Capitalism at its finest.
We are often told that the great thing about a free capitalist system is that corporations actually get regulated by the people. After all, if a corporation isn’t any good, then people just won’t buy from them. Eventually the corporation will bleed dry and go out of business, and unscrupulous business practices will vanish. Who needs regulation? We have the power of the purse string!
Yeah. Right. See, a major problem with that is that it can take a long time for a corporation to run out of money.
And in the meantime, guys like the shop in this story get to stay in business, despite some of the strangest business practices I’ve ever heard.
The first thing that happened was I received a call from an individual who identified himself as Joseph telling me that there was a “problem” with my order. He said he needed to “verify” the security code on my American Express. Although I had given that security code in the order I gave him this code again. He then tried to explain to me that I was going to need some accessories with this camera. For starters I was going to need a new memory card. When I told him that I already had a memory card he became somewhat insistent that mine was not good enough. After I wouldn’t buy his memory card he said I’d need new batteries for the camera. Again I told him that I already had two batteries at home and would not be needing to purchase these from him. And of course he then tried to sell me the ever famous “extended warranty” that I politely declined. He then thanked me for my time, confirmed my order verbally, said that it would be shipping out in the next few days and hung up.
That’s how it starts. And that’s bad enough. A person shouldn’t have to be abused for not purchasing extra accessories with a product because – as was apparently the case here – they might already have them.
But it gets better. Thomas Hawk – who wrote the above – then called the company several days later when the online order tracking system showed that his product still hadn’t been shipped. Even though their own store still showed the product as “in stock – ready to ship,” he was told that it was out of stock and they couldn’t fill his order.
It is at this point that we see capitalism at its finest in action.
At this point I thanked him and informed him that I would be writing an article about my experience with his company. It was at this point that he went ballistic. He first told me that if I did this that he would not cancel my order but just never fill it. If I cancelled it he said he’d charge me a 15% restocking fee. When I told him that that would be unethical he went nuts. He accused me of trying to “extort” him and said that he was going to have two local police officers come over and arrest me. He then went on to say that as a “professional photographer” I should have known better than to try and buy a camera this way and that he was an attorney and would sue me if I wrote an article about my experience.
He told me that I had no idea who I was dealing with and that as he had my work contact info that he was going to call both my immediate supervisor and the CEO of my company and tell them that I was trying to extort him.
“I will take this very personally,” he said. He claimed to have recorded our phone call and said that he would make sure that I would “never be able to order anything on the internet again.”
Among other threats, Hawk was threatened with having his credit card charged for the product without it ever being shipped.
Other feedback that Hawk found after the fact reflects a bizarre set of business practices that seem to indicate to any sane consumer that such a company should not be allowed to operate. Among them, somebody who really did have his credit card charged for product that never shipped. Also, there are stories of the company forcing customers to sign forms that state they agree to have $100 charged to their credit card if they should post negative feedback online.
So, what now? Apparently, telling the banks that this company is committing fraud isn’t enough – and shouldn’t the banks then be passing on accusations of fraud to other authorities? Yet this company remains in business. It may be true that we regulate businesses by word of mouth and purchase (or failure to do so). But with the massive amount of people posting negative feedback and encouraging boycotts, this company keeps on going. Perhaps this much-touted form of “consumer-based regulation” isn’t quite all it’s cracked up to be?