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WORST Experience Ever in Dealing With Woodbridge Stereo NJ

WORST STEREO EXPERIENCE OF MY LIFE!  I have been buying and selling high end hifi equipment since I was 16, about 15 years now.  This shop is dishonest, very poor with communication and abandons its customers.  Ill make the story as short as possible.  I bought a pair of Dali Ikon 8 speakers from these guys via Audiogon (8/10 condition).  They came damaged.  I paid extra for the speakers to be shipped by Fedex and they were shipped by UPS.        Once the speakers arrived damaged, they basically told me I am on my own and to file a claim with UPS and that when they had the speakers back in their hands, which they have had no for almost a week, that I would be refunded.  The store owner Tom, refuses to call me back and three guys point fingers at each other for who is responsible for getting me my money back.  Only after dispute through paypal, Audigon and my credit card company do they now want to refund me my money.  They are holding my money hoping they will get refunded via UPS for damaged speakers that clearly were packed well and some genius left the binding post jumpers and grilles in place, which were of course destroyed.  So rather than refund the customer his money, Woodbridge Stereo believes it is better to leave the customer stranded and keep their money for as long as possible regardless of original agreement to refund upon receiving the speakers.  OF course after received my money, store owner Tom refuses to call me back after leaving 5 messages via voicemail and operator who promised to have him call me.  I am sure he will probably contact me now.  PLEASE, STAY AWAY FROM THIS STORE!!!! TAKE MY REVIEW SERIOUSLY.  I have 100% feedback on all websites I used and have a total of over 1000 100% feedback score reviews combined.  I have NEVER been left negative feedback,  These guys have an 85% score on Audigon.  You have been warned.



chris_michael
59 responses Add your response
rspyder
98 posts
 
Thanks for this.  Glad we have Audiogon and members like you keeping us in the know.  Sure there are other customers who had better experiences with Woodbridge, but it only takes one bad one like this to show the store's/Tom's real commitment to customer.  There are so many good retailers out there we can avoid places like this one and I will.

Ray
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czarivey
5,740 posts
 
@jayrossi13
The cost could be twice the item price as well. The winner always should be lowest and safest. I was once quoted by UPS to pay $154 for shipping box only + packaging. You need to ensure that 95lb item can be dropped safely from human height or top of the UPS truck down to the concrete slabs can you? 
jayrossi13's avatar
jayrossi13
182 posts
 
@czarivey 

The cost of freight could be twice the cost of the item, which is why I specifically indicated that I use freight for more expensive/heavy items. 

As as an example, I recently purchased an amp for $5K that weighed approx. 100 lbs. The cost of cross-country frieghtbwas $250 and, in this case, money well spent. 


czarivey
5,740 posts
 
I definitely figured that:
with $5k items will work and $500 items won't make sense, because shipping and shipping materials will exceed 50% of the value
that is to say that items $1000 or less doesn't make sense to send, because they will get damaged or you will need to spend 1/3 of item value on packaging and delivery.

alpha_gt
155 posts
 
I had a terrible experience with UPS years ago. I bought a relatively inexpensive pair of speakers from eBay. When they arrived they had stabbed a fork tongue through one of them! So I called UPS, and they wouldn't even talk to me, and said the shipper had to be the one to complain? So, luckily I had a really good shipper who went to bat for me, but they tried to say they weren't packaged properly, like any box in the world is going to withstand a fork truck prong! Luckily I had great pictures. And the shipper was finally able to get them to concede that it was damaged by their negligence. But would only refund half the money, since the other speaker wasn't damaged. What am I going to do with one speaker? ANyway, in order for the money to change hands, they had to pick the item up and ship it back to the sender. When the sender got the speaker, it was smashed to bits! They had purposely destroyed it to be sure no one ever could fix it. Just spiteful for no reason, i mean, you pay extra for insurance to protect you against them! What's up with that? And then they get to say who collects? It took me over 2 months to get my money back. Half my money and one speaker. I've also heard that if you buy something outside the US, in Canada for instance. UPS will hit you with unexpected bills months after they delivered the package. 
hifiman5's avatar
hifiman5
1,825 posts
 
It's interesting to see the wide array of experiences we have had with UPS and FedEx.  I would like to understand what accounts for the predominantly negative experiences of some versus the overall positive experiences of others.  Geography comes to mind.  Perhaps some experiences are in part determined by where you live and areas of the country you have done business with?

Considering the cost of shipping insured gear, most of which is rather "weighty", we might expect our parcels to be treated with greater respect for that customer.  

When DHL hit the shipping scene, I had hoped increased competition might compel the big 2 to up their game.  Strangely, I have only ever seen a DHL truck once or twice since they commenced operations.  So much for that.

Maybe its time for another customer friendly shipping enterprise to arrive!

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