Continuing the discussion from Who likes marmite?:
Caveat emptor! Buyer beware.
Amazon can have some great discounts, but there are a lot of scams and some of the items are overpriced, especially the food ones.
Third party sellers can enforce different rules than Amazon does. A lot of that can be in the fine print.
Have you had a bad shopping experience online? Or conversely an online shopping experience that went better than expected where you got a great deal?
I pay for Amazon Prime simply for the free shipping. They recently said that the free shipping will no longer apply to Whole Foods, the grocery part of Amazon. Never bought groceries through Amazon, I always thought they were over priced, and I have a grocer less than a mile away. 
Back in about 1980, I brought a few bit of radio gear from a CB shop in Lincolnshire, called Knights. Knights still exists & trades online. A few years ago I ordered a small antenna for one of my VHF/UHF radios. It arrived in the post the very next day!! It was cheaper than off ebay & it arrived in under 24 hours!!
I ordered another antenna from one of the big amateur radio stores via ebay. It was advertised as being a big brand, high quality product & was sold with a magnetic base to attach it to my car. The ebay page stated big brand RRP & their price. But when it arrived it had no magnetic base & was a cheap copy from the same manufacturer as the big brand & thus they said I was being unreasonable in complaining. They claimed itwas the same product, as it came from the same manufacturer. Trading standards were thankfully a big help & I received a full refund & the dealer paid return postage costs.
When I want a new car I buy it online from an independent trader - I order what I want - it’s manufactured to my specification and delivered to a manufacturer’s approved dealer (but not in my location) - the independent trader then arranges for it to be collected from the remote location and delivered to my door - I save 20-30% on the dealer’s OTR price but still have the manufacturer’s warranty … 
I have been hit with a couple of Grey Market camera’s. Even though they were new Name Brand cameras when I had issues the Company (Nikon) won’t fix them because they were Grey Market cameras.
A grey market or dark market (sometimes confused with the similar term “parallel market”)[1][2] is the trade of a commodity through distribution channels that are not authorized by the original manufacturer or trade mark proprietor. Grey market products (grey goods) are products traded outside the authorized manufacturer’s channel.
Thanks for this. Coincidentally, I was just looking this up a few hours ago before I had even thought about starting this thread. When I looked it up, I didn’t see the article on this. The old articles came up on the search. Now I see the $10 delivery charge for Whole Foods.
I was considering getting Amazon Prime for the month of Black Friday. It would be a plus to be able to get a few things from Whole Foods. I am now rethinking that. I was surprised that Whole Foods would deliver for free. That place is a cash cow. Pretty much everything there is a dollar or two above other places. As a dietary vegan though, it would have been nice to have that option for a few things.
Now Walmart is trolling Amazon
I’m going to let my Prime membership go. I’ve ordered a crap load of things over the past 6 months so free shipping came in handy. To face it though Prime nor Amazon have anything worth watching unless you like B movies. No Prime just good for shopping IMHO, they can keep the rest.
I ordered an item that I saw advertised on Facebook. I could see it was too cheap but decided that as I pay by Credit Card there was financial no risk to me.
I paid via PayPal with my CC.
I soon knew it a was a fake and the complaints were flooding in.
I cancelled the goods but they said they had already been dispatched…
All turned out to be lies. When I checked my Credit Card Statement the amount had gone as expected but the name was very Chinese…The Original Advert showed the Company as British.
I put in a claim to PayPal after speaking with my British Bank for direction.
PayPal were very good in as much as my case was watertight…I got the refund after the cooling off period. Nobody even though thousands of others got scammed…would chase after these crooks.
And so they carry on under another name…I had at the time checked up on many of the Facebook Adverts and seeing things in a fresh light could see many false adverts…
At least paying by Credit Card gives you some peace of mind…
Although Prime video has a couple good things that I’ve heard about, I agree with you. Not worth getting a Prime membership for just the video part. They do offer a discounted price for just the Prime video membership, but Netflix is way better for the price, IMO.
