"Generally have had exellent experience with BUY.COM except when it relates to returns.

Generally I have found BUY.COM prices to be the best online and because of my proximity to one of their warehouses I can select the cheapest shipping and still get my products within a day or so.

I also had one occasion where I found an item I had purchased from BUY.COM available for less money on another website and true to their lowest price guarantee I was able to receive a credit from BUY.COM by providing the link to the website with the lower price.

Their return process, however, is very cumbersome and not at all customer friendly. Last Christmas I ordered a hockey video game for my nephew and they sent me football (NFL) instead of hockey (NHL.) Once I spoke to a customer service rep who verified the issue I was told I would have to send the wrong item back and wait to get a credit. They would not cross ship the correct item while I sent back the wrong item, so in order to get the product on time I would have to place a new order. I found this very bothersome and wound up ordering the product from a different vendor.
"

"Second order with the company within the year...about 3 overall. First have been without a problem...a little slow to get out of the wherehouse, but things flowed smoothly...until now.

I purchased an in stock photo printer. 1-2 days to fulfill that shipment (they took 2) and then sent shipping notification after charging credit card. However the tracking number only shows manifest to pickup package has been received and that the product has not been shipped. It has now been 4 days and no UPS acknowledgment.

Found customer support ***-***-****) number of web and called to get confirmation. They cannot provide any details on when or where it was supposedly shipped and that I should wait 7 to 9 days and call back if it does not show up.

What'a company. The offshore Customer Support group is meant to say "no problem, it will arrive"...that this is normal."

"I am very disappointed by the lack of communication from Buy.com. My order was hanging in the system for 2 full days and then cancelled with no notification because they realized they do not have product in stock. I had an option to order form another site (and I will do this in the future) and I lost very valuable time because of Buy.com. "

"Bought from Buy after receiving a coupon for $30 off any tech order. One item (printer) was wrong model sent (returned unopened), the other item (vid card) was defective. After getting an RMA for each, Buy.com credited me less $30 for EACH item returned! This was not a restock fee, but because of the use of the coupon. So in essence, I lost $60 plus bad products.

Customer Service, though courteous, is hard to reach and not helpful at all. "

"Never again:
Placed an order on 12/11/2005 for items shown in stock and would ship in 3-5 business days. Checked order several times – status as “Sent to warehouse” 6 days later order was changed to “On Order” Several attempts made to contact customer service, dates of 12/17, 12/19 and 12/20 – each time received an automated reply that I would be contacted in 10 hours. No contact was every made by customer service.
Cancelled the order the evening of 12/20 – 12/21 automated reply my order has been canceled.

This company makes no attempt at customer service and their automated system makes promises they can not keep – all I requested was a simple answer to a simple question.
Value is nothing if service is not available – my time and the aggravation cost more that I ever would save using Buy.com
"

"In fairnes to these guys, I've been doing business with Buy.com for 3 years and I have never had a problem. Their prices are good, their standard shipping is free and fast, and the only time I did not receive a DVD I ordered, they promptly credited my account. Just today I received an order placed 4 days ago stnd shipping, no charge. When you do the kind of volume this company does there are bound to be mistakes once in a while. My only recommendation is that they try to ship items on one order in the same shipping container and not in multiple shippings to save themselves money and keep their costs down. Keep up the good work.





































"

"I had never heard of Buy.com, but received Buy.com gift certificates from taking surveys. The certificates were piling up, so I decided to use them to buy some speakers for my mom. I placed an order on Saturday, one week before Christmas. I used the free shipping option, and fully expected the order to arrive after Christmas. I had already printed pictures from the website and wrapped those! To my surprise, the order was shipped on Monday and arrived by Tuesday, with plenty of time for the holidays. Because of this experience, I took a look at an open Amazon.com order I had that was going to arrive well after Christmas. On all three of these items, Buy.com beat Amazon's price by over a dollar. Needless to say, I cancelled that order and purchased them from Buy.com instead. "

"I've been doing business with Buy.com since 1999 and generally have never had any problems with them. Things were definitely better in the early days before many .com's went down the toilet. Buy.com survived, but definitely at the expense of their customer service.

In September, I ordered a Pinnacle Showcenter 1000G for a great price(after rebate, about $64). The website said "very few left - order soon - may sellout soon". I placed the order and the next morning got an e-mail indicating there was a delay in fulfilling the order. For the deal I was getting, I thought I'd wait it out and see if it would come back into stock.

Meanwhile, they had the newer Pinnacle Showcenter 200 for a great price(200.00 - 20.00 rebate). I should have just bought it, but while I was waiting for correspondence back from Customer Service on my original order, I lost that opportunity and ended up canceling my order anyway.

Even though I had second thoughts about ordering from Buy.com again, because of price and my generally good experience with Buy.com, I decided to give them a second chance and ordered the D-Link DSM-520(very similar to the Pinnacle Showcenter)on Dec. 14. Again, the website said "very few left" so I was very skeptical. Sure enough, the next day, I got the dreaded backorder notification. Yet, for two days, on the website, it said they were still in stock.

