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So... Shopto (UK retailer) cancelled my PS4 preorder for complaining on twitter

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Zabant

Member
I THINK A LOT OF YOU PEOPLE DON'T UNDERSTAND THAT DIFFERENT COMPANIES MAYBE HAVE DIFFERENT POLICIES AND PRACTICES... ESPECIALLY IF THEY ARE FROM A COUNTRY YOU ARE NOT FROM

Hey! Guess what?!

THINGS ARE DIFFERENT OTHER PLACES

And that justifies ShopTo acting the way they did?

The entire exchange between Carl and the ShopTo twitter account controller came off as incredibly childish on their behalf, especially for a company.
 
As someone who has worked in various positions in customer service and relations over the last 15 years or so, I have never worked somewhere where the line between "cursing around" and "cursing at" employees wasn't pretty well defined.

And you never retaliate. I've called the cops on unruly customers. I've asked them to leave the place of business. But you never, ever take those matters into your own hands.
 

Archaix

Drunky McMurder
Hey, Shopto....


This is the first time I've heard of your company. Congratulations, you dumb cunts. This is the kind of exposure you get when you have an aggressive campaign of terrible customer service.
 

Chili

Member
lol at them shots at amazon for not paying taxes.

Fuck shopto for this though

I found that part really unprofessional as well. Spreading FUD about your rivals explaining why they can charge cheaper prices just comes off sounding really salty.
 

Moze

Banned
I'm just waiting on the "Me Too" mentality to kick in, you know anyone who has ever had bad experience with ShopTo are now going to voice their experiences. Which of course is not a bad thing.

A lot of people have had some bad experiences with Shopto. I actually think the site is banned on gaf?

From what i understand they had some security problems a few years back and ALOT of people had their card details stolen.
 

SRTtoZ

Member
As a fellow gamer I feel bad for a person in our community to lose his preorder but cmon, for anyone who has worked in retail, its pretty refreshing to see a company go tell a customer to go fuck himself. Its unfortunate but you did say OKAY when he told you their policy (if its even true, idk shopto's policy).
 

DeltaJay

Banned
If I said fuck Gamestop, they couldn't do anything. Because I don't actually preorder anything from companies that annoy me. Amazon is the one I don't need to mess with.

Could you imagine getting a ban from amazon or something similar? I would die. I do 90% of my online shopping from Amazon.
 

theRizzle

Member
And that justifies ShopTo acting the way they did?

The entire exchange between Carl and the ShopTo twitter account controller came off as incredibly childish on their behalf, especially for a company.


Uhhhh.... no? Where did I say that?

I am talking about the people that are saying ShopTo can't cancel preorders because of an imaginary legally binding contract where no money was ever exchanged.

I have already vocalized many times in this thread that ShopTo fucked up.
 
I dont see why you are winging you agree to cancel the pre order which is what they asked you.

Shop To:- We do not tolerate rude/vulgar/inappropriate behaviour. We will close accounts of customers who cannot interact in an appropriate manner

You:- HaHa, Seriously? Okay

Shop To:- Yes it is.. Consider your account closed. Thank You


They specifically said about closing your account and you said Okay. I don't see how they are at fault. You decided to be a childish prick in public but now think its not your fault.

I am glad they cancelled your pre order so maybe in future you will think before you say something.
They said they'd close his account before he said okay. And his "okay" couldn't possibly be interpreted as him consenting to them closing his account and cancelling his pre-order. ..
 

thestatics

Neo Member
I didn't see that at all, so if that's the case, OP didn't provide any consideration.

Cool - admitting your wrong. Admirable.

Just stop, please. No one's said anything about keeping the pre-order money, that's not what this is about.

Hmm, well actually that's exactly what the person I was responding to said. Good effort though.

Are you sure this is true? The way I'm seeing it, it all hinges on whether OP paid any money. If he did, is that not consideration? Not sure how courts have dealt with online retail/preorder situations but if OP has provided consideration, does it not (in effect) create a legally binding contract to keep the first contract (i.e. the PS4 preorder) legally binding?

You tell us, you've got 500(+) years of precedence on this!

You still ain't told us what loss you'd recommend suing for though?
 
So basically.

