Sorry... Ranting a bit...

[NeHe]

I'm not sure what's going on with Eastmall these days. For the past few years I've had excellent dealings with the staff, I've had questions answered almost immediately at all hours of the night. I've even had conversations with staff that were more chatting and less discussion of product. It was nice dealing with a company that cared that the charger you received didn't work properly (and without me even having to ask sent out a new one with the next order), or the extra's you'd sometimes find in the package for no reason at all (long term customer?).

Since the site redesign (which I really like), it just seems eastmall is not the same type of company.

Before the site change I found my shipping address had been deleted. I tried to re-add it and found that it would not accept my postal code. I emailed the staff about it, and was basically told "to bad, so sad". So I didn't order for a long time.

The minute the redesign was up, I tried to place and order and found that I could once again enter the proper shipping address. Yay. I had a look at the special and saw that it stated "any order over $150 receives a free elips". I made sure my order was well over $150, and eagerly awaited my package. During the wait, the special expired. Doesn't matter though right? I had my order in almost a week before it expired. Wrong! I got my order and it didn't include the elips. Unhappy about this I sent off three emails to contact at Eastmall. Not one person got back to me. The only reason my order was even close to $150 is so could take advantage of the special.

A few weeks later I placed another order for Riva-T batteries as well as two Riva-VV batteries. I also made sure that in the order comment box I once again brought up the fact that I was not happy I didn't receive my elips. My new order arrived, again without the elips, again no response.

A week into using the new batteries one of the Riva-VV batteries died. Stopped working mid puff, never came back on. Sat on a charger all day... no luck! 2 weeks later 2 of the Riva-T batteries died. One wouldn't charge (light would come on and flash multiple times, but no power to the atomizer), the other just stopped coming on at all (even when plugging it in to charge). Today ... a few weeks later ... another battery is showing signs of failure. When I screw it into the charger the light on the battery is very dim and the light on the charger dims substantially, the battery gets very hot. It never turns green. However it does charge a bit (enough for about 50 puffs)... if you know anything about this battery, that is not a lot!

Is there a reason Eastmall does not respond to emails? Did I get a bad batch of batteries? Is anyone else experiencing this? I have old Riva 510 batteries I ordered over a year ago and they're rock solid even today. What's wrong with the new batteries?

For the record, I placed an order this week "special is free indulgence 3.7v"... who want's wager on whether it will actually arrive?

I have to say, I'm a little disappointed with the staffs lack of interest in resolving issues. The last email I sent (just a few days ago) started off "I wanted to talk with you guys about the following issues before posting on the forum". Do you think I got a response...?

Eastmall...? What's up with your complete lack of service? I know there are people on your staff that do care about issues. I read the forums.

I'd be more than happy to pay the shipping to send back dead batteries for analysis if it results in them being replaced.

I love the Riva-T, but having to buy new batteries every month is too much!

8-o

 

[EMRocks]

Hi NeHe,

I've been spending a lot of time talking to David about the fact that we only have one customer service rep who is, for all intents and purposes, constantly overloaded. The decision has already been made to add more reps to the staff, but it may not be until after the Chinese New Year (Feb-March). I wish we could get someone on staff tomorrow, but we have laws in the United States for hiring and taxes that we need to contend with first, which might mean first hiring a business attorney and an accountant, and then going through the motions as per their advice.

Please send me a PM and I'll do what I can to help you out a bit.

 

[John Thornsbury]

Ditto!! I am having the same Customer Service issues...I've been a customer for almost 3 years. Anyone can make a mistake I understand but, to ignore it and and lose a long time customer...thats 2 mistakes. screw me once...shame on you, Screw me twice...shame on me!

 

[EMRocks]

Ditto!! I am having the same Customer Service issues...I've been a customer for almost 3 years. Anyone can make a mistake I understand but, to ignore it and and lose a long time customer...thats 2 mistakes. screw me once...shame on you, Screw me twice...shame on me!

Hi John, I already posted this in the other thread, but in case you don't see it there for some reason I'll say it here too. Please PM me with your email address and I'll make sure this gets cleared up one way or another, and as painlessly as possible. Our only current customer service rep has more work than one person can handle (she does more than CS too), and there are plans to add a USA-based CS rep in the coming months. This person will be on the live chat during normal USA business hours and days, and will help with answering emails and taking returned items.

Again, we're very sorry for the customer service issues - we DO care, and we're aware that we are under staffed, and we're actively working to get it fixed ASAP.

 

[John Thornsbury]

Hi John, I already posted this in the other thread, but in case you don't see it there for some reason I'll say it here too. Please PM me with your email address and I'll make sure this gets cleared up one way or another, and as painlessly as possible. Our only current customer service rep has more work than one person can handle (she does more than CS too), and there are plans to add a USA-based CS rep in the coming months. This person will be on the live chat during normal USA business hours and days, and will help with answering emails and taking returned items.

Again, we're very sorry for the customer service issues - we DO care, and we're aware that we are under staffed, and we're actively working to get it fixed ASAP.

Thanks...looking forward to your help in this matter

 

[humpty]

Just for the record, I got my order today as usual within 3 to 4 working days (and with the free Indulgence V3).
There was a problem with the new system not having my shipping country, but Selina fixed it efficiently.

I can only say, I've never regarded internet shopping like high street shopping. I've always taken it like a gamble.
If a company doesn't satisfy, I just don't go there anymore. I think most companies know this, so I don't think it's personal if things go wrong. It's usually some bottleneck in the middle.

The new site, I think was quite a gamble though. It doesn't yet cover all the stuff the old site did. Perhaps it should have been test runned longer. I've a feeling the new site is out-sourced to some other outfit, solves old problems but introduces new ones. Was it worth the upgrade? Time will tell.

 

[EMRocks]

The new site, I think was quite a gamble though. It doesn't yet cover all the stuff the old site did. Perhaps it should have been test runned longer. I've a feeling the new site is out-sourced to some other outfit, solves old problems but introduces new ones. Was it worth the upgrade? Time will tell.

I'm the developer on the new site, and have been building and designing it from the ground up, with constant contact with David and Selina since June. The website's active development and maintenance is my full-time, 40 hour per week job, although I DO NOT add products in (I added a few in the beginning, such as all the Riva products and liquids, but David is in charge of adding in all products now so that he can set the prices and details, because I don't have a price list, nor do I know technical details on any of the products). There are still a lot of products missing, but there's nothing I can really do about that because David said he wants to add them in himself, although it seems he hasn't had time to add many unless they are specifically requested.

Yes, the new site was rushed out, and we've never made any attempts to hide that fact, as it was stated in the post where it was announced that it was online. The old one was down usually all day every day for about the last month that it was up, so no one could order and we had to get this one up with a minimal set of products ASAP. The original plan was to launch this new one around January 1st. We launched it 2 months early, on November 7th, after the old site was down for just about the entire month of October and half of September.

Since it's very hard to make major changes to a live website (although I have made some) without causing down time, I've mostly been working on the development copy of it for the past 2 months. It could be thought of as version 2 of the website that's online now, and has a bunch of new features, tweaks, and fixes to minor bugs (all major bugs are patched on the live site immediately). I've very sorry if you're disappointed in it, but a lot of work is going into a new version of it that will be much better. For those wondering, no you will not need to make a new account again lol. It will basically be what the one online should have been had we been able to stick to the original development schedule.

As for HK shipping, they gave me a list of countries that we DO ship to, and told me to disable shipping to all others. China/HK was not on the list of countries we ship to, which was why you were unable to order. I can only do what they tell me to do where shipping is concerned.