Sporting-Shoes.com
Complaint 330058 Details

Thieves and con men, stay away from this company!!! I made a purchase on the sporting-shoes website for a pair of Puma Soleil peacock blue striped shoes that I'd been looking for. It wasn't until after making the payment that it was an international purchase and that shipping would take 2 weeks. I also immediately received and email letting me know that orders were backed up so it might take an extra week to arrive. 2 weeks later I received a pair of shoes that did incorporate the puma logo in blue but that's where the similarities with what I order ended. They looked completely different from every angle ranging from color, design, and materials. Just holding the shoes they feel like they are made up of some very cheap materials.
Now the only way to contact the company is through a website where you post questions and they get back to you in a day or so. I let them know they had made a mistake with what they sent. They asked me to take photos of the shoes and write a description of how they are different so they could show it to the manufacturers to clear up the mistake. So I took photos of the shoes on their Webpage and compared it to the same angles of what I had been delivered... then I contacted PUMA to see if they could help me by giving me the official product number of the shoe I'd ordered. Since I didn't hear back from Puma for a few days I went ahead and sent my description and the photos to the company. I asked them to confirm they had received the photos and the next day they did. A week later I got an email from PUMA explaining that the shoe i was inquiring about was discontinued so if someone was manufacturing them it certainly wasn't them :( Ok so know I know these are knock-offs but I still wait till the end of the week to see if they say those were out of stock. When I contact them again after nearly 2 weeks of not hearing back since I sent the photos they sound like it's practically the first time Ive emailed them; they are willing to send me another pair of shoes but they would like me to provide the type of shoe, size and address. If they lost that info it didn't give a lot of confidence that they had done much with the photos especially after hearing from PUMA that they don't even make then anymore. I told them that I would really just prefer to have my money back (*sigh* month #1 requesting a refund).
So first of all they apologize profusely they say that they have taken the money out of their account to refund me but that I need to be patient because international banking transfers can take time and if it's going to a credit card it can be 1-2 billing cycles. At that point I just figured if that's what it takes then fine, send the money but I also wanted them to confirm it had been sent because I did not want to wait a month or 2 only to find out they hadn't sent it and we'd need to reset the clock. So they confirmed it and 1 month later I checked back with them and they said the same thing, just give it time cuz it can take 1-2 billing cycles (but since these are billing cycles on my credit card it could be close to a 3 month wait because it had to be 2 complete credit card monthly cycles and they refunded just after a monthly statement. So long story short the money never arrived, I contacted them again and they said they would put a trace on it. When I asked them to describe what that means or why that would tell them they didn't respond. A week later I complained again so they sent another "trace" without any explanation what that means. After 3 traces and just as many weeks we had gotten no where, my patience was finally gone so I explained that I would just have my credit card company deal with them and was challenging their company as a form of fraud. They responded that day saying they would send a company issued refund check in the mail and it would arrive in 9-10 business days. I told them I wanted them to put tracking on it because in 10 days if they gave me the "lost in the mail" excuse I was going to be pissed. 10 business days later guess what they said... yep sorry it must have got lost in the mail. At this point I sent another message through the sporting-shoes.com website at the "contact us" page. I told them about the missing check and they told me it was being held in the US postal system and it was out of their control. I asked them how on earth they could know that without any tracking information because they never gave me a number, they never responded. I then contacted them again to say if they sent another refund check with tracking information and they sent me the tracking number at least I could see something had been sent and this whole thing could be over with in 10 business days. The reply I got ignored my request and they said thy were sending the money electronically so it would be reimbursed in another 1-2 billing cycles. I've complained every single day but they send the exact same message about waiting only this week they were kind enough to send out another "trace" whatever the heck that means. They have asked me to return the wrong pair of shoes that were delivered to an address in GuangZhou, GuangDong. Just a little salt in the wound that after months of not giving my money back now they want me to pay out of my pocket (with no talk of refunding the shipping costs) and pay to ship them back the cheap knockoffs. It's been over 5 months now, more than 50 emails have been sent in that time including photographs of what I received... this company will lie to you as long as you will keep talking to them. I'm fairly certain a normal customer would have given up a long time ago over 76 bucks but that's exactly what they are counting on. Save yourself the headache, if you're thinking of buying from them I wouldn't if I were you... and if you already have and are hoping to get your money back just save yourself the headache and deal with your credit card company instead. If you ever get your money back I can't imagine it will come from these guys. Good luck and if they ever return the money independently of my credit card company's efforts I will make sure I update that news here.