"They stole my credit card number and the next day I had a charge from "Telecom Retail Mobile" in Wellington, New Zealand!! I have never had this happen to me in all my years of online shopping!! I will NEVER buy anything from Rakuten again! This is also the FIRST EVER bad review I have ever written online, I felt the need because I dont want this happening to anyone else! The money I saved buying my solid state hard drive was not worth Identity theft!"
"I second the previous reviewers comment about shipping charges. I ordered 6 LED bulbs from them for at an attractive price ($32)and then they brought the total price up to what I would have had to pay for the bulbs elsewhere with a $29 shipping/handling charge. The weight should be under a pound and the package size very small. They add the shipping charges at the very last window when you "submit" and, thinking what could shipping amount ot for 6 little bulbs, I did not pay attention.
I did a little research and initiated another purchase for one bulb and found that the shipping and handling charge was exactly one-sixth of the previous charge right down to the third decimal point!
The supplier on this order was listed as Osprey-Talon"
"I've been happy with them until yesterday. I ordered an iPad mini and a case. They cancelled my order and blamed it on the shipping company. The shipping company never received my order. They lied to me. The product is no longer available at the price and they refused to help me in any way."
"What happened? Trusted BUY.COM is now Rakuten.com and their sales, product selection, deals went from really great tech and computer gear, cameras, video, tools, etc. (all the stuff that I am interested in) to cheap, weird stuff that wouldn't even make it onto the shelves of my local Dollar Store. Take a look and judge for yourself. I am baffled by this overnight decay. Their trusted product search engine delivers a lot of hits, all irrelevant to what I was looking for. And the prices for items that I was actually shopping for are nowhere competitive - not that I'd be buying any of their obscure stuff in the future - I don't wear Jessica Simpson boots, they don't go well with my beard!
----------------------- I have to amend my recent comments with a Rakuten customer service story: To use my SuperPoints accrued from prior BUY.COM orders, I placed an order for an item that was high on my priority list. I found what I was looking for on their site, even though the price was about 20% higher than on other sites, and shipping was a steep 9 bucks. Using my points got me to the price level that was looking for. --- I placed my order at 7 AM, used all my remaining points. At 3 PM the same day I received an email stating that orders today will be honored 10x the SuperPoints when you enter a certain Promo Code (i.e. 10% cash back rather than 1%). Well, my order was placed that day but I didn't know about the coupon at the time of my order. Thus I decided to send them an email asking whether there is a way to retroactively apply that coupon to my order since their email announcing this code wasn't sent out until 3 PM that day. Their reply was rather short and unfriendly - I'd have to enter the code at the time of the order to receive the 10x SuperPoints deal. They even pointed out where to enter the code on the order page. Yet they made no attempt to apply that coupon to my order. ---- Bottomline: This was my last order with Rakuten. I deal with a number of online merchants, rarely contact customer service. If I had to contact various outfits they always went out of their way to get things right (including BUY.COM). Rakuten demonstrated a fundamentally different customer service philosophy in their response to my inquiry. "Too bad" as a response to customer concerns is not enough to compete in today's market."
"When I first found out Rakuten going international, I was very happy. It actually turned out to be the worst online shopping experience I've ever had. Shop here ONLY if you want to get screwed on shipping chargers.
My order is about 54USD, with the total weight of 1288g, according to the Rakuten website, the shipping cost should run approximately 30USD. I figure it seems very reasonable so I placed the order. However, the store (HAZAMA) decided to charge me 91USD without my consent. The store (HAZAMA) did NOT bother sending me any email regarding the charges before they ship out the product. I tried to communicate with them but all I get is "it's too late, oh and yes, we have to charge you the shipment from the factory to our facility and the wrapping cost too" This is way too bizarre. How on the earth this kind of scam still exists? I also tried to communicate with Rakuten website, but all I get is a generic email telling me to talk to the store (HAZAMA) directly. These people are not ready for the international presence. "