Has Anyone bought from Highdecibel.com?????

http://www.highdecibels.com/proddetail.asp?prod=PMD-B200

Ok, here's the deal. I want to get an Alpine Blackbird II GPS for my IVA-W505, so what do you normally do? Google it and find the best deal. Well I found it for 422.00 at this website. They claim to be a reputable dealer and that they have what I'm looking for in stock. In short, I placed my order on July 17th I have yet to hear anything from them about the status of my order. Luckly I paid with Paypal but the transaction is still pending??? Anyone have any idea why the transaction would still be pending after almost 4 weeks?

First thing, whenever I placed my order I received an automated email from highdecibel.com saying: Thank you for your recent order at High Decibels. Most orders will ship within 24-48 hours. Some orders, requiring special ordering such as select Home Theater items, may take up to 3 to 5 business days to ship. You will receive an email once your order is shipped along with tracking information. The details of your order are listed below:

Well they busted that time frame by a whole lot. So what do I do? I call their 1-800-356-1078 number, but all I get every time is an answering machine for someone called "Moses Distributers" whoever the hell that is. Of course I left a message and never got a call back. Next thing I did why email them at sales@highdecibels.com. I actually thought I was getting somewhere this way. Some girl my the name of Sara responded on July 27th saying:

Hello Dustin,

This order is scheduled to ship on Monday 7-28-08. You will receive a shipment confirmation with relevant tracking number(s) via email at this time.

Sincerely,
Sara Stevenson
High Decibels Order Management

Monday goes by, still no tracking number or status of shipment. I email her once again and she responds on the August 1st:

Dustin,

I will certainly check up on this and update you on this order.

Sincerely,
Sara Stevenson
High Decibels

That is the last that I heard from her. I've sent several emails after that but have not received a reply. I sent a pretty heated email to them yesterday and I have yet to receive anything. What do you guys think? Here is the email that I sent yesterday:

Good Morning Sara,

I need to know what is going on with my order. It has been nearly a month since I placed my order and from a customer’s point of view and any reputable store, this is highly unacceptable. If you truly stand by your “Buy with confidence! We strive to provide the best service possible and our presence on EBAY proves this.” statement, then you will value your customer’s piece of mind. I have yet to receive any from your establishment. Once again, I tried your 1-800 number and yet reached a machine again with someone called “Moses Distributors”. If you cannot fulfill this order within the next 48hours, or straight out just tell me that you cannot, I will be forced to cancel my order with PayPal, and I will take action so that more people will not fall into what I have. I will follow up with Better Business Bureau as well. The one thing that I ask is to keep me informed. I have been more than patience with your establishment. I highly encourage you to call me at ____________ to clear up any possible miscommunication. Thank you.

 

WOW!!! Just WOW!!!


Item wasnt on backorder was it?
How did u find this company?
Did you try the live chat?



Keep us informed on her response.

 

I would like to think that I am a patient person. I understand that things happen or for some reason a shipment cannot be made right away. For the most part I just want to be informed about it. I don't like being kept out of the loop.

I've tried absolutely everything to get in touch with an actual person. The "LiveChat" by the way is always Offline. And they say that the "THESE UNITS ARE IN STOCK NOW!"

 

I use PayPal, but I'm not terribly familiar with their system. Can you cancel the payment since it is still pending?

If I could, I would absolutely cancel the payment and try to find the unit elsewhere. I don't know how much cheaper this site was, bit it sounds really shady to me. I'd get my money back immediately. I'm a patient person (sometimes), but you've waited too long already, and your inability to get in touch with a real person is concerning.

 

pay pal should be able to help you dispute it, i had a company that wouldnt get back to me cause my headlights didnt fit on my mustang and needed a refund or new ones shipped out... so pay pal threatened to close down their account permanently and they popped outta the wood work because they were a pretty big business on ebay. So i would contact Paypal and see what they can do for you.

 

That's just so f... up, just cancel the order man....think of the money you can loose.... wheni ordered my tube steps the web site stated they were on stock, they werent but that only delayed the order for about 5 days so i think theres something fishy there....

 

If you paid by credit, or if your paypal is linked to your credit card, your best bet at this point is to file a credit dispute WITH YOUR CREDIT CARD COMPANY. Paypal will only do up to a certain limit, and isn't very forthcoming - my buddy bought a laptop and Paypal would only refund $100. He went to the credit card company, got the full amount back, a nasty letter from Paypal, and a smile on his face.

