I need serious help.?

Question

I made a purchase in Australia from the "flyfishing-gifts.com" quickbyte productions in colorado and am having high difficulty contacting them. They are keeping 2 different amounts of my money in my bank untouchable to me for 1 item. Does anyone know what I can do as the banks say they cant do anything.

Answer 1

I am rather surprised your bank is saying there isn't anything they can do. Did you use a credit card? If so, you should be able to dispute the charge and the bank would release your money. If you used paypal, contact them and they will take care of this issue. If you used a check, money order, or other form of payment, you are out of luck.

I do not mean what I will next say as a lecture or any way of a negative nature, just some advice for the future.

When doing business Online, it is of vital importance to first check out the website. Read the privacy policy, the terms of use, the return policy, the method of dealing with disputes, find out if they are members of BBBonline, and if they are well known with a good reputation of doing what they say they will do.

There are actually methods you can do to find out everything you need to know about a company. With the nature of the web it is all too easy for somebody to put up a website, claim to have products, rake in some cash, then pull out and leave everyone without their funds. There is a great deal of fraud Online these days, and it really is a buyer beware sort of situation.

You may wish to consider obtaining a Citicard credit card. They have a virtual card which allows the creation of a virtual number based on your real number that the user can use with just one company, for a set amount of money, and a date where it is not any good any longer. This way, if the credit card number gets sold or stolen over the web, it is not good and can not have charges ran up on it. The User can also generate these numbers to take while traveling, and use at individual astablishments. We use this and have never had any trouble with a dispute. All we have to do is contact Citi and they reverse the charges. Period. When and until the dispute is settled, the money stays on our card.

Individuals can now purchase prepaid visa cards for such uses too. When using a "credit card" there are a lot of protections built in. Just the same as I outlined above. A person can buy these prepaid cards in many locations now, such as those check cashing institutions, local banks, and other locations. My daughter uses these with great confidence and has not yet had any money stolen or kept from her. When she has a dispute, the charges are reversed until the dispute is dealt with. Often, she simply sends back the items and doesn't pay a dime. They can be misused, but most businesses choose to take that risk in order to obtain the most business. Most people are honest, so if they get ripped off, they write it off on taxes.

I am sorry, but it sounds like you may be out your money. Contact the Better Business Burueu and make a complaint, and contact any trust organization that they claim to be a part of, such as the BBBonline, the several others. Go back to the website and find any icons representing a trust organization, and contact them with your complaint. Some theives copy these icons and don't really belong to any of them. There are browser add-ons you can use to find out if they are a legtamate member or just a rip off site.

Here is one of the best, and I use it myself and it works extremely well, check it out for yourself. It is created by Verisign which is the leader in Internet safety:

http://www.vengine.com/

I know this doesn't fix your current situation, but at least it will help you more easily tell a legitamate website from a fraudulent one. Good luck and a happy holiday season.