Disgruntled customers struggling to get answers and refunds from NZSale
Friday, 10 January 2020
Complaints are flooding in about online shopping site NZSale.
Stuff reported this week that many buyers are still waiting for orders that were placed months ago.
The site uses bulk purchases to get deals for customers. A sale usually lasts for a few days, and at its end the purchases are collated and sent to the supplier.
Delivery then depends on where in the world the stock is coming from. The site usually offers an indication of when a product can be expected, but this is not always guaranteed – as shoppers discovered this Christmas.
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Natasha Phillipps said her husband had ordered a Marc Jacobs bag for $400 as a Christmas present for her but it still had not arrived. 'They provide a tracking number and tracking page which shows delivery has been attempted and that a card has been left. I was home all day that day and no card was left nor did a courier company arrive. Furthermore it doesn't show the name of the courier company delivering it, which is odd.'
Alecia Mouldey had been waiting since October 18 for a personalised item she ordered for her husband. 'It has been over 12 weeks, and it still hasn't come,' Mouldey said.
She said she was given a new delivery date every time she contacted NZSale but it would then pass without the gift arriving.
'We were given a tracking number that is not even an existing tracking number,' she said.
Mouldey described the situation as heartbreaking and frustrating.
'The communication side of it is slack. It's like they don't even care,' she said.
Michelle Cohen ordered a Pandora bracelet and two beads on November 6. The present for her daughter had a delivery date of the November 20-27.
'I am just getting nowhere with NZSale. I have contacted them on Facebook, through Facebook messenger, I have contacted them on their website. They just keep giving me the same information,' Cohen said.
'I finally got tracking information on the 11th of December and it hasn't moved since they gave it to me.'
Cohen said all the company needed to do was to tell her that it wouldn't arrive in time and she would have moved on. 'But they keep saying its coming, its coming and it never gets here,' she said.
Several other buyers contacted Stuff about the Pandora sale.
A Commerce Commission spokeswoman said it had received 46 complaints about NZSale relating to undelivered items or delays with delivery since January 2018.
MySale was founded in 2007 by Australians Carl Jackson and Jamie Jackson to offer 'flash sales' on surplus branded fashion and beauty products.
Carl Jackson declined to answer questions on the phone and had not responded to emailed question by publication.
Alex Sims, from the University of Auckland's law school, said the law protected consumer rights but there were few ways to enforce the Fair Trading Act against companies based overseas.
'Technically you are protected under New Zealand consumer law but if you are based overseas, there is not a lot you can do,' Sims said.
'It's why I always say to people, if you are going to buy something online, try buy something from a New Zealand company, based in New Zealand.'
Sims said Kiwi shoppers needed to be savvy about what they were buying online.
'Just because it has a co.nz website doesn't mean to say its based in New Zealand. Anyone can register a co.nz and it doesn't have to be that way,' she said.
In Australia, companies had to have a valid address to register a local website. She called on the Government to look at a similar rule for New Zealand.
'But it is also a the old thing that if it looks too good to be true, then it probably is,' she said.