At this point I exhausted all of the options that I knew of how to reach out to them. What else can I do to get the money back? Or is the best course of action is to give up and never do business with them again?
I purchased an item on http://mediamarkt.ch over a month ago, the amount was fully charged from my credit card. The estimated delivery was (and still is) marked as 7 business days (Livraison jusque’à 7 jours ouvrables). After a couple of weeks, when the order was still in progress and nobody contacted me, I tried to cancel the order on their website and ordered the item on a different website ( https://www.digitec.ch ), which was promptly delivered soon thereafter. However, it is impossible to cancel the order on their website - in the end it still shows there as "in progress". The money was not refunded either. I requested a cancellation using the contact form on their website, to which I received no response in weeks. I am trying to reach them on their hotline number, spending hours waiting for the representative to pick up, always resulting in them hanging up.
Tell your credit card company you want them to refund you the money because the product you paid for was never delivered. Tell them the same story you told us.
Call your bank and ask them to charge it back as they haven't delivered the goods?
And welcome the forum BTW
Maybe you could go in store and ask for some help?
Thank you everybody for suggestions. The credit card company might not be able to help as the transaction happened over a month ago now. I could go to the store, but at this point I wasted a lot of time already trying to reach out to them and I suspect I would be given some excuse, like "we are brick and mortar store, online store is a different organisation". Indeed, in the bottom of the email confirmation: "Media Markt E-Commerce AG".
So as far as I can see there is no organisation (government or private) that can help in this situation?
Update: I might be able to dispute the transaction with my credit card. I misunderstood their rules: they state the credit card company has to be notified within 30 days of the invoice. Initially I understood the invoice is the one from the merchant. But I think they mean credit card invoice, i.e. monthly bill.
I disputed a charge that was one year old and got refunded, no questions asked.
Well I think one would have to prove that no goods were delivered
Telefon-Hotline: 0848 544 455
But 0848 is a very expensive number. Media Markt is shit!
anyway, you can return the order after receiving it.
I was going to do the same. If you have already sent written communication. If you receive the order at some point, just return it as soon as you receive it without opening the package.
Hope you get the refund without having to do this though.
Yes, I called them numerous times. You listen to music for ten minutes, then they say "All of our agents are busy. Thank you for holding, your call is very important", following by immediately hanging up. Like some kind of mockery.
I tried selecting french language, assuming that English speaking representatives might be understaffed. Same result.
That is reassuring
I am filing a dispute with my credit card company. I will post here with any updates (either from the CC or mediamarkt). Thanks everybody for your help!
I just tested the number five minutes ago and, after going through the options (I chose queries about shopping basket) I got through to a human after about 20 seconds of waiting. This was even on the English option.
Give them another try. Seems it's a quiet time now.
Media markt is a German concern. Not to be trusted. Prices are higher than others. Microspot is really good. Pick up in store and pay
Just tried! Indeed, I always selected option 4 (for questions about orders, returned items, cancellations etc), which again resulted in them hanging up after playing music for a while. I then tried option 3 (queries about shopping basket) like you did, and voila - got through to a human in no time. Except that she told me, for cancelling the order to call the same number I've been calling all along. What a nightmare!
Bummer. Maybe you should have given her a bit of merry hell saying nobody ever picks up the phone then it's automatically cut off? Lay it on thick and say you've been trying for days. If she doesn't move then ask if she can give you the number to call for management or ask for the mailing address for the CEO. Basically, don't let her off the hook until she caves in with some kind of action.
I've found over the years that sometimes you just have to be a massive pain in the arse and that usually gets people moving.
It is true what you are saying. After selecting option 3 (shopping basket), it seemed they redirected the call to another line, where they gave language options again (but this time there was no English). So I continued in French, and unfortunately my French has become very rusty after years of no practice.
Anyway, I'm done spending more time trying to reach them. I will try to deal with this through the credit card, they've been much more pleasant to deal with in the past.
Offtopic: It is beyond my understanding how can a giant retailer do their business like that and be successful? I don't imagine most people will buy from them again after finding themselves in a situation like this.
Many businesses will reward their executives who keep staffing at a minimum while being blind to customer service.
One thing one must ever do is to tell them you will never do business with them again. Something like “Please tell me why I should continue to do business with you” can be much more effective.
In the first case they know they have lost a customer and have little hope of getting them back. In the second you are opening the door for them to do some damage controls.