I found someone here - same problem. he has been asking refunds of tracking costs and have got em ! <- does not that prove they (Zavvi) are wrong !
i just found this out and have been mailing to zavvi. no aswer.
my Q is how can they do this with straight face. they tried to lie to my Finnish pal etc faul tactics ... he pushed them then they finally gave up and payed him. if I'm correct over 40 times now. over 40 times ! that is hell of a lot money !
but they pay only after they have 1st taken extra money. then you have to complain with few emails - then they pay it back.
WHAT KIND OF RETAILER DOES THAT !!!!
edit :
My pal is known user here, but I do not want to give his/hers name - if he/she wants to come and comment it's his/her choise. do not want to force.
I'm a bit late with my response,
@nefilim - sorry about that, mate (been a busy week with only intermittent phone access to the net).
In march 2014, Zavvi started to force International Tracked shipping charge (GBP 7.99 / EUR 9.99, EUR 8.99 for Zavvi NL / ES) for any order to Finland that included a steelbook pre-order. Not only to Finland, as I recall a few other members from other countries commenting about that on HDN forums, but I can't remember where they were from. Possibly other Scandinavian countries, and some others?
Of course I inquired about this change several times from Zavvi, but the responses were totally useless: "item weighs over 2kg", "we are only able to ship certain items on a tracked service", "this is a decision that our buyers make". Yeah, right
The curious thing is that once that same steelbook arrives in stock, the shipping is always International Standard (EUR 0.00 / GBP 0.00). Magic, eh? In both situations, I can't change the shipping method. For a steelbook pre-order, International Tracked is forced. For an in-stock steelbook, International Standard is forced.
I was conservative in my estimate in the PM to
@nefilim, so far I have had the pleasure of requesting (and receiving) the incorrectly charged shipping cost refund for 61 orders, where not a single steelbook was ever sent International Tracked.
My theory is that if one pre-orders a single steelbook, that would be sent International Tracked. However, I have always added at least one in-stock item to my order; International Tracked gets charged when the in-stock item is shipped (but it's shipped International Standard), and the pre-ordered items can no longer be shipped International Tracked, as the cost for that shipping method has already been charged earlier.
The one time that I managed to receive International Tracked shipping (the "in-stock" item wasn't actually in stock, but was shipped two weeks later), it was delivered to my post box in an oversized jiffy bag with no additional protection, signed for by the courier company's delivery person. Absolutely useless service, much worse than the usual "works most of the time" Zavvi white boxes used with International Standard.
I can no longer give any kind of benefit of doubt to Zavvi customer service. I have been outright lied to many times; "part of your order was shipped tracked" - not true, "the item XXX was sent tracked" - not true, "this is the tracking number for your order" - completely bogus, nothing was shipped tracked. If these kind of replies are sent without actually checking the facts, I consider that as good as lying - no excuse for that.
My personal "favorite" responses are "Please refer to previous email sent to yourself about tracking" and "I have passed your details on to our operations department who will look in to this". They are Zavvi-speak for "I'm going to do absolutely nothing about your refund request for this order's shipping costs" or "Your refund request has sent to a black hole from where nothing will ever come back"
As I'm not in the habit of parting with my money for services that I've not received, I always receive my refund in the end, although that can sometimes take three iterations to get the result. I'm a patient person, so I still place the odd steelbook pre-order with Zavvi, but if they'll actually some day start using their useless International Tracked shipping for steelbooks, that'll definitely be the end of my patronage.
I know that this situation only affects a small part of HDN members (sorry about the long rant), but never, ever delete your proof of purchase "Order Despatched" email messages until you are sure you won't need them, e.g., for forwarding back to Zavvi "customer service"
For me it's been very useful to be able to point out the "As you selected an untracked delivery service" phrase, when I've been told that the item was shipped tracked. Nowadays I keep the shipping boxes, too, in case I need to start sending photos of them back to Zavvi