You started a twitter convo with shopto regarding Amazons lower price on the bundle, where they explained that Amazon not paying taxes (and shopto paying them) is the reason that could not price match.

That ended with you saying you were going to cancel your pre-order, literally as a "fuck you" to shopto (for paying their taxes?).

You gave over your account details immediately after you said you were going to cancel your pre-order.....I'm guessing this is the point where the pre-order was being cancelled...

Maybe I'm wrong, but it sounds like the moment you gave over your account details they were in the process of cancelling the order you publicly stated you wanted cancelled.


Just imagine this was outside of the anonymity of the internet for a sec.

If a guy came into a store I worked at and started foul mouthing after a pretty reasonable explanation to a question they had and saying they want to cancel their order. I'd take their details (as he did) and cancel it. When they turn around teary eyed, amazed that you actually cancelled it would just be an icing on the cake.
 

RaikuHebi

Banned
Is it common practice to take petty actions against customers who say something that a CSR doesn't like in the UK?
I've seen people kicked out of the store in my old job at Currys. They just got too rude and rowdy about their product problems. Just calm down and use the avenues. What is needless aggression going to get you except a word with the cops.
 

mikelb7

Neo Member
What I've learnt from this thread:

1. People don't know their contract law
2. Swearing about a company shouldn't be construed as being rude
3. Doing it in public allows you to be hailed as martyr for sticking it to the man
4. People still haven't learnt to read the OP.

Wow, another drive-by "holier than thou" post. Care to actually explain the contract law behind this? Care to actually explain how being rude means anything to this situation?

Or can we just expect more smug "I know everything but I'm not going to actually offer anything of substance" posts from you?
 

Desaan

Member
I THINK A LOT OF YOU PEOPLE DON'T UNDERSTAND THAT DIFFERENT COMPANIES MAYBE HAVE DIFFERENT POLICIES AND PRACTICES... ESPECIALLY IF THEY ARE FROM A COUNTRY YOU ARE NOT FROM

Hey! Guess what?!

THINGS ARE DIFFERENT OTHER PLACES


btx.jpg
 

Sendou

Member
Is everyone posting in this thread in the UK?

I order from the UK (I live in Finland) occasionally because sometimes it's cheaper. EU is awesome like that. That's also the reason why I want to know if there's some retailer acting like an asshole so I can avoid them.
 
Hey, Shopto....


This is the first time I've heard of your company. Congratulations, you dumb cunts. This is the kind of exposure you get when you have an aggressive campaign of terrible customer service.

This pretty much sums it up for me too. I won't be using them.

That short statement is going to be fun to read when they release it though!
 
I found that part really unprofessional as well. Spreading FUD about your rivals explaining why they can charge cheaper prices just comes off sounding really salty.

And it's irrelevant to the OP's question too. He justed wanted to know if they could sell the PS4 to them for £20 cheaper, which for whatever reason they couldn't. Surely Amazon not paying UK taxes has nothing to do with how ShopTo sets their prices.
 
So basically.

You started a twitter convo with shopto, where they explained that Amazon not paying taxes is the reason that could not price match.

That ended with you saying you were going to cancel your pre-order, literally as a "fuck you" to shopto (for paying their taxes?).

You gave over your account details immediately after you said you were going to cancel your pre-order.....I'm guessing this is the point where the pre-order was being cancelled...

Maybe I'm wrong, but it sounds like the moment you gave over your account details they were in the process of cancelling the order you publicly stated you wanted cancelled.

You're wrong. Re-read the OP.
 
I like to think I'm pointing out the OP was a dick more than defending Shopto.

Shopto was a dick too in case nobody got that

This reminds me of a story when I bought a gaming laptop (a Clevo one) from a smaller IT store (because the bigger chains don't stock laptops like those), which cost me about €2000.
It had a manufacturing defect (which started as soon as I booted it up, it would overheat and shutdown), so I returned it day 2 and waited for a replacement, which the store manager said he would provide me with.
So, I waited a month and a half and during that time, the store kept giving me dodgy responses (we still haven't got the replacement, we're still trying to assess if it's repairable, etc...), and they also wouldn't give me a refund.
Well, I got pretty pissed with them (I am entitled by law to a refund or a new product if I'm not happy with it or there's some kind of defect within the first 30 days). So I went to a well known tech forum in my country and discussed it with people on that forum how they were trying to scam me and whatnot, by blatantly ignoring law (and yes, i was a "dick" in those posts).
Next time I called the company, the manager accused ME of having broken the laptop (seriously, in one day?) and going around in forums talking shit about them.
Well, that was pretty much the first and last time I did business with that store, I advised everyone I knew to stay away from them and I had to resort to some sort of legal action to get my money back, a few months later. So not only did I not return, my friends didn't go there and other people got to know my horror story, which wasn't the first one according to some users there.

