Beware Meritline

[hrdc69]

AS most of the readers on this board know by now, Meritline has been selling the unbranded 2x Maxells for the last month or two. There have been numerous reports from many on here and elsewhere that these DVD's are not true Maxells, but bogus with faked ADV info. I too ordered from them, and the few DVD's I tried were terrible.

When I called to complain they were amazed that I had a problem. No one else had called them - RIGHT!!! At any rate its clear these are fake Maxells as per the many posts here and in other forums. The fact that these Maxells are now off The Meritline site says it all.

I would advise anyone to avoid Meritline, as they should have known better than to be taken in by this scam. At the very least they should have immediately credited peoples account for the full amount when they returned the DVD's. I was charged a 15% restocking fee which is outrageous to be charged for returning bogus fake merchandise that doesn't work correctly.

I spent 10 minutes going back and forth on the phone with them about this, and they refused to budge on the 15% restocking fee. They kept saying this was all news to them. In fact they didn't even want to give me a credit to my charge card, but a store credit. Finally after 10 minutes they agreed to credit my card, minus the 15% of course.

I am in the process of charging back the 15% restocking fee via my credit card, at the very least this will tie up their time responding to the charge and they will be hit for a $20 fee regardless of whether or not the chargeback is approved. I would advise anyone else to do the same if they were hit for a 15% restocking fee.

And if the head of Meritline comes back on this forum posting under the name of "Meritline" I thiunk we all should ask him hard questions about why he was selling bogus DVD's, and then charging people a 15% restocking fee to boot to take back said DVD's.

I also plan to go on Resellers.com and post my story, if others do the same maybe Meritline will not act this way in the future.

[Raen]

I have delt with Meritline at least a dozen times now. I have yet to be disappointed in them. And if you heard they were selling bogus Maxell's WHY did you order them? I think you decided to take the risk to get the cheap and aren't willing to accept you gambled and lost. It clearly states they are UNBRANDED Maxells. That should be the first clue that they aren't as good as real Maxells

I don't think one bad experience should label Meritline bad at all. He's been helping the author of dvdinfo greatly to make sure people can identify fake dvds. Why would he then knowingly sell them? it just doesn't add up. The fact that he took the unbranded Maxell's off the site nearly immediately after you called should be a good indicator that he does care about quality and not screwing his customers.

[spidey]

I have not had any issues with them either. I do usually only get Ritek's.

Also though, all those places seem to possibly even be the same company, they are all located in City of Industry ?!?! California, so they do all seem to possibly be the same Company, just operating different web-front stores.

[Meritline]

Hi hrdc69,

Sorry you have problems with discs ordered from us. Please pm me your order no. and I will get it fixed.

Raen, thanks a lot for speaking up for us.

[hrdc69]

<< I have delt with Meritline at least a dozen times now. I have yet to be disappointed in them. And if you heard they were selling bogus Maxell's WHY did you order them? I think you decided to take the risk to get the cheap and aren't willing to accept you gambled and lost. It clearly states they are UNBRANDED Maxells. That should be the first clue that they aren't as good as real Maxells

I don't think one bad experience should label Meritline bad at all. He's been helping the author of dvdinfo greatly to make sure people can identify fake dvds. Why would he then knowingly sell them? it just doesn't add up. The fact that he took the unbranded Maxell's off the site nearly immediately after you called should be a good indicator that he does care about quality and not screwing his customers. >>

Well its not just one bad experience, as one only has to search these and other forums to see many many complaints about this unbranded Maxell media. Alas, when I ordered the DVD's they had just come on the Meritline site, so there were no posts about these being bogus discs. I assumed these were the real things, as I never thought Meritline would be involved in selling fake discs.

After time passed, people started to post about their bad experiences with this media. Unfortunately I had bought mine prior to anyone complaining, so at the time no one knew about this issue.

He did not take them off his site immediately after I called, as my original complaint phone call to him was almost a month ago. It took almost 3 weeks for Meritline to even credit me (minus the 15%) and I was hoping they would decide against charging me the restocking fee. No way, as when I received my credit card statement today, I saw the credit with the 15% fee taken out - so thats why I decided to make these posts.

I saw the Maxells on his site this weekend, so I can only assume sometime between Saturday and today they were taken off. Clearly they were aware of this issue weeks ago, as a search on this forum will reveal complaints about the Maxells 3-4 weeks ago. There is no excuse for him waiting so long to remove them, and no excuse for his other 2 sister companies to still be selling them.

I have bought other things from Meritline with no complaints, and I am pleased to see the Maxells are now off the site - although the 2 sister sites are still selling them. I suppose I can understand how Meritline could have been duped into buying these from a supplier - what I cannot understand is their charging a restocking fee of 15% to people who got duped into buying this garbage. There is no excuse for that.

