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Not seen too many people moan about this, but when buy a app thats in
$ , halifax seem to charge me £1.50, this is so stupid specially when think buying app for $0.99, about 60p, nearly 300% increase going to my bank!
Is there not something google can do about this! maybe convert it themselves, take a 10% fee, (better then 300 aye).
Just has put me right off buying apps nowing im paying £1.50 ontop of what the app is.
I can't recall the source, but a few days ago I read that the market place will eventually accept paypal as a means of payment. This will avoid these damned charges as they do the conversion themselves. No eta however.
has anyone ever had any issues with card fraud following a payment made to the windows mobile marketplace?
I paid for an app for the first time ever this week and since then my card details have been ripped and used to the total of £1500, I'm not massively worried about it as they generally refund this sort of thing (its happened to me before).
But has anyone ever input their card details to their live account via the phone and then had fraud on their card?
Just a note i flashed with a cooked rom from this site at the begining of the week and without accusing or anything like that, is it possible the ROM is the cause of the details leak or just that microsoft marketplace sux?
Many Thanks
Luke
It would most cetainly be possible, but I would say very improbable. That kinda crap gets the cops looking at you. Where as a true scammer would run your and 1000 other cards for $5-$10 each and 80% of the people never even know they got charged. Emptying the account will definetelly draw law enforcment and red flags. I would say it probably didn't come from your phone but you never know. I persoanlly keep an online card with like $100 in it, and a seperate account for savings at another bank.I'm sure you'll get your money back but your chances are just as good that it got stolen at mcdonalds or Citgo and sold on irc. Was it one charge or a bunch? Were there many charges offshore? I know they typically will set up pet stores in 3rd world countries and run the cards through there.
i still had the card, and its not my main account etc, but I only ever use it for paypal and occasional online purchases, the most recent one was this week to marketplace, and suddenly ive got 10 transactions to UK companies totalling £1500, cleaned the overdraft to the max
They were all seperate purchases, there was three to screwfixdirect totaling £900, some to O2 topup, some to game.co.uk etc...
Just seemed strange that the only time ive put the details into any form of online payment for months and i get robbed
Not sure if this is the right area to post this or if it been posted before, but was just wondering on other opinions of googles hidden costs when buying apps off the market.
Not sure if this only happens in certain countries but I am in the uk and when I buy an app that is priced in euro's there is a 'hidden' £1.50 charge applied to my card, so a $1 app really costs about £2.30. So if I buy 10 apps, google make £15 quid off me!
I feel this is totally unfair and am wondering of the legalities of not even warning about this charge when you buy the app?
And also it does not seem fair that google are making money off the hard work of developers, I know they get a share of the price but then they also get the extra 'card charge'.....the word ripoff springs to mind here!
I live in the states and I haven't experienced this, perhaps it has something to do with the conversion rate?
rosso22 said:
Not sure if this is the right area to post this or if it been posted before, but was just wondering on other opinions of googles hidden costs when buying apps off the market.
Not sure if this only happens in certain countries but I am in the uk and when I buy an app that is priced in euro's there is a 'hidden' £1.50 charge applied to my card, so a $1 app really costs about £2.30. So if I buy 10 apps, google make £15 quid off me!
I feel this is totally unfair and am wondering of the legalities of not even warning about this charge when you buy the app?
And also it does not seem fair that google are making money off the hard work of developers, I know they get a share of the price but then they also get the extra 'card charge'.....the word ripoff springs to mind here!
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I don't think it is like that. Other people will confirm, but I guess it may be some thing with your credit card or bank, as I believe this does not happen to almost anyone.
antonio1475 said:
I don't think it is like that. Other people will confirm, but I guess it may be some thing with your credit card or bank, as I believe this does not happen to almost anyone.
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Well it happens to me whenever I buy an app that is in euros, on two different bank cards with different banks, and the money goes to google as it says it on the statement next to the charge.
what I'm getting at is even if it does only happen to a small amount of people (or even just myself), does it make it any less unfair to not warn of this?
And some may say well just buy apps that are in £'s but then I would be missing out on a hell of a lot of apps
rosso22 said:
Well it happens to me whenever I buy an app that is in euros, on two different bank cards with different banks, and the money goes to google as it says it on the statement next to the charge.
what I'm getting at is even if it does only happen to a small amount of people (or even just myself), does it make it any less unfair to not warn of this?
