I have some Pikolino shoes that have been great but the soles have gone. I wanted another pair the same but they are out of production so I thought I'd try online. Found them on the above site, which looked absolutely kosher, so I ordered a pair in my size. I then got an email from a 3rd party financial organisation confirming my order with someone with a Chinese name. I didn't get a dispatch confirmation, so after a few days I sent a message via the website message system - no email address... No response. After a couple of weeks, a package arrived from China. It was a pair of shoes with a slight resemblance to those I ordered but they had ECCO printed on the insole. They were clearly not genuine ECCO though. Luckily, I used s credit card, so it looks like I won't actually pay the £100 plus. The site looked so genuine though with none of the misspellings etc that are the usual giveaway. So glad I used a credit card...
I only pay with a credit card for items over £100 and most items below that amount since I had problems with a welder I purchased on-line, I got the full amount back from my credit card company. Steve
For those who use debit cards you should also be aware of the "Chargeback" scheme operated by the major banks. I got £5k back on this a few years ago.
The banks have a voluntary scheme whereby if you do not receive satisfactory goods or services paid for on a debit card you can claim recompense. Basically they refund to your account and then try to recover the money from the other party's bank. However there is no legal obligation on their part as unlike a cc transaction there is no contract and it is a purely voluntary scheme. You have to act very quickly, from memory you have about 36 days to make a claim. In my case I had paid up front for a long term golf membership and the managing company went into liquidation a couple of months later, I was only able to claim as the membership was not due to start until another couple of months after liquidation and after pulling apart the terms and conditions I had worked out that if paid in advance such as for a holiday which you would book up weeks or months before hand then the time period would not begin until the start of the holiday or in my case the membership. Anyway I filled out the forms, provided proof of payment and about 2 weeks later I had a full refund in my account. The banks don't publicise this scheme as it costs them. If you google "Chargeback scheme" there is loads of info to be found but if you need to use it be prepared for a lot of research as you will get precious us little help from anyone including CAB etc.