I’ve been reading more stuff on Walmart. It extended delivery hours by two hours until 10 pm. It’s also partnering with Home Depot for same day delivery through a new program.
The article says that Walmart is going to try to compete with Instacart for delivery with multiple stores. That could be interesting.
Still got a bad taste in my mouth over Walmart. I spent $150.00 on a recliner. Now this is cheap and I expected to get maybe a year out of it. I got a month, then the seat fell through. My gripe with Walmart is not the pricing it’s the quality. The gaming chair I got from Amazon also costs $150.00, it still looks like new.
Prime are showing Autumn Rugby Union internationals in the uk, worth it just for that for me.
The shipping part is also a pitfall of online shopping. I ordered a bunch of stuff from Walmart online a couple weeks ago. The shippers weighed it at 50 lbs.
When I got the box, it was huge, big enough to fit 50 lbs of stuff, but if was 2/3 empty. The box had broken open (or torn open) during shipping and emptied of 2/3 of its contents then taped back together. I don’t think it was stolen because who would steal cans of low salt lentil vegetable soup and leave toilet paper?!
I got the refund so all was good there. I just didn’t get my stuff that I was hoping to get.
From my experience, Walmart has a 3 month return policy. I haven’t bought too many pricey items there though, so I don’t have experience with that.
I play Solatair on an App on my Tablet, some of the adverts that come on are all made to look like they’re in the UK. I have checked several of the adverts very carefully and can not ever find an address, give away no 1. The shipping time is far too long, giveaway no 2. I then go and check on Ebay and I mostly find the same item there but a lot cheaper. I also have the Buyers backing of a full refund from Paypal if things go wrong. It pays to check…
My worst online experience was with Adorama. They sell photography equipment among other things. I ordered a Lee Big Stopper through them.
That’s weird. Normally, the seller wants to send a replacement and not give back money because they already have the inventory and would lose the sale if they give back cash.
Makes me think the seller didn’t have another to sell and only had that one because of the cracked glass.
Not sure what their deal was, but when the Customer Service Rep. Said “it looks as if this was done intentionally!” I thought to myself “What kind of idiot’s do you normally deal with? They intentionally break items, just to have them shipped again? Why because they enjoy knowing they have something on the way?” I was livid. Worst service ever!
Another pitfall of online shopping is customer service reps who say the most insulting and idiotic stuff. For the big box stores, they’re mostly in countries where people don’t speak English. Trying to get anything accomplished talking with them is like hitting one’s head against the wall.
I’ve gotten to the point where I ask for a higher level when I first call, just to get someone who speaks some English.
Exact same tactic I use. I simply tell whoever answers the phone I want a Supervisor. That is when you work your way through the endless computer options that are of no use to you. It’s funny they tailor these computer choices to handle the most common problems, but mine never seems to be on the list!
We have been doing online banking, shopping, booked holidays etc more or less since the internet started and we have (luckily) never had a problem.
Mid January very late at night (tiredness is my excuse) I placed an order for 3 pack of bras on Facebook. It appeared to be a UK site and there were some positive reviews and no negative ones. ÂŁ26.99 seemed a bargain for 3 bras so I went ahead but wish now I had checked out Trust Pilot because there were scores of bad reviews about the company and no positive ones.
They arrived after a month as they came from China! They were very poor quality and not as nice as in the advert. They were extremely small too and didn’t fit me or my friend. My OH says Chinese women have much smaller boobs So their sizing is different!
No packing note, no info on returning goods and I had to really search for email addresses. I sent 5 emails and got no replies. I paid on Paypal thank goodness and rang them and a very nice lady said she was raising a claim today and if they didn’t respond to her email within 10 days she will refund my payment so fingers crossed. The company concerned is Supskey. So avoid! They sell clothes, underwear, footwear etc.
