"I attempted to buy a Carbon Rio from Buy.com. They did not list it as out of stock. If they had I could have bought one locally for just a little bit more already. After a day I noticed that my order status (accessed via their web site) still showed "sent to warehouse." I contacted customer service concerning this and was informed that it would take 24 to 48 hours for my item to ship and at that time I would recieve an email concerning this. After 48 hours and no further contact I inquired again via email demanding to know when the item was going to ship. It was after this contact that I was finally informed that the item was backordered. Unbelievable. I requested that the order be cancelled since they could not deliver. I was informed that the request for cancellation would be sent to the fufillment center for approval but the item may ship before then and I be charged anyway.

I can't believe the nerve of these people! This is tantamount to a refusal to cancel an order for an item they misrepresented as having in stock and can now not deliver. Hopefully this can be resolved without too much more wasting of my time. Either way I will never order from them again.

Update: The actual number of their support is 1 ***-***-****. Keep in mind that their support is located in India. I am now being told that a cancellation will take 3 to 5 business days. I am also being told that they may ship my item before then and I would be charged anyway. Be warned."

"Ordered an item at a very low price (Canon A75). It arrived very quickly and in good condition.

Everything went fine because I did NOT have to make use of so-called "customer support" and that the item was acutally in stock when I placed my order and did not go out of stock immediately after I placed my order.

This shopping experience went flawless. Previous Buy.com experiences of mine have been mixed.

Paul"

"Well, I ordered the Hauppauge WinTV-PVR 350 from them because they had the best price for it by far. At first everything seemed ok but then got an email after 3 business days saying it was delayed. Emailed support and they said they had no idea when it would be in. So I cancelled and ordered with another company. The following day the order shipped at Buy.com even after I had cancelled. Got it the same day it shipped since I guess they had it in a warehouse nearby where I live. Had to then cancel the order with the second company I ordered from. Not a great experience, but I have to give them credit for getting the item to me quickly from the time it was ordered. Will probably not buy from them again."

"I ordered a HP printer. I waited a week with no word from Buy.com except that "order was sent to warehouse". After an email to them they admitted that the printer was backordered. I cancelled the order."

"I ordered Nero from buy.com back on Sept 9th. Selected their free shipping option, which can take 7-9 days to be delivered. Figured I didn't need it immediately, so waiting a week and a half wasn't going to be to bad. Well, it is now Sept 30th. No package. Their free shipping partner, APX, can't tell me where the package is, but they think it was transferred over to the USPS. Call USPS, and they say they still don't show it in their system. Both companies said to contact buy.com and cancel the order since the shipment has apparently been lost.

Good luck with finding a phone number on buy.com's website. I did a google search to find one, and when I called it, got an Indian on the other end that basically couldn't to a thing. Told to just go to the website and go through their lost shipment links. I could have done that to start with, but preferred to get this handled with a human on the phone. Things usually get done quicker that way. Well, that ain't going to happen with buy.com anymore. Guess that's what happens when everything gets outsourced to India, but that's another rant.

Anyway, go to their website to file claim. When done, I get an email stating it can take 15 business days before a decision is made on this claim. If I do get a refund, that can take another 5 days.

According to their website, a claim can get denied for the following reasons: refusal/undeliverable, delivery address correct, item still in transit, returns issue, weight of the package, or the order is older than 90 days.

My guess is that I'll be denied for either "delivery address correct" or "item still in transit."

I've already contacted my credit card company and am getting the process started to refute the charges if buy.com refuses to refund my card.

I had ordered from them in the past and didn't have problems. This is the first time, and it has completely turned me againsted this company. If you want horrible customer service from India, this is your company. For me, I will be removing buy.com from my bookmarks, and will never order from them again."

"This is the worst online business I've ever dealt with. Customer service is non-existent & never got my receipt for for a rebate so lost $30. Takes forever to be able to report a lost shipment. The option to cancel an order is virtually useless. Should have bought from somewhere else...NEVER deal with them or you will be sorry!!! "

"10/13/04
Those USB keys mentioned below just came today. I know it was free shipping, but good grief!! It took 21 days to get here!!! I have another order that I placed on the 09/30 and it has yet to arrive as well. They also only shipped half of it and didn't let me know that the other part was on backorder! It has a rebate I need to send in and I'm going to be mad if it doesn't get here in time. If you need your stuff, PAY FOR SHIPPING.