And some may say well just buy apps that are in £'s but then I would be missing out on a hell of a lot of apps
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I think it just fits to your problem:
http://www.techeye.net/mobile/android-apps-conceal-hidden-charges
antonio1475 said:
I think it just fits to your problem:
http://www.techeye.net/mobile/android-apps-conceal-hidden-charges
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Thanks for that, explains a lot, I think google should definitely start showing the true price of apps before you buy them, and warn of any charges you may incur....Is it any wonder that people use cracked apps!
To be honest, I hadn't noticed that VAT wasn't included in the prices, I just presumed they had it set up so that your local VAT rate was included (wouldn't be hard to do).
As for the £1.50 charge, that's down to your bank to inform you of it, which I bet they did, but you (like the rest of us) just never got round to reading the small print in the bumf that came with our accounts.
dbzfanatic said:
I live in the states and I haven't experienced this, perhaps it has something to do with the conversion rate?
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Same here. Never seen such a thing. (Also in the states.)
dgalanter said:
Same here. Never seen such a thing. (Also in the states.)
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Yeah probably a UK thing....they are always finding ways to sting us for more money here
It'll be your bank's handling charge for exchanging £ to €
The same as if you jumped on the ferry and bought a bottle of wine with your bank card rather than cash.
If you don't think your account should incur charges for non £ transactions (ie you're sure it says you won't be charged in your terms and conditions), then contact you bank and complain.
Demand the refund of £1.50 (was VAT added to the charge? I suspect it was so add an extra 20%) and £10 as compensation for their mistake.
xaccers said:
It'll be your bank's handling charge for exchanging £ to €
The same as if you jumped on the ferry and bought a bottle of wine with your bank card rather than cash.
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I'll just pay with with coins next time then eh?........now where's the coin slot on my phone?
And getting charges back from a UK bank......dont make me laugh
thanks for the info
rosso22 said:
I'll just pay with with coins next time then eh?........now where's the coin slot on my phone?
And getting charges back from a UK bank......dont make me laugh
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Email the developer and ask if you can post them some dosh
If your terms and conditions state that there is no charge for foreign transactions, then under the banking rules you're entitiled to those charges back.
Quite often a polite phone call even when the charges are valid can result in them being refunded.
I've had overdraft charges refunded simply because I phoned up and had a bit of joke with the person in the call centre, they have a thankless job putting up with customers abusing them for mistakes the poor sods aren't responsible for, if you can make one of their's day, they can give in to resonable requests.
Like when O2 barred my phone without warning me because my bank screwed up my direct debit. 4 days after making a manual payment the bar still hadn't lifted, so I got through to a west indian woman and while she was looking into it I said "I just wanna use my phone" in a jokey way, she laughed and sorted it and credited me £15.
Maybe with Google's plan for a web based marketstore they'll be the option to add apps to your basket and pay in one go, so only 1 charge, doubt it though.
I still cannot believe they have not sorted this. The majority of UK debit cards will charge £1 - £1.50 for every transaction, meaning that I (and surely thousands of others) have completely avoided buying budget apps as it just makes them too expensive.
There has been some talk of a paypal or charge through your phone provider option, but no sign of either in the UK yet.
There are a couple of accounts and credit cards that don't charge a set fee, often credit cards have say a 2.5% charge on conversions that's perfectly acceptable for small purchases ... well a lot better than £1.50!
Another person from the states here, and i've never encountered something like this
lol, it's not a big deal. Although i did find out unexpectedly
I hope with carrier billing will come to the rest of the civilized world, until then you have to deal with your local financial laws and jump through hoops.
I have been getting similar. Frustrating and hard to get around without calling the bank to check their daily forex rate and having their list of card charges handy before calculating the actual price manually. Seems a PITB for a $2 app
Im from Mexico and I experienced something similar, I just bought one of the 10 cents Apps and I got the notification of two charges, both from Google, one for the 10 cents and one for $1 US. I know its not my bank, because I've used my card on a recent trip to the US and my bank didnt apply any extra charges, besides on the detail of the transaction it says GOOGLE GOOGLE.COM/CHCA US for the extra...
Any news from google on that?
$0.10 apps really only cost $0.10 for me in Canada
Welcome
I hope this is the right forum section for such information. My intention is to warn as many possible customers of Media Markt in Germany (Hessen) as possible.
Yesterday we bought a new phone for my sister - Sony Xperia M2
The phone looks brand new, box was sealed with "Media Markt" tapes, the case had still the protective foil on the back and the screen.
