Sometimes my children in a world which works always Obama wrong, something works American right.
I came across this and thought I would share it as it is a typical story, and I would have appreciated knowing this and to have had a group like this to sic on a local government for the asses sucking off the public money there when they flipped me the bird several times smugly and not have to have waited for God's reckoning as Christians ought to do.
This saga opens with a place that sells banking checks called the Bradford Exchange Checks in Obama Illinois. I do not know if this is the same group which always has those junk mail things dropping out of catalogues offering to have you purchase some 1 dollar item for 100 dollars, but it does have the same address location.
In any even, this consumer goes to the check site and decides on them, to buy checks from as they are less expensive than more sites, and they offer up front a FREE BOX OF CHECKS for ordering.
The site said that on the page and it had it in red ink banner that a buyer gets a free box of checks for ordering.
That is where the problem started.
As a consumer places the order, goodies are offered free in the first FONT for the checks. All of you are quite familiar with internet websites in how they hide things in plain sight, or check off more expensive shipping like Amazon in their Super Saver offer, by telling you also that it will take until Jesus comes back to ship the items.
Ebay promises buyer protection as Paypal which is an absolute farce. Paypal has gouge items too in costs for small businesses which is all desiged to not protect consumers, but to extort money from people.
You have probably seen sites like Sportsman's Guide with a dollar checked for "insurance" that is about like that idiotic donation to the Presidential election fund on your IRS tax statements.
So that is the pont in this Bradford Exchange Checks in the slight of hand and magic trick to divert attention by consumers in free offers followed by a monogram that is a few dollars more, a personalizatiion a few dollars more etc.... that is just in smaller font or off the line you are reading so the brain does not pick that up immediately.
In short, "free stuff" becomes a 7 dollar box of checks at 15 dollars and most people are too confused, lazy or hurried to fix things and simply order the checks for a free box which is more expensive than the expensive DeLuxe checks,
That brings the story to the free box of checks, as on site it is hidden away and when a consumer goes back on the page, there the free box is promised, but they have difficulty in finding what is the correct situation of the order and then trust the company to do right and click order as people are hurried and get wornd down by this deliberately designed site to confuse consumers.
So at apparent book rate shipping which is like a dollar, and the buyer is charged like 3 dollars, they get their one box of checks,and Bradford says, "More shipments might be coming", of course to delay the consumer in mindset again, as no checks are coming which are free.
The consumver than has a 10 dollar box of checks which is quite expensive,
Complaining to Bradford Exchange checks gets a response of Bradford does not know how many checks a consumer wants in boxes and unless a box is checked, they do not know, so send 2.95 cents more and you can have your free checks.
13 dollars for free checks. That is no deal on two boxes of checks,
Most people would just ignore it or pay it to get it done, This consumer though carried on, and said they wanted the checks which were promised, as if a consumer checks a box to order, that is checking a box.
Bradford though stonewalled and would not make the CONSUMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT.
So Bradford was reported to the Better Business Bureau. This is why I'm posting on this, as it astounds me that there is a group in this world which actually will assist consumers easily when they are being screwed over.
What BBB does is have the consumer fill out a complaint, if they will accept arbitration, and they send a letter to the offending business and the consumer is notified by email or whatever they prefer when a reply comes back,
In this case, Bradford replied with a number of insults and fabrications blaming the buyer when as stated, any consumer who has done business online knows how most sites have all these triggers in place to slight of hand and blink of eye get consumers to pay more as a hundred thousand sales earning 5 dollars more per year is a half million dollar swindle.
The consumer than can accept or not accept the offending company's reply. This consumer did not, and answered every charge in exposing the reality that Bradford admits that when people are confused they can phone the company. That alone proves the point in if something is not easily accomplished in one checks a box and the banner says free checks, that one should have free checks.
So in go around 3 or six, the company issues a rather gay street ranting reply in more insults, but this time after the rant, they slam the door in the face of the BBB in stating no more answers will be provided, but will send the free checks as the consumer demands,
Yes,after all of that, if this company had just stated from the start that they would do what the site promised, then of course none of this would have taken place.
As an example, Johnny's Seeds charged me something like double the price on one packet of seeds, due to their expensive shipping. I complained in ordering over this as the site takes over an hour to load on dial up. The company ate the shipping as at 3 dollars they are making money any way, and I will repeat business.
I of course would never go near this Bradford Exchange checks or anything sounding like them as I know sites which are designed to be easily ordered from and those that are designed to be difficult to gain more commerce. as they are built that way.
Same offering like Radio Shack has a price on items of "coverages" to replace and they know completely well that in 2 years most people will move or forget about the item coverage and just buy new.
The bright light in this though is the Better Business Bureau, which can be found online and will send you to a BBB division where an offending company is and work to rectify a problem a consumer has. At the very least, as this consumer thought, it would be making enough of a problem to make Bradford Exchange checks be aware the BBB was aware of what they were up to.
Sometimes it works out though and the good guys and gals win as the BBB seems to have teeth to scare these deceptive site companies to play by the rules the consumer is always correct.
If only there was something to file complaints with this easily against the government bodies at all levels to make them serve the public instead of criminalize them.
nuff said
agtG
