EBAY

Lately, I have been purchasing a variety of items from ebay.  Most works out great, yet you a occasional bad seller.  Bad Sellers can be domestic or foreign sellers.

Always use your credit card even when using Paypal.  Paypal sucks when you try to get your money back from unresponsive sellers.  Amex is the best, then discover.  Visa n mastercard varies depending on bank that issued it.

Paypal will respond to credit card company inquires and disputes than to you.

I have gone thru paypal before.  What a pain.  The hoops you have to jump thru is ridiculous.  One call to American Express its a done deal.

Thanks for reading

eSmoke Depot E Smoke Review

Great site to deal with.  The guys who run eSmokeDepot.com are knowledgeable and helpful.  When I first started to get into e smoke to quit cigarette smoking, They helped me out a lot.  I had numerous questions regarding e cig and safety.  Also didn't want to waste money on those cheap, disposable cartridge mini electronic cigarette.  I already had one and although they do work, if you puff on them often, the esmoke diminishes.  I personally do not recommend those e cigarettes, sorry @esmokedepot.com.  I know you carry them.


For those looking for a more substantial esmoke or electric cigarette, you have to go for the latest generation e smoke such as the EGO F1, EGO Ovale Elips, VGO, Joye 510-T  and other similar types of high-end electronic cigarettes.The esmoke they put out will be much more similar to tobacco cigarettes, lasts longer and much more maintenance-free.  It's always nice to have a pair of these and most top of the line e cigs comes with two complete pair of e smokes.  eSmoke one, while the other charges and you'll never be without an e smoke.

Enjoy your day and thanks for reading.  Comments are always appreciated, critical okay, nasty - ouch....be nice.

Beautyroot.biz is Simply Great!

According to stereotypes, the women of the house is generally better at finding bargains, and does much of the shopping.  Well, in my household, it's quite the opposite.  I HUNT down the deals.  Well here's a great site for those interested in Obagi Nu Derm products, www.beautyroot.biz.  The best prices on Obagi products I found on anywhere.  They also have a shop on eBay.com.  In a recent order with them I saved over $45 from its closest competitor although that to me is like the competition isn't even in the same league.  Email exchanges were all promptly replied and ordered shipped out the next day....I ordered a little bit too late to get shipped out that day.  Items can via USPS.  The items were well packed, no leaks or any other damages.  Very happy with the shipped product and excellent customer service from @beautyroot.biz.  Thanks!  Thanks for saving me a lot and not just a buck or two.

My 1 and 1 Webhosting Review

Whew, finally after about a month of dealing with 1and1.com that my nightmare has come to an end.......
It all began as I was working on my project when a salesman from 1&1 called me.  Pretty good salesperson, not pushy and also listened.  He was trying to sell me an seo package for a site that I have hosted there.  I was reluctant but interested.  I told him I would consider his offer.  He told me he would have some one call me with the exact terms on Tuesday or Weds (this was on a Friday).  I was agreeable.
Come Tuesday, come Friday and no one calls.  I just left it alone since I was still reluctant and any company that can't follow up on a hot lead, well that's just stupid.   
A week later I get a message on my phone stating that they have begun my SEO and will start adsense and so on.  My jaw just dropped.  They never contacted me, asked me any question about my market, style, preference or anything.  I was more afraid they would screw up what built.  I called the company immediately and was told that they would be escalating this complaint.  A week passes by and I get another message, they can't run adsense for my site and would have to cancel my order. 
I just laughed and thought the whole deal was now over, not.  They decide to bill me for a service I didn't order and they can't run.  So I finally get the one of three folks in the SEO department.  I was dying to talk to the moron biatch whose been calling and leaving the idiotic schitzoid messages.  No, Roger always claimed she was busy or not in.
Well, now I'm at least dealing with one person direct knowledge not just some customer service rep in Manila.  I explained in no uncertain terms how I felt about the situation without being rude or yelling.  After all, Roger didn't do this to me on purpose and we are all bothers and sisters (til you try to steal money from me).  Roger seemed to understand the situation and told me he would personally have it taken care off.
Week and a half goes by and I get billed again for something I didn't order and they can't run, Wtf?  Now, I am extremely upset.  I called Roger up and asked if he remembered me.  Yeah he did, you can tell from the voice change.  Asked him why the billing when he said he would take care of it.  He bullshitted me by stating that they were waiting for the original sales call tape.  I told him I understand SOP but in this case, you can't perform the work you charged me for.
Plus, your site advertises 90 days no question money back on all products and services and I didn't even order this.....how much more strikes do you need brother, really.
Finally I just plain asked him if they were just having fun messing with me.  Sort of like messing with every fifth customer.  If they were all just laughing and trying to devise how else to stress me out.
He said he'll have an answer for me tomorrow.  Well, I just didn't believe him and called Well Fargo and disputed the charges.
He did call back the next day, did not apologize or anything and relayed to me that they will have the charges reversed.  I asked him anything else, waiting for some sort of apology but alas, none was forth coming.
Wow, never used to have this kinda of problems.  Next time my experiences on ebay.
Backlinks for my site
www.selfhelp-now.com
For friend
www.esmokedepot.com

E-Cig.com

This a Chinese website that ships worldwide. Excellent website. Lots of good information, visually pleasing, easy to navigate, fairly responsive e-commerce site.  Excellent selection and reasonable shipping.

