***WARNING*** UBID telemarketing Scam

[Madcowz]

Take this as a warning to those of you considering purchasing from them. If a customer rep tries contacting you about affliate programs simply ignore them and close the chat window... heck you shouldn't even be shopping there; save yourself the trouble! Here is my story:

I honestly believe their operation is run by a bunch of conmen. I've had numerous problems with items I've purchased with them in the past and everytime I send an e-mail to customer support, I either get the runaround or NO response at all.... customer support is clearly nonexistent. Well, I brushed it off and moved on until recently.

this is the full story:

I was perusing their site two days ago (apparently I don't learn my lesson) and was contacted by a ubid representive named Britney by way of some sort of flash pop up chat window. She was pushing an offer from an affiliate company 'Questsavers'. She was extremely persistent. I told her I was not interested and then she continued on about the many offers and bonuses. She told me there was no obligation and that she would send me info via e-mail to receive a free monthly trial of questsavers as well as send me over $600 in grocery coupons as a thank you. She kept on asking for my consent and I asked her specifically if my consent was to be sent details or to be signed up for this program. She insisted that it was only to pass along the info and send me the information to sign up via e-mail.

I repeated that I was not interested and she proceeded by asking, "can I at least provide you with more info?" I didn't even reply and then she continued on and on about the questsavers program. Then she started grilling me with questions like why won't you at least give it a try? It was at that point that I decided what the heck, at least the coupons MAY be worth it and I'd finally get her off my back.

Well I never received ANY info and she seemingly took the liberty to arbitrarily SIGN me up for a membership without my knowledge. She never sent me any info, any e-mail or ANY grocery coupons. Two days later I find a charge of $8 on my credit card for a membership I had NO knowledge of. All it says on my credit card statement is ENROLLMENT 800-000-0000 TX

I'm absolutely enfuriated by the fact that she blatantly lied and ILLEGALLY used my credit card info and account information to sign up for the program without my consent. To top it off she did not even pass on my questsavers account info (login/pass, etc)!

I actually spoke to someone else who fell for the same exact scam and he said he never received any coupons or anything either... just membership charges on his cc bill that went unnoticed for several months!

Now who else thinks this warrants some sort of legal action? Ubid really needs to rethink their business practices... maybe they need a shell shock first

 

[Madcowz]

I e-mailed them inquiring about an order that has been delayed for over 3 weeks, and also informed them of the questsavers situation. Their reply? Well they told me that they canceled my order a day ago (in which I was never notified), and offered no explanation. Oh and the rep neglected to even comment on the telemarketing scam. He simply chose to ignore it!

Is it even legal to cancel orders without customer consent? I mean I'm reminded of all the successful lawsuits filed against e-tailers who would not fullfill orders simply due to pricing errors, and although this is not the case here, it does follow the same precedent. Afterall I did win the items at pretty unbelievably low prices. They won't even provide a reason as to why the order was cancelled!

 

[ai42]

Sounds like tigerdirect. Ubid being the same way dosen't surprise me at all. Since it is on a CC however you can refute the charges. Chances are trying to contact ubid is going to be pointless you have to contact thise company offering this questsavers thing.

 

[FastEddieG]

I started and stopped using uBid after buying infinity speakers from them. 4 speakers do not cost $210 to ship.. 1) The speakers are in their original packing with a shipping label slapped on, 2) the shipping was ~$14 each, I know because I had to ship one back because it was damaged after I took it out of the box, even that was a nightmare to resolve.

Buyer beware with uBid, "they are suck!"

-Eddie

 

[Xtasy]

Crap, i bought an athlon from them back a while ago. How can i get rid of my profile that they have?

 

[bigempty]

That's how they recoupe their money... charge insanely high shipping fees.

I have shipped small coffin sized boxes through UPS for under $30 ground.

 

[tolbyn]

I agree. Shipping is totally overcharge, which is how they are making a good part of their profit. After just looking at a few of their auctions, I decided it was best to stay away. Good luck to you, Madcowz.

 

[Jibble]

U-Bid is a bunch of scam artists. I ordered some speakers from them earlier this year.

I bid on and won a set of two JBL ND310 speakers. The price was great, which was why I was willing to pay the $126 in shipping that was to be charged. However, the price that seemed too good to be true really was.

I received an e-mail that said that they did not have the speakers in stock. This was an auction THROUGH uBid, meaning that they themselves were in charge of the merchandise in question, not a third party. They told me I could either have a $55 credit or wait for the item to ship 15 days later. I gladly took the $55 credit.

A week or so later, I saw the *same* speakers up for auction and figured that it was a perfect chance for me to take advantage of my credit and get the product I originally wanted. I bid, I won, and again I got an e-mail saying that they did not have them. The same speakers had also been listed again in the time between these two auctions. This means there were about 60 people who didn't get their speakers.

