Coin Buyers BEWARE!

[+cincol]

THIS IS A WARNING FOR ANYBODY WHO PLACES ORDERS FOR GEOCOINS FROM COINSWAG.COM - BEWARE!

 

In July I placed an order for just under $100-00 and paid for it via PayPal. After a week or so the vendor contacted me to inform me the delivery of 1 set of coins I ordered would be delayed about 3 weeks and would I like the balance of my order shipped in the meanwhile. I replied that he could wait and ship everything together in order to save on international shipping costs. He agreed to that and have never heard of him since!

 

Numerous e-mails to his personal e-mail address [as supplied by himself], his business e-mail address, the "sales" e-mail address and his gc.com profile e-mail have all fallen on deaf ears. I contacted gc.com about it and initially one of the staffers was very enthusiastic about helping me. Once I sent my order details and all the supporting e-mail correspondence to her the enthusiasm has waned. Despite follow-up e-mails to her on both her direct e-mail address and the support address I get no response from her either. I am now beginning to wonder if there is some sort of deeper connection as once she received the details of who this suppliers was everything dried up?

 

Check out these links of the Forum about other complaints about the same supplier.

 

Fourm Link # 1

 

Forum Link # 2

 

Forum Link # 3

[+GEO936]

Oh my goodness cincol - so sorry to hear that things have not gone well with your recent geocoin purchase.

 

We struggled with a purchase from Al & Ellies a while back. They had a long delay with their manufacturer who was based in China. They did eventually deliver - one of the coins is one of our Racers old Sir Henry Morgan. They did close their business though, due to the recession. We were nervous that it was possible we would never receive our order, but eventually it came through and they even gave us a free geocoin as a gift of thanks for our support. So they were an honest bunch.

 

I hope somehow, you do eventually receive your order!

[+cincol]

I hope somehow, you do eventually receive your order!

 

Highly unlikely going by what I have read on the forum. It is nearly 6 months down the track now so that money can be put down to experience.

[+Louise_Gerhard]

Goodness, the price we have to pay for experience and school fees. Cincol, luckily this was not thousands. But a loss is a loss. I guess the economic situation do have his impact on all. I think some more will follow.

 

I ordered some stuff from geotees.com via Paypal. Up to present I just had good service. After the event in Pretoria I went home (Ermelo) and my wife pointed out a double payment to them. On Sunday night I send the owner an e-mail informing him of the problem. About 1 minute later he replied with an e-mail. The monies was corrected and reversed. This was well done. But again this is now history and not the forecast for the future. I am getting some of my coins from them and even if they are more expensive I would rather stick with them then to go cheaper and to worry.

 

Again, sorry for your loss and I hope you will get some return for it.

Gerhard

[+Carbon Hunter]

I got my Earthcache coins from coinswag without a problem - but I have been fortunate to date.

 

There was also a mail from coinswag about this issue in my mailbox this morning. So it seems as if this thread may have precipitated that.

[+Manville Possum]

They sold me a geocoin on eBay under the name of a different seller, but the payment still went to JSW Promotions that was advertised as not activated, but it was. The seller offered to let me return it or adopt it, I chose to adopt is as the shipping fee that I would lose was greater than the price paid for the geocoin, then they ended all communication. I did get an email from coinswag.com about an order that I never placed a few days ago after reporting the seller to eBay. I am still trying to get them to proceed with the adoption process. Use your own judgement when dealing with this company, but as for me I never will again. 1st time, shame on them, 2nd time shame on me rule applys here.

[+BruceTP]

For South African buyers of coins from overseas here is another caveat emptor.

Be aware that when dealing with the SA Postal and or customs services that you could be dealing with people who are functionally illiterate who read Unites States and interpret as Great Britain. Or they are out to deliberately swindle you.

I received a parcel of Geocoins this week from the "United States", those words appearing more than once on the labeling. On the US Customs declaration it clearly says "Value in US $." However when it landed at customs, the country of origin was stipulated as "GB" and the currency "GBP" at an exchange rate of 12.8924 instead of the correct US $ rate of about 7.35 as it was when it landed. So I ended up having to pay an excessive amount of duty. I tried phoning SARS to see what the appeal process was if I wanted to lodge a complaint. I did not get very far with them and it appears that I would have to take the parcel back to the customs office at OR Tambo for reassessment. I decided to quit while I was ahead and write it off to "TIA" where corruption is the order of the day.

[+Carbon Hunter]

I had a parcel incorrectly valued a while back - it was labelled as textiles and not docuemnts with MAJOR tax difference.

 

OR Tambo were really helpful and although I had to visit the site - they reversed it immeadiately.

 

Seems like errors happen all the time.

 

You can also ask your local post office to send the parcel - but it can take a few weeks then.