I preordered some pokemon sealed product from an online store using shopify. Paid with a chase credit card. Total order was around $500 USD. This order was placed 7 months ago. I have contacted the seller via e-mail. No response. I’m willing to accept store credit since I know pokemon product is hard to get but if the guy is not responding to my e-mails. I am getting very suspicious at this point.
The website is still operating and the guy is taking preorders for other pokemon sealed product.
I have checked my credit card and the credit card only allows chargebacks for 6 months so the chargeback protection is gone.
What are my next steps? I’m considering contacting law enforcement and telling this guy has committed fraud against me and also considering filing a claim in small claims court against him.
So for anyone curious. I was eventually able to resolve this problem.
I called shopify - useless. Told to contact merchant and request refund.
What I did was contact the “consumer affairs” department of the attorney general’s office. It is a government agency. At first I didn’t think anything would come from it. Then a month later, I got a call from a guy who said he was an investigator and he is working my case. I explained the whole situation to him from start to finish. He said he would look into it and get it resolved for me. He was extremely serious about my situation and professional. Next day he e-mailed me saying he went to the store and spoke with the owner. Owner said he would look into it. We went back and forth through e-mail for a week.
Then I checked my credit card and saw the refund come through!
So yeah, my advice to others reading this story - don’t pre-order products. If you do pre-order products make sure you track the purchase date and know for sure when the chargeback period rolls off. If you do happen to get caught in the limbo. Contact the attorney general’s office and go to their consumer affairs department. Get an investigator to help you. It worked for me.
I’m sharing my story to help others who might be stuck in a similar situation.
@pikachuisbestpokemon , Not for nothing here, but I think a better piece of advice would be to not wait 7 months to check on a preorder and to be more cautious in terms of where one buys from. Im sure many here have preordered product with zero issues, as I have myself, and all have gone through without fail with the product getting to me on or a little after release.
Moral is, do your research before purchasing and keep track of what you use your money on. Contacting an attorney general, while proven to be useful in this very specific case, is most likely 99.9% of the time unneeded if you just keep track of what youre purchasing and where.
but here is the thing. After maybe 3-4 months, this guy would have “updates” on his instagram basically saying that he was getting in the product “little by little” and to wait. He is filling orders as product comes in. That’s what he was saying. If you e-mailed him, he would say he has the item on order from the distributor and waiting to be shipped. So it makes it seem like your order is going to get filled soon…but then weeks go by which turns into months then before you know it, your credit card refund has expired. That’s how this guy tricks people.
but yeah, the bottom line is if you don’t get the product after like the 5th month, demand refund or do a charge back always.
Prior to this situation, I always got my product and never had issues.