I decided to wait it out, since I already had my credit and the auction was over anyway, and they eventually shipped the speakers, but they charged my credit card the full amount for them. I'll come back to that in a moment. The speakers were listed as being in factory new condition. When they arrived, there was no damage to the box, but one of the speakers had several damaged areas on the back. This is *not* new condition. As the damage didn't really affect the speaker's performance, I decided to cut my losses and just keep them rather than spend more money shipping them to get replacements (uBid doesn't pay for return shipping, regardless of whether you paid $126 for them to ship it to you).

The $55 credit finally found its way to my card two days ago. This was only because I had a lengthy conversation with customer service, who told me at first that my order number didn't even come up in their system because my original auction had closed a month and a half prior.

After a month and a half, I ended up with a pair of damaged, but working JBL ND310 speakers, a lot of wasted time, and a very negative opinion of uBid. I do *not* recommend them to anyone. Most online auction sites have protection for people who don't deliver product, but when the company itself is auctioning, apparently no rules are needed.

The prices are great, but you get what you pay for.

 

[AsukaStrikes]

tigerdirect 2.0

 

[Kwad Guy]

The shipping charges are clearly listed with each auction, so I don't think the
shipping charges are a "scam". They are often a rip-off, especially if you
purchase from someone other than U-bid itself (they host lots of 3rd
party auctions). But they aren't a scam because you know what they
are before you bid.

The other stuff mentioned here--not shipping stuff, shipping stuff that
is clearly not new-in-box when it was listed as such, not paying return
shipping on defective merchandise--well, that stuff IS scammy. But the
shipping charges themselves are just part of the game.

Kwad

 

[Miramonti]

Thanks for the headsup. I'm going to avoid them like the plague although i might drop in to try to get one of those popups so I can waste someones time and then curse at them. I despise scams like this. :disgust:

 

[slycat]

JUST SAY NO.
I stopped everything from Tigerdirect and Ubid.
Advise all to do the same.

by the way, they now utilize MS Passport so if you login with your passport or hotmail acct, they got U.
as a precaution, i never save financial/CC info in my hotmail/passport acct.
Again, advise all to do the same.

 

[Madcowz]

OMG, I just received an e-mail from them regarding my order for 2 subwoofers being cancelled. This is what they told me:

"I regret to inform you that due to a warehouse discrepancy we do not have the original product at this time.Because we are an auction we do not have the ability to fill the original order."

What the heck is that supposed to mean... b/c they are an auction they have no obligation to fullfill orders!? Warehouse discrepancy!? That's bs, you don't put something up for sale unless you're sure you have it! I bet they do have the subs, they just have no desire to take any loses. $100 says the same products go back on auctions like a week later with reserves. Their offer for compensation was even more ridiculous. They offered a SINGLE unknown subwoofer with inflated specs that usually ends under $200 at their site to replace the 2 subwoofers I won that retail for over $500 A PIECE! They offered an alternative choice which was to accept a $20 coupon... give me a break... they'd have to pay me more than $20 to buy a single thing ever again at their site!

Now this leaves me asking, where's the option to WAIT until they CAN FULLFILL my order!?!?


Seriously, is this even legal how they are cancelling orders like that?

 

[hamburglar]

I want that window to pop up. How do I get it to pop up? I want to cuss them out. Suddenly Ihave the urge to do so. And create short sentences.

 

[Mookie]

My one and only transaction with them went without a hitch. I ?won? a video card on a Thursday, paid immediately, and received the card on Monday. Card was exactly as advertised. Granted, shipping was $13 but I factored that in to the card price and still got a decent deal.

I heard nothing but horror stories about ubid mostly dealing with sending items back or fruitless attempts to contact customer service. Fortunately I had to do neither.

I do agree with the general consensus here, be wary of ubid. I feel fortunate to have had a good experience with them, but probably won?t deal with them in the future as there are a lot of other reputable companies out there to do business with.

 

[GLudlow]

uBid does suck. I bought a "new" 19 inch monitor from them once for $40. Then they wanted to chanrge over $100 shipping. I was sneaky though, I quickly maxed out my credit card (anandtech deal on a Playstation 2 bundle) and then left it Maxed for a month. Sure, it cost me about $2 more in finance charges, but it turns out the monitor was about 10 years old and hadn't been manufactured for years.

But, I also picked up a bunch of the Webplayers from uBid and sold them/rebuilt them for a tidy profit. I think the trick is just be careful.

 

[1313]

I was a dummy and bid on and won some ubid 'bargains'....every name brand video card or modem that seemed like a bargain turned out to be some no name defective junk that always shipped from the same company, about 3 weeks late.

