Cyprus-Forum.com

[skyvet]

I was searching for an online supplier of Xbox accessories, and the name ipelagos.com was brought up on page 1 of my search. It advertises itself as (quote) "Your #1 CYPRUS computer,PC and Watch eShop by ipelagos/CY" (unquote)

Stupidly believing I was dealing with a local company I placed an order, and paid by debit card, however I discovered that they are actually based in California USA. Their website looks very professional, and they promise (a) to dispatch all orders with 24-48 hours, (b) to use Fedex services right to your door, and (c) to answer any email enquiries within 1 hour or less!

After a week, my order status remains "processing" and three emails I have sent them have gone unanswered. There is no contact telephone number, just an email contact form included on their website.

Has anyone else had dealings with this company please, and if so, what was your experience?

I now have full contact details for the local police where the company are based (Arcadia CAL) should anyone else require it!

Thanks in advance

[CBBB]

Has your Debit Card been charged?

[skyvet]

Hi CBBB,

Yes - having used a debit card rather than a credit card, the payment is made at the time of transaction

[CBBB]

Hi CBBB,

Yes - having used a debit card rather than a credit card, the payment is made at the time of transaction

I know that should be the case, but some online retailers may process this kind of stuff in batches, not in real-time.

[skyvet]

Update : having sent them a further email in which I threatened to forward details of all their transactions to their local police, I've finally had a reaction!
They have emailed telling me my order has been cancelled, as they could not verify my billing address! This is despite the fact they had ALREADY sent an acknowledgement of payment received and approved! They have also stated that my account has been refunded (won't be able to confirm this until tomorrow) which poses the question : if they couldn't verify my billing address, how did they manage to refund me?

Be very wary if you ever decide to place an order with this company - www.ipelagos.com

[Sotos]

Their website looks very professional

I saw them many times when searching for products but I never ordered anything from them and the first reason is that I thought their website looks very unprofessional! It is also obvious that they are not based in Cyprus as they list prices in USD. If you order from them you will also have to pay VAT as it is not included in the price.

[geomar2605]

Hello, i have also purchased an object from them before i saw this post. They also promised fast delivery, and 24/7 customer communication. They charged my card and since my status also remains processing and they have not even replied to any of my emails and constant messages to them. Please i need help to get my money back and how to handle this. any help would be greatly appreciated

[iPel-Support]

I was searching for an online supplier of Xbox accessories, and the name ipelagos.com was brought up on page 1 of my search. It advertises itself as (quote) "Your #1 CYPRUS computer,PC and Watch eShop by ipelagos/CY" (unquote)

Stupidly believing I was dealing with a local company I placed an order, and paid by debit card, however I discovered that they are actually based in California USA. Their website looks very professional, and they promise (a) to dispatch all orders with 24-48 hours, (b) to use Fedex services right to your door, and (c) to answer any email enquiries within 1 hour or less!

After a week, my order status remains "processing" and three emails I have sent them have gone unanswered. There is no contact telephone number, just an email contact form included on their website.

Has anyone else had dealings with this company please, and if so, what was your experience?

I now have full contact details for the local police where the company are based (Arcadia CAL) should anyone else require it!

Thanks in advance

My name is Lin and I represent iPelagos.com. Comments left on this forum, and in particular this very thread, were brought to our attention by a customer who happens to frequent and read this forum. They asked for an explanation and I believe they truly deserve one. They really do. And we deserve a chance, too, to clear up the air and set things straight. First let's establish that, over the many years we have been in business, we have had thousands and thousands of very happy customers many of whom come back again and again and again. But the unhappy customers are always the ones who are the most vocal about their bad experience.

There appear to be 2 separate complaints here. I will address the second one below by replying to the complaint itself. The good thing is that the unhappy cases are so very few that after very little work we could pinpoint which customers these complaints correspond to. Mistakes do happen but I'm very confident I got the cases right.

The first customer above used a credit card that was issued outside Cyprus. Billing and Shipping address were both Cyprus addresses. When this happens, a red flag is raised. Our Billing Department takes security very seriously. All we ask from the customer, and we can't emphasize this enough, is to provide accurate billing information and we do the rest. We do NOT ask customers to fax us their ids. We do NOT ask them to fax us their passports. We do NOT ask them to fax the front or back of their credit card. We do NOT ask them to fax us utility bills. We do NOT ask them to do any of all that. Other retailers may do, we do NOT. All we ask is to provide truthful and accurate information. Billing verification takes less than 24 hours most of the time. In the case of the above customer, our Billing Department could not complete the verification process most probably because we could not get this service from this particular bank that we never dealt with in the past. Not that the information was not correct, we just could not verify. The order was therefore voided and the payment refunded. Automatic emails are sent out when such an action is performed. Refunds can take up to 10 business days to appear. The customer was obviously nervous and unhappy during this period. This saddens us because, even though we would like to be 100% perfect 100% of the time, we are at large unavoidably subject to the system's shortcomings and limitations. This truly does saddens us.

[iPel-Support]

Update : having sent them a further email in which I threatened to forward details of all their transactions to their local police, I've finally had a reaction!
They have emailed telling me my order has been cancelled, as they could not verify my billing address! This is despite the fact they had ALREADY sent an acknowledgement of payment received and approved! They have also stated that my account has been refunded (won't be able to confirm this until tomorrow) which poses the question : if they couldn't verify my billing address, how did they manage to refund me?

Be very wary if you ever decide to place an order with this company - http://www.ipelagos.com

That this customer received his money back has nothing- as in absolutely nothing- to do with this threatening action. That cancellation email was resent to clarify the situation. Refunds can take up to 10 days to be completed.

[iPel-Support]

This order was placed right in the middle of the Holiday Season. We did receive orders, AND SHIP them as well, but customer service was limited. This customer, placed order and paid for FedEx shipping (which is slightly more expensive than the slower method by USPS). Due to a software glitch, after a data migration, a few items did not come with the FedEx option internally. The customer could see and choose the FedEx option but when the order was placed and sent to our warehouse it would appear as USPS. Labels are printed automatically. So the order went out with the slower method. The customer above did receive her order not long after she posted the comment. Also I can see that:

1. This situation, a customer paying for fast shipping and getting the slower one, never ever happened in the past and after the incident above we took measures to make sure it won't happen again in the future. This problem had to be fixed immediately and we did.
2. We refunded IN FULL the shipping cost back to the customer's credit card. We thought offering free shipping was the approriate action to take not only because of the inconvenience this caused to the customer but also because we felt extremely sorry when a customer of ours was left unhappy. Nothing makes us happier when a customer is happy- and we have had a lot of happy moments over the years- and nothing makes our day more gloomy when a customer does not get what they deserve.