drindustrial

To add to my growing great experience with this company....

I made a mistake and ordered the French version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Not wanting this title, I went ahead and ordered the regular English version and then sent DVDSoon an email asking how to go about a return. Within 25 minutes I received a response detailing all everything that I needed to. This completely blew me away, as I am not used to this type of prompt customer service.

Just thought I would share.

David

rkaufmann

I did hear back from DVDSoon about 48 hours after the initial e-mail, they outlined their return policy and offered me $5 CAN for postage. However I goofed and opened the DVD they sent me (it was late in the evening when I opened the mailer) so they cannot sell it as new. My offer back was that I would purchase the DVD they sent me in error if they would still give me the $5 CAN as a discount this time.

Does this seem like a fair solution to you guys?

Robbert

Checked my creditcard statement over feb/march 2002 for the 5 orders I placed with them: all correct amounts!
Have received all 5 orders now, Say Anything was on back-order but shipped after 10 days.

Zarathustra999

Damn you DVDSoon! These guys suck almighty ass! I made the mistake of pre-ordering 6 titles (all 4/2 releases) before I had investigated them properly (see my previous posts in this thread). As stated before, they charge your credit card as soon as you place your order, and it's impossible to get a refund even if you cancel your order. If you do cancel your order they just credit the amount to your account on their site, not your credit card, so in order to use that credit you have to order something else from them. grrrrrr!

Well needless to say, none of my pre-orders shipped on or by the releases date. Now when I check my order status, the disks keep chaning from "On Hand" to "On Order". Then when one disks changes from "On Order" to "On Hand" another disk that was "On Hand" will change to "On Order". These guys have no idea what they're doing. I suppose they're waiting until they have every disk I ordered in stock all at the same time before they'll ship them, instead of setting the disks they have aside for now and waiting for the backordered ones to come. Which brings up another pet peeve of mine backordered preorders. Isn't the whole point of preordering an item so you can guarantee you'll get it when it is released?!?

This is just another wannabe retailer with terrible customer service who will hopefully end up in the garbage bin soon enough. I don't expect to ever get my DVDs from these guys, and guess I will be calling my credit card company this weekend to contest the charge.

One word AVOID!!!

sherlock105

I have made many orders with them and had
cancelled some of those. I had no problem
whatsoever getting a refund. Simply sent
their form and got a refund to my credit
card in the next day.

I'm posting this so that people do not think
that they are trying to rip people off!!!

***They WILL refund you on request****

I mean come on! What you are talking about is
so clearly indicated in their FAQ....

Zarathustra999

Hmmmm, another new member with only one post under his/her belt coming to the defense of this shoddy company again?!? I believe I've seen this before in this thread **cough, cough, dumaiss**

Oh but now I see our dear friend dumaiss (dvdsoon's employee) has deleted his posts. Could it be he has resurfaced as sherlock?!? Hmmmmm...

sherlock105

1- I'm not a dvdsoon employee, I just happen
to be passing by this newsgroup and wanted to
participate and contribute my own experience.

2- I don't know that dumaiss.

3- Instead of shooting at posters, you should
read the faq and report back, that would be much
more constructive.


So here it is:

25. I got a store credit for a voided item / order, but I want my money back.

We understand our obligation to deliver the goods for which you paid for or issue a refund if you so desire. To obtain the refund of your store credit, login to your account and request the "Credit Refund" form. When you click on that link, you will be brought to an instruction page to fill that form.

the rest of it is at http://www.dvdsoon.com/faq.xml

Zarathustra999

I'm well aware of the policy. Here's the rest of it though:


If a member desires to have their credit refunded to their credit card, they are required to do the following:

Print out this form

Complete all the information. Your client number can be found in your Account page, along with your available credit.

Sign the form

Fax it to the number stated on the form.

The reason why this procedure cannot be completed online is due to the fact that we need our member's signature to complete the process.

The refund procedure takes normally 2-3 business days after receiving your signed fax form, but may take up to 30 business days in order to give financial intitutions enough time to treat the request and to take into account exceptional cases (fraud, suspicious activities, etc.).



