Online Shopping Dirty Trick

[FarmMom]

I actually will admit I did make a few purchases the last 2 weeks.

First, the leather, hand tooled journals with cab stones on the front for $6 each. Heck, can't even find a decent looking plastic one for $10, so I grabbed 5 for the "adult" kids for gifts. I threw in a few more beaded necklaces to bring the whole thing to $50 (free shipping) and everything was good (even the necklaces).

A week later, I saw it. The STACK of gemstone rings: ruby, sapphire and chrome diopside! My friend JUST had a bday and I had told her I'd set one of my rubies for her for a gift. Time got away from me so 3 rings for $45? YES PLEASE. That's a nice $15 ruby ring for my friend BUT I needed a bit more to make the free shipping. Ah, a beaded necklace for the dog! Perfect! Checked out, and SHIPPING WAS $0.00 (as it SHOULD BE).

BUT . . .

The next day I get a notification my order shipped. HECK, that was FAST! And then I LOOK at it . . . $20.00 for shipping!

%$##$^%^&&*(&%$$# ???????!

Now I'm fuming. Called customer service, the Indian guy didn't even pause to listen to me and just hung up, thankfully someone in the US got my next call. She VERY NICELY refunded all my shipping, although insisted I "needed to do a better job checking next time". What the heck? I've NEVER seen it default to $9.99 for shipping (express), PLUS it SHOWED $0.00 for my shipping!

SO BE WARNED . . .

You might be overcharged for shipping . . .

[Gulfwaterlady]

Wow, really rude and nasty people. What happened to all the joy? It's a shame you had to be on the receiving end of this. You took a chance to come back again and were probably very sorry you did. This is why all of us detest customer service.

[MaeWest1953]

@FarmMom....

Just reading your ordeal made me cringe!
I can't handle too much stress and that kind of crap is stress!!
This is what bothers me about ShopLC when they make all the promises on TV

I have to take a picture of anything I have bought that said "free shipping"
However they haven't done this in a long time
So glad that you got it resolved

[Lanai]

Yes, they definitely have the worst customer service of any company I have ever purchased from. I have filed complaints multiple times as I know many others have but no positive changes are ever made. When a Host (Nightowl BB) advices frequently for customers to take a picture of the advertised price and /or any added discounts as proof if any billing issues arise, should tell customers everything they need to know about the Ethical Practices of this Company. Especially when you know they have footage of aired presentations available. Can't believe they just cut off under $10 and have began Gold Presentation, per customers request is what was said. I seriously doubt that it was related to Customers request.

[lah2001]

I've noticed that the checkout page seems to default to the pricey Express Shipping these days. I'll check the Free Shipping option, but after trying several codes, sometimes I need to double check the shipping setting because it'll revert back to Express. Really annoying.

FarmMom, your shipping said "$0.00" and then they charged you anyway, that's really bad form on their part. I think *they* need to be more careful checking their page coding.

And can't believe one of the customer service reps hung up on you. Like, what?

[Lanai]

lah2001,
I have had the same problems with having to enter Codes numerous times before the discount is applied and the majority of the time, I do have to go back and recheck the Free Shipping Option because they seem to have the Computer System set up for it to automatically revert to Express Shipping. The checkout area where the Shipping Option is located looks different. I'm not sure when it was changed because I quit buying anything from them for awhile but like Mae, I did purchase some low priced items during Clearance, I also purchased some of the Leather Gemstone Journals and also purchased 8 Stun Guns and Pepper Sprays yesterday for Christmas gifts. I noticed it seemed to look different then. Seems like the website could be set up for when the total reached $50 that the Free Shipping would just be automatically applied and if the Customer wanted Express Shipping then they could change it from Free Shipping to Express Shipping themselves as most other online retailers do. I believe it's just another attempt to be deceitful since several of the Hosts have recently been very actively encouraging customers to use the Free $50 Shipping Option, acting as it is something new and that has been an option for a very long time. The Company would stop them from commenting on something that would cost the Company money instead of the Customers. I think they wanted to make more Sales especially during Clearance and so the Company perhaps instructed the Hosts to announce info about using the website for the Free Shipping Option as to encourage Customers to purchase at least $50 worth of non - returnable items and if they just so happened to also benefit from the website reverting to Express Shipping then they would actually make more money from some who didn't catch the error or didn't want to have to deal with the rude Customer Service Department. It's not as if they.were going to actually Express Ship Merchandise anyway. They, as always, are going to pile as much as possible in the same package. Seems to never stop.

[lah2001]

lah2001,
I have had the same problems with having to enter Codes numerous times before the discount is applied and the majority of the time, I do have to go back and recheck the Free Shipping Option because they seem to have the Computer System set up for it to automatically revert to Express Shipping. The checkout area where the Shipping Option is located looks different.

Yep. They definitely did something new to the coding of that page to default the shipping to Express. Either that, or it's an error in the code that wasn't QC'd and fixed when they made other changes. Either way, annoying that we now have to double or triple check that it isn't selected.

[FarmMom]

It's weird, I had JUST put an order in the SAME WAY just the week before and had no issue. The River store doesn't default to the most expensive shipping . . .