The Voice - Consumer's Voice

Where's my wine?

I bought a box of wine at a bottle store in Palapye. When I opened it and drank some it smelled bad. I took it back to the bottle store and they said I could have taken back the wine from the glasses and the person who was helping me said they don't drink so they don't know how it should smell. I had only drunk 2 small wine glasses, about half I think.

They said they can do nothing. They just said how are they going to take it back when it's half full. I told them I'm a regular customer I buy 2 boxes every week the same wine. I know how it smells and tastes. They kept on saying its just half.

What can I do?

I know drinking alcohol is not compulsory but you'd think someone who worked in a bottle store would know the difference in smell between good wine and wine that's spoiled, don't you? Even if they can't tell the difference, surely there must be someone there who can check it for you?

I contacted the bottle store and they weren't very helpful. They kept on saying that you had consumed more of the wine than they thought was reasonable. They told me that you "drinked all the wine in a box only one glass was left". They then told me " I manage to spoke with the supplier, they asked me to talk to you to contact them so that they can explain more about this issue."

Here's an important lesson. When you have a problem, the only people you need to contact are the people you paid. If they say you need to speak to someone else, such as the supplier in this situation, you can politely say No. You didn't buy the wine from their supplier, you bought it from the bottle store so it's the store's job to come up with a solution. It really is that simple.

I explained this to the bottle store manager but they found it difficult to understand. Then something surprising happened. The supplier called me. They were very understanding and very sorry that your wine was bad. They said that of course they would replace it but also explained that their understanding of the situation was exactly the same as mine. All it would need was for the store to ask nicely, return the bad box of wine to them and they'd give them a replacement to give to their customer.

I'll try again with the bottle store manager. Let's hope they understand now?

Is this real?

I saw a post on Facebook from a man saying he wanted to help 5 people with P3,000. All I need to do is tell him something reasonable I can do with the money. Do you think this is genuine?

Yes. It's genuine. It's a genuine scam.

I've seen several of these messages on Facebook and many people have tried to post them in the Consumer Watchdog Facebook group. As you can probably guess, it's not true. People don't give away large amounts of money to total strangers just because they ask. They really don't.

I've chatted with these scammers several times, pretending to be an innocent potential victim and every time the story is the same. There was always the promise of money and all I needed to do to get it was to prove my identity. However, instead of wanting to see my ID documents, they wanted something else. One told me "You'll got to verify with a Traction control now that you'll the one accpecting the giveaway". They then asked for my name, address, date of birth and "Facebook phone number". I gave them fake details and they then said "A verification code has been sent to your email send it to me so that we can verify you immediately".

This is what it's all about. That code was a Two-Factor Authentication code that Facebook sends when someone tells Facebook they've forgotten their password. If I sent it to them they'd be able to sign on to my Facebook profile, change the password and then do whatever they want with my profile.

The real tragedy is that once someone has given their Facebook profile to a scammer, it LOOKS like it's the victim who is the scammer. Do we really want our friends and relatives thinking WE are running scams?