Avoid simplyelectronics

[mike_bike_kite]

Just a quick note to folks thinking of purchasing an ereader through simplyelectronics. They had kindles in stock, at a good price and could deliver them in a few days from their UK operation. It now turns out they're not based in the UK, they don't have them in stock and the delivery date has now long since sailed by. I guess the price is a bit irrelevant if they don't deliver the goods.

I've now looked into the company and found pages and pages of unhappy customers. Luckily I paid via visa so hopefully I'll be able to get my money back eventually.

I guess if a deal looks too good to be true then it probably isn't

Mike

EDIT : My kindle arrived late and was well packaged. I'm content now. I still believe this company should improve the information shown on their website (delivery dates, stock levels etc) but I no longer believe their was any bad intentions on their part.

[GlenBarrington]

You might want to record your experience here:

http://www.resellerratings.com/store/SimplyElectronics

I've found resellerratings.com has kept me from making a couple of mistakes in the past.

Originally Posted by mike_bike_kite

Just a quick note to folks thinking of purchasing an ereader through simplyelectronics. They had kindles in stock, at a good price and could deliver them in a few days from their UK operation. It now turns out they're not based in the UK, they don't have them in stock and the delivery date has now long since sailed by. I guess the price is a bit irrelevant if they don't deliver the goods.

I've now looked into the company and found pages and pages of unhappy customers. Luckily I paid via visa so hopefully I'll be able to get my money back eventually.

I guess if a deal looks too good to be true then it probably isn't

Mike

[mike_bike_kite]

Will do.

Sadly when you see a big web site you just assume an honest business behind it. I guess I'll live and learn. Hopefully this post will stop others from taking the same route in the hope of saving a few pounds. I think what alarms me most is that companies like visa and google do business with these companies - I kind of expected a little more from them.

[Worldwalker]

Visa does business with credit-card clearinghouses, who in turn have their own standards for selecting clients. Back when I was a one-person software company, with office & production facilities in a spare bedroom, I accepted credit cards (this was long before PayPal). I could have been anyone. True, they sent a rep out to take a picture of the "facilities" -- he helped me hang the convention banner over my computer desk, and we posed a few software boxes as accents. But that's all it took. The banner was home-made, and the boxes were from Uline, in sleeves that I got printed at a local copy shop. I could have been totally bogus. So you can't really blame them for processing credit cards for shady merchants -- most of the time, they don't deal with the merchants directly.

And Google certainly can't vet every person and company who wants to buy AdWords. Well, they could, but then nobody but Microsoft and Apple could afford to advertise; at best, anyone else would have to wait six months for approval. Newspapers don't do it either, by the way, nor do magazines. If you want to buy an ad selling whatever-the-heck in any major publication, they don't do a background check on you; the only check they care about is the one they cash.

And a nice website proves exactly one thing: Someone can make (or buy) nice websites. I could build a website as nice as any Fortune 500 company (and better than many) and it would mean ... zilch.

[mike_bike_kite]

My Kindle arrived today from simplyelectronics. It was very late but much appreciated.