Back in December my dad bought a Galaxy S5 for my mum from a company called eGlobal. It was sent from within the UK and arrived fairly quickly but he noticed it was supplied with a USB 2.0 cable as opposed to the 3.0 that model uses, which his own was supplied with (purchased elsewhere at an earlier date). This raised concerns over the phone's authenticity so we contacted Samsung. After checking the serial and the CSC code they concluded that the handset had “most likely been tampered with”, as the evidence indicated a non EU model which had been flashed to appear as one in software. They said that meant it would have no warranty within the EU and should be returned for a refund. The seller was contacted directly but failed to respond so a claim was opened with PayPal to obtain a refund. PayPal were extremely slow handling the claim, each time they contacted my dad or requested any information the seller was given another week or so to respond, which they never did. They were provided with chat transcripts and emails from Samsung and ultimately concluded that my dad was indeed entitled to a refund, however they told him he'd have to post the phone to China, fully tracked and insured and at his own expense, before they would issue one. The phone was sent domestically originally, but presumably the only address PayPal hold for the seller is in China. He looked at prices for postage and apparently the cheapest was about £20 (with insufficient insurance), although many were considerably more. He wasn't prepared to be left out of pocket so disputed the decision with PayPal, dragging it out further and causing him a fair amount of stress. PayPal were unhelpful and argumentative, making false statements about the contents of their terms and conditions to justify their position. For example he was told more than once that the terms state he will be liable for the postage without exception, however: As he was getting nowhere talking to different people each time on the phone, and due to the poor way they were handling the dispute and unsatisfactory nature of the proposed resolution, a formal complaint was written and submitted via their site. They state it takes up to thirty days for them to respond to complaints, and the deadline to provide tracking information passed while he was waiting for them to answer. The thirty days came and went and they never did answer his complaint, what they did instead was close the original claim as he had failed to provide the proof of postage (the very thing he was disputing). PayPal are now saying that because they have closed the claim he cannot get a refund at all, as claims can only be opened once. They have still not bothered responding to the formal complaint, but after yet another phone call today have said that someone from that department will email him within the next three days. The Consumer Rights Act says the seller is responsible for return shipping in cases like this, and while PayPal are not the seller and not under any legal obligation they surely have a moral obligation to their customers, particularly considering the emphasis they place on how safe they are and their buyer and seller protection policies. PayPal stated that they cannot refund the item without proof it has been delivered back to the seller (and received at the other end) as they would then be liable for action from the seller. At no point during this time has the seller responded to either myself, my dad, or PayPal. They very clearly couldn't care less. The phone does work, although I'm not sure if there are any issues with the radio bands due to it being intended for a different region, and as previously stated it will have no warranty here. It can only be sold in clear conscience with full disclosure of this information which will undoubtedly devalue it significantly, so there's no way for my dad to recover his money by simply selling it on if PayPal maintain their current position. Basically PayPal's policy is to make demands of the buyer that directly contradict their consumer rights. Their customer service is inefficient and entirely unsympathetic, and they clearly have no interest in doing the right thing. This is what their “buyer protection” amounts to. The seller on the other hand has clearly acted immorally and fraudulently yet PayPal's policy ultimately affords them more protection than the people they are ripping off. I've tried to be concise but I know this has gone on a bit so if you got this far thanks for reading, if not here's the TLDR: Seller fraudulently sells phone that has been tampered with and therefore has no warranty PayPal tell my dad he has to pay £20+ to post phone to China Dad refuses and disputes decision, ultimately files formal complaint PayPal close original claim and completely ignore formal complaint PayPal tell my dad he can no longer get a refund So, the bottom line, avoid eGlobal because they're dishonest, and don't trust PayPal to offer full protection if you ever need it, because they simply won't. Oh and if you got the very tenuous IT Crowd reference in the title, well done
This is bad. I've experienced the flaws of Paypal's "buyer protection" a few times before, and the whole proof-of-delivery and proof-of-receipt shenanigans is the weak link in the chain - you can't make the system work if the seller doesn't give a sh*t. All the seller needs to do is to refuse delivery of the faulty item, voiding any proof of receipt "at the other end" and nullifying the whole process. This happened to me once and I lost £74 on a monitor even though I sent it back to the seller. In any case, it's helpful to hear of experiences like this so that we know who or what to be wary of... it's just a shame that some poor soul has to take the hit!
