Complaints

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• Initial Complaint

  Date:17/01/2025

  Type:Product Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  The date of the transaction was on Sept. 30, 2024. I purchased two refurbished phones from the online merchant The Mobile Base for a total of ******. This merchant has a refund policy that refunds will be provided within 30 days from the date of delivery of the item. An email was sent to me that the item was delivered on Oct. 7, 2024, but I didn't receive it until Oct. 9, 2024. I contacted *********** about this and they said this is not uncommon that sometimes deliveries get marked as delivered before they're delivered and it should arrive in a couple of days which it did. So the 30 day return window actually starts on Oct. 9. I emailed them on Oct. 6 to request a refund and they said it was past the 30-day return window. I mentioned to them it was delivered on the 9th and that I had used their create your own return label feature on their website before the return window was up but it kept giving me an error msg. They simply replied that they could not provide a refund as it was past the 30 day return window and haven't gotten back to any emails i sent them afterwards. They havent resolved the issue and given it was delivered later than stated and the issue with creating my own label on their website, there should be no issue with providing a refund as i emailed them within 30 days of receipt of the item and had also proceeded to use the feature on their website to create your own label within the ******************************************************* a refund.

  Customer Answer

  Date: 17/01/2025

  *** C is the name I used to make the purchase from the merchant. Is the full name still required?

  Customer Answer

  Date: 21/01/2025

  Jen *******

  Business Response

  Date: 30/01/2025

  Hello, we are sharing the following information which has already been shared with the customer:
  
  The request for a return was received outside of our 30-day window we provide. We provide this length of a return window as, since these are refurbished devices, it gives our customers plenty of time to test out the device before requesting a return. We cannot process a one-time exception for the refund. The main reason is due to internal security checks to protect against loss and from fraudulent activity, along with being outside of our return policy. To elaborate on the internal security checks, we take a look at return patterns when it comes to devices ordered, the users that ordered these, the return rates that we see for specific models and from specific users, among other things. In most cases we would be able to make an exception, but abuse of our return policy will not be tolerated and unfortunately results in a negative experience for everyone involved, including future users of our site (we don't want to tighten up our return process because of a few bad actors). Simply put, we want everyone to have a pleasant experience with the devices they purchase from us, and long-term abuse of our return policies impacts us greatly. This transaction was processed through ******, and the resolution of a case opened there agrees with us as well, due to all that has been listed in this response (including the return policy abuse).
  
  Thank you.