Cameras, Germany and the Ulster Bank

MDR

Respected inhabitants of boards.ie ,
I foolishily bought a Camera from Germany,
yes, indeed I was foolish enough to believe that in these days of the Euro, the EU and international commerce, I could be forgiven for thinking 'there will be no problem buying a Camera from Germay'.

First off I speak decent French but my German is non-existant, and these guys speak worse english than my french.

So here is more or less the timeline,

1. I sold my old fuji camera on the 'For Sale' board in earily March (11th).
2. Soon after I contacted fotowalser.de about a Practica camera they had a good deal on.
3. I send them monso (€270) by secured and insured postage.
4. About two weeks later-ish I got the camera (end of March), it took some very bad pictures, no matter how much i played with it and it was still muck.
5. I contacted them and informed them, I was sending it back and was waiting for my refund. They said fine but I would have to pay the postage, I was fine with that, so I sent the Camera back.
6. 24th April no sign of my refund, so I contacted them again and they said they had yet to recieve the Camera. I told them, that I had received comfirmation from the postoffice that it had arrived, so they went away, looked a bit harder and reported back that they had found the camera.
7. I furnished them with my IBAN, Sortcode and Acct Number, and they said they would organise the electronic transfer of the money.
8. Its now the 8th of May, (9 working days later), there is still no sign of readies in my Ulster Bank account.

I am starting to get a little bit frustrated here, I wrench at the idea of contacting fotowalser.de again, as they seem quite un-organised. What should I do ?

dmeehan

try asking the ulster bank how long they would expect a transfer from germany to take

when I was living in germany I found the german banking system VERY INEFFICIENT (yes, this is the german banking system i am talking about:D ) it might be held up on their side

Victor

Do you consider the vendor to be reputable, have you been ripped off?

Surely electronic tranfers should happen overnight?

Did you send them cash in Germany (it's illegal at the German end as a anti money laundering measure).

Silvera

I would suggest that you post your question on www.askaboutmoney.com as it is full of experts on financial matters (and non-financial matters !)

Great Irish site.

Silvera.

daveg

I too had problems buying 2 hard drives from Germany. I had to return them and found the German banks to be very slow.

Don't give up hope yet. I seem to remember it taking a few weeks.

MDR

many thanks for all the info, the mailed me to say they sent the monso on the 06.05.2003 so, it probabily take a little while yet.

askaboutmoney.com seems cool

De Rebel

I bought components from an “IT Solutions & Distribution” outfit in Lurgan last September. The order included 4 sticks of ram and two cpu coolers. All told there was about £700 on the order. To avoid currency messing i paid up front using my credit card.

Delivery was a lot of messing with stock outages and promises of tomorrow tomorrow and lots of expensive phone calls to chase up on broken promises. Anyway the goods eventually arrived.

The 4 sticks of ram turned out to be the wrong speed and two cpu coolers which were substantially lower spec than the products ordered and paid for and unusable with the CPUs.

4 replacement sticks of RAM arrived a week later and turned out to be exactly the same brand/part no. as the first lot. After a number of phone calls and with the company’s agreement the 8 sticks of ram and the 2 coolers went back, registered post at my expense.

Despite numerous e-mails, and far too many expensive phone calls I am still owed over £140 by these people. They refuse to return my calls or e-mails or letters. To add insult to injury a PSU which they supplied died after 4 months, and they also failed to respond to my letters in relation to that.

So in summary, six months later they owe me over £170. They refuse to respond to my letters, e-mails and phone calls. Is a different jurisdiction so any legal route is messy and would almost certainly involve me travelling and the likelihood is that travel expenses, legal fees and the cost of my time would negate any gain if I did recoup my money.

These scumbags are trading on the fact that the distance etc makes it impractical to pursue them. Its not a lot of money, but it is so bloody annoying letting them get away with this.

MDR

I got my monso back on Saturday morning, so needless to say I am delighted. I am Belfast on a regular basis, drive past Lurgan frequentily and wouldn't have a problem, doing a favour for a fellow committee member, if so asked ....

Borzoi

Originally posted by De Rebel
These scumbags are trading on the fact that the distance etc makes it impractical to pursue them. Its not a lot of money, but it is so bloody annoying letting them get away with this.

Try:
The Office of Fair Tradin www.oft.gov.uk
or
Trading Standards Northern Ireland http://www.tssni.gov.uk/

who recomend if you have a complaint about a trader please go to http://www.consumercomplaints.org.uk

"We are the government - we're here to help"

MDR

I think in your eagerness to portrait Norn Iron as the consumers friend,
you may not have realised that this thread is almost three years old ...
I should imagine is probabily sorted by now ...
go sell the North elsewhere ....

Borzoi

MDR wrote:

you may not have realised that this thread is almost three years old ...
I should imagine is probabily sorted by now ...
...

Check the dates, you brought it up:rolleyes:

MDR

Some - one replied in the thread and then deleted their post ... doh!