All reviews of Ian M
Review about: Tecobuy
Samsung A71 phone
The most awful company ever, with worthless Returns policy.
I researched TecoBuy before ordering a Samsung phone. Many of the reviews were about delays in delivery and them not being a UK company, despite adding UK to their name, which is a bit misleading to start with. They are based in Hong Kong and it takes 10 days or so for parcels to arrive, which is what they tell you in the small print.
What they don’t tell you is that they source the phones from multiple countries and are therefore set up for that country’s language, including the initial screen. In my case it was Vietnamese. I managed to find the right ‘button’ to get to a list of language choices and chose English UK. That made most things readable except the calendar was prepopulated with lots of Vietnamese events, written in Vietnamese with a bright red highlighted back ground.
Spotify also came up in Vietnamese. I was concerned about what else was going to be foreign and decided to return it under their 30day refund guarantee as they could not give any advice on how to correct these issues. Getting a refund was impossible!
They have to authorise a return first, required a factory reset and stated the phone had to be undamaged. After reset I took lots of pictures to show no damage, before very safely packaging it for despatch.
*Be warned, most courier companies regard mobile phones as A PROHIBITED ITEM and will not accept them, despite the fact they delivered it in the first place! Royal mail was fine.
TecoBuy acknowledged safe receipt after another 10 days or so and then wanted my Google account and Password(?), claiming they needed it to unlock the phone. I challenged the need for this and they decided they didn’t need it after all!
There were lots of messages backwards and forwards over many weeks before they claimed it was damaged, but without saying how or where. I requested photos which they sent showing a scratch on the back cover. I sent my photos of the same area showing no damage. They refused to accept this proof.
They insisted the phone was damaged and refused a refund. They demanded £32 to send it back, or they would just keep it. I had to pay this and the phone eventually arrived back with me after another 15 days or so. All this had taken months.
I checked the phone for the damage they had sent pictures of and there was nothing there. No damage! Whatever they had taken pictures of, it was not my phone!
I messaged them about this stating they had falsely refused a refund as the phone was undamaged. They completely ignored this claiming it was damaged and just closed the case.
There was nothing I could do to get the refund and all the postage cost me another £60 or so in top of the purchase price.
They are not UK based and our consumer protection laws do not apply. My experience shows they are either dishonest or incompetent.
BE WARNED – SHOP ELSEWHERE.