BBB complaint against www.vernalelm.com

[yarou242]

This is the story of how I got scammed by vernalelm. I just want to let all of you know about it, especially since they continue to sell stuff on ebay. BTW, their ebay ID is vernalelm.

Greetings,

Some of you may have dealt with Vernal Elm in the past and had good results, but it's how a company handles bad situations that proves their integrity. The company sells Moto 68060 cpu's.

The short version: do not deal with Vernal Elm. Especially do not paypal them any money, as they have shown that if they feel they can get away with it, they will accept the money and not show anything for it. On ebay, well, they have to deal with building up a catalog of positive feedback. I have no doubt though that as soon as they do, their unethical practices will surface again.

The long version: I just filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau of Connecticut about their online business. They claim shipping within 48 hours.(incidentally, they charge $6 for shipping, but my cpu was in a reused mailer with a 60 cent stamp on it) After I clicked on the paypal button, I had to email them 3 times to get them to respond and ship me the chip. I got it more than 3 weeks after I ordered it. They claimed it would be a full version. It was clearly marked EC. And. . . it didn't work in my Amiga 4000 CSPPC (233MHz ver). I swapped out my old chip, stuck it in, and the machine would't boot. I tried it again, reseated it, and got the same results. The old chip went back in and it was fine. Well, they also claim a 30 day refund/replacement guarantee. I email them about it. They take their time getting back to me (this becomes a pattern). They tell me to send it back, and I do, on Feb 26th. The package goes unclaimed. I email again. I send it back a second time on April 2nd, after hearing an excuse about large packages not being delivered (as if that were believable.) This time, it IS accepted (at 10:49AM on April 9th: see www.usps.gov tracking #7002 2030 0005 5261 1831), and after that all contact from them ceases. I email 3 more times, but get no response. Who knows, maybe they've ebay'ed it already.

So that's the long and short of it. It's amazing that when a company is unethical, it starts from the very minor things: cheating on shipping charges, shipping late, ignoring emails, sending the wrong merchandise, and finally refusing to honor refund policies. Yes, I know that I should have stopped trusting them in January, and yes, it IS after 30 days, but that's only because they WAIT 3 weeks to reply to any email.

Want to contact Vernal Elm yourself?

Vernal Elm LLC
239B Front St.
New Haven, CT 06513
sales@vernalelm.com
fax: 720-294-4128

Benjamin Berkowitz
239 Front St.
New Haven, CT 06513
tel: 203-752-9814

Regards,

Eric Han

[lempkee]

really sad story and i have had simmilar experiences with other companies (amigagames.co.uk etc)

thanx for letting us know.

[Azy]

amigagames.co.uk etc

Ah, well that could explain why my Simon The Sorcerer CD I won on Ebay hasn't arrived even though they said it was shipped over a week ago..no reply to the email I sent them at the weekend though

[amigamad]

really sad story and i have had simmilar experiences with other companies (amigagames.co.uk etc)

As far as i know amigagames.co.uk used to be part of epic marketing and they are based in swindon sometimes i have had to phone them to find out what is happening with my orders your better sticking to foremat home computing there is also a german company listing items including post and i had no problem with them, cd came from germany to england very fast. :-D

[BR]

If anyone give's you a hard time for
complaining about a company that sells
Amiga stuff, ignore them. Doing nothing
is a form of consent. Complaining, and
concern for complaint's are the only things
that discourage retailer's. If someone
didn't discourage them it would happen
to everyone all the time. Hang in there,
and let us know how it work's out.

[redrumloa]

@BR

I have to agree. there is NO EXCUSE for crooks Amiga market or not.

[Roj]

Maybe one of these days, Paypal will offer to hold payments in a separate account with the final transfer dependent on notification by the delivery service that the package has been delivered.

Other than that, caveat emptor...

[Bandaren]

Then perhaps my 68060 won't show up either

They told me my cpu was on the way jun 3 but still nothing here. dunno how long time it's supposed to take to get it to Sweden though.

Is it just me or is the amiga market overrepresented with unethical businesses?

regards
Dan Andersson

[yarou242]

True, many people seem to have received cpu's from them, eventually. I sincerely hope you get yours. I DID get a cpu from them. Unfortunately, the way they do business is very problematic. I'm not even sure what to make of their practices. I mean, do they think people won't notice the scam?

Also, thanks to all who gave their sympathy and support. I'll post more after I hear back from the BBB (or Vernalelm).

-Eric

[asian1]

Hello
2 years ago, when Amiga Inc sold AmigaDE SDK, I contacted Washington Area BBB office about Amiga Inc.

They have no record about the company and their letters are unanswered. The local chamber of commerce also did not know anything about Amiga Inc.

Fortunately an Amiga dealer had a stock, therefore I buy "cash and carry" method.

Perhaps it's better to buy from companies mentioned on BBB & local chamber of commerce list.

[WarPiper]

Hay man,

sorry to hear about that, but it makes me say this, DONT YOU LOVE HAVING A HOBBY COMPUTER IN A NICHE MARKET AND HAVING TO RELY ON CRAPPY COMPANIES AND CUSTOMER SERVICE LIKE THAT?

Aaaaaahhh, the beauties of hobby computing.......

[jeffimix]

I always felt that someone should do this for E-bay:
Step 1) Buy some bloody big wharehouses, in my case, scattered across the US.
Step 2) set up a website, internet stuff, and hook up with e-bay so they'll have a button to use your services
Step 3) the long one- every time a pair of people use your service, you give them an identification number, they tell you what the product is, and how much it's going for, they send you the product with the final destination labeled inside, and the ident. number outside. You take your cut of the money (this would happen thru pay-pal or check inside the package again) Now that you have both products, or money, whatever, you send both to the respective recipients. Voila instant safety. It'd even work with houses and stuff, by holding the deed.

If you want to be really fancy, you could even try to test products to see if they work (for extra $$$ of course)

[oldman3000t]

Don't think just because they are listed in the BBB that they will be better.  The number one reason companies get into the BBB is because one of there customer has filed a complant against them.  The BBB will list the company and tell you that there is a complant against this company and they have not responded.  Now that company can respond to that complant after he joins the BBB, after the company sends in there "MONEY" to "JOIN" they will allow you to explain about the complant right or wrong.  This is legal in the USA?  A lot of companies will not join because all the BBB wants is money, so if the company is not listed in the BBB it may be because they don't want to pay the fee to allow them to respond to the complant.  I will not tell anyone who I work for but the company has been in service from 1944 to now, same location from 1953 to now.  We had one complant in 36 months and got a unsat from the BBB.  Then we payed the fee, and got a sat.  One complant out of 6000.
The BBB is in for the MONEY, and if there listed with BBB you will pay more for the items.

I do agree that it is not right to sell things and not recieve what you pay for, but we need to work as a group to help each other buy things from people we trust, I just place a order to Software Hut last week and I do use Ebay and I am 95% happy with them.

Mike
San Diego