agoodwin
October 10th, 2005, 04:12 PM
Hi guys, I've had a run in with mydv.co.uk too.
Girlfriend purchased a digital camera for £219.99 and has been charged £235ish.
I had no idea this was a US based operation and think they have gone a long way to disguise that fact. A .co.uk domain, a London phone number (redirected to the US?) and an iffy London address on the invoice:
"MyDV, 50001, London, GB" What kind address is that?!
I would say that to give the impression of being a UK based operation would be considered a false statement under the Trade Descriptions Act 1968. Am I right in thinking that this would apply even though its a US company? As when a consumer in England buys goods on the internet from for example a French supplier, English law will usually apply unless another choice of law is expressed. And have you seen the T&C's of this website, the phrase 'not worth the paper (or webpage) they're written on' springs to mind. Chances of pursuing it this way though = slim to nil.
As if this is not enough, the invoice actually states £219.99 and we get charged £235 odd without this little detail ever being mentioned?
Under the The Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations 2000 the seller must give clear prior information about the goods or services, including:
# A clear description of the goods or services (not done - the colour of the Cam was not stated, there was no picture originally, thats what made me come back to the site to check and sure enough the pic had been posted of a colour she didn't want - but how to cancel?)
# The supplier's contact details (misleading and useless for the most part)
# Details of cost and payment, including taxes (Err US dollars? No then.)
# Delivery arrangements, or date for service to be carried out (not stated)
# Cancellation rights (partially - no cancel order button/process but some info on returns).
I've been on the phone all day to their 'London' number (0207 669 4292) with no luck and decided to do some digging which is how i found this thread.
The guy who 'runs/owns/domain is registered to' for mydv.co.uk, nepine.co.uk and gardenready.co.uk is indeed:
Jeremy Paradies of
97 Anderer Ln
West Roxbury
MA
02132
US
nepine.co.uk is the oldest site of the 3 (from the security certificate dates) and this returns a owner of:
Registrant:
NEPCO, LP
Trading As: NEPCO, LP
Registrant's Address:
618 Main St
Waltham
MA
02451
US
Jeremy Paradies is NEPCO. His email address is jparadies@nepcodirect.com
nepcodirect.com is a lovely blank page!
Having run an ip trace on the following servers:
ns1.gardenready.co.uk 66.70.28.38
ns2.gardenready.co.uk 66.70.28.39
(these are used for both mydv.co.uk and gardenready.co.uk)
and...
ns1v.datapipe.net 64.27.64.70
ns2v.datapipe.net 64.27.64.71
(these are for nepine.co.uk which seems to be the umbrella operation)
I get the following information:
route: 66.70.0.0/17
descr: DATAPIPE-BLK3
DataPipe
80 River Street, 5th Floor
Hoboken, NJ 07030
origin: AS14492
mnt-by: MAINT-AS14492
changed: afurman@datapipe.com 20021202
source: RADB
As mentioned in another thread, emailing abuse@datapipe.com complaining about these sites (whilst not helping our situation) might help others avoid this hassle.
Then I got a shock - the 'live chat' client on their website springs into action after having sat there for 4 hours and 'Tim' is there asking how he can help! So don't give up (remember the time difference to the US though - and it was a bank holiday today in the US so I was lucky to speak to anybody really)! Here is a bit of what was said:
Tim: Welcome to our live chat service, allow me to introduce myself as your chat representative.
Tim: Thank you for contacting nepine.co.uk, how can I help you today?
Me: I wish to cancel an order I have placed
Tim: Ok, what is the order ID # please?
Me: the order id is #****
Tim: Ok, I have marked the ordr for cancellation. What I am going to do now is send this information to both the refund and order fullfillment departments.
Tim: The order fullfillment will remove the shipping request from our warehouse, and the refund department will process the credit back to your account.
Me: what happens from here on Tim?
Me: how should i check up on this i mean?
Tim: As today is a bank holiday, neither of these departments are in today. This refund will be issued within the next 2 business days.
Me: will you send me an email confirming this etc?
Tim: I will.
Me: thanks for your help with this Tim
Tim: You are welcome.
info: Chat session has been terminated by the site operator.
No email confirmation yet - fingers crossed.
At the end the client asks if you want to have a transcript of the conversation emailed to you (which is how I found out Jeremy's email address). This part doesn't seem like the actions of a complete scam company - but words are cheap, lets see if they pay. Paying more than the amount invoiced due to some weird conversion into dollars you weren't told about is dodgy though.