Carl is completely right, regardless of whether he was a dick or not, in private or public. You've never seen people "lose their shit" in stores all the time, face to face with clerks and managers? Stores would be fucked if they started closing people's accounts and orders when people flip out because stuff goes bad for them. It's a bad business practice.
 

jonno394

Member
So basically.

You started a twitter convo with shopto, where they explained that Amazon not paying taxes is the reason that could not price match.

That ended with you saying you were going to cancel your pre-order, literally as a "fuck you" to shopto (for paying their taxes?).

You gave over your account details immediately after you said you were going to cancel your pre-order.....I'm guessing this is the point where the pre-order was being cancelled...

Maybe I'm wrong, but it sounds like the moment you gave over your account details they were in the process of cancelling the order you publicly stated you wanted cancelled.

Nope you're well off the mark. I think you might need to re-read the OP.
 
http://www.***********/news/44342/ShopTo-An-Apology/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

EDIT: Fuck, banned site.

Earlier today there was a small misunderstanding with a customer which resulted in his account being cancelled by ourselves, for this we would like to apologise.

Basically, while we were talking to a customer via direct message on twitter regarding the pricing on our PlayStation 4 pre-order bundles, the same customer was also talking to a friend regarding our policy. It was at this point the customer swore while mentioning 'shopto' in regards to our decision, however as our staff were talking to this customer at the same time, when our social feed showed the abuse (for social purposes we use tweetdeck to allows us to see anytime the shopto name is mentioned on twitter), the staff took it as being directly made to ShopTo. Further investigation into this matter shows us that the customer was not actually pointing abuse at us, but just talking to his friend, so in this case we have to deeply apologise for being in the wrong.

As a way to make this up to the customer we have offered to restore his account and provide his PS4 pre-order free of charge.

We hope that you understand that we thought this abuse was being aimed at us directly. We cannot tolerate our staff being abused and have to take a stance on this, but since this customer did not aim abuse at us directly we must admit that on this occasion we were in the wrong with regards to the decision to cancel his account.

ShopTo.

EDIT 2: Free PS4? Nice.
 

Wario64

works for Gamestop (lol)
ShopTo: An Apology
13 Oct, 2013

Earlier today there was a small misunderstanding with a customer which resulted in his account being cancelled by ourselves, for this we would like to apologise.

Basically, while we were talking to a customer via direct message on twitter regarding the pricing on our PlayStation 4 pre-order bundles, the same customer was also talking to a friend regarding our policy. It was at this point the customer swore while mentioning 'shopto' in regards to our decision, however as our staff were talking to this customer at the same time, when our social feed showed the abuse (for social purposes we use tweetdeck to allows us to see anytime the shopto name is mentioned on twitter), the staff took it as being directly made to ShopTo. Further investigation into this matter shows us that the customer was not actually pointing abuse at us, but just talking to his friend, so in this case we have to deeply apologise for being in the wrong.

As a way to make this up to the customer we have offered to restore his account and provide his PS4 pre-order free of charge.

We hope that you understand that we thought this abuse was being aimed at us directly. We cannot tolerate our staff being abused and have to take a stance on this, but since this customer did not aim abuse at us directly we must admit that on this occasion we were in the wrong with regards to the decision to cancel his account.

ShopTo.
 

Chili

Member
Is it FUD if it's true?

Is it though? Amazon don't pay taxes because they are spending all their money on infrastructure and distribution and expansion within the UK. Just because ShopTo will always remain a two-bit Delboy type of outfit, they shouldn't comment on other company's finances (don't get me wrong, I've used them in the past and I like their quick service but they have always come across as extremely unprofessional).
 

