Pinzoo.com "Real-Time" cards are NOT real time! Not instantaneous! Deceptive Website Not Changed Despite Complaints, Internet
How I WISH I read the Pinzoo complaints before I ordered!
Why I went to Pinzoo: I wanted to surprise my boyfriend with minutes on his cell phone so he didn't have to stop at the store to get a phone card after a long bad day at work. Pinzoo advertised "real time" "Always Instant" "Buy Real-Time Verizon Refill Minutes" - thought it would be a quick easy way to get minutes for him. WRONG!
Let me point out I read HELP/FAQ before I ordered and there was nothing indicating that it wouldn't be real-time.
I fill out credit card info. Somehow it turns out I already had an account from a couple years ago. Looks like I almost ordered a tracphone card then canceled it. At the time, I figured because I got the minutes cheaper somewhere else, but maybe I got just as frustrated as I am now. I can't remember. Once I clicked on my account or something, then all the sudden I lost my order, did some clicking, there's no "shopping cart" button, I won't get into details, but it showed up, I doubled checked it, I filled in my credit card information AND my new phone number AND the phone number that was supposed to be refilled. Then what happened?
I GET A MESSAGE SAYING THEY HAVE TO CONTACT ME BY PHONE TO CONFIRM!!! No "Real Time" - No "instant" Not only that, but they listed all the old phone numbers as the ones they were going to call! (which I later saw were from my profile page, which I didn't bother looking at since I WAS PLACING AN ORDER and I HAD put my new number on an order form during the order process. I later changed my profile page and the phone number was changed.
And they couldn't call 24/7 - It's only 9-6 in Pacific time and I'm on the East Coast...which means their 9am isn't until my noon - so much for my boyfriend not having to go to the store to get minutes. Meanwhile, the money on my credit card is tied up.
There are NO links or Help or FAQ that explain how to cancel the order or advising that you're going to have to confirm the first order by phone during corporate business hours.
Also, it says on the Pinzoo blog http://pinzoo.wordpress.com/about/ that there's live chat - and there is no link or icon or anything for live chat. I believe the president also mentioned there was live chat in one of his rebuttal letters.
Which brings me to another issue. He SEES and READS that people are NOT HAPPY about not be advised about the "first call confirmation" - the president says it's for credit card security, yet Amazon and a billion other online companies process credit cards just fine, billions of orders a day, without a need for a phone call. The website also brags about it's SSL and all that stuff - if it's so secure, why do you need a phone call?
Especially if you're dealing with people who might not have another phone and are buying minutes!!! Oh wait, if they talk to you on their phone - THEY SPEND MORE MINUTES! How convenient! Did they ever sell cards WITHOUT requiring phone call confirmation? Where do they get their "potential fraud" figures from? How come so many other large and small companies can sell products without requiring a phone call? I don't believe for a minute that it's truly for customer security. It's a blanket for sales.
The president has not changed the website to inform people in any reasonable way that your first order will NOT be real time and will NOT be instant despite rip off reports here and on other complaint boards. It is CLEARLY deceptive and they clearly want it that way.
Leaving a link for good reviews on ebay? I'm thinking if you buy on ebay you don't need that "confirming" phone call. Not sure though. But heads up people - Any company can pay people to write good reviews for them. Many companies do. I'm thinking Pinzoo might be one of those companies. Also, anyone selling Pinzoo cards or working as an affiliate would write good reviews for their own self-interest. (I'm too tired to research the company now and really angry now I'm wasting my time with all of this.)
Yep, wasting time. That's what Pinzoo does. Forget about getting minutes on your phone, you'll just lose minutes off your life.
1 Updates & Rebuttals
Pinzoo.com
Glendale,California,
U.S.A.
from President of company
#2REBUTTAL Owner of company
Thu, March 08, 2012
Dear author and readers,
I am the President of the company and I am writing in response to your recent post regarding the difficulty he encountered in receiving your minutes. Firstly, I would like to apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you.
We take extra safety precautions to insure that the purchases made on our site are made by the actual credit card holders. If you received a message about our representatives having to contact you, there must have been an issue with your payment where the bank did not approve the initial transaction. It is also possible that the information entered did not match the information you had with your issuing bank. This may have partially been the reason for the delay in your order.
You mention that most online retailers do not require a confirmation phone call. You are correct. However, most online retailers deliver goods to your door and the receipt of delivery (i.e. your signature) is their proof of purchase against possible fraudulent chargebacks. In contrast, there are other online companies, our competitors, that may ask you to fax in a utility bill to validate your identity - we don't do that. If all information entered matches up with the issuing bank, the orders will go through "automatically" and "instantly". You fault us for not reasonably mentioning the possibility of a follow-up phone call. But any reasonable person would expect that there may a hold-up on their order processing if there are issues with their payment transactions where the bank declines the charge.
You also accuse us of having paid people to leave us positive feedbacks - this is not true. We did not pay over 20,000 Ebay members and 5,000 Facebook members to leave us positive feedbacks over almost a 10 year span.
Our customer approval process has saved shoppers tens of thousands of dollars in unauthorized transactions and has stopped thousands of fraudulent activities. These extra systems were put in place to protect our members, not to cause them hardship and to make it difficult for them to make purchases on our site.
In today's online climate where customer service is being outsourced to foreign countries, we have retained our customer service department in-house in the USA and offer live support 7 days a week. We are available by phone 365 days a year and stay open through all national holidays including Christmas and New Year. We also offer Live-Chat on every one of our web pages for our members that may not have access to a telephone.
I urge you to contact us toll-free at 1-888-697-4696 and ask for Klodya. She is aware of this order and can assist you in reaching a satisfactory outcome. You can also ask for me, my name is Edwin. In the meanwhile, we'll continue to try to reach out to you as our past attempts have been unsuccessful.
Yours Truly,
Edwin Janaslani, President.