09/22/04
I ordered a 128MB USB drive, but it was cancelled due to a pricing error. I wasn't happy about it, but they gave me a $5 credit towards another Kingston product. Cool. So I ordered a 256MB USB drive. I placed my order but had a problem with the coupon. I e-mailed them and they had it fixed within the hour. I don't like that they don't have a phone number, but I would rather wait on an e-mail than wait on hold for 30 minutes. I used their free (i.e. - slow) shipping, placed the order on the 22nd, and it got here on the 28th -- 6 days. I can live with that. The product works well and was cheap. I can't complain.

09/22/04
I have since ordered a keyboard and mouse and they upgraded my shipping for free since it was a big box. That's cool. I also have some more USB keys on order. I have been happy with them in the past and will continue to do business with them as long as they keep up the good work."

"I bought a 2 GB Compact Flash for a great price. It took about three weeks to ship, but they kept me updated and gave me a chance to cancel if I wanted. Most of the complaints in here seem to be due to long order processing or waiting on out of stock orders to be fulfilled. If you're patient you'll get your product. I always used a saying in my line of work. We do work 3 ways here: Fast, Cheap, and good. Pick two. This seems to apply to buy.com.
I received my product as described for a great price. Overall, I'm satisfied and would shop here again."

"I am wondering why this store still exists. They should go out of business two years ago. Terrible serivce (actually no service at all) and horrible price mistake system."

"I placed an order on 9-18-04. Site says that it has in stock and will ship within 24 hours. After 8 days of waiting, the store cancelled the orders citing that it is the manufacturer problems. What an excuse and terrible inventory update. Other stores will still honor the orders and try to fulfill it. Buy.com just cancelled it. This store is certainly not professional for business needs. Bad customer service too, no respond to any emails. All questions are answered by automated emails, which said nothing buy garbage. This store just advertises cheap price but no fulfillment. It is only good to be used for pressuring other stores/sites to do price matching, lol."

"very bad seller, take 6 weeks to deliver. i cancel on the web 2 weeks after order, still ship to me a month later."

"This is by far the worst online purchase experience i've every had, and never again will i buy from buy.com
first off, i placed an order for a Samsung 910MP LCD on 9/4, which was in the "sent to warehouse" status for a week. on the 11th i received an email saying the product was shipped, and was given a tracking number. 2 weeks later, i have still yet to receive my order, at which point i checked with the last place of acceptance on the tracking website (which isn't the destination i set when i placed the order), and they said they had no such tracked item in their shipment. I decided to file a claim with buy.com for a "lost shipment."
However, when i went online to the actual page for filing, there was just a little checkbox next to the order item, nothing else -- no "continue," "confirm lost shipment and proceed," nothing. So i decided to email them about my situation of lost package, since they're too scared to talk on phones, and 12+ hrs later i received an email saying my order is on its way, with the exact same tracking number as the lost package...
I got a pretty annoyed by their lack of ability to read customer emails correctly, so decided to file for order cancellation due to customer disatisfaction. 12+ hrs later i received another email saying i can't do that, but have to file for a proper claim first (which is, in this case, a lost shipment, which is what i did in the first place...).
i think they don't even bother reading the emails, but had a monkey behind the computer whose word bank of knowledge consists of only "cancel, confirm, send, banana."
at this point im clueless to what i can do--i can't cancel, i can't get my order, and i got charged $500+ for it... gonna have a word with my credit card company at some point about this..."

"I ordered for items and used a $10 coupon. 3 items went back-ordered even though their site prominently promotes the same products as still available but for much higher prices. I cancelled the order for the 3 items but they still shipped 5 days after the cancellation request. I was told to just refused shipment which I did. The still charged me the full amount even after the cancellation. It took several phone calls before I got them to issue a credit. It took another week before they actually credit my account."

"Bought an item that was listed as in stock but then my order was cancelled. A day later the item is back in stock but this time its listed at a higher price, what a joke. Dont bother buying anything from them, sure their prices are cheap but thats to get you on their site then they will do the same to you as they did to me and many many other unsatisfied shoppers.

DONT BUY from them if you did you will probly need these numbers.

Customer support number:
1-***-***-**** / 1-***-***-**** /***-***-****"

"Ordered a pack of 100 DVD+R discs on 4/26. Received 4/28 with the 7-9 business day free shipping. couldn't be happier with this particular order. Also note that on big companies like buy.com, all the good purchases go under the radar and all the bad ones end up on here. I have ordered in the past and everything always has gone smoothly. Probably 5-6 orders in the past 5 years or so."