Lazada, Incubator of Dishonest Sellers & Scammers

Let me extend the scammer incident to share more about my experience shopping virtually at local online stores.

I rate the online stores with "unpleasant" and "bad" experience. For former, I defined it as "I got what I ordered but the shopping experience wasn't a pleasant one", for instance, slow delivery, require successful warranty claim, technical error etc. That may or may not stop me from buying from the site again depending on the magnitude of the problem. Whereas the latter is "I didn't get what I ordered, paid but didn't get to enjoy". Obviously a big NO to buy again and obviously the scammer incident falls under this. Having said that, it's the last for me to ever shop again at Lazada after the incident.

Why I said "incubator of scammer"? Read this email excerpt...

It's so typical in Malaysia that practices "you're guilty until proven otherwise". Similarly, Lazada's policy is protective and biased towards sellers instead of buyers. Sellers with hidden agenda will certainly take advantage of Lazada's strict policy against the buyers. When such mishap happens, buyers are always the sore loser. 7 days return policy may work for some items such as wok, undewears, panties, cloth hangers and whatnot, it's too restrictive that some items require professional installation and setup before the buyer could tell it's faulty or not. If you notice in the photo I posted in previous post that I also bought the Power Magic Pro for standby power,  I have not tested it since I have a faulty dashcam and it requires some professional installation on car electronics. What's more with email exchanges between seller and buyer that likely take a few days to clarify some queries, practically the buyer is left with no buffer. Such thing will never happen at US stores like Amazon.com. I was even gifted a free additional item by the seller when I left an honest feedback on the product!

Beside this bad experience, I had few prior unpleasant experiences with Lazada too...

Sent wrong item and offered an invalid coupon in 2 different occasions. No doubt that its customer service reps were polite and attentive, but there is no improvement made by Lazada judging from my personal experience. Sound like NATO, No Action Talk Only.  

To be fair, Lazada is not alone...

IPMart is equivalent or even worse than Lazada. I bought a brand new Nexus 7, the unit was faulty out of box and above was the reply I received from the support.

Morale of the story, sad and shameful to say that Malaysia (or perhaps Asia Pacific) online stores are not for prime time yet. Customer service sucks big time. You can buy those items that require no warranty and worth throwing away if not working but certainly not any gadgets and sophisticated items.