Broken Joystick

At least you can talk. Who are you?
From the site

Earlier today there was a small misunderstanding with a customer which resulted in his account being cancelled by ourselves, for this we would like to apologise.

Basically, while we were talking to a customer via direct message on twitter regarding the pricing on our PlayStation 4 pre-order bundles, the same customer was also talking to a friend regarding our policy. It was at this point the customer swore while mentioning 'shopto' in regards to our decision, however as our staff were talking to this customer at the same time, when our social feed showed the abuse (for social purposes we use tweetdeck to allows us to see anytime the shopto name is mentioned on twitter), the staff took it as being directly made to ShopTo. Further investigation into this matter shows us that the customer was not actually pointing abuse at us, but just talking to his friend, so in this case we have to deeply apologise for being in the wrong.

As a way to make this up to the customer we have offered to restore his account and provide his PS4 pre-order free of charge.

We hope that you understand that we thought this abuse was being aimed at us directly. We cannot tolerate our staff being abused and have to take a stance on this, but since this customer did not aim abuse at us directly we must admit that on this occasion we were in the wrong with regards to the decision to cancel his account.

ShopTo.
 

Slair

Member
So basically.

You started a twitter convo with shopto, where they explained that Amazon not paying taxes is the reason that could not price match.

That ended with you saying you were going to cancel your pre-order, literally as a "fuck you" to shopto (for paying their taxes?).

You gave over your account details immediately after you said you were going to cancel your pre-order.....I'm guessing this is the point where the pre-order was being cancelled...

Maybe I'm wrong, but it sounds like the moment you gave over your account details they were in the process of cancelling the order you publicly stated you wanted cancelled.

He said to his friend he was gonna cancel the pre-order he has for games (unrelated to the ps4) and just order them at amazon as a fuck you.
 
Where in Shoptos policies does it say they will cancel your orders if you say anything negative about them on Twitter?


I am sure this is in writing since the Twitter account referenced it right? And are there any freedom of speech laws over there?
 
People making legal statements who have no idea whatsoever about the law is even more mindboggling, quite frankly.

I wish I was making this stuff up, but 500+ years of precedence has done this for me. If you really care, you may want to do some reading. Give "Breach of contract", "consideration", "social importance of maintaining legally binding contracts" a quick google. You may actually learn something new today

Small Claims Court - for what loss? "Yes your honour, I didn't get my PS4 on release day"..... "GTFO". People recommending stuff like this is mindboggling.

The law is full of people arguing different points of view. No one here has the truth cornered. Breach of contract implies a contract even existed (which depending on whether any payment had been accepted is questionable), and that Shopto doesn't have very clear statements about being allowed to revoke any order for whatever reason should they so decide, which would not at all be an uncommon fine-print agreement.

The law of the country makes a big difference too, but proving damages in a court is a very good point. Even if you ended up with a judge that somehow felt their time was worthy of a small claims case like this that was based mainly on a sense of fairness since economic losses are nil, (and that Shopto didn't also have some sort of mediation agreement built into any claims under a certain amount for such disputes) you would end up spending time and money to have a preorder reinstated at worst and still have to pay court fees, or maybe the judge would push those onto Shopto at best.

I'm with folks who think it would be silly to go to court for this. As I said, it's all a matter of argument, but don't belittle people.
 

DeltaJay

Banned
Amazon spells it out very clearly:

Amazon reserves the right to refuse service, terminate accounts, remove or edit content, or cancel orders in its sole discretion.

However, I don't see Shopto saying anything like that in their TOS.
 
I THINK A LOT OF YOU PEOPLE DON'T UNDERSTAND THAT DIFFERENT COMPANIES MAYBE HAVE DIFFERENT POLICIES AND PRACTICES... ESPECIALLY IF THEY ARE FROM A COUNTRY YOU ARE NOT FROM

Hey! Guess what?!

THINGS ARE DIFFERENT OTHER PLACES

Has there been a dumber defence of ShopTo than this? Because this really takes the cake. "It's in the UK, everything's backwards there!"
 

Jezbollah

Member
So basically.

You started a twitter convo with shopto, where they explained that Amazon not paying taxes is the reason that could not price match.

That ended with you saying you were going to cancel your pre-order, literally as a "fuck you" to shopto (for paying their taxes?).

