HPC Inc., The Homewares Place, Home Preparations Company Beware: Do not order from HomePreparations.com / Unethical and Rude Coral Springs Florida
My problem with this company is very simple. I placed a small order ($45) on the Home Preparations website and during the checkout was switched over to PayPal to make my payment, which completed the order. Unlike 99.99% of most eCommerce sites who send an immediate order confirmation, I received nothing. So I was not sure the company actually received the order.
I then went to their website looking for a telephone number to call them, but non are listed on the site, just a Fax Number and a mail form on the Contact page. I filled out the form and politely asked them to confirm that the order was received and when I could expect shipment. No response.
Exact Message I sent:
>
Next, I found an eMail address at the bottom of their home page, and sent another equally polite request. Again, no response.
Then, I looked up the owner of the domain name using the WHOIS directory and found that the owner and contact info listed was Lewis Horn, 6314 Ocean Drive, Margate, Florida 33063 hornj@bellsouth.net. So three days after placing the order, I gathered all the eMail addresses I could find and sent yet another polite request for this information.
Again, no response.
Recognizing that I had sent my money to a company with no live people to contact and getting no response from eMails, I contacted PayPal for a resolution. Lucky for me, PayPal will reverse the transaction.
Then I received an response from this company, unsigned. Exact wording follows:
>
Translation, they do not give refunds, only store credits. If a legitimate company, they could have reversed the payment immediately without cost to them via PayPal.
Later, the unsigned member of the HPC Inc. Management team writes:
>
So, unless you want to be accused of 'stalking' because you simply place an order and expect some sort of communication, it would be best to avoid this company all together.
Catalist
Greensboro, North Carolina
U.S.A.
1 Updates & Rebuttals
Jeri
Coral Springs,Florida,
U.S.A.
Reply to Mr. H's Comments
#2REBUTTAL Owner of company
Sun, September 28, 2008
To address Mr. H's comments:
I am one of the business partners that owns Homepreparations.com. The events that Mr. H cites actually happened as follows:
1) Mr. H recently ordered some merchandise from our company. His merchandise was ordered on a Tuesday. An auto-reply is generated to all orders, acknowledging receipt of the order. This reply apparently was routed to Mr. H's Junk Mail by his spam filter as he never received it. (We test our website periodically and everything is working fine).
2) Mr. H assumed that no acknowledgement was sent, so he sent an e-mail on Tuesday/Wednesday asking if the order was received. He sent his e-mail from his business e-mail account rather than using our contact form. As a result, our spam filter thought his e-mail was spam and routed the e-mail to our Junk Mail folder.
NOTE: if Mr. H had actually used our contact form, the e-mail would have gone to the appropriate in-box, which is checked several times each day. A reply to his e-mail would have been promptly sent, answering his questions (assuming THAT e-mail wasn't deleted as spam as well).
3) Since he received no reply, Mr. H then took it upon himself to look up personal information for one of our employees (our webmaster in this case - the information was available due to a technical error by the company that hosts the web store) and included it in two e-mails (also sent from his business e-mail account) sent at 2am Friday morning. Since our spam filter was still regarding e-mails from his business e-mail as spam, these e-mails were ALSO sent to our Junk Mail folder.
4) Our Junk Mail folder is checked and cleaned about once per week. It was at this time that Mr. H's e-mails were found. Since he decided to take it upon himself to include an employee's personal information, a business decision was made among the partners to cancel Mr. H's order. I should note that there was no reason to include ANY personal information in the e-mails (the information included had nothing to do with Mr. H's question - it was clearly only included to show off), and that the only information that Mr. H included was his business information. The employee was very upset that their personal information was included in Mr. H's e-mail. As a result, the business partner that cancelled Mr. H's order was quite testy with him - hence the charge of stalking (which is exactly what Mr. H did by looking up the employee's personal information).
Now, to address Mr. H's specific points:
1) All orders are presented a choice of payments upon check-out, including credit cards (the four major ones), sending a money order or a check, or using PayPal. Mr. H was NOT forced to use PayPal - it was his choice.
2) Our Shipping page ( www.homepreparations.com/page_50.asp ) clearly states that orders take between 7 - 10 business days to process (longer is deemed a backorder and, unless stated otherwise, we have very generous cancelation policies concerning backorders). The page also states that we only communicate by e-mail or regular mail so that both we and our customers have an accurate record of what was promised or said.
3) Our Returns and Cancellations page ( www.homepreparations.com/returns.asp ) also reiterates that e-mail/regular mail only policy, as well as stating that we cannot issue refunds to PayPal users. Credit for PayPal users is offered as a store credit. Between the Returns & Cancellations page and the Shipping page, our Terms and Conditions are clearly stated. If Mr. H had read these pages before placing his order, he would have known the items I stated above. Further, if Mr. H had ANY questions AT ALL about placing an order with us, he could have easily e-mailed or snail-mailed his questions to us BEFORE placing his order.
4) Refunds ARE given, as appropriate, for credit cards, checks and money orders. These policies are also clearly stated.
5) If Mr. H had used our Contact page (which also has our business address), he would have received a prompt reply to his questions.
6) For privacy reasons, we follow the usual practice of using a general name to sign communications with our customers. If a situation requires a specific contact, we will give out that contact.
7) Many businesses only give store credits for items purchased, or state that ALL SALES ARE FINAL on their sales. With few exceptions, there is no law stating that a business MUST give a refund versus a store credit - or anything at all for that matter (e.g. if you sign a contract to use a company's services, then decided not to use those services, the contract will usually state that you are not due any kind of refund at all). Whether or how a refund is given is up to the business, and the smart consumer will find out the business' return/refund polices before making a purchase. The only rule is that these policies must be clearly stated - which ours are.