{"id":493,"date":"2009-12-08T23:07:57","date_gmt":"2009-12-09T04:07:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fiveforks.com\/ted\/2009\/12\/dealextreme_dispute\/"},"modified":"2012-01-07T16:51:49","modified_gmt":"2012-01-07T21:51:49","slug":"dealextreme_dispute","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fiveforks.com\/ted\/2009\/12\/dealextreme_dispute\/","title":{"rendered":"DealExtreme Dispute"},"content":{"rendered":"

I seem to be getting into a lot of disputes lately<\/a>. Last month I ordered a pretty little flashlight from DealExtreme. I was pretty happy with the batteries and charger I bought from them previously and this light got some good reviews. It takes 1 AAA battery like my tiny flashlight<\/a>, but it is stainless steel with a brass ring that looks real sharp<\/a>. It also has a tail power button and remembers the last mode it was in. This means if you had the light on High before, it will come on in High again. I like that. The tiny flashlight always comes on at Medium, then Low, then High. Most of the time I want High. This light has three modes, but one is strobe (pretty useless). So I would have to skip over that one. And the low is 80 lumens instead of the high of 150 lumens. I would like for the low to be lower, maybe 20 lumens (turns out to be about 10 lumens).<\/p>\n

Anyway, it was only $13.80 shipped from China, so I thought I’d try it out. I ordered it November 1 and although DealExtreme said it was available in a few days, I didn’t get a shipping notice until November 10. Once shipped, they said the light should arrive in 5-10 working days (ignoring the favorable part of their range, that’s two weeks, or November 24). Well that didn’t happen, so I gave them another week and still nothing. They have an online form where you can tell them the item never arrived and they are supposed to get back to you in 24-48 hours. However, 48 hours later I hadn’t heard anything. Every day I’m checking my mail and now I’m checking my DX account to see if they are trying to contact me. Nothing.<\/p>\n


\nFortunately, DX uses PayPal for payment. So after giving DX another week (four weeks total) and having never heard from customer service, I opened a dispute with PayPal for having never received the item and asked for a refund. Reading about user experiences with DealExtreme, it turns out that after 45 days from when you paid someone, you can no longer dispute the item. I wasn’t all that close to 45 days (28 days, plus 9 days from when I ordered, so 37 days total), but I was getting there fast, so it was time. Once you file a dispute PayPal gives you 20 days to resolve it or escalate it to a claim. So you definitely want to file a dispute before the 45 day deadline because it at least buys you some more time.<\/p>\n

Within minutes (maybe less) I got an e-mail from DX saying they were refunding $13.17. I checked my PayPal account and they hadn’t sent any money. Maybe it would take a little while. A few hours later, I still haven’t received anything. It isn’t even the full amount. It seems like I should get all $13.80.<\/p>\n

Anyway, nothing has actually happened. I think they automatically generate that e-mail and then don’t pay. I can escalate the dispute to a claim and PayPal will decide if I should get a refund or not. The best of both worlds is I get my $13.17 and then the flashlight shows up in the mail afterall. I would feel like I owed them payment if I got it after they fully refunded my money, but if they only refund part of it, then I feel like I bought it and it is legally mine.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile I have ordered a different 1 AA light<\/a> from a similar company called KaiDomain (a Uniquefire S10). The lure of this one is that it could be brighter than my Fenix (it has a higher bin LED of R2 instead of Q5, though even higher binned R5’s are now hitting the market) and the modes will still work if I use a 14500 lithium ion battery (the Fenix doesn’t). It also has memory of the last mode. The bad part is that it is a reverse clicky and the light is cool white instead of neutral. But it is also about $14, so maybe worth the possible improvement although it is too new to have reviews posted. I might have it by next Friday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I seem to be getting into a lot of disputes lately. Last month I ordered a pretty little flashlight from DealExtreme. I was pretty happy with the batteries and charger I bought from them previously and this light got some good reviews. It takes 1 AAA battery like my tiny flashlight, but it is stainless … Continue reading “DealExtreme Dispute”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveforks.com\/ted\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveforks.com\/ted\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveforks.com\/ted\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveforks.com\/ted\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveforks.com\/ted\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=493"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveforks.com\/ted\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1110,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveforks.com\/ted\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493\/revisions\/1110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveforks.com\/ted\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveforks.com\/ted\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveforks.com\/ted\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}