On my recent order with them, I ordered my own sampler pack, I ordered several bottles of their on sale 25 ml bottles, about a dozen different 10ml bottles.  Total was $51 with shipping.  Items price were approximately $35.  The package came in three days when website said 7-9 days.  It was shipped via DHL.

Everything came well packaged and no damage to any of the items. 

My only beef with my order was that I order some flavors the same except in different e liquid base, pg, pg-vg mix and vg and there is no way of knowing which is what, Wtf.   When I open the package, the clear, see-thru tape with faint red letterings were very hard to read.  The bottles were not properly marked pg, vg, or mix.....kinda shot down the taste test idea I wanted to perform on different e liquid bases.  Some I ordered different flavor strength if a certain flavor.  Can't tell from bottle what is what.  Kinda pisses me off.  So far it tried to flavored e liquid in pg and it was horrid.  The melon flavor wasn't the worst in the world, just not my taste.  The Mary Jane flavor sucks big time....not even close, it was so horrible I thought I might puke out my lunch.  Don't even bother with this flavor, just get the real thing.

I'll be trying more of the flavors that I received and comparing it to a base standard of my chosing which is Marlboro flavor in pg that you can get from practically any Chinese or American website with e-cigs.

Check out my other blog for taste test results.

Over all I would give it a B-.  They missed the solid A by putting very little thought into presenting their product for retail.  Items should be clearly marked and properly labeled, retail 101 unless of course you don't want people to know. The items were ready for wholesale only, so who ever buys quantity can put their own label on.

This is exactly why this industry needs some good, common sense regulation to stop crap like this.  You can't buy a single food or drug item in this country without proper labeling and neither should e liquid. 

I finally understood what the folks at http://www.esmokedepot.com were trying to tell me about ordering from China.  They warned me and gave me advice on how to order the items but no, I just knew it all.....oooops.

Overall
- good customer service
- vast selection of items
- fast, reasonable shipping
- great website

Con
- poorly labeled products
- no ingredient label
- some e liquid taste doesn't taste like it claims
- unsure if they really sent me pg or vg or pg-vg mix e liquid base. they charge more for pg and mixed bases.  Maybe its all pg and they are just laughing their heads off at the stupid, trusting American.  If you doubt you got what you paid for, means either they are trying to scam you or they are doing poor job on presentation.
- the cons really distract from a overall pleasant shopping experience

I'm being nice when give them a B-day overall.  I really want to give them a C- because they made my purchase of different e liquid for taste and vapor test moot.

I have an email to them regarding this matter, we'll see how they solve this problem.

Don't Buy from AHappyDeal! Don't!

What ever you see, what ever you do just don't buy from these folks at ahappydeal.com and everbuy.com.

This is how my story of horror began......it's a beautiful fall day earlier this year, when thinking of Christmas, I stumbled upon a Chinese website called AHappyDeal.  Look at all the cheap items that would make for a great stocking stuffer and gifts and for the mystery Santa gig at the office party.  Looked like a legit site so I went ahead a placed a fairly large order, rare for me.  Usually I test out foreign sites with small orders only.

Finally after about two weeks, the items were delivered to my door.  Oh joy, NOT.  First, they used a box without a lid, that's right.  Box with no top.  They just used alot of plastic tape across the "top" to seal the items in with no packing at the top so several of the items were damaged during transit.  They left out about half of the items I ordered and two small liquid bottles spilled over other items.   Luckily, the items were already damaged.  So, although I was rather disappointed, I emailed The Chinese website's help center and finally got a response which actually inflamed my anger.  When I informed them that the order did not contain certain items, they replied that they knew they didn't ship it.  They said they were out of stock at the time of shipping but they went ahead and charged me for the items rather than telling me they were out of stock.  They charged me for shipping the out-of stock items too.

So now, I trying to get them to refund my money or ship the remaining items.  They told me they would ship it right away and ask me to send them $18 for shipping and insurance.  $18 was almost as much to send the original order!  I informed them that I had already paid for the shipping of the items plus their freaking insurance they make you buy.  Then they asked me to order something else so they can ship it together which would help them out of their screw up.  Stupid me, I still wanted the items so I reluctantly agreed.  I ordered two more items that was marked free shipping.  I waited another couple weeks or so and the items finally came.  The items that came were the two items I ordered to help with shipping costs from China.  DID NOT include any of the missing items to begin with.  On top of that, they sent me electronic items with European plugs.  Lots of good that does here.  Yeah, I can get a converter, but really?  Does Sony or Samsung sell you TVs with Euro plugs and toss you a cheap converter and tell you to deal with it.  That what these freaking &*&^%$#@ are doing to me.  They sent with the item, very cheap, ill fitting converter plugs that won't even stay on the charger.  On top of that, the item appeared to be previously opened or something and was missing several key components.  They said they'll send proper charger but don't hold your breath.  $50 says they'll send some of the parts if I am lucky and another cheap converter.

I am currently in dispute with ahappydeal through my credit card company.  I just went ahead and disputed the entire amount and will not relent until the items are made right or I get a complete refund including the crap items with Euro plugs and cheap converter.  I can't even give those away without looking like I got some factory rejects and trying to pawn them off as store bought.

I will continue to keep you updated on the matter.  Just don't buy here, there are plenty of other companies out there selling the exact same items and do a better job at it and honestly.