I retired from personal blogging in July 2008.
But you can find me over at http://blog.xero.com.
Update 27 August 2009: See comments below. Groovy Baby now has new owners and I’m sure their service will be much improved. I hope a few people try them out.
When websites go bad.
My wife ordered a present from www.groovybaby.co.nz on Sunday Feb 10 for delivery within 10 working days.
On the 19th (getting close to the birthday) she sent an email asking when she should expect the goods.
She got an email back that day saying the goods would be dispatched tomorrow. Still nothing has been received. Disappointed child. Wifey emails again on the 25th and 29th. No response.
There are comments in forums as to whether the site is still being managed …
Is this website still being managed? I placed an order 3 weeks ago and still shows as pending. Money has been taken from my credit card. I’ve been emailing the orders@groovybaby.co.nz for a week with no response.
The comments have since been removed.
This is not the first bad NZ e’tailing experience I’ve had. I do not understand why people do not communicate and make things worse. They screw it for the rest of us who try to build trust for ecommerce.
On their website they do not have a phone number. Grrrr. So lets see what we can find shall we.
- First, who owns the website …. easy: www.who.is
- Who are the people behind it and where do they live … easy: companies.govt.nz
- Home phone number … easy.
Made the call. Something like … “Not sure what you are talking about” …”What did you order”
She’s going to check and get back within an hour. Let’s see if we get some action. An email arrives. Will check with couriers Monday. Another email. Did you get my last email. Wow. Action.
So its now a few weeks later.
The courier lost the product, can’t get the product anymore, would you like refund, dog ate my homework.
Then nothing. 10 Day gap since the last communication. No product. No refund yet.
Maybe this will spark some action. Stay tuned.
blog
Argh that annoys me so much - like you say - many of us are trying to build TRUST online and we’re getting screwed by people like this.
Just a quick one. I think you have used the wrong URL for the groovybaby.co.nz link in your post.
“My wife ordered a present from http://www.groovybaby.co.nz on Sunday Feb 10 for delivery within 10 working days…”
It links to your site, not the Groovy Baby site.
Awful customer service by the way. I’m guessing they’ll be out of business within 3 months.
I do not understand how companies can operate like this. My partner had a very similar experience with firstin - the goods were ordered in early January and still haven’t been received. Complete lack of communication on their part and when contacted (numerous times) they made promises that it would be sorted out - and we are still waiting.
It is now at a stage where we have disputed the transaction with our bank and they are going to investigate on our behalf.
I completely agree - it brings e-tailing into disrepute and I now think twice about buying online from stores I am unfamiliar with. In the case of firstin we should have done a little homework first - there are a load of similar complaints on different forums. Lesson learnt!
if you paid by credit card then your credit card company should advocate on your behalf and/or reverse the charge to you
they can then seek reimbursement from the supplier, and wear the loss themselves if they are unsuccessful
the credit card company carries this risk and it is one of the things that is funded by the x% they charge retailers
Good advice Gavin
Not good at all, we’ve used these guys http://www.busykids.co.nz quite a few times and found them to be most excellent.
GREAT advice Gavin - that may well be the case but is definitely not something credit card companies really let you know.
Rod, at least your post has probably sparked the beginning of the end of that business - which is exactly why people should have trust in online services - you can’t muck up without the whole world knowing. AND when the whole world knows and doesn’t buy from you, you fail.
What a bunch of idiots! Hope the poor kid doesn’t end up revolting against the internet :)
Hi Rod,
I definitely recommend disputing the transaction with your bank. The onus is then on the supplier to prove everything is above board.
Get enough chargebacks, and as a merchant you’re going to find it harder to get a credit card merchant account again, banks don’t like taking a hit.
James
Well done for being vocal about this Rod. It doesn’t feel nice to jump on a NZ company but there are limits…
I think there is some confusion about NZ vs USA credit card contracts here. I agree disputing charges is possible in both jurisdictions but:
1. NZ CC contracts try to say that disputing a charge is only possible where the charge was made without your consent (e.g. fraud). They attempt to exclude the non-delivery of, or faulty, goods/services. I can see their point but I don’t know if the USA contracts are similar given the huge number of chargeback stories that I’ve seen.
2. NZ CC contracts seem to allow merchants to charge your CC before they have the goods. This is, as I understand it, not legal in the US and is why CC’s are often authorised but not billed until goods are shipped. Standard practice in the US but not here… even the very best NZ online merchants (such as Ascent) will charge your CC for backordered products.
I think practically speaking that CC companies will reverse a charge if authorised but didn’t get anything delivered. If the merchant is not delivering then they are unlikely to attempt to dispute the chargeback with you because if their business is failing to that extent then they have other things on their mind.
