you can challenge the charge on your credit card, call the company and explain the situation to them. they'll go after the company for you

Really? Wow. I'll try that on Monday. Not sure if it's open in the weekend.

tellmeimaninja:
Your use of "legit" instantly makes me hate you. "Legit" Is not a legitimate word.

It's not? Please tell me why. I am not a native English speaker, so I go with what I read and hear. I honestly thought it was a word... Oh well. You got a variation of Naruto in your avatar, so it probably wouldn't work out anyway.

Apple! Well I personally wasn't screwed over and neither was my girlfriend. Below is the story.

Story: One day the screen on my girlfriends 30 gig iPod got cracked. After a few months of shuffling through over 5000 songs she got tired of this so she called up Apple and wanted to see how much it would cost. Two hundred dollars, as much as a new iPod, she grumbled and decided to save up money. At around Christmas that year her mom gave her a present, a brand new 80 gig iPod. She gave me her old iPod. I then go on eBay and decided to order a screen from a Korean company. Screen costed me 20 bucks, took about a week to come in, and about 30 minutes to replace. I felt like I sucker punched Steve Jobs in the face (feels good man).

Don't order anything internationally and get it shipped by UPS or any other private company.
I ordered $50 BDUs online, paid $18 for shipping. When it came to the door I got charged $50 more.

Jaqen Hghar:

Xyphon:
I've been screwed over by Microsoft. They sold me a faulty product that died within a year.

(Can you guess what it was?)

Hah! Yeah :P I to had that problem. But they fixed it by fixing it for free. :D

I didn't feel like going through all the BS just to get a half-assed console that they label as "fixed".

What's really messed up is that my 6 year old PS2 is STILL running strong. It's sad when the last gen can outlast the next gen by 5 fucking years.

My 120GB iPod classic doesn't work with the latest version of iTunes, Apple refuses to comment...

But eh, I haven't ever been screwed over by a major company, probably because I never really buy anything.

pewpewz:
Fuck BT.

Christ, I didn't think it was that much per MB, I thought it was around £1 per GB. I am on their option 3 package so I can't exactly go over the limit.

Their fair usage policy is a pile of shit, I am on an 8mb line and youtube/bbc iplayer are a struggle to use between 6pm-12am. I phoned tech support to see if there was a problem with my line, he sppeared to have no idea what a fair usage policy is, and told me to delete all my cookies in internet explorer. Good job.

To anyone else on BT, phone them and ask for a MAC number to switch provider (I said I was going to o2 because they could give me the same option for £10pm), I did that and they put me back on the same option 3 contract for £15 a month instead of the rip off price of £25 a month. And they give me one of those fancy black homehub + phone combos for free.

I worked in car insurance for two years, If there is one jem of info i can pass down its:

"READ THE SMALL PRINT"

My story is that of orange, The phone network. Made me see red.

They gave me with my contract a Sony Erickson W910I

After 12 months i had hit my limit. I spoke to a friend of mine that used to work at 02 (a rival phone provider) and aparantly it is a known fault with the W910i, and that orange were just playing me.

I called orange & told them that i know they know its a crap phone, And i want a different want, They told me i couldnt change, Etc.

Then one day it froze at the top of the stairs. It hit the bottom at high speed. I left orange the same day & joined 3, Getting myself a Nokia E71 too.

Ive never looked back since.

Furburt:

Jaqen Hghar:

And man, you are always among the first posters... do you live here? >_>

Yep. I live in the server room.

So its you who is eating all my biscuits.

educatedfool:

pewpewz:
Fuck BT.

Christ, I didn't think it was that much per MB, I thought it was around £1 per GB. I am on their option 3 package so I can't exactly go over the limit.

You are exactly right and I mistyped that sorry haha! But still, we were downloading a LOT and it got heavy...

I recommend this website for your next ISP http://www.dslzoneuk.net/isp_ratings.php#

pewpewz:
-snip-

We were going over our download limit by quite a lot these past few months, and it costs about 1 pound per extra MB.

-pause for effect-

We've been downloading Blu-Rays and shit - so you can imagine how expensive these bills were becoming.

