Online pleasure seekers left high and dry

It sounds plau­si­ble enough. Who wouldn’t want 75% off a week­end get­away at a lux­ury resort? Or 50% off a ‘delec­table meal for two’?

Yet, it’s been a case of online buy­ers beware for many unsus­pect­ing Aus­tralian bar­gain hunters keen to snap up seem­ingly too good to be true deals. And here’s the rub: Some­times, they are just too good to be true.

Take for exam­ple, a friend’s foray into a lux­ury Byron Bay week­end for two get-away. The online deal was heav­ily dis­counted. Her week­end would cost her $245 a cou­ple, in a five star loca­tion usu­ally nearly dou­ble the price. She snapped up the bar­gain and received vouch­ers in the mail secur­ing her purchase.

What the small print didn’t men­tion is that hun­dreds like her had also bought vouch­ers and urgency was para­mount when book­ing a week­end away. When she rung up to book a week later, the unsym­pa­thetic recep­tion­ist said she would have to wait seven months for a free week­end as they were heav­ily over-subscribed.

“There were 700 peo­ple who bought vouch­ers, what do you expect?” she asked. “But you can come mid-week, school hol­i­days excluded,” she added unhelpfully.

So, the friend has booked a week­end away in seven months’ time with vouch­ers she thought were instantly redeemable.

It gets worse. In the first flush of online bar­gain hunt­ing, and prior to real­is­ing the sting in the tail, the friend also pur­chased two defen­sive dri­ving courses at a cost of $274 for her teenaged son. Book­ing was impos­si­ble. The dri­ving school owner was away for three weeks and didn’t answer phone calls.

When they finally answered, they couldn’t be pinned down to a def­i­nite date. Nine emails and seven phone calls later, the friend is still wait­ing for a booking.

Hav­ing been burnt sev­eral times, she had this to say:

“I could have got spe­cials out of sea­son and cho­sen the time I wanted to go away. The vouch­ers were a waste of time. I’ve since heard that when it comes to hol­i­days, savvy shop­pers first book the week­end to secure a place and then buy the voucher online rather than inno­cents like me who try and book a week later with no luck.”

The friend finally con­tacted Con­sumer affairs and was given the sober­ing advice sim­ply not to buy online, par­tic­u­larly vouchers.

She has, how­ever, had suc­cess with restau­rant vouch­ers, mainly because when book­ing, one is not obliged to men­tion the heav­ily dis­counted din­ner voucher.

“Only tell them once you are about to pay – that way they can’t refuse your book­ing,” she advised.

eBay has also been a good bet. “I’ve always had suc­cess with e-Bay as there is cul­pa­bil­ity and the rest of the world can see feed­back. Pay­ing through Pay­Pal also helps as eBay stands surety for the money.”

Ani­mal lovers can often fall prey to scam­mers because of the adorable pic­tures posted of the pet for sale. A friend’s Biloela-based niece ordered a dachsund online from Bris­bane as she couldn’t find the par­tic­u­lar breed in her area.

The adorable female puppy had a white patch over one eye and the niece fell instantly in love. She checked out the seller and all seemed above board.

She even paid to fly the pup to Rock­hamp­ton and drove an hour from her home to fetch it from the air­port. The pup that greeted her, how­ever, was far dif­fer­ent to the one she’d seen online. Not only was it a male, but it had no mark­ings at all and was clearly not the one listed.  Of course, she didn’t have the heart to send the poor lit­tle pup back again so kept it.

When she phoned to com­plain the owner insisted the pup was the one she had ordered, know­ing full well that it wasn’t. The scam­mers had sim­ply cho­sen the pret­ti­est pooch to attract buy­ers and sent the litter’s ugly duck­ling to the unsus­pect­ing buyer.

While most online shop­pers are not buy­ing live ani­mals, hav­ing seen the num­ber of scams out there, it seems cau­tion is the order of the day.  A friend bought a par­tic­u­lar brand of per­fume from a dubi­ous seller on eBay. Dubi­ous in that when the $100 per­fume arrived, it smelt like urine.

There are plenty of good sell­ers out there and I have bought count­less items with absolute suc­cess. It’s just a case of know­ing who the scam­mers are. Only buy from rep­utable deal­ers with a good track record. Check them out before part­ing with your money. And be espe­cially ret­i­cent about book­ing an online hol­i­day unless you’re absolutely sure of secur­ing your pre­ferred date.

And when it comes to bar­gain vouch­ers, remem­ber too that they have a shelf life. That ‘delec­table three-course meal’ could well have expired once you finally come to claim your roman­tic din­ner for two.

© Lois Nicholls – www.loisnicholls.com.au