I think this dispute form from the National Bank is quite illuminating.
Yes, I agree with Bwooce, the CC companies dont appear too keen to help in this situation. I’ve had this discussion previously regarding a hotel that didnt confirm my booking and still charged me.
eg: BNZ CC terms and conditions
Where we are not responsible: We are not responsible for:
a) refusal by a Visa Member, an American Express Member or
a MasterCard Member to make a cash advance;
b) any dispute between you and a Merchant;
c) any dispute between you and any additional cardholders or
Account Owners;
d) the actions of any Merchant;
…
b and c seem pretty clear.
Maybe there needs to be a ‘trust web’ for sites that perform well, a la trademe. One of the things you expect from companies trading on the internet is timely delivery of goods. Certainly feel for your wife, and it means she will have issues passing CC details to any other company. After all, we all look a bit the same in internet space…
I don’t necessarily agree about starting a trust web. Word of mouth is quite demonstrably efficient when it comes to bad experiences - whether online or not. While it is unfortunate that there are some bad traders out there, I would like to think that people have enough common sense to realise that this no more reflects online shopping than a pack of rotten eggs reflects on all supermarkets.
There are plenty of other businesses out there doing really great work and positive word of mouth works just as effectively in their cases. For my 2 cents, I would also add http://www.babywarehouse.co.nz to the list of exemplary businesses. The owners of this company even take the time to follow up with regular customers personally. I am always impressed by their standards and service.
Do a chargeback. On the occasions I’ve done a one with BNZ Mastercard, it’s been very simple
- no goods arrived?
- tried to sort it out with the merchant?
- 30 days gone by?
ding! done.
john
Comment removed
Here’s a tip for all you “web shoppers”.
Install the alexa toolbar ( http://download.alexa.com/ ) and the google toolbar ( http://toolbar.google.com/ ). Whenever your thinking about buying from a website, check two things…
1. It’s alexa rank - Groovy Baby has a rank of 10,185,895 - and that means “no one” is visiting it, not even the owners are making regular visits to the site. A site that has a reasonable number of visitors, will rank under 1 million.
2. Check the google page rank - Groovy Baby on has a rank of 2. Google “likes sites” when they’ve got a PR of 5+ - if google likes them, you’ll like them to.
Alexa and PR are credibility “gold”, your choices for shopping on the web are vast, so go with the guy who’s got the most traffic, and the most love from google :)
Hi Just seen the advert for this company on trademe. It is up for sale so wonder if it is about to go bust if you have not rec your goods. Hope this helps.
Sam Morgan said at the Digital Summit last year, NZ is one of the few countries in the world where you can pay someone you dont know for goods you havent seen, and expect them to arrive. When you dont have trust, you start to need all these extra systems, like escrow, that add cost and delay. Trust is important to online commerce, so lets hope we can keep things the right way in NZ.
Interesting reading your comments. I have been involved in an ongoing dispute with Groovy Baby since February trying to get them to refund my credit card. They supplied me with an incorrect product. The parcel has been at my front door for a month waiting for the courier (which Karen Spencer says tells her the parcel is ‘unavailable for pick up’) to pick up! Numerous phonecalls and e-mails have gone unanswered or they’ve deflected my comments with promises to fix.
Terrible customer service!! I am going to the Disputes Tribunal.
Wow, was just seeing what sort of feedback groovybaby had and found this. We paid for goods in Jan, they took money from credit card, then they emailed back saying goods were not in stock, now July and still no refund or goods after multiple emails and fax’s.
FINALLY got the goods picked up in June after warning Karen Spencer about Disputes Tribunal plans - money then refunded thank goodness!! But so ridiculous having to wait 4 months for a resolution, will never deal with them again.
Hey Rod,
I ordered something from this company a few days ago & have a very distressed child waiting for Birthday gift any idea how I can get there number to phone them as no number listed on there site? thanks
If you check the companies office and white pages you’ll find them
Hi
We are the new owners of Groovybaby and have just reopened the site. We cannot change the experience that you had with the previous owners but this sort of thing will no longer happen as we have actual stock of the products we are selling and therefore a quick supply.
I am interested as to how long you can keep such a blog on the net as this has nothing to do with us at all and I have concerns that it could affect potential new customers.
I would be interested if any zero customers do negative blogs as to how long these stay on the net.
You have my email address and if you look on the site our contact numbers and address is there also so feel free to contact me to further discuss
Hi Ian, I’ve updated the post so it’s clear that there are new owners. Hope it all works out for you. Good luck, Rod