See about making a Better Business Bureau complaint.

Contact Alpine and notify them of a shady reseller of their product. I've heard of these sorts of stories from two different sources now, where the company will investigate and either pull their product (if the goods are selling for non-businesslike prices) or press charges (if the goods are falsely advertised). It's in Alpine's interest to disassociate their name from poor businesses.

 

What's weird is that the $422 hasn't hit my credit card yet. It doesnt even show up with on my online credit statement as a pending transaction. It is only pending with Paypal. I'll also contact Alpine as well, good call.

 

Alright, here's an update. I talked to PayPal and they said that since the transaction is still pending they can't do anything about it. So I know it's coming from highdecibels' end. The pending transaction has to be completed by Aug 15th or else Paypal cancels the entire thing. I asked them to go ahead and cancel it and they said that they can't do that. They said they would be able to dispute the transaction only if payment actually went through. The lady did give me a website that I can go to, to file a online fraud complaint with. www.ic3.gov, I'll be adding that place to the list of complaints as well. I hate using the word complaint. It makes you feel like a 2 yr old who got vanilla ice cream and wanted chocolate, or in my case didn't get anything at all.

 

Try the credit card company as well to let them know. You can tell them that it's an unapproved transaction, and they will deny the charge once it comes in. At least you should be able to do this, I know I had to approve a bunch of stuff when I was in college and had two addresses for shipping. Like I say, credit card companies tend to be the most helpful.

 

Well all I have to say that after many years of online purchases I have never ran into anything like this. I guess over the years I have put faith in the business community. From now on, i will always ressearch an online store. I should have. Look at some of the forums that I found:
http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?t=138650
http://www.hometheatershack.com/for...rt/9535-avoid-highdecibels-com-all-costs.html
http://www.polkaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?t=66071

Well I sent them another heated email today to another email I found order@highdecibels.com:

Good Afternoon,

I am trying this email address because sales@hightdecibels.com is not responding to my emails. I want to cancel my order ID:2620. You’re establishment has kept me out of the loop since I’ve made my order on July 17th. The payment is still pending with Paypal so I know that the product as not shipped and can be cancelled. Do not ship the product and expect me to pay for it. I will not accept any packages from your establishment. If I am charged and my order is shipped I will report the transaction as unauthorized to www.ic3.gov and the Better Business Bureau. Paypal and my credit card company has already been made aware of my situation, and are willing to take action if my account is charged. I apologize that I have to go this far, but the continual lack of communication with your online business has left me little to no choice. I have attached copies of emails that I have had with Sara Stevenson.

I sent that email at 1:19 today and I received an email from paypal about 5mins ago saying that the transaction has been canceled. Thank God this thing is over with. Needless to say, I'm going to follow through with the www.ic3.gov and Better Business Bureau complaints.

 

Sounds like you have everything in order, awesome job catching everything in time.

Oh, and for future reference, ResellerRatings does a great job for stuff like this

 

check out
http://www.sonicelectronix.com/item_9766_Alpine+PMD-B200+Blackbird+II.html

not as cheap as you got it but very good company and fast shipping.

 

Glad things are looking up. The only online car audio sites I trust are:

SonicElectronix.com
OnlineCarStereo.com

Sonic Electronix is always fast and reliable, and Online Car Stereo has some fantastic customer service. Online Car Stereo, however, does not list their stock availability on the website. You'd need to call or email once you find something, but like I said, they have fantastic customer service, and (in my case) got back to me within about 2 hours of each email I sent.

You may want to give one of those sites a shot.

 

I ended up placing the order with Crutchfield. They had a "scratch and dent" one for 425 + free shipping. I ordered an "Scratch and Dent" Infinity Basslink a couple of years back from Crutchfield and I went over that thing with a magnifying glass and couldn't find a darn thing wrong with it. If it does have a nick on it, I won't care because it is going to be docked in my headunit 96% of the time anyways. I ordered it today and Crutchfield shipped it today with the tracking number. It should be here on Friday.

 

funny you said woofersetc.com silvrback! Go with www.woofersetc.com my buddy had that website up today and i was like hey whatcha getting he said nothing this is my company, believe me thats a great site hes got that site down