Anyone thinking of purchasing through Rakuten.com...

BruPri

Top Veteran
Location
Seattle, Washington USA
Name
Bruce J. Pritchard
Word of advice about my experience with this company, placed an order through Rakuten.com last Friday, I received no email confirmation. Checked today, and their website says my order was cancelled, yet the funds in my account show pending, read: unavailable.

Since the seller they represented was Adorama, I called Adorama directly to place the order. Adorama could not fulfill the order as of course no funds were available.

Had to Google "Rakuten contact number" to actually find a person to speak with. (no phone# on their website) On hold for 47 minutes (listening to 1 repeating bar of distorted music interrupted every 7seconds reminding me that I need to put an RMA number on package returns) finally got someone that, after explaining my situation, I was informed they had put a purchase authorization hold on the funds and that Adorama had cancelled the order. Got disconnected. Called back, another 20 minutes, re-explained my situation, the rep then tried to put me through to their cancellations department, no luck, then their accounting department, no luck.

Finished with this colossal waste of time (all this to free up my own money mind you)

Walked down to my bank (in my building), they cancelled the hold on the funds and I called Adorama to place the order directly, in less than 2 minutes I had completed the transaction.
Thanks to Adorama, not so much to Rakuten, whom I will never use again.
 
They are huge. They bought out Buy.com a few years ago, and then last year (I think) they changed the online shopping site to Rakuten.com. I don't think they really stock anything themselves, but are basically a marketplace for other vendors. Buy.com never had a great rep, but things seem to have deteriorated with the official change to Rakuten.com.
 
I used them as buy.com & Rakuten.com. Rakuten is Japanese Amazon equivalent which bought buy.com. A few months ago, I bought a google tablet directly from Rakuten, which was shipped in one day w/ free shipping. The tablet failed when it was opened. I called them back, they were very nice and quick to send me a free shipping return. I don't remember any problems w/ contacting except they don't reply e-mails right away which is similar to other companies. My experience was very positive, comparable to Adorama/B&H/Amazon. Maybe third party sale is problematic.
 
Back
Top