Be careful with Massdrop refunds... Why I no longer shop with them.

[TheVengeance]

So it's taken a while for me to not be so butthurt that I can actually bring this up.

Go back a number of months, Le Chocolatier I ordered it with a bunch of extras. Everything was fine.

There were a number of delays and I no longer actually had the board to use it on and they offered a refund - great I thought. I asked and they said sure, it's been processed.

A number of days went past and the refund hadn't appeared on my usual internet CC. I checked nope, nothing there. I checked Paypal for good measure, nope. I looked up the original invoice / receipt to check what my payment method was - the receipt doesn't actually state (what the hell is the point of a receipt that doesn't state how the payment was taken?).

So I reached out to them by support, the start of a very long chain of emails and messages. Basically they couldn't tell me what account I had paid with. I have only a bank card, a personal credit card, a work credit card and also paypal. I checked all of those accounts, no refund on either.

I then went back to when payment was made it was on personal credit card.

They couldn't confirm either way, had no record but suddenly said they could tell me if it was the same card by matching the last 4 numbers.

I gave them these numbers, for all cards in fact (although I know how it was paid) and they basically said nope. They claimed a refund was definitely made - but didn't match any of my cards. But they won't say where or who to.

We went back and forth but long story short, they never refunded me a penny, stole my money and never sent me my keycaps. I disputed this a number of times via ticket but in the end lost patience and gave up. Nothing I could do.

So be careful, absolute crooks. you have no comeback because chargebacks don't last as long as their drops and if they decide not to refund you for anything, you don't get a refund, or the product.

Yes I'm still butthurt, and from then actually my interest is keebs and caps went down dramatically - I stopped making caps and stopped buying really. It may only be £100-ish but it's the principle. I certainly can't look at those horrid brown caps anymore when I see photos.

So if you want out, just wait, and sell the caps on MM / classified. Saves Massdrop from stealing from you. Or just buy Originative - at least that's almost a proper shop.

[rmendis]

This reminds me. I need to go back and check my refunds.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[DaBubbs]

Sorry to hear of your bad experience. I haven't had a refund situation yet. Good to know. Thanks for the heads up 

[ramuklanuk]

Hi,

This is Kunal from Massdrop. Could you please forward me your conversation with the CS team at kunal@massdrop.com and I'll investigate and get back to you?

Thanks.

[Vigrith]

I understand the frustration, butthurtedness and definitely sympathize with your situation, 100 quid is a decent amount of money, however calling them "absolute crooks" and implying they'll steal from everyone else because they've allegedly stolen from you isn't helping anyone's case - for the sake of integrity and fairness to everyone involved (and those of us who are not) it is always best to be level-headed when it comes to this sort of thing. If that was your situation speak of it as such, form sentences targeting yourself and Massdrop and leave others out of it else your argument just loses value as others may (as I have) have had different experiences and as such will discredit yours.

There is a abysmal distinction to be made between alerting others to something that happened to you/thus could potentially happen to them and slandering an entire company because a CS rep or your bank or anyone else screwed something up along the way. That takes away from the merit of your experience and just makes it seem as though you're acting out because you're pissed off. Additionally, people don't like being told what to do, differentiating between warning someone and trying to conduct their actions for them is important. Basic argumentation and language techniques, we're on Geekhack so who really cares, I was bored.

For what it's worth, I've request like 2 or 3 refunds of Massdrop already and I've always gotten my money back instantly (by instantly I mean it was processed on their end on the stop and I then had my money back 24-48h later as per usual transaction procedure). Best of luck, I'm sure Kunal will do his best to do right by you.

[ChitownM2]

OP - I would get in touch with Kunal above since he offered. I had an issue with an order I received and he went above and beyond to get it resolved to my satisfaction. You should definitely give him a chance, I'm sure that no one at MD had any intentional ill will towards you or was actively trying to screw you out of money. It's likely there was an error compounded by some miscommunications and things probably went south from there...

[ideus]

If you want a third party mediating with any vendor you can always use paypal, that is precisely some of the added value, besides, you do not need to disclose your CC numbers to any but one company. Just my 2 cents.

My experience with MD is good, so far, just for the records. With PP also is quite good. They always back up me in the few cases when an internet transaction does not run as expected.

In the processing side, you bank should always keep records of any transaction. Again, if you use PP you will have two sets of records, I do not understand why you do not know what was the payment method you used.

[isunktheship]

First off, pretty much ignore my advice since it seems like you've got a Massdrop rep who's prepared to fight for you.. but if that doesn't work.. see below.

You know what card was charged.. Massdrop sort of knows what card was charged.. but claims a refund was issued (this seems dodgy, sounds like someone doesn't know what they're talking about, charges and refunds are itemized so I'm really unsure of how this uncertainty can come about.)

In any case, your bank will fight for you, LAST LINE OF DEFENSE, you'll need to provide a complete paper trail of communication, card that was charged, amount, invoice, approval of refund, claim the refund was granted, etc. The onus will be on Massdrop to prove they refunded the same card that was charged, no business would ever refund a payment to a different card, though in some cases a refund is cut by check to the exact individual. Easily documented.

Best of luck, but just because your case seemed to slip through the cracks, it doesn't make Massdrop a criminal entity hellbent on pilfering 100 quid/bucks at a time. All hobbies combined they're moving multi-millions of dollars worth of products in a given year, not that your 100 is meaningless... it just slipped through the cracks.

[pr0ximity]

Mixing up the card to refund seems like it should happen extremely rarely in almost every ecommerce system in existence. I can't envision this as a reason to always be wary of MD, but am interested in knowing more.