All I can say is, never waste your time calling customer service! It's obviously farmed out to India, and all they do is look on the website, so they can't tell you anything more than you already know. They can't look up how many backorders there are, how many are expected in and when or any other relevent information. I decided to wait it out a short while, since any other place I might have ordered it from was also out of stock. Surprisingly, on the 18th, it showed that there were "very few in stock" again, so I was hoping one would be coming my way, and sure enough, they shipped one out to me yesterday(the 19th). So this experience wasn't too painful, considering I expected a major jerk-around again.

Here's the bottom line - Buy.com has generally great prices, especially if you happen to catch some of their special deals. Even though their ratings here are not spectacular, because of my largely positive experience with them over the years, I will continue to do business with them. It's hard to find an e-tailer that has great prices and great reviews and I don't feel like starting over with a company I don't know. If you never have to contact customer service, which is UTTERLY USELESS, you'll likely do fine. I've always ordered retail computer parts of one kind or another, so I can't speak for big ticket items.

If anyone from Buy.com reads this, I have one suggestion: PUT A LINK FOR REAL-TIME INVENTORY ON YOUR WEBSITE. Other websites have this feature and it is very helpful to the customer so they don't think they'll be getting a product they're not going to get, at least anytime soon. At the least, give your Customer Service reps access to this information. Buy.com isn't the only company guilty of this - several other companies I called were out of the DSM-520 even though their respective websites said it was in stock. I have no idea what it would cost to implement a real-time inventory system, but I can't imagine the increase in business due to better customer service and better reviews wouldn't make it worthwhile.

"

"I applied for and received a Buy.com Visa card, which promised $25 free upon approval. Then I was informed that the sum was actually $30. Meanwhile, I received a confirmation email informing me that I had $25 coming to me. I never did figure out if the $30 was in addition to the $25 or instead of. Anyway, I added $31 and some change worth of books to my cart and attempted to place the order. No way. Their nightmarish website would not allow me to place the order, and the only explanation I got was "Please fix the area that has an asterisk (*) next to it. ... We're sorry, you are not eligible for this promotion." The only asterisk on the page concerned shipping in time for Christmas. A help request was answered 2 days later with a referral to their telephone support line, which I called. Since I had not placed the order yet, I had no order number to provide to the support rep, so I had to laboriously spell out my email address to the heavily-accented rep. When I couldn't provide my bill-to phone number, the rep refused to help me any further (I realize now that I had mistyped it when I originally entered it: two digits were transposed). Wouldn't it have been easier for the online support people, who presumably could have had all my info in front of them, to have handled this? Of course, but Buy is not concerned with convenience.

I was never able to place the order. My new Buy.com Visa arrived in the mail today. I just called and cancelled it. I will never allow Buy.com to waste my time again. Their website is a nightmare and their customer support is no better. I'll be shopping at Amazon.com."

"Ordered a TV on Nov 25, 2005. It is Dec 17, 2005 and still have not received it. I don't believe it ever shipped. After it hadn't shipped from Buy.com by Nov 25, 2005 (Item was listed as in stock), I attempted to cancel on Nov 31st. Two days later, the site said the unit shipped on Dec. 1st, although on Dec. 1st, it was still listed as "Sent to Warehouse". They provided a tracking number and the message that "No Delivery Information is Available for This Item". I submitted a lost shipment claim, but have to wonder if this is a scam to gain a little extra revenue. If this happens to you, be sure to dispute with your credit card company. I did and I won't be charged interest or finance charges by my company during the dispute process.

Be warned about Buy.com.

Also, I purchased a sale item the day after Thanksgiving, they deceptively marked it as "Retail Price $2,499. Sale Price: $1,499" without listing their list price. Their list price turned out to be $1,599. The implication was that you had a limited time to save $1,000 (blockbuster special after Thanksgiving), but you really only save $100 (not blockbuster)."

"This reseller has to be the worst that I've delt with. Placed an order on the 6th, received a confirmation that it shipped the next day for arrival in 3-5 business days and still have not gotten it. Tracking number shows that item hasn't even left their facility. 1st time I called I was on hold for a hour, someone picks up and because I can barely hear them and they can barely hear me over a ton of static, they hung up. I call back again for them to tell me they will escalate the issue and get it out the door the next day and I will receive an email within in 10 hours. 2 days later I still haden't heard anything, tracking still shows no movement and I get no email. All the while the item is still advertized as in stock and able to ship in 1-2 days. I called last night,after he finds my order in their system and I verify all the order information and tell him I want to cancel, the guy literally laughed at me and said, "No, we cannot cancel. Our systems are down. Please call back in a 1/2 hour." He didn't give me any time to respond and hung up. So basically if it ever shows up, I'm refusing shippment. I hope they don't charge my card because I fear it will take a while before I get it back! Rudest people, horrible customer serivce."

"I ordered something the web site claimed was in stock. Four days later I checked the order status to learn that the item was back ordered with no estimated arrival date. I received no E-mails about this change and the product still shows as in stock on their web site. "

"I have placed 10 different orders from buy.com over the last year or so with no problems. The delivery times impress me the most usually taking 2 or 3 days on standard fedex. I bought a usb adaptor that did not work with my home computer. I returned it with no problem and was refunded. I have not tried their price match guarantee with amazon so I don't have any experiences with that. "

"Easy ordering and fast shipment. Arrived before expected date."

"Ripoff! Ripoff! Ripoff! There's a reason there is no customer service phone number. Don't waste your time trying to order. You've been warned."