Christopher C.
Great at taking your money, not so good at giving it back
About a month ago I purchased a Chinese Huawei Mate 20 X from Liaow.com based off favourable recommendations I read online, knowing what I now know, I wish I never had. First of all, the initial customer service I received was more then favorable, 'Mike', the pen name behind Liaow messaged to me almost instantly after my purchase just to confirm the details and keep me updated on what would happen next, a few hours later I received my tracking number, so far so good. The following day Mike messaged me to inform me that Huawei had released their final pricing for the Mate 20 X and that as a result I would be getting a refund of $100, once again, absolutely stoked with the customer service I had received thus far. Always, about a week or so later the phone finally arrived, DHL did a fantastic job of getting it to Australia, Australia Post draged their feet a bit, but that's a review for a different day. Unpack the phone and switch it on, all appears to be reasonably alright, a few hours later I left my house and started to realise that I was having notification issues, I tested this over a period of the next few hours and could not solve the issue, even after reading several texts online. I messaged Mike to see what his opinion on the situation was, and he walked me through a few steps I could try, once again nothing worked. He informed me that he had messaged Huawei and he was waiting for a reply in terms of what the official stance from them was going to be. Anyway the following day I messaged them back to ask them if there had been any update on the progress, and this is where I started to get concerned, they replied back to me and informed me that 'out of thousands of unit they had shipped out, mine was the first ever unit that had been reported with a problem' and that as a result, 'issuing a refund might be difficult.' This kind of conversation went back and forth for a while, but eventually I convinced them to allow me to return the device, they supplied me with a ludicrously long and very hard to understand address to return it to alongside very specific instructions on what to declare on the front of the package, going so far as to tell me how much to declare in terms of value, what carrier they would prefer me to use etc, all seemed a little bit melodramatic for what should have just been a basic return. Anyway I followed the instructions, declared the specific amount, used their preferred carrier, which luckily was Australia Post, paid an exorbitant fee to have it express posted, and waited. This is where the fun really starts, 4 days later I receive an email from Mike, "your package has arrived, the box is in 'broken' condition, the USB cables have been unwrapped, the box that houses the case has been torn in half and the screen of the phone has a crack down the middle of it, it looks like you have tried to remove the screen and after numerous testing we have concluded there is no fault with the phone in terms of receiving notifications, as a result we will not be issuing a refund and we will be returning the device to you tomorrow." Instantly after I received this email I double check the shipping information with Australia Post, the package hasn't even arrived yet, I instantly smell a rat. I message Mike back ask him to supply me with some kind of evidence to back up the claims he's making, a few minutes later I receive a video via Dropbox of a phone matching the description he gave, receiving notifications perfectly fine, he then goes on to once again try and drive home the rhetoric that the phone is working perfectly fine and as a result there is no need for a refund. I once again reply and inform him that it's all well and good that the phone is working under controlled conditions, in China, but I will not be accepting a return on a device that has either been broken in transit, or has purposely been tampered with to justify refusing a return claim, to this day I don't know which one it was, I'm not even convinced that the phone sent to me in the video was actually my phone. Anyway this kind of conversation goes on for a few hours, he tries to justify not returning the device purely based on the fact that it allegedly works there, very few times does he address my concerns relating to how the package arrived to him, and he never actually once acknowledged my concern regarding Australia Post telling me that the package had not yet even arrived. Several hours into the conversation I'm not getting anywhere with him, I inform him that I have several bits of evidence in where he has agreed to give me a refund under their one year warranty they give on all of their devices, I have an email from him guaranteeing me my money back once the device arrives to them, and I inform him that I will be taking the matter further to PayPal and asking them to step in, I also inform him that I'll be contacting the ombudsman to inform them of what's going on and that no further communication will be taking place unless it's through an official third party source, he replies back to me telling me to come down and telling me there is no need to be upset, as I had previously said, I did not reply. I wake up the following morning to a message from PayPal, you have received a full refund etc, also in my notifications was an email from Mark informing me that "per our agreement, I have issued you a full refund, have a nice day", once again, I did not reply, I got my money back and that's the main thing. I would just like to clarify that I'm not on any kind of vendetta against them, their initial customer service was absolutely impeccable, and to their credit they did try and help me through the issues I was having, whether or not the phone had been tampered with by Chinese customs or by them, I don't know, but as I said in the title, they were brilliant at taking my money, not so good at giving it back, and I think the only reason I did get my money back is because I threatened to take the evidence I had against them to an official source, all I can say is, thank God for PayPal.