Ripped off on the website!
This review is about my extremely disappointing experience purchasing an amp directly from the positive grid website, where I was thoroughly and purposefully ripped off.
The amp itself is outstanding and would have otherwise deserved 5 stars, so the story with the website is a very great shame.
This is what happened. I took the purchase of the Spark Amp 40 through to the checkout stage, had added all my details, and arrived at the point where it indicated to click to go ahead with the payment. At that point, it was saying just under €300 including shipping (the same price I could have bought and had delivered from Amazon). So, I clicked to make the payment, but then, during the time it processed the payment, a little popup window came up saying “calculating taxes”, and without any possibility to intervene, the payment was taken and they had actually added this €60 in tax, to take some €360 on my card.
As a professional developer of online checkout systems, one thing I can say is that to increase the payment amount AFTER the customer has clicked to pay a lesser amount — and process the payment without seeking the customer’s confirmation as to the increased amount, is entirely and consciously fraudulent, which no self-respecting DEV would agree or suggest to do. If it had happened by error in the code, it would be equally inexcusable given it involves payment.
This was in the early evening, and I immediately contacted them both by reply to the order confirmation email, and through the Zen desk chat on the website. For both message submissions, I received a ticket number. In the messages I was unequivocal that the order should be cancelled (because I had been charged €60 tax in this underhand way). However, I heard nothing back from them for around 3 days, after the amp had already, by design perhaps, been dispatched.
In their entirely unapologetic response, when it did come, they advised for a refund I should refuse to accept delivery of the amp when the courier arrived. However, given that Positive Grid had already demonstrated a clear-cut proclivity to cheat, that would have involved trusting they wouldn’t ultimately turn around and not refund either the shipping, or the same tax that I was robbed of, for some hidden reason. Furthermore, it is hard to get couriers out to my location — refusing the delivery likely wouldn’t have helped my case in that respect.
For a supposedly American company, this has all been so very surprising, because my previous experience with American companies have all been so entirely different — I expect rather that these people aren’t Americans, but from somewhere else, where business culture is more disposed to play fast and loose with a customer’s trust.
When I replied to their message further expressing my dissatisfaction, I received no response — let alone any offer to rectify the situation with some kind of compensation. The tone and content of the single reply completely ignored what I was saying about the tax being added — while a clear impression formed that dealing with disgruntled customers that have been scammed in this way was a matter of routine.
Despicable.