For one, I can't print the form because I don't have a printer. For two, I don't have a fax machine either, and why should I have to go somewhere and pay for a long distance call to Canada to fax this to you. It's much easier (and faster) to just dispute the charge with my cc company which is what I'm gonig to do.

sherlock105

And here's another *important* part of it:


The main reason why we cannot issue a direct reimbursement is due to the fact that we do not stock any credit card information. This means that nobody can use your credit card information to perform any transaction (charge or refund). This is thus done for the safety of our members.


So, now you know that you CAN get a refund if
you WISH to. So don't post here saying there is
no way to get a refund.

Zarathustra999

There is no way for me to get a refund since I don't have a printer or fax machine. I'm assuming there are a lot of other people out there who are in the same boat as me, so I would just warn them to stay away from this company.

JGwinn1048

I've placed 3 orders, all items were in stock and shipped in 48 hours. I live in Philadelphia, USA. Items recieved one week later. I guess a good experience relies on them having all items in stock.

drindustrial

A quick update on my return...

After about a week and a half (which is about what I expected mail time for my DVD return to reach DVDSoon and get processed), I received an email stating that my return had been received and that my account had been credited. I immediately checked the site and, sure enough, my account reflected the amount. I promptly used it to order another DVD.

I have had no problems with this company at all. They have only had good customer service along with good prices. I am guessing that they had some difficulties from the get go due to the simple fact that an e-commerce site is not a trivial site to run and maintain (I should know...I write them for a living). DVDSoon is doing a very good job, and their site, in my opinion, is quite well done.

They are definitely worth ordering from, and I highly recommend them.

David

Bcolon

I am having the exact same experience as Zarathustra999. I ordered Turner and Hooch, Ruthless People, Europeon Vacation, Joe vs. the Volcano, Dick Tracy, and Three Men and a Baby. All but Turner and Hootch were in stock last weekend. I checked back on Monday and Turner was in, but two others were out, now Turner is out again. This is a crock of *****! I reccommend avoid. Did anyone find a phone number yet to talk to a person? I have about as much faith of someone returning my call from the voicemail number on their website as I do of the Penguins making the playoffs. Oh wait, they didn't make it...

drindustrial

Well, here are 2 suggestions.

The first is to order 1 DVD per order. Since DVDSoon offers no discount on shipping for multiple discs, it makes more sense to order the discs in separate orders. Sure, this means you have to enter your credit card number that many more times, and it is ultimately more orders to deal with, but I seem to get my DVDs faster that way.

Second, I received a lightning-fast reponse via email. DVDSoon was very professional and took care of everything rather quickly.

So, I will continue to highly recommend them. Like I said, I would make separate orders so that you don't have to worry about a DVD not being stock holding up the rest of your order. Most of my DVDs have gotten to me very quickly. In fact, I have received several preorders before street date.

They are still a fledgling company, but they seem to be doing a great job to me.

David

brez

The policy at DVDsoon is simple. They charge your credit card emmediately and if there is any problem with your order you have to jump through hoops to get a refund to your card.

They justify their policies by suggesting that they are needed to protect our accounts, this is pure hogwash. Why is it that an online transaction is OK to charge your account but not to issue a credit to your account? Are they afraid that that some rogue hackers are going to be returning DVDs and having the money credited to your account? They simply want to make it easier for you to buy something else from them, than to get a credit to your credit card.

I suspect that their policy of charging at the time of an order is going to put them at odds with US laws and the credit card companies when 30 or 60 days goes by without people getting their DVDs and they start complaining.

Mike

scouse

Add me to the not again crowd. I had one order that took a bit of time to ship but not too acceptable as the prices were good. My latest order is for 8 titles, in Canada it's a fixed shipping price so it works for a large order, placed late March. I'm now finding items that should have been pre-orders are still not available after release date and items that had been released at the time of order but showed a week to stock still not in stock. How long does it take to get a mainstream title from a distributer, two months? This will be my last order, they are clearly using credit card money as a float to pay for orders from the distributer and delaying shipping as long as possible. How else can items you order show as on hand, then go out of stock to delay the order further. Avoid them there are many better stores that have decent stock and better customer service.

