Hello,
I am a keen online shopper and currently trying to build my computer rig in a DIY-fashion. It is not the first time I come across the situation where a shop in this case Digitec and it is not the first time they claim to have items in stock that they actually do not have. AFAIK this is known as false advertising.
My bad experience with them is that they display "Versandbereit" on the item and then after I order and after several days waiting, when I call them, they say the item is not in stock and they do not know when it is going to be available for delivery. This is understandable .. I develop software and know asynchronous transactions which can lead to this situation, and can live with that, but then they refuse to cancel the order and refund the money even when they don't know when the item is going to be available and this is an outlaw.
Is this false advertising and wrong doing from shops like Digitec a law violation? can it be punished in some way so they learn how to do business rather than tricking and deceiving customers?
I have OTOH had excellent experiences over the years with shops like: Microspot, Steg computer, etc
Cheers,
TapiroLee
If you were so happy with Microspot & Steg, why did you not order from them in the first place?
Easy, because they rightfully show they didn't have the item.
I try to avoid digitec for this reason, once I ordered a part (which was supposed to be in stock) and they emailed me to say it would be ready to ship in 5 months! In IT that is a lifetime and would probably be worth half the full price.
I use internet.ch, never had a problem with them and delivery is super fast.
I never had anything but a perfect experience with Digitec, so my guess is that you hit a bump on the road. They always seemed to be very professional, so maybe talking to them would go a long way.
Just my 0.02CHF.
If you read the OP carefully you will realize that I already talked to them and they refused to cancel the order and refund the money even while they don't know when the item is going to be available for delivery.
So I don't know what else I should talk to them.
Yea, this is common practice among Swiss retailers, sadly.
The same thing has happened to me with Microspot, Digitec and another store I can't remember.
In all cases, the item was listed as having 1 unit in stock, yet when I ordered it was immediately out of stock. I had to natter at all three to get a refund;
"I want a refund, as you don't know when you can deliver this item, despite it being listed as in stock when I placed the order."
"Please wait a couple of days while we find out when we have new stock."
Then I waited a week before calling again.
"We don't want to give you a refund, can we give you store credit?"
"No, because I want this item and you don't have it."
"We will issue a refund."
I got the refund after two weeks. So annoying. I always go to Steg now - prices are about 10CHF higher on average but at least I can be sure if I go to the store that they have the items.
The above discussion was near enough identical with all three incidents.
In their terms & conditions they have this clause:
Im Falle einer Lieferunmöglichkeit der digitec gemäss Ziff. 6 der AGB steht dem Kunden frühestens vier Wochen nach dem vereinbarten Liefertermin das Rücktrittsrecht zu. Bei einer Stornierung aufgrund Nichtlieferung erstattet digitec dem Kunden bereits im Voraus bezahlte Beträge zurück.
If you don't get your product 4 weeks after the agreed date you can cancel the order. As at first they said it was ready to be sent I assume you got an automatic confirmation with a delivery date of a few days?
Generally I find though the terms & conditions of all Swiss online shops are very disadvantageous to the buyer. I only ever buy stuff with my credit card so I have them to fall back on should any shop try to screw me over and I have on occasion bought stuff from Amazon because I didn't trust the Swiss shops.
Hi all, after being a happy camper with digitec.ch today i find myself here in the complaints corner.
I have bought a video camera advertised as having a mic in and a headphone jack: http://puu.sh/xtFF
The item arrived timely but lacked the features mentioned.
Digitec offers me 30chf if I keep the camera but that's not an option.
I will have to drive to Wohlen and see what I can do with this, but so far customer service hasn't really reacted in a way I can take this error as theirs and not mine.
So the moral of the story is, compare with the manufacturers pdf manual and don't trust digitec descriptions.
YMMV of course:
http://www.englishforum.ch/search2.php?q=digitec
Yes thats right. Their product descriptions can be pretty off. But still I have never had many problems with Digitec
Well I always pay cash and pickup myself.
I've found Digitec usually to be quite upfront with delivery estimates and customer-friendly too. Including JIT stock that goes out on delivery dates.....
Strange. I ordered a couple of keyboards from them a couple of weeks ago. After one week, they hadn't arrived, so I went to my account, cancelled the order, and they've refunded me the money. All done online.
I've always used the digitec online shop and have only had good experiences.
I ordered only stuff which had the green squares and were in enough quantity though, otherwise I went to the local brick and mortar steg computers and bought that part there.
Hi, I read the entire topics.
I agree with others, my short experience with digitech was good, but I choose the "pickup from the store".
But I am entirely sure that most e-shops in Switzerland have terrible "customer service" (if you can call that a customer service...should be called like a "time-wasting-listening-customer-complaints-stubborn-service").
I even had weird experience with Microspot, and other main websites.
I also reviewed many similar comments, and faced many Swiss "customer services"...
Basically I guess it's not in their habit to complain and they really have something hard coded in their genes: the inability to complain or contest the "authority" (or anything higher) and the abuse of power to be in the "powerful situation"....
Find it's the same for agencies rentals, shops, etc....
The only "solution" or workaround I see is to read carefully the Terms and Conditions and bypass the "customer service" to immediately write to the superiors, explaining the issue and threatening with legal actions.
Although I don't even know the local law well and I my short reviews shown that they quite often for the "business owner" instead of the alleged "victim".
But that's not verified...
I think this complaint is unfairly blaming digitec.
This shop has developed from a virtual online store to one who hires more than 100 people in less than 3 years.
They are professional, efficient and price-competitive.
It could be unlucky that the OP did not get what he ordered. But I think that is the exception rather than the Norm.
Now they have expanded to galaxus.ch (household items). I just bought an Oral B electric toothbrush last week at the Wohlen storehouse. It took me max 10 mins from entering door, taking ticket, ordering, paying and exiting door. There was a long queue for digitec stuff, but they had a queue system, etc...
Outstanding business store in CH, if you ask me.
Have to second the opinion that you were unlucky here - which can happen with any retailer. I've been buying IT equipment from Digitec (and cameras, tv's, etc.) for years with no issues at all.
However, I was disappointed with Galaxus - I made a test puchase (a new kettle) and as well as arriving late they just picked it off the shelf, slapped an address label on the box and shipped it with no packaging. Needless to say, the box was a bit bashed when it finally arrived (kettle survived ok, thankfully).
Oh, and the postie just left it on the road, under our postbox
Just glad no passersby fancied a new kettle..
So what? it is ok that the shop screw up and they have to do nothing because it's an exception????
Eventhough 1 customer is unfairly treated or have issue, they still should respect that person.
Here its only about fake stocks, that still unfair practice and misleading the consumer.
So no need to "cover up" with your nice digitec experiences.
I can even be worse,
I ordered an item (transformer infinity, available end of june at the time I ordered) which has now totally disappeared from the web site. In my order history it still shows the order but the product ID is unclickable and there is no availability info anymore
I'm sorry the OP had that experience but I've found Digitec to be excellent. I don't know why the items were not described properly. But I always do my research outside any ordering process and know exactly what I'm buying before I order. But I agree that this seems careless, and they should be more responsive.
Regarding availability, I've bought a number of things from Digitec and have done it the same way way each time - checking availability at a particular store, ordering it online, waiting a few minutes to get the email confirmation that the item was ready for collection, then going to pick it up and pay for it within a day or two. Has worked fine so far.