I placed an online order with a company called urhair.co.uk of 2nd floor, Lowry Mills, Lees Street, Pendlebury, Swinton, Lancs. M27 6DB. Their company registration number is 11736740 and their telephone number is listed as 023 9216 0686 both on their website and Google.
As a UK company, clearly displaying their address and telephone number (when Contact Us is selected) and with the protection laws we have in the UK, I ordered a hairpiece for £127 late on Monday afternoon.
I wanted to check something immediately after placing the order and called them. Not only was the telephone number unavailable, the BT, Virgin and o2 messages led me to feel it hadn’t been connected for some time, if at all. So I checked out their company details to find their registered office had changed to a maildrop/serviced offices in London a year ago after switching from the same London address to Swinton six months previously.
I cursed myself for not checking them out more thoroughly and went onto Trustpilot.com to find to my horror they are Chinese scammers with a dreadful record and everyone who finally managed to get their goods, received unacceptable rubbish. I emailed them to cancel the order an hour after placing it. I mentioned it was 11pm their time and didn’t wish them to waste their time.
I received a curt reply yesterday morning saying “your order will be completed soon, we cannot cancel. We can give you a 30% refund.” This went up to 40%, then 50% and this is so typically Chinese. I'm not anti-Chinese, I would say most of the electronic goods I use from iPads to Huawei phones are Chinese made, it's just with a population 25 times that of the UK, it has more scammers targeting vulnerable UK, European and American markets.
The gov.uk website on Online and Distance Selling clearly states:
Right to cancel
There are different rules for downloads and streaming services.
You must tell the customer they can cancel their order up to 14 days after their order is delivered. They do not need to give a reason for cancelling.
If you do not tell the customer about their right to cancel, they can cancel at any time in the next 12 months. If you tell them about the right to cancel during these 12 months, they have 14 days to cancel from when you told them.
They have NOT advised me of any rights to cancel.
No seller, including myself, likes to see an order cancelled, but you have to be grown up, accept it and move on. This type of practice is totally unacceptable in 2023, not to say illegal. One would expect a company trusted as a merchant by banks and credit card companies to ensure they performed to acceptable standards irrespective of geographical location for fear of losing their facility to accept card payments.
I really don’t think a company whose telephone has been cut off for potentially years and refuse to accept cancellations should be allowed to continue to take money by credit card.
I am sure Mastercard will refund me, if they don't I will fight it despite the small amount.
I am more concerned for everyone who already has and future clients who will be taken in by these crooks, until someone takes action against them and I have begged Mastercard to suspend their facility until they are proven to have got their house in order.
I am just as annoyed with Google who do nothing to block these sites, despite being fully aware of what is happening. This is the third time over many years my husband and I have been taken in my “British” companies run from Hong Kong and China. We always get our money back, but it’s really time consuming. The annoying thing is they always enjoy primary slots on Google.
Anyway, I hope Mastercard/Aqua don't make it difficult to get a refund as I would like to encourage the others on Trustpilot that number hundreds, potentially thousands to do the same.