-snip-

Then it got to about late August when we received a bill for about 1000 pounds (about $1600 USD) and a letter saying if they didn't receive the money then they'd be sending round the debt collectors.

Given that one GB is 1024 MB, if you go one GB over your limit, that's a bill for 1024 quid. Given that a downloaded movie is often around the 600-700 MB range...

I don't see how this is illegitimate.

And "legit" IS a legitimate word. You can say it, and english speakers can, for the most part, understand what you mean by it. That legitimizes it as a word.

What it isn't, is -proper.- It is not -proper- English. But it IS a legitimate word.

Not to mention, M-W recognizes 'Legit' as a word. But that's not what defines a word, that just means a dictionary's committee has accepted a word that has evolved into the language. A word is a phoneme of communication in discrete form. Is 'Legit' a phoneme? Yes. Does it communicate? Yes. Is it discrete? Yes. And lastly, is it English? Yes, given that's the only language that people can understand it.

Lastly, did YOU understand what it meant? Yes? Then it's a frakkin word. I -hate- word Nazis. Word Nazis would have been in Shakespeare's time, telling him that half his poetry consists of "Non-words." You are not lovers of the english language, you are abhorers of its natural evolution. Poetry, slang, and colloquialisms are your enemy, and you act as an enemy to -real- communication. If you are an enemy of communication, you are an enemy of language.

Don't hate on English like that. It's appalling.

Phone companies are often quite bad, and it seems the biggest ones in their respective countries are the worst. I worked for the biggest one here in Denmark and quickly learned that they didn't give a damn about customers and just wanted to rip them off using incomprehensible deals.

Luckily I haven't myself had too much trouble of that sort.

akilae:
Here in France, a cellphone provider called Orange billed some bloke for over 45000 € (that's about $67000), the guy allegedly went over his 1GB download limit on his 3G while his phone was switched onto a foreign network, unbeknownst to him and despite the fact that that he was still in France, although he lived close to a border. It made the headlines.

There was a young guy 4 hours north of where I live that had a similar issue, but it was somewhat compounded by his own stupidity or his own obliviousness. It made headlines, but I was working in the town he lives in when it happened, and I have friends there, so I got a relatively complete run-down on it.

Grande Prairie, Alberta, isn't very big, and isn't really thoroughly connected to the internet, or isn't universally connected, anyways. This 21 year old gets a laptop for his birthday, and already owns a cell phone, but his parents couldn't get reliable high-speed internet at their home (a little ways outside the city), so he got the internet broadcast option set up. The cell provider didn't try very hard to mention that the download surcharges were retardedly high, and he evidently didn't read the fine print well enough, because he ran up a $100k bill in 2 MONTHS.

Now, the cell provider also didn't call and alert him about the rapidly escalating bill, but they did essentially get soaked because of it... a court found that even if he should have read the fine print more carefully, the massive surcharge accumulation should have triggered a call from the provider.

pewpewz:
Here in the UK there's this company called British Telecom (or BT for short)

They're a big phone/internet provider and they're really famous. They've been going for about 40-50 years now and my family's always trusted them up until now. We were going over our download limit by quite a lot these past few months, and it costs about 1 pound per extra GB. We've been downloading Blu-Rays and shit - so you can imagine how expensive these bills were becoming.

Anyway, they called back in June to ask if we wanted to renew our contract with them without telling us we were going over the bandwidth limit in such high excess, and we obviously agreed very unwittingly.

Then it got to about late August when we received a bill for about 1000 pounds (about $1600 USD) and a letter saying if they didn't receive the money then they'd be sending round the debt collectors.

WHAT THE FAAACKKK??!?!

Since then my aunt's been calling and heavily documenting all their conversations to try and sort this out. They didn't send any letters or advise us to change accounts or anything - just letting the bill get higher and higher for 5 months. They even told us to stick with that program when we renewed the contract. The employees all apologise and agree we shouldn't have to pay that money, but it's almost December and we've been getting more and more debt letters recently.

Fuck BT.

Dude BT is bigger bunch of scammers than bloody swalec and they tried to bill me whilst using a token meter sysem for nearly £2000