Yes, I wasn't naive enough to think they'd have genuine concern for their customers, they are after all a financial company, but I didn't expect this level of contempt either. Short of legal action and simply choosing not to do business with PayPal again it seems there's little to be done as complaints just fall on deaf ears. As you say their proposed resolution opens my dad up to further losses and a very real possibility they'll still refuse to refund him.
Aside from the money it really pisses me off that they've caused my dad the stress they have, he has been understandably quite angry about all this and he's recovering from a heart attack so anger and stress are things he could definitely do without.
It was funded almost entirely from PayPal balance so that's not an option. he's pretty much at the mercy of PayPal. I'm pretty sure he'll be closing it because of this anyway.
It's sad that things work out like this, because people trust eBay and PayPal as high-profile western companies. By contrast, people worry about buying stuff from places like AliExpress 'cos of the perceived risk of buying things from China. I bought £8's worth of Wi-Fi dongles from AliExpress a few months ago. They never turned up. Seller was messing me about a bit, trying to convince me to wait 90 days and keep applying for buyer protection extensions every five days, so I escalated it to AliExpress. Result? Full refund of my £8, no messing. If you pay via AliPay (Alibaba's own payment portal), they keep the cash in escrow until you've confirmed you're happy, so you can always get your money back even if you've bought something from a scammer. I know where I'm buying my next smartphone from, and it ain't FleaBay!
The company is quite clearly a grey market importer, what were you and/or your dad expecting? They clearly state that they handle all warranty claims, which by default means no manufacturers warranty. Also, why not use their 30 day return policy? Sure there's a fee, but it's reasonable. As for frequency bands, all variants of the S5 have enough bands to roam anywhere in the world on any (decent) carrier at a minimum of HSPA+, so you have nothing to worry about there.
Maybe not the greatest service from Paypal, but eGlobal don't exactly hide the fact that you are getting a non EU product shipped from Hong Kong. The second paragraph on their FAQ page:
They ignored all attempts to contact them. How do you suggest we make use of their warranty if they are completely ignoring us? He obviously didn't read the FAQ, the product page implied it was a UK handset and made no mention of it not having a manufacturer's warranty or being non UK stock. As stated previously it was actually sent domestically not from overseas and this is not simply an imported handset, it's an imported handset that has been flashed to appear as an EU model so regardless of what the FAQ says they're still selling a product as new that has been tampered with. They're very clearly in the wrong here, and if they were simply an honest company who made a mistake they'd have responded to the many messages they've received about this.
There are multiple variants of the S5 and you can't flash roms from one onto another. Within a variant you have 2 options for android handsets - carrier specific or stock (think Nexus lineup). It's just software, so if it was reflashed, it makes no difference. You probably would have been more pissed off if it defaulted to the language and carrier branding of some third world sh|thole. Variants can be sold anywhere - they are just named for regions where they are most likely to be sold (based on network frequency and type (gsm/cdma, etc). Smaller carriers will just buy whatever they can, which is easy with the S5, as nearly all the variants will work on gsm networks worldwide.
The CSC had been changed as it didn't match the region associated with the serial number. If it's using the correct bands that's good to know but it doesn't alter the fact that the phone had been messed with prior to sale and Samsung won't offer a warranty on it, so the resale value will be affected. While this was going on my dad bought another phone for my mum, expecting this one to simply be refunded, so they have no use for the S5 now even if it will work okay in the UK.
Why not call down to them in London? https://companycheck.co.uk/company/09885495/E-GLOBAL-LIMITED/summary
Looks like a site that would sell grey imports and the like. last place I'd drop a load of money. Paypal only really offers protection (Biased to a degree to the buyer!) worth a damn when through eBay.
FWIW my missus has a S5 and it came with a USB2 cable, and it came from Carphone Warehouse so I'd hope they weren't giving us grey stock.
There are a very large number of companies in that building, it's likely to be rent-an-address type place where they accept mail and forward it on. http://www.endole.co.uk/explorer/postcode/w1g-9dq