Phone technically is performing fine... but the problem is, it was sold as "New" yet turned out to be used one.
My sister initially thought it's possibly a built in Chrome/Google+ feature that it gives you a "template" account to fiddle with yet I asked around, poked around the internet... nowhere was such thing found (Eventually I did find, that she wasn't the only person who bought a used phone, marked as new with Gmail account already present and such)
The price of the phone was to be 189 Euro... on the label... at the register it was already 199 Euro... that was weird but we thought just a label error.
On next day my sister is bringing the phone to me to check it out and teach her how to use some things... and I notice that when I go to Chrome browser... it says that someone with initials "M.P." (Well it's full name there but I will just use initials here since I, as opposed to Media Markt respect other people) with even messages still not read and such, with 2 followers, the G+ account has been operational for some time already.
In that G+ account I am able to see both Gmail and Hotmail e-mails of the previous user together with phone number (which I checked already, it's a German T-Com number).
Still... having just found that account logged in Chrome... I thought... perhaps it's a glitch? But how would it be? Not just IP but also cookies would have to be there from someone else, this didn't make any sense. So I checked more, I see that Facebook on this phone also was accessed, with the same e-mail as in G+ (password wasn't kept this time though and session was logged out).
But what made me 100% that the phone was used was when I went into photo album... while most images there were all default stock images, there was also a screenshot (which ofc is stored in other folder than images, hence why I'm assuming the person responsible for this crime was sloppy enough not to delete it)
The file has a timestamp of October 21 and shows the lock screen with 82% battery, no sim coverage (or no sim at all, not sure about that icon), vibration profile, wifi connected and notifications I think from cloud app, some mail app perhaps Gmail.
All in all, this cemented my suspicion that the phone bought in Media Markt yesterday - sold for full retail price as new, even wrapped to be sold as new, was in fact a previously used phone, for around a month if not longer which is by no means worth the money they sold it for.
Tomorrow me and my sister's husband are going to Media Markt to "Go Medieval" on those bastards. We will try to make it as much of a scene as possible as to let know as many possible customers there that Media Markt is engaging in fraudulent behavior by selling used devices as new.
We will demand as much compensation for it as possible and will NOT settle for simply exchanging the phone for another. This is a crime that was committed here and regardless if they "cooperate" or not this doesn't change the fact. If situation was reversed, if anyone would just take something from Media Markt walk out... and then - when caught - simply return it and apologized... would they not notify the police? I doubt. Would they not file in for a crime? I doubt it. These days, people get arrested for feeding homeless people in a park! And yet companies like Media Markt get away with obvious criminal behavior. And no, if they (Manager or whoever up) "knew" it's used or not has nothing to do. IF YOU or ME did not what you did was a crime... would the police/court take pity on you and say - ok, lad, it's fine, you are free to go and you didn't do anything wrong. A crime is a crime. And I am totally disgusted by it
So that's why we are not going to settle for a simple exchange for a new device.
- Assuming that the person who used the phone previously wasn't in on the scam, that person's data, G+ account and Play Store has been all exposed to a random customer who bought that phone as new (Google certainly not refund anyone if my sister started to buy apps only to land in the previous user's account, not knowingly).
- We paid for a "new" device, that was the contract between the customer and retailer. They never delivered the agreed upon goods, they gave us a "used" device. That is a breach of a contract and extortion of money.
- We had to waste time, energy and possibly (if this goes to court, prior to the settlement) our money because of them.
- When we called them tonight they've already told us they don't sell used devices, which as the example shows, was another lie.
In case Media Markt would refuse to compensate us for wasting our nerves, time and openly trying to scam us - and basically stealing our money. We will sue them.
Anyone who had similar situation with Media Markt can now know - You're not alone. This is more widespread than I initially thought, the more I read the more I see situations where retailers sell used things as new, possibly hoping that the customer would be naive and ignorant enough to not realize they have gotten a used - and why if it's stolen?! - device.
You're also free to join us and we can sue them together, more the merrier.
As proof I have all the purchase documents, the screens (some of them I include in attachments) and also some other things, they can try to deny it but that's for the court to settle.
In conclusion this is a warning to check twice or better yet - avoid as much as possible such criminal companies like "Media Markt".
Any update on your story? I`d like to hear how it went.
Das ist wirklich ne zumutung... naja, nichts anderes zu erwarten von MediaMarkt...
Here's how it went.