I thought that this was a phony auction....I didn't feel like I was bidding on an item, I felt like I had been defrauded into buying the garbage we all walk right past without a second glance at a computer show.

No one spoke english, and everything had to be returned.

Customer service was the worst!

I hoped that this bunch of hustlers would be out of business by now.

 

[Tung]

cooold!

 

[cremefilled]

Just to give a different perspective, I've placed maybe 10 orders with Ubid in the last half-year, and I've received all of the items promptly with no problems. In fact, most must have been shipped same- or next-day. I got some great buys.

There was also a lengthy thread on this forum about Geforce 3 cards at great prices. I think that a lot of Anandtechers were happy with that.

So caveat emptor--I will certainly be cautious after reading some of the above comments. I would guess that the risks involved are pretty commensurate with the bargains to be found, and I have no doubt that if any of my orders had arrived damaged, I would have got a taste of the same lousy customer service.

 

[bonk102]

i ordered from ubid my first time and i got a refurb compaq computer that i had no problems with. the deal was actually so good that the same computer was still selling for the price i bought it for 2 years later.

BUT

i also bought a 22" monitor from UBID which was possibly the biggest waste of money in my life. It required a company specific monitor cable, the video card i bought (also had to be used w/ cable) was DOA not once, not twice, but 3 times, and of course i had to pay shipping each time. Then when i finally get everything up and running, the monitor lasts only 3 months before things start getting screwy and finally the screen just goes green. I was heated to say the least. i finally gave up, jumped on a $60 17inch deal at compusa (whole nother bad story) and cut my losses. The final use for the monitor, dropping it out a 2nd story window and beating it with bats and golf clubs. my friend hit the monitor so hard with a club, he shattered the shaft

 

[Madcowz]

I seriously want to persue legal action concerning both issues (telemarketing scam as well as order cancellations). I've been reading over their user agreements and private policy pages, and none of them reserve the right of no obligation towards fullfilling orders. In their user agreement page they state the following

"uBid Direct Auctions. uBid itself is the seller of the products offered in uBid Direct Auctions. In these auctions, uBid undertakes responsibility for all aspects of the auction and the auction listing, including product descriptions, identification of quantities, establishment of starting and maximum bid prices, establishment of reserve requirements (if any) and shipping."


On the help topics page however, there is one topic, "How do I determine product availability?," in which they state:

"All products are limited to supply on hand. uBid makes no guarantee of continued availability should an item be unexpectedly out of stock or backordered. Of course if that is the case your transaction will be refunded.

The active nature of auctions makes it impossible for us to replace or exchange merchandise that is found to be DOA (defective on arrival or damaged on arrival) or lost in shipping. No inventory will be reserved for replacements or exchanges; however, the same items may be offered again in new auctions if we receive them at a later date. "

since the above is not in their legal or user agreement pages, however, wouldn't you say I have a case?

 

[Madcowz]

I saved all their private policy/user agreement and every single relevant help page they have on their site as well as e-mails. Someone directed me to the epinions site where there are numerous complaints including testimonials about uBid cancelling auctions won at low prices, then re-posting (what suspiciously seem like) the exact same items at a higher price. In fact, uBid has earned abysmally poor customer service marks just about everywhere you look. My uncle is a lawyer, and although he does not handle these types of cases, I'm sure he'll be able to offer me some advice concerning this situation. I'll keep you guys updated

 

[Miramonti]

Originally posted by: Madcowz
I saved all their private policy/user agreement and every single relevant help page they have on their site as well as e-mails. Someone directed me to the epinions site where there are numerous complaints including testimonials about uBid cancelling auctions won at low prices, then re-posting (what suspiciously seem like) the exact same items at a higher price. In fact, uBid has earned abysmally poor customer service marks just about everywhere you look. My uncle is a lawyer, and although he does not handle these types of cases, I'm sure he'll be able to offer me some advice concerning this situation. I'll keep you guys updated

Contact their states attorney's office, as well as the bbb.

 

[cyfan2001]

Yes UBID...U BAD! They sent me a DOA motherboard. When I asked for a RFA, they said it should be covered under warranty by the manufacturer. So I went back to the manufacturer and they sent me back to UBID because it was refurb or something. Then UBID told me that now my 30 days was up and no refunds. Nice.

 

[stingygrrl]

hey i registered my bro on their site using his credit card (he asked me to bid on a cell phone for him). I ending getting teh account locked from trying to enter diff sample numbers to wipe the correct # from their (presumably hackable ) database. anyone know what to do? it was probably a month+ ago and I forgot all about it except for this thread. he never bid on anything.


i don't care about the account, i just want his credit card # out from there.