I need you advise. Situation is so ridiculous that I'm having problem to understand why Galaxus is taking such an odd position.
On 5th November I've ordered new car battery with them (my car was immobilized). Delivery date 4-6 days. 4 days later they sent me the email apologizing for having wrong delivery dates, reason being their suppliers used the wrong date in their system, third party info which they cannot guarantee, blah blah blah. If I'm not happy they ask me to contact customer service to find the other product or cancel the order. So far all good.
I've called them, tried to change the order to more expensive one but no success - they cannot guarantee delivery date neither. Customer service rep suggests I keep my order until I'm sure I have the battery from elsewhere.
1 day later I indeed got the battery from the other shop so I wanted to cancel my order. Answer = no. First automated one so I called them. Answer = no again. Reason = external supplier, they cannot cancel, if they do so they will be left with battery which no-one wants. Every time I call them customer service rep seems to understand how bizarre this situation is but then some mysterious "boss on duty" is rejecting any escalations. I told them I'm going to send this battery back as soon as it comes (or refuse delivery). CS reps says this seems to be the only way as they cannot stop this nonsense.
Anyone had similar issues with Galaxus? Any advise? Hopefully I can avoid carrying 20kg battery to the post office to send it back...
I had similar experience with Galaxus - I've phoned their CS to cancel an order, and even receives an email confirming the cancellation, but none-the-less the delivery proceeded to their "pick-up station". Then it waited there about week or two until they returned it internally and only then proceeded with the refund.
Like many online shops in CH, the terms and conditions are stacked against you.
The terms and conditions say:
"If delivery by Digitec Galaxus is delayed, customers are entitled to withdraw from the contract (with the exception of special orders) as of the 30th calendar day from the originally scheduled delivery date" and also that "all information on availability and delivery times is subject to change"
You can return the item when it arrives, but they charge up to a 20% restocking fee.
My favourite condition they have is that "Product information available through the online shop is compiled as customer-friendly as possible but is not binding. Information provided by the manufacturer (e.g. manufacturer warranty) applies, provided that it is valid in Switzerland."
In other words, they can get the specifications totally wrong and it's your problem, not theirs. It wouldn't be grounds to cancel.
This is why it makes sense to order online from Germany instead.
Galaxus may try to say their goods don't have to match the description, but point 1 of this FAQ suggests that in law serious misrepresentation is grounds to cancel the contract.
You could probably argue the same on delivery time - 4 days is clearly substantially different to 34 days.
There is also (in point 7) "Provisions of general terms and conditions which would not be expected by a buyer acting in good faith do not become part of the contract. Thanks to this rule on unusual provisions, anyone who accepts general terms and conditions without really reading them is protected against unexpected clauses.
It should be noted in this context that Article 8 of the Federal Act on Unfair Competition regulates the use of unfair general terms and conditions."
I'm pretty sure "we can send you pretty much any old crap we like, at a time of our choosing" would be considered unfair !
Second, although I have never ordered through Galaxus, but I suspect that their shop is exactly like the Digitec one. There, simply log in and click "cancel order" to get the order cancelled.
It is unfortunate that you are struggling a bit right now, but, really, the way these things work in Switzerland (at large) are not terribly customer-friendly.
The current situation simply is
- you ordered from Digitec
- Digitec is making an effort (and see the terms and conditions)
- you no longer want to honour your order (that's how Digitec see it)
Your best option to minimize your monetary loss is to get a _native_ speaker call, insist to talk to a manager (not the call center person on duty), and resolve it amicably.
Digitec/Galaxus said OP can cancle the order. OP wanted to cancel the order. Digitec/Galaxus rep adviced to wait with cancelation until a later date. Later date is now, cancelation suddenly no longer possible. OP pissed (for good reason).
OP you're being had. I bet every bloody item on galaxus is from some third party, an external supplier. Theirs is just a lame excuse.
Whatever they have on their site is their problem as is correctly managing their supply chain; neither is yours. They make an offer with particular characteristics that you agreed to by ordering, including delivery 4-6 days. That's a binding contract they can't wiggle out of, perhaps with the exception of something unusual happening like a storm killing the transport ship the battery delivery was on, or an obvious error like selling the item for 1/10 its usual market price.
If I was in your shoes and not let out of the contract I would tell them I need to rent another car because of them as I need the car for work, and threaten to hold them liable for the rent plus for the time wasted on them unless they let me go immediately. Next step would be a registered letter with exactly that content, including a chart detailing the time wasted that wil be billed at a reasonable hourly rate of 240CHF - I had to do that once in a similar situation with an somewhat shady online service that luckily was located in CH, it worked like a charm.
I ordered a bike trainer on 20 November, when it was listed as being deliverable in 7-10 days. I have (today) just had the same email from galaxus, with the same excuse - basically their practice seems to be provide a fictional (optimistic) delivery date, take the sale, make the order, wait, update you.
It happened once before, with an item they could not get re-stocked and they said they would refund me.
This time I am really pissed off and will write to them asking them to source and deliver the bike trainer I ordered asap, at their expense, using the various tips here (above)
And here is their awful letter which seems to aim simply to "deceive, inveigle, and obfuscate". I added the red... the contradictions. blah blah blah
You are receiving this message since we noticed that the delivery date from our website does not match with the one from the supplier.
All our distributors have the possibility to set their delivery dates and stock on hand directly in our database. This way we can make sure that we are always up to date with all the information provided on the webpage. Unfortunately even if we synchronise the data every day it may happen that the information was not refreshed right before you created your order and therefore the product cannot be delivered as displayed.
We receive the actual delivery date as soon as we have placed the order with the supplier. In your case it turns out that the following items will not be delivered on said date:
- 1 x Tacx Vortex Smart T2180 (Grey, White) (3232827) mentioned in stock: 20.11.2015.
- The updated estimated delivery date: approx. mid December
Since this information comes from a third party we are not able to guarantee the accuracy.
We understand that a delay like this can be an inconvenience. If the new date is causing any problems, we invite you to contact our customer support. All the necessary contact information is mentioned below in the signature.
We will then try to fulfil your wish and search for an alternative product or cancel your order.
Thanks for all the responses. Good lesson re: internet purchases in CH. For me ended up "well". After numerous calls and emails back and forth, Galaxus agreed to cancel the order.
My main take-way form this is theta, after reading the other thread with lots of people pos and neg, posting of their digitec/galaxus experiences is that:
1. they are cheap and reliable, and it best to check the stuff is in stock (fully shaded green circle).
2. if its not is stock, don't expect it to go smoothly
its what you get from what is consistently the cheapest price in CH, not perfect, but good value, especially for their featured sale items and promo items,
I understand all the pissed off people here, but I also understand that is hard to guarantee any delivery time for products that are not on stock (and even more so, that are directly delivered to you). It's (most of the time) not a made up excuse. Just try it yourselves with the products that are on stock!
The problem with the suppliers is that sometimes they don't even have an electronic systems where online shops can check the stock. So they just take the "general" delivery time as an estimation (maybe it would help if they would specify this). Unfortunately, sometimes this delivery time is way higher than expected, sometimes the product is not even available anymore...