"I placed 2 orders on March 17. I received one order in May. I have been told for weeks that my other order would ship, but never received it. I've called dozens of times, but only reached them a couple of times and never received accurate information on my order. I was hoping to get both orders, but only got one. Now I can't reach them to confirm my refund. An absolute nightmare shop[ing experience."

"This vendor never communicated with me on their own initiative at all, I had to do all the calling and querying. E-mails went unanswered.

I placed a $4,000 order on 12/29/07 for the much coveted Sony KDS-R70XBR2. Rear projection DLP sets are being discontinued by many of the big manufacturers. Sony announced a discontinuation of *ALL* their rear projection sets, and at the time, the KDS-R70XBR2, their largest and arguably the best rear projection set on the market, was sold out permanently on Sonystyle.com. Several vendors, both local and Internet, had precious few of these sets remaining.

I knew that my order from Home Price Club might be in error on their part listing it as "in stock," so I immediately sent an e-mail asking them to confirm that this out of production set was actually available from their warehouse. It went unanswered.

Because of the long holiday weekend, I called in on 01/02/08 and after some trouble getting a connection, talked to someone who checked my order and said, "Yes, it is in fact available. It will ship in 5-10 days."

By 01/04/08, I saw that they had removed the set from their website. Probably a good sign, as it shows their stock status may actually be accurate. Still, I called again, this time I was told that the warehouse inventory shows one available, and I was the only one in their system who had placed an order for one, so there should be no problem. That's why the item is no longer on their site... I ordered the last one. They told me to call after the weekend and they would be able to give me a firm ship date. (Why couldn't they do that now?)

After the weekend, I called on 01/07/08 and talked to someone different who told me that the entire staff was at CES. She looked up my order, and told me as before, that it was available and should be shipping. She told me to call back on 01/14 (after the CES week) to get a "definite ship date." (Why did they tell me I would get a "definite ship date" on 01/07/08 when they knew everyone was going to be at CES?)

On Monday 01/14/08, I called and was quickly and matter-of-factly told that the item was scheduled to ship by Wednesday 01/16/08.

On 01/17/08, I called to make sure it shipped. I was told that it did **not** ship. They then said they would call me back within one hour with an explanation of what's going on.

One hour later, they did not call back. As in every instance with this order, I had to call them. They told me, "It was set to ship, but the shipping company we use only makes a trip to your location once every two weeks, and the truck was too full to ship your order this week. In two weeks from now, it should make the shipment and it will ship. It is a floor model, but it is brand new."

Again I waited for OVER two weeks. THREE weeks later, I called back on 02/08/08. This time I was told a completely different story. They said that they "only show open PO's, which means I can't tell you when it's going to ship. If there's open PO's, then your order should ship, but the set is not showing up in our warehouse shipments. After stores like Best Buy and the like get their units, they then trickle down to us, so I can't tell you when it's going to ship." They then offered me Sony's previous KDS-70XBR950 set (a 720p set) for $2499, again saying it was a floor model and that it is available for immediate shipping. I declined.

At this point I realized that everything they had been (and likely still were) telling me had been a complete lie.

One of the worst experiences of my life. I don't understand why they couldn't have taken a few minutes to have someone at their warehouse go and do a physical stock check. (Probably because, I am guessing, they actually DON'T sell from stock, but from their belief that they will be able to get stock very cheaply from some other source, which appears to be open box models that have been sitting on sales floors in various chain stores.) For the entire six week stretch that they strung me along telling me my order would ship, *ALL* of the other local and internet vendors sold out of this set. While I didn't get charged for my order, thanks to their inaction, I missed out on the last remaining few opportunities to get one of the last new KDS-R70XBR2 televisions."

"SHORT STORY: This company has problems in every phase of their operations. Their return policy is geared to be difficult on the consumer and to make them pay hefty fees.

LONG STORY:
When shopping for a particular HD DVD player, I specifically ordered from Home Price Club, rather than a competitor, because their site said that they had it in stock. Shipping was free.

Weeks later, it did not arrive. I called the number they listed on the web site and got a recording. It said that they weren't available and to leave my phone number and they'd call me back. I did so.

When I tried to log in to check my order, I got an ASP error. So they were having web site problems.

I go no e-mail notification on the status of my order.

I called back later, again and again, and left messages. On the messages, I gave my number and also told them to cancel my order because I was going to order it elsewhere. The web site still didn't work, and I still had no e-mail. They didn't call back, so it was like my order fell in a black hole.

I had no way to know if they cancelled my order or if it was still pending somehow. I waited a couple of weeks and decided it was long enough. I bought the HD-DVD player from a local store.

Then, about a week later, a package arrived on my doorstep from Home Price Club. I then checked and saw that my credit card had been charged recently for the purchase. The package had a phone number on it. When I called that number, someone finally picked up.

I told him the situation, and he said he'd look into it, and to call back the next day. Then, I suddently got the e-mail messages stating that the order was going to be shipped. The date of the e-mails was Dec 31, 1969. Many of their future e-mails had a similar date. I called back the next day and he acted as if he was doing me a favor by letting me return it, at my own expense.

So I sent it back. Over a week after it arrived there, they still hadn't credited my credit card. I had to send the UPS tracking info to them to prove that they received it. Then, they replied saying they'd credit the account and it may take a week to go through.

I waited, and the credit did show up but it was short about $178. I wrote and asked why. They said that they don't pay shipping and that they charge a 15% "Restocking Fee". When I did the math, this number wasn't correct. It was as if they charged me 22% of the cost. I asked them about it and they said, "You were charged a 15% restocking fee of $118.50 and $29.95 freight which gives you a total of $148.45 in fees."

Since I returned it to them at my expense, it seems they charged me for the "free" shipping and it still doesn't add up to the $178 discrepency. When I pointed that out, they stopped replying to me. All of my correspondence with them was in an organized, non-emotional, rational manner.

Take my advice and make every effort to avoid this retailer. They have problems in every phase of their operations. In my case, they made a healthy profit off of a product that they'll be able to sell again.
"