Robbert

Again I ordered from them last weekend, 6 titles: Man who wasn't there,Deep end,Can't stop the music,Mudholland falls, Fatal Attraction & No man's land.
All have shipped last week. Shipping usually takes less than a week.
No complaints from me right now!

Bcolon

Here is a copy of an email I sent them. I will let everyone know if/when I get a response and what they have to say.

Hi,

I placed an order on 4/2/02. All of the items, but one were in stock. A week later, you finally got that DVD in stock, but two others that were previously in stock, were now out of stock. This has been a repeating cycle for the last month and is really a ridiculous way to do business. When these discs come in, one should be set aside for me until all of my order is in. I should have recieved my order weeks ago if this had been done. What can be done to ensure this scenario stops, and my discs get shipped out? This whole deal is starting to look like a scam. This was my first order from you, and so far, I have not had a good experience. I would rate it the worst experience I have ever had with an online store and I have ordered from dozons of places like REEL, BigStar, CDNow, Checkout.com, Buy.com, and more. If this issue is resolved quickly there is a good chance I will order from you again, but if it is left to drag on for anouther three weeks you will have lost a customer who has purchased hundreds of DVDs in the past four years. Your immediate attention is appreciatted.
William Colon

Bcolon

This is the response I got in less than 24 hours.

Hi Sir,

Firstly, we would like to apologize if you had a negative experience
with us.

We are aware of this issue which occurs for large orders and we are
currently
working on a way to do partial shipping to eliminate that problem. That
modification
should be available this week or next week. If your order has not shipped by
that time,
you will be able to use that option (which will offered without additional
fee) to request
that we ship whatever we have on hand at that time.

If you have any other questions, do not hesitate to contact us.

-----------------------------------------------------
Robert Tremblay
Customer Service/ Service à la clientèle

We'll see...

ntuc

they have removed their free shipping and increased their shipping fee.

Tyler_Durden

It sounds like they're not all that bad... as long as I'll order only one disc per order and make sure it's in stock when I order I should have no problems...

Any international customers, BTW? (And no, USA doesn't count.)

scouse

This keeps getting worse. Emailed them yesterday about 3 out of 8 that were way over there release date and showed on order. Checked this morning and a title that was on hand yesterday is now on order. If this keeps up I'll be sending them my stock to fill their shelves.
I guess the best way is only order 1 in stock title and hope by the time they process the order 5 minutes later the only copy hasn't been removed.

Bcolon

They just added a "request partial shipping" button at the bottom of the screen that shows your order. I just tried it, but got an error, so they must not have all the bugs worked out yet, but at least they have made a good effort to fix the biggest problem they have.

MortonK

I preordered The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (release date 4/30/02) on 4/28/02. On 4/30/02 I checked the order status on their web site and it shows a 5/19/02 projected shipping date. They do tell you up front that they will charge your credit card at the time of the order to lock in the current exchange rate (not necessarily a good thing) and so that they do not need to store your credit card info on their web site (supposedly a good thing). I also noticed in their various polices that you can cancel your order but you will NOT get a refund. Instead they will issue a credit to your account against future purchases.

I am not terribly pleased by this turn of events, however, I am willing to wait it out until the credit card bill is due. Fortunately, this will be after the alleged ship date.

Follow up:

I wrote them an e-mail yesterday evening about the posted ship date. The follwoing reply was received less than 24 hours later:

April 30th was the expected release date for this movie.

"However, since we didn't receive it yet, and no other date was entered in our catalog, our automated system estimated a receiving date of May 19th 2002. We expect to receive it and ship it before that date."

scouse

Well I'm finished with them. I emailed them April 23 got a reply last night May 2 telling me I could now do a partial shipment, order placed March 28. I just cancelled and got refund form. Credit shows just the merchandise prices no sign of the $7.44 shipping costs, which still show as a cost even with total order cancelled. Form states put correct amount in form to match credit showing in account, if they get amount wrong you use their amount? Prices were good but not worth the trouble.