I ordered a new frame and some components from an online retailer on 1st June and was told that the frame was out of stock. The order was accepted and they accepted my payment through Paypal. The retailer are based in Europe rather than the UK.

On the 3rd June I emailed them asking them to cancel the order, they replied asking if I was sure as they would have one in stock, I replied confirming that I’d like the order to be cancelled.

I didn’t get any further reply from them until the following morning when I was sent an email saying that the preparation of my order was in progress. I emailed them to ask for confirmation that it had been cancelled but got no reply.
On the 5th June I got an email telling me that the order had been dispatched so again I emailed them asking for confirmation of what was happening with the order, again no reply.
They’ve since sent me the tracking details for the order but it tells me that the collection by the courier failed as the item was not ready to collect. Yet again I’ve emailed them requesting clarification of what’s going on but no response again.

I’m struggling to decide what to do, do I just wait and see what happens or do I get on to Paypal and open a dispute as the retailer aren’t replying to my messages?
It wouldn’t be so bad if it was only for a few pounds but the order was over £1100 so it’s not the kind of money I’d be happy to lose or be tied up for a long time while the shop sort it out!

Any suggestions?

If only there was some sort of communication device where you could literally talk to the shop owner!

Call them if they have a number otherwise just wait for it to arrive and tell them to collect it at their expense. Bit early to start a dispute IMO

where you could literally talk to the shop owner!

Given my complete lack of fluency in any other European language I’d be a bit reluctant to phone somehwere that I wasn’t sure would end up with an English speaker at the end of the line. For £1100 I might just risk it though.

Most shops will have someone who c an speak english. Have you tried to phone?

European companies will almost certainly have someone who speaks English – it may well just be a communication thing, they don’t understand that you still want to cancel.

If I had a phone number for the shop, I’d call them.
As I don’t, I can’t.

PayPal dispute for me.

Why not put the name of the shop? Someone may have a number for them.

If I had a phone number for the shop, I’d call them.

Hmm, so you bought a frame from a website in another country, that doesn’t have a contact us telephone number 🙄

If only there was some sort of Internet search engine where you could literally find out the phone number of any business in the world!

I ordered a new frame and some components from an online retailer on 1st June and was told that the frame was out of stock. The order was accepted and they accepted my payment through Paypal. The retailer are based in Europe rather than the UK.

phew.

brant – Member

phew.

😆

brant – Member

phew.

remember geography isn’t everyone’s strongpoint 😆

why do people make things hard for themselves?
cant speak the language, is there something wrong with dealing with a UK company?
I know price is the key factor, but when does it become too much of a ballache to just go local (figuratively)

As a general question (not to the OP) I sometimes find people cancelling orders right away – why? Presumably they’ve spent ages thinking about, reading reviews of, speccing and dreaming of their perfect bike before they order it – but occasionally I get an order, I reply with the usual “Thanks for the order, I’ll get right on it, it’s taking the usual 4 weeks right now” email, and they reply “I wanted it now, please cancel the order”

It’s not like they can get the bike, or anything like it elsewhere, and I put predicted delivery times on my website. So is it buyer’s remorse? Has their carer found them buying stuff online again? (Don’t laugh, it’s happened)

Worst was one person who would phone up, asking if I had a specific Brompton model in stock. “No, but I can order it for you, it’ll take about 6 weeks to arrive” “I’ll leave it then”. A month or two later, he’d phone up asking exactly the same question. I did try explaining that, if he’d placed the order the first time he called, he’d have the bike by now, but he just didn’t get it. This carried on for several years.

strange. out of stock on 1st, with probably no staff processing orders till monday 3rd but then dispatched on 5th. that’s pretty good service imho 😉

1st/2nd was end of a long weekend in many countries, so probably catching up on 4 days’ worth of emails.

All of the German stores I’ve used definitely have English speaking staff (and several other languages too). I’d guess the same is true of stores in other nations.

This carried on for several years.

Brilliant!

DrP