Hi Max, I should have gone to you for switches by the looks of it!
They are not AI responses unfortunately, they are from real people. Getting a refund is not really my point. It is the ease at which you can get a refund after you buy something due to misinformation in their ads and uncaring ignorance on their part that is the problem. They are real people and often I notice on eBay, every time you contact a seller you will get a reply from a person with a different name. I have tried translating to the foreign language but get the same stupid responses. It is almost as if they are selling so many products that they really don't care if they lose a few customers along the way. You are supposed to just buy the item, not ask questions about it. I do get informed replies from China-based sellers, but from Australian-based sellers of Chinese products I typically get nonsensical or cryptic answers in response to questions. Their answers often seem deliberate. One seller simply repeated my question back to me. Others are overly polite and claim they will do whatever it takes to get you the answer, but they never do and have no intention of ever doing so. The ploy of putting people off seems to be all too common. They say they will get back to you with an answer in two to three days. They never do and there is obviously never any intention on their part to ever try to resolve the customer's question. They just want people to buy. Typically after you ask a question that they cannot answer, they will then send you an offer that is a dollar or two cheaper than what they were asking originally.
What you say is very true Norm. Every product has a number and is packed in a box. None of the sellers ever look inside the box to know anything about what they are selling.Their entire system is designed around selling first. Any problems that might arise after a sale are secondary to their concerns and they will only provide a refund if it is required by law, or if it means their selling rights on an online site might be compromised.
By contrast I contacted a seller in Bulgaria and received only highly informative replies. It was obvious that the seller knew his products very well. It is a pity the Australian-based Asian market is so geared towards selling and so lacking in any knowledge about what they are selling. One thing I have found is that if you find the same product for sale in China, if you ask those sellers they are more likely to give you a satisfactory answer. One Australian-based seller admitted to me that he did not actually have the items that he was selling, so could not tell me anything about them. Apparently, all of his stock was being held by some Third Party in a warehouse somewhere else in Sydney or Melbourne. All he was doing was selling the stuff and he never actually had any of the thousands of products that he was advertising for sale. A large part of eBay appears to operate like one of those bargain catalogues that use to appear in your mailbox in the old days. Mostly selling cheap junk designed to break not long after purchase, but because you got it so cheap you feel like you got a bargain while it lasts.
I guess another thing that annoys me about the rest of the online selling world is that many stores today are operating on a policy of giving a refund only in the case of a "change of mind". I recently bought some battery clamps that were wrongly advertised and because they would not fit I asked to return them. The store asked me to fill out a form claiming that I had changed my mind. I argued quite correctly that they were at fault by providing the wrong information and I wanted to return the items for that reason, not because I had "changed my mind". They refused to provide a refund unless I filled out their form. I still have the part here.
Well I guess the dodgy practices don't end there. I was recently quoted "No more than $125" from a local engineering company for a job. I go to pick up the item a week later and they demanded $230. Apparently the person who had given me the quote had not been authorized to do so, because he only worked there. This is the second time they have done this to me. The first time it was the manager who had quoted me around a hundred dollars less than what he finally charged me. He claimed that his quote was only an estimate and there was more work involved than what he had thought. I think I will be taking my business elsewhere in future. We only have one engineering works in town and the others are around 3/4 hour drive away. They also made a blunder on the last job I got done. They used my measurements but forgot to account for the 2mm thickness of the materials they used. So when I got it home I found everything was out on either side by 2 mm. I had to spend several hours re-engineering their parts to get them to fit. It would be a waste of time complaining about this to the manager. He is likely to just tell me off. Then they wonder why people are not buying locally.