Next day we went to that Media Markt right when it opened. IF you're interested which one was it exactly, here is the address:
Rudolf-Walther-Straße 6, 63584 Gründau-Lieblos, Germany
At the info counter we've explained that we were sold a used phone as a new one... the woman there looked as if she's offended we even suggested it was used, but my brother-in-law elaborated that we've got the proof of it and we'd like to talk with the manager of the shop - Of course, the manager is "on vacation" -_-'. We were directed to the aisle with phones.
There we've asked another staffer, loudly letting everyone who was considering a purchase there, that they better be careful, because this shop sells used devices as new. The staffer said ofc it will be dealt with, but again, not his business, we were directed to the service. ::
Already a bit frustrated by all this running around, we've explained the situation to the service staff. My brother-in-law immediately turned on voice recorder in his Galaxy phone and put it on the counter to make sure this whole thing would be on the record. Sadly, the service staffer had NO NAME TAG! None of the service staff had... how convenient?
First the service guy tried to show as much disbelief and deny that it's even possible to buy used phones from them... then when we've showed him all the proof and talked him through it he said that "Oh, it must've been a mistake! Clearly we must've had such phone delivered to us from the supplier" (doubtful since the person's profile was a person living nearby). Next we kept drilling the guy who was like he's having a lot of fun talking about it - quite annoying attitude if you ask me. He obviously had limited knowledge about phones too.
When asked about why do they sell things with previous users data? - He said it was a mistake and he's just as surprised.
When asked how can we be sure, that now, when we give the phone away, they won't sell it (with my sister's leftover data) to another customer? - He said it's gonna be cleared up and returned, thinking we'd take his word for it.
When we asked him why was the price 199 when we purchased, yet on the shelf the price even now is still shown as 189? - Oh must've been the previous week price tag, someone forgot to take it off.
In the meantime of the discussion we have called my sister to confirm the color and if she's going to sue them or not. She, being a very peaceful person decided she'll settle for their "compensation".
The compensation was a miniscule one to say the least. This is what we've achieved after my sister decided not to sue them:
- Without any apology they agreed to replace the phone (we spent 30 minutes waiting for them to find another like it)
- There were no more phones of that color, so they could give us only purple one (my sister was happy, my brother in law said it looks like crap)
- Because of the lack of color, they have "generously" agreed to give us a crappy black xPeria M2 phone case for 1 cent
- They have returned us the 10 Euro they've asked more vs the shelf price tag
- Not trusting them to do the job I have wiped everything from that bogus phone before I gave it back to them
I disagree with my sister's decision but it was her to make so I can't force her. We are waiting till we get more free time so we can contact the previous owner, she also deserves to know what happened with her data and previously owned phone.
We have decided not to buy stuff from MediaMarkt again after this. My sister said that she's pretty worried now, she had no idea - being just a casual user - that such things happen and now she "understands" why there was so many malfunctions in the past when she was buying laptops from there and things tended to break inside like wifi card and sound card etc.
Here is additional read I found after we came home, turns out this is more widespread than I thought
(given that I've got a fresh account have to put the link in txt file attached to this reply)
I suggest you direct this towards the Metro Holding Group. http://www.metrogroup.de
It's the company that owns the entire Media Markt chain. This seems like a complaint to take a bit higher up if the manager won't speak to you.
I do have to mention, in all the times I've been to Media Markt, the boxes with the Media Markt tape on it were the ones that were previously returned.
New ones had factory seals on it. (And usually a 'If seal is broken, do not buy/sell device" over the rim.) Were those still present on the box when you bought it?
I've always bought about half of devices and electronics at MediaMarkt (The other half at Saturn or Conrad. I remember when Conrad was still just a small store in Boekelo!), in Nordhorn, and Dorsten. I've never experienced what you're describing, as those devices have always had a sticker on it marking them as used.
But I'm not doubting that it happened. Media Markt Netherlands has a tendency to do this as well. And they charge us 100-300 euro more for the same devices, too!
ShadowLea said:
I suggest you direct this towards the Metro Holding Group. http://www.metrogroup.de
It's the company that owns the entire Media Markt chain. This seems like a complaint to take a bit higher up if the manager won't speak to you.
I do have to mention, in all the times I've been to Media Markt, the boxes with the Media Markt tape on it were the ones that were previously returned.
New ones had factory seals on it. (And usually a 'If seal is broken, do not buy/sell device" over the rim.) Were those still present on the box when you bought it?