You gave over your account details immediately after you said you were going to cancel your pre-order.....I'm guessing this is the point where the pre-order was being cancelled...

Maybe I'm wrong, but it sounds like the moment you gave over your account details they were in the process of cancelling the order you publicly stated you wanted cancelled.

They didnt cancel the pre-order. They terminated his account at Shopto using a T&C.

And they used a clause in that T&C from the OP talking to his friend via Twitter. Dubious at best. The fact that Shopto are going to "sort it out" if they didnt think they had done wrong.


ANYWAY

http://www.***********/news/44342/ShopTo-An-Apology

OFFICIAL STATEMENT
 
Apology up on their site.

Can't link, it's banned.

How about just posting it on here?

ShopTo said:
Earlier today there was a small misunderstanding with a customer which resulted in his account being cancelled by ourselves, for this we would like to apologise.

Basically, while we were talking to a customer via direct message on twitter regarding the pricing on our PlayStation 4 pre-order bundles, the same customer was also talking to a friend regarding our policy. It was at this point the customer swore while mentioning 'shopto' in regards to our decision, however as our staff were talking to this customer at the same time, when our social feed showed the abuse (for social purposes we use tweetdeck to allows us to see anytime the shopto name is mentioned on twitter), the staff took it as being directly made to ShopTo. Further investigation into this matter shows us that the customer was not actually pointing abuse at us, but just talking to his friend, so in this case we have to deeply apologise for being in the wrong.

As a way to make this up to the customer we have offered to restore his account and provide his PS4 pre-order free of charge.

We hope that you understand that we thought this abuse was being aimed at us directly. We cannot tolerate our staff being abused and have to take a stance on this, but since this customer did not aim abuse at us directly we must admit that on this occasion we were in the wrong with regards to the decision to cancel his account.

ShopTo.

Edit: beaten. :)
 
ShopTo: An Apology
13 Oct, 2013

Earlier today there was a small misunderstanding with a customer which resulted in his account being cancelled by ourselves, for this we would like to apologise.

Basically, while we were talking to a customer via direct message on twitter regarding the pricing on our PlayStation 4 pre-order bundles, the same customer was also talking to a friend regarding our policy. It was at this point the customer swore while mentioning 'shopto' in regards to our decision, however as our staff were talking to this customer at the same time, when our social feed showed the abuse (for social purposes we use tweetdeck to allows us to see anytime the shopto name is mentioned on twitter), the staff took it as being directly made to ShopTo. Further investigation into this matter shows us that the customer was not actually pointing abuse at us, but just talking to his friend, so in this case we have to deeply apologise for being in the wrong.

As a way to make this up to the customer we have offered to restore his account and provide his PS4 pre-order free of charge.

We hope that you understand that we thought this abuse was being aimed at us directly. We cannot tolerate our staff being abused and have to take a stance on this, but since this customer did not aim abuse at us directly we must admit that on this occasion we were in the wrong with regards to the decision to cancel his account.

ShopTo.

Good to see common sense prevailed.
 
Free PS4 for Carl:

ShopTo: An Apology
13 Oct, 2013

Earlier today there was a small misunderstanding with a customer which resulted in his account being cancelled by ourselves, for this we would like to apologise.

Basically, while we were talking to a customer via direct message on twitter regarding the pricing on our PlayStation 4 pre-order bundles, the same customer was also talking to a friend regarding our policy. It was at this point the customer swore while mentioning 'shopto' in regards to our decision, however as our staff were talking to this customer at the same time, when our social feed showed the abuse (for social purposes we use tweetdeck to allows us to see anytime the shopto name is mentioned on twitter), the staff took it as being directly made to ShopTo. Further investigation into this matter shows us that the customer was not actually pointing abuse at us, but just talking to his friend, so in this case we have to deeply apologise for being in the wrong.

As a way to make this up to the customer we have offered to restore his account and provide his PS4 pre-order free of charge.

We hope that you understand that we thought this abuse was being aimed at us directly. We cannot tolerate our staff being abused and have to take a stance on this, but since this customer did not aim abuse at us directly we must admit that on this occasion we were in the wrong with regards to the decision to cancel his account.

ShopTo.
 
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