When ordering online: It's buyer beware

Chip Oglesby bio photo By Chip Oglesby

One of the toughest problems with purchasing something online is the return policy. Some sites can be non-responsive or make it so difficult that it makes returning an item impossible. This is what happened to my fiancee.

As single full-time working adults, Michelle and I are both on a budget. I run my own business, and Michelle is working full-time while enrolled in school.

While researching wedding dress options, Michelle came across inweddingdress.com, a site for unique and inexpensive wedding dresses. She found one that she liked, and it was reasonably priced.

Weeks later she went to a local bridal store to try on wedding dresses. After finding a similar dress with a $1300 price tag, she decided to go with the one online. A question lingered in her head: “Could I get burned on this online purchase?”

Biting the bullet and ordering the dress for $272, she received a package in the mail a few days later. After opening and looking it over, she burst into tears. The dress was poorly made, the stitching was bad and the color was not described or photographed properly on the website. “Damn,” she thought. “What do we do now?”

The only recourse we have when dealing with the company is to mail it back to them. inweddingdress.com will decide if the product is defective and if they will refund or return the dress.

The most they would refund would be $167.00. The price to ship it to the Nangang District, Harbin, Heilongjiang province of China? 123.00 - leaving us with a paltry $44.00 returned for this mess.

So take this as a learning lesson: when dealing with shops online, it’s buyers remorse if you’re stuck with a bad product. inweddingdress.com should be ashamed of its shady practices, bad return policies, and general business ineptitude.

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