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Cyber Monday Leaves Some With Only Rotten Eggs
We already know that Yahoo had some issues on Cyber Monday. One of the best deals yesterday was Paypal offering 20% back on some merchants (up to $50 back). One of which was NewEgg. Newegg has become the darling of the tech gadget scene in the last year or so. I’ve enjoyed purchasing from them even though it’s always been a big clunky.
They have huge street cred and are very popular mainly because the prices are good and shipping is fast. When I learned of the deal, I was excited as I wanted to upgrade my 15" black and white CRT for a 24" souped up Samsung LCD.
Turns out the deal has brought on some very rotten eggs. It seems that either Paypal or Newegg (or both) screwed up big time. There was a lot of confusion – on which products the deal covered and for how long. Newegg staff made the situation worse by first claiming it was offered only on select items, then changing their tune to say it was available on any product. Newegg is blaming Paypal for the issue.
Other posts on the topic:
- Fatwallet
- Newegg Forums – 139 posts already
Whatever the cause, this will certainly cause a tremendous amount of grief for Newegg’s customers and many cancelled sales. It looks like Paypal is taking the storm while Newegg just has a little egg on their face. Let’s see how Paypal handles the issue – we already know how poor Paypal’s customer service is. I am disappointed as it would have been nice to view multiple blogs at once. :)
I have a feeling this will come to a class action lawsuit against Newegg. Newegg didn’t mention anything in their newsletter about the limited amount of funds or sudden cancellation of the promotion. It just said the offer expires 10/28/07.
Now the thing that makes Newegg look so very guilty is that when the funds ran out and Paypal canceled the promotion, Newegg changed the graphic being loaded for the email to say “offer expires 10/26/07″ but the deal was already dead for 10/26/07! So even after PayPal had canceled the promotion Newegg let people believe the deal was still good. This is very wrong. This act proves they could have just as easily put a banner across the image saying “PAYPAL HAS ENDED THE PROMOTION EARLY” or simply “EXPIRED” but instead they chose to let people believe they were still getting their 20% off.
I don’t know any other website I deal with that actually has phone support anymore. Far better than any bank even, I can call up to 9PM with issues and talk to someone.
I’m sure that payments issue was bad, but I bet they resolved it. Not saying they’re perfect, I just think their reputation is far worse than their reality.
I just sat on the telephone for 2 hours waiting for someone from PayPal to pick up. I Emailed them several times and the Email I received back from them had nothing to do with the Newegg PayPal scam on November 26, 2007.
Yea Scam that is the right word.