Sorry for the lengthy post but the devil's in the details!
Tony
Girlfriend purchased a digital camera for £219.99 and has been charged £235ish.
I had no idea this was a US based operation and think they have gone a long way to disguise that fact. A .co.uk domain, a London phone number (redirected to the US?) and an iffy London address on the invoice:
"MyDV, 50001, London, GB" What kind address is that?!
I would say that to give the impression of being a UK based operation would be considered a false statement under the Trade Descriptions Act 1968. Am I right in thinking that this would apply even though its a US company? As when a consumer in England buys goods on the internet from for example a French supplier, English law will usually apply unless another choice of law is expressed. And have you seen the T&C's of this website, the phrase 'not worth the paper (or webpage) they're written on' springs to mind. Chances of pursuing it this way though = slim to nil.
As if this is not enough, the invoice actually states £219.99 and we get charged £235 odd without this little detail ever being mentioned?
Under the The Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations 2000 the seller must give clear prior information about the goods or services, including:
# A clear description of the goods or services (not done - the colour of the Cam was not stated, there was no picture originally, thats what made me come back to the site to check and sure enough the pic had been posted of a colour she didn't want - but how to cancel?)
# The supplier's contact details (misleading and useless for the most part)
# Details of cost and payment, including taxes (Err US dollars? No then.)
# Delivery arrangements, or date for service to be carried out (not stated)
# Cancellation rights (partially - no cancel order button/process but some info on returns).
I've been on the phone all day to their 'London' number (0207 669 4292) with no luck and decided to do some digging which is how i found this thread.
The guy who 'runs/owns/domain is registered to' for mydv.co.uk, nepine.co.uk and gardenready.co.uk is indeed:
Jeremy Paradies of
97 Anderer Ln
West Roxbury
MA
02132
US
nepine.co.uk is the oldest site of the 3 (from the security certificate dates) and this returns a owner of:
Registrant:
NEPCO, LP
Trading As: NEPCO, LP
Registrant's Address:
618 Main St
Waltham
MA
02451
US
Jeremy Paradies is NEPCO. His email address is jparadies@nepcodirect.com
nepcodirect.com is a lovely blank page!
Having run an ip trace on the following servers:
ns1.gardenready.co.uk 66.70.28.38
ns2.gardenready.co.uk 66.70.28.39
(these are used for both mydv.co.uk and gardenready.co.uk)
and...
ns1v.datapipe.net 64.27.64.70
ns2v.datapipe.net 64.27.64.71
(these are for nepine.co.uk which seems to be the umbrella operation)
I get the following information:
route: 66.70.0.0/17
descr: DATAPIPE-BLK3
DataPipe
80 River Street, 5th Floor
Hoboken, NJ 07030
origin: AS14492
mnt-by: MAINT-AS14492
changed: afurman@datapipe.com 20021202
source: RADB
As mentioned in another thread, emailing abuse@datapipe.com complaining about these sites (whilst not helping our situation) might help others avoid this hassle.
Then I got a shock - the 'live chat' client on their website springs into action after having sat there for 4 hours and 'Tim' is there asking how he can help! So don't give up (remember the time difference to the US though - and it was a bank holiday today in the US so I was lucky to speak to anybody really)! Here is a bit of what was said:
Tim: Welcome to our live chat service, allow me to introduce myself as your chat representative.
Tim: Thank you for contacting nepine.co.uk, how can I help you today?
Me: I wish to cancel an order I have placed
Tim: Ok, what is the order ID # please?
Me: the order id is #****
Tim: Ok, I have marked the ordr for cancellation. What I am going to do now is send this information to both the refund and order fullfillment departments.
Tim: The order fullfillment will remove the shipping request from our warehouse, and the refund department will process the credit back to your account.
Me: what happens from here on Tim?
Me: how should i check up on this i mean?
Tim: As today is a bank holiday, neither of these departments are in today. This refund will be issued within the next 2 business days.
Me: will you send me an email confirming this etc?
Tim: I will.
Me: thanks for your help with this Tim
Tim: You are welcome.
info: Chat session has been terminated by the site operator.
No email confirmation yet - fingers crossed.
At the end the client asks if you want to have a transcript of the conversation emailed to you (which is how I found out Jeremy's email address). This part doesn't seem like the actions of a complete scam company - but words are cheap, lets see if they pay. Paying more than the amount invoiced due to some weird conversion into dollars you weren't told about is dodgy though.
Sorry for the lengthy post but the devil's in the details!
Tony