I've always bought about half of devices and electronics at MediaMarkt (The other half at Saturn or Conrad. I remember when Conrad was still just a small store in Boekelo!), in Nordhorn, and Dorsten. I've never experienced what you're describing, as those devices have always had a sticker on it marking them as used.
But I'm not doubting that it happened. Media Markt Netherlands has a tendency to do this as well. And they charge us 100-300 euro more for the same devices, too!
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Thanks for the suggestion, but like I said, we've decided to give it a rest and just avoid the shop altogether, it's not like there's no competition that can do better. Hell even on eBay/Amazon I can get a brand new for same price and used? Would never go for the MediaMarkt price which makes it not useful to us anymore.
As for the packaging, it wasn't market as used, it was together with other boxes (some with MediaMarkt stripes over them, some not, it was as if up to the customer to pick up with no indication of devices being used) and all of them had given same price 189 and the one my bro-in-law bought turned out to be counted for 199 which doesn't seem like it was all supposed to be "sold as used" unless it's MediaMarkt's policy to sell used at higher price than brand new not to mention they've denied and looked all surprised, not a moment they said "We sell used goods this way".
The broken seal thing. I disagree that it's an indication that I shouldn't be buying it - First of all it was my brother-in-law, who just got back from work, asked for a NEW device and was willing to pay all the money needed to buy it for his wife, he wasn't "hunting for a bargain" and he was not notified and had the benefit of not even caring about any policy the shop has, he was buying a new device, hell he even asked for black one and then the woman servicing him there told him they don't have them so he can only take the white one, which could be taken as he was railroaded into buying crap by the employee of the shop, is that how it should be? I don't think so.
Other than that, there are plenty of shops that OPEN the packages when they get them delivered from suppliers to "test" if the goods are working and then reseal it after verifying things work. So why is it all of a sudden the customer's duty to make sure which shop does what? You go to a shop, wanting to buy new device, you should get one. Also, I never seen a "returned, second hands merchandise" corner in MediaMarkt, they don't seem very up front about it at all.
Furthermore, to entertain the "MediaMarkt seal" notion. Are you honestly suggesting that MediaMarkt is totally not culpable for selling used goods with previous user's private data, passwords, e-mail account, G+, Apple store, Google Play, MS Store and so on? Is simply "putting a MediaMarkt wrap" on it means that those goods can be sold with such blatant breach of privacy of previous customer?
As for you being happy with MediaMarkt that's irrelevant, as analogy I also never had problems with racism it doesn't mean that racism isn't a thing. I've used their franchise across 3 different countries and had small issues now and then, but this is unacceptable.
To contrast this say, with "Expert Klein" which I had wonderful experience with. Here's the Expert Klein story to show how different that one is from MediaMarkt:
I went to buy a computer monitor (LG) and they had the last one on display, but I really wanted to get that last one, it was already on discount (by 20 Euro from org price) and when talking with the staffer who was very helpful and spoke good English (In MediaMarkt we had to do everything in German) he said he can get the price lower (he seemed genuinely sympathetic that I got unlucky to find myself buying last one of that model), called the manager, while I checked the monitor if it's in good condition (was almost perfect 'cept a bit of dust on it which the employee cleaned before packing it for me). In the end I got over 70 Euro discount for a computer screen worth a bit more than 150 Euro. That's almost half the price lower.
Now back to MediaMarkt... there he was sold a used device 10Euro dearer than a brand new. It's unacceptable.
So I'm from Indonesia, and my dad is selling a Note 5 with an online service that acts sort of like Craigslist. We received a message from a supposedly German man living in Ghana, who seems to be really interested in buying the device. However, I find it rather incredulous that he'd want to buy a phone from us when he lives almost on the other side of the world. My dad already asked DHL, who said it would cost around 150 USD to ship, and combined with the device, it makes it almost a full 100 USD more expensive than a NEW Note 5 he could buy locally (I checked).
He says he has already sent the money to a bank account (which was empty, for precaution) to my dad, but it's been a few days, and the money still isn't there. My dad wants the device to sell by 25 March, which is when the S7 begins shipping here, or else the phone is unlikely to sell, and he paid a few bucks to make the ad become the top result, and that lasts only a week, so we're working with some pretty tight timing here. Should we wait or just tell him the deal's off and find someone else?
Why not sell it via online shop like OLX Indonesia, etc? I think it would be easier...
Sent from my ASUS_Z00AD