I have been spending the last couple of months doing up my house and of course, one component involves buying furniture.
Buying furniture in Singapore can burn a substantial hole in your pocket and we decided to shop for some items on taobao.
We set our eyes on a light brown dining table which cost around S$350 (excluding shipping costs). In our purchase request to Ezbuy, we specifically stated that we wanted 原木色.
When the item came, it was dark brown. I know brown is brown, but there has to be a reason why we specifically chose light brown and not dark brown.
I wrote to Ezbuy telling them that they had sent the wrong table. And then all the angst started.
First they said that they could refund S$100. In the first place, I did not choose this table so why should I accept S$100? I asked for a replacement instead.
Every email from them has someone stating "We could understand your mood and situation". No, you do not understand. They said that as I did not purchase insurance, "ezbuy offers free compensation up to $100 per parcel". So S$100 was the highest compensation they could refund.
I think it is worth noting that in addition to the price of the item and shipping fees, there is also this component called agent fees that you have to bear. I quoted their website which stated that "With ezbuy, we offer basic visual inspection to detect obvious errors made by the sellers." Why am I paying agent fees if their guys didn't detect that this was the wrong item? They then sought to bring up the lack of insurance again, stating "but if you have purchased the insurance, the compensation is capped at S$2000".
At that point in time, I had asked several times whose fault it was - was it the Sellers' fault? The inspector's fault? Or did they purchase the wrong item to begin with? Needless to say, I didn't get a straightforward answer.
After much probing, ezbuy finally admitted that when their purchaser ordered the item, they didn't leave any instruction as to which table I wanted.
How can I expect to receive the correct item when their purchaser did not even order the correct item?
I went on to quote from their website:
I told them that the insurance covers the situation where the items are found damaged, lost or having any issues listed in ezbuy's inspection coverage. It does not cover a situation where their own purchaser purchased the wrong item.
Ezbuy replied stating that "... inspection is needed to inspect problems being generated from purchasing process or problems from seller. No matter where the problem lies in, inspection team should have inspected it out, if not, then we concluded it as a lapse made during inspection coverage, which means that it is inspection team's fault thus making customer didn't receive correct items, even purchasing department made a mistake firstly, inspection team could have inspected it out and should have inspected out while it didn't."
At this point in time, I was not only irritated by the fact that they were trying to lay the blame squarely on me, but was disturbed by their English as well. Give me the red pen.
I knew there was no way ezbuy would return my money parked safely in their account. I raised the white flag and accepted the S$100.
It is ridiculous that they make you buy insurance when the cost of insurance is 3% of the total value of item cost (including domestic shipping fee).
Anyway, the long and short of this entry is that Ezbuy ordered the wrong item and refused to refund me in order for me to buy the correct item.
Buy at your own risk, especially with high value items. 
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