Friday, June 8, 2012

Beware PriceAngels.com.

Ever been on a website and wondered how pricing can be so low?
Ever been concerned that the company is in China and you may never see your product or money again?

Well, this is a story of your everyday disabled Veteran who simply wanted to buy her daughter a cool graduation gift on a limited income.  It seems She found out how one company can price their products so low.  Simply put, it appears they do not actually ship out all the orders and therefore maximize their profits.

This is a true story with all the documentation to back up the claims that hopefully will protect others from having their money taking.  Hence the reason it is titled "Beware Priceangels.com"

The story starts April 30th when Tisha (our disabled veteran) began searching the internet for a cool 7" tablet with decent power and acceptable memory capacity.  After searching various websites Tisha came across PriceAngels.com.

PriceAngels.com (Price Angels) had a decent looking website and a lot of decent looking products.  They also had what appeared to be excellent tablet pricing.

On the 30th of April Tisha placed an order for a hot pink tablet for her daughters graduation on June 6th.  Tisha asked my, the writer of this article whether just over 30 days was enough time to get the product in from China.  Since I own my own business and import weekly from China I am aware that 30 days is more than enough to get an item in from China.  As a matter of fact I myself have never received and order no matter how large or small that took more than 21 days from the order date to arrive.

Four days after Tisha ordered and paid for the tablet she received a tracking number from PriceAngels.com.  That tracking number as of the 17th of May to showed the package had arrived in New York.  Over the following few weeks the package continued to show just that.

Here is actually an email from one of the sales reps of Priceangels.com that was sent to Tisha after multiple attempts to try to have her package tracked;
---------------------------------------------------------------
Dear customer,
Here is the shipping information we have searched for your order:
June 05, 2012, 12:44 pm Result 1, RA549933412XX, , Forwarded, NEW YORK, NY, Registered Mail ™
June 05, 2012, 12:43 pm , , , Undeliverable as Addressed, GLASGOW, MT 59230,
May 30, 2012, 10:06 am , , , Undeliverable as Addressed, NEW YORK, NY 10019,
May 17, 2012, 5:53 am , , , Arrival at Unit, NEW YORK, NY 10019,
Your parcel was shipped to the address:
Name:Tisha XXXXXX
Street: XXXXX
City: Glasgow
State:  MT
Zip code:59230
Country:UNITED STATES
It will arrive the above address soon.
Best Regards,
Helen
Priceangels Service Team
 ---------------------------------------------------------------
Notice that the tracking sent by PriceAngels.com showed that the package was undeliverable in New York 10019.  At no time was the package ever to ship to New York, 10019.  The package was to ship to Glasgow, Montana 59230, 1700 miles away from New York.

Tisha attempted multiple times to convey to PriceAngels.com that Montana is not in New York and that she had not received her tablet.  PriceAngels.com continued to give her a runaround.  They actually tried to make it as if Tish had change her order ship to address after placing the order.  I have read all of the emails and this was never done.  The address Tisha wanted the tablet shipped to was the address she placed the order with.  At no time did that order show a New York address.  At all times it showed a Montana address.

Now is really kicks in to high concerns.  After 10 frustrating days on Tisha's part to try to get her package she received the following message from priceangels;
---------------------------------------------------------------
Jun 7, 2012 9:32:28 PM   PriceAngels.com Replied:
Dear customer,
Thanks for your feedback. The order 0501O23I8C has been delivered on May 4th. Here you may trace your parcel: http://www.17track.net/IndexEn.html.

Best Regards,
Helen
Priceangels Service Team
---------------------------------------------------------------
Do you see what the date Helen claims the item was delivered.  This date was the actual date that PriceAngels charged Tisha's credit card and supposedly shipped her order.  As someone who imports a great deal from China every month I am not sure I understand how PriceAngels could have shipped her order from China on the same day it was received here (without tracking actually showing it as received) and while shipping it via ground.
The other aspect I do not understand is how the USPS tracking on the previous message claims the package never made it to America until the 17th, even though Priceangels claims the package was received 13 days before.

There are three possibilities here:
1. They are lying and never shipped the tablet ( When you enter the tracking number into 17track's site it just continues to search for the package.  20 minutes after I entered the tracking number that Tisha emailed me it is still showing "Please Wait".
2. They are mistaken.  I do not know how this happens either.  If they sent it to the correct address the first time and had tracking for it the tracking would be showing currently at USPS.com's website.
3. Montana is no longer in America.  I do believe though that Montana has not broken away from the United States.

Bottom line seems pretty simple.
It appears for all intents and purposes that Priceangels.com is a rip off.  They do not ship all the paid orders they receive.  This allows them to lower prices since they only ship a percentage of the orders placed.  Because they are in China it is difficult to perform a credit card chargeback for item not received.

It is increasing frustrating in that Tisha is a disabled Veteran on a limited income.  It took her three month to save for the tablet that her daughter never received for her graduation on June 6th.

As a business owner I know that I could never put trust into a company that constantly gives a run around to their customer(s).   I know that I would never give my credit card info to them and advised Tisha to cancel her card and get a replacement.  If a company will take your money and not ship your order then what is to stop them from double charging your order.

I wrote this specifically to make sure that whomever attempts to purchase from PriceAngels.com is made aware that they are playing roulette with their money.  There is a strong possibility that like Tisha, you will not receive your product.

The proof is really in these two emails which have been screen captured and recorded for proof of statements made here.  The package definitely shows it was undeliverable to an address in New York.  The package should never have been delivered to a New York address in the first place.

In closing on this initial entry I would like to state that I am currently attempting to investigate whether the owner(s) of PriceAngels also own(s) other websites.  If that is the case I will post those here as well.

If anything changes with Tisha's order I will post that as well.

Anthony Alexander.
San Diego, CA.



2 comments:

  1. I've just had a horrible experience with this company but I didn't even get past Check Out. Apparently, they disable the PayPal feature of "Check Out as Guest" to force folks to provide them with lots of information.

    I will be reporting them to PayPal for possible Terms of Use violations.

    And they hide behind a domain name company in Scottsdale, AZ. http://www.whois.com/whois/priceangels.com

    I will be reporting them to GoDaddy as well.

    I copied the transcript of my Customer Service Chat record and took screen shots of the check-out screen.

    When I asked for the name of the company owner and the mailing address of the company I was told "I am sorry i have to off-line for something urgent. Please contact us later."

    I was then told to register. Then chat disconnected.

    Certainly a company to avoid.

    ReplyDelete
  2. My name is Butch and have same problems with "PRICEANGLES" I ordered a few products at $10 ago each week and received them late but happy. I went the whole hog two month ago buying many products every day for the free delivery without paying customs for bulk buy. I have not received any of the orders I made totally $2000 for mobile phones,tablets,cctv car kits and other items, I have tried many times requesting their RMA! and they give me so much crap about it will soon be with me. I even paid extra for each item for quick delivery and trackable and only get in transit. I find their customer services to be like robots only understanding caveman literature and giving a load of buff back to put you of complaining to paypal and credit card after 45 days when you are out of the zone for claiming monies back. "BEAWARE OF THEM" It is a scam.

    ReplyDelete