I also wonder how they could have been so easily duped into buying these Maxells, as surely they must have known the supplier as obvioulsy it wasn't Maxell. But I would be willing to give them the benefit of the doubt on this point, not on the restocking issue.

I now have grave reservations about ordering any unbranded media from them, as who knows where it could have come from? The Bealls I have ordered from them in the past have been fine, but whats to prevent them from selling fake Bealls in the future - even fake Riteks? Clearly they need to address this issue immediately if they want to retain peoples trust.

It must be obvious to those in the business who the good factories and suppliers are, and who the bad ones are.

[Tommyknocker]

I think Meritline wins this one by decision. They said they will fix your order for you, and apologized for the mix up. You, on the other hand, are still on your soapbox about a dead issue. I still plan on using Meritline again, as even though they are not perfect (what business is?), they plan on doing right by their customers from what I know about them, and from this thread.

[hrdc69]

<< I think Meritline wins this one by decision. They said they will fix your order for you, and apologized for the mix up. >>

Well its too bad I had to complain loudly in public before they even tried to address this issue. When I called their customer service number to complain, no one took me seriously and I was charged the 15%. I even did a search on Meritlines screen name and sent him a private email and received no answer.

I guess the only way to get a response is to complain in public - in my opinion thats extremely poor customer service. They should have been able to resolve this when I initially called, as it was obvious from posts here that there was a problem with these discs.

Maybe Meritline can tell everyone how they intend in the future to make sure this doesn't happen again with other unbranded media they sell. And in particular how did this even happen? Were they approached by a new supplier with a deal "too good to be true" on these Maxells? Or did they buy from a established supplier that they trusted?

I think the more important issue here is trust, as Meritline sells a lot of unbranded media. Sure they can run here and say they will resolve things for me as a form of "damage control" but the fact they were only forced to do so to save face in a public forum doesn't look good for them.

How are they going to reassure people regarding all of the other unbranded media they sell? Its too late for them to save me as a customer as I have lost trust in them - especially after they only offer to reslove the 15% issue after I complain in public.

Even after I returned the Maxells, I still trusted them and immediately ordered 100 Bealls. Those are fine, although if they truly had good customer service there should have been no restocking fee, and they should have given me some sort of discount on the Bealls to compensate me for the lost and wasted time I spent dealing with the Maxells. However I certainly don't expect them to go the extra mile to that extent. All I wanted was to retuen them with no restocking fee.

On other threads I now see issues with Verbatiums sold at BestBuy that are actually CMC's, and more posts about fake TDK's being sold. Its getting hard to trust anyone

[MOVIEGEEK]

If you don't get satisfaction from a company visit www.resellerratings.com and www.bbb.com and voice your opinions on their site,if enough people complain deceitful companies will have to change their policies.

[Meritline]

Hi Hrdc69,

I have never receive your email . The reason I want to fix that problem is not because you posted in public but becasue I think you are reasonable. Any customer, if they got defective products from us, should not be charged restocking fee. I acutally posted on our own forum to announce that any customer who got defective maxell unbranded 2x or dvdpro from us can return to us for full refund before you post here.

All criticism on our products and services are welcome. We will definitly learn from our own lessons and keep improve our services.

Btw, Supermediastore and allmediaoutlet are different companies run by different persons.

<< Hi hrdc69,

Sorry you have problems with discs ordered from us. Please pm me your order no. and I will get it fixed.

Raen, thanks a lot for speaking up for us. >>

Well its funny how when I called your customer service number to complain, no0 one took me seriously and I was charged the 15%. I even did a search on your screen name and sent you a private email and received no answer.

I guess the only way to get a response is to complain in public - in my opinion thats extremely poor customer service. Your so called customer service dept should have been able to resolve this when I initially called, as it was obvious from posts here that there was a problem with these discs.

Maybe you can tell everyone how you intend in the future to make sure this doesn't happen again with other unbranded media you sell. And in particular how did this even happen? Were you approached by a new supplier with a deal "too good to be true" on these Maxells? OR did you buy from a established supplier that you trusted?

[shoozleboy]

I gotta say, Meritline - you have shown me with your response that you are indeed a class act... I will be ordering from you soon... Thanks for the professionalism.... look forward to doing business..

[txpharoah]

I use Meritline at home and sometimes even as a vendor at work. They are great. Slow a few times, but overall great.

The MAXELLS are bogus. So don't buy them. Meritline may have been duped too. They need to take that up with MAXELL, as it is deceptive advertising, and they are opening themselves up to legal action by continuing to sell them as MAXELL discs. The should call them "House Brand 2x with MXL media codes".

[defense]

@hrdc, like some other posters have said...meritline has, once again, taken the professional route to having another satisfied customer. Your issue was with them giving you a 15% restocking fee...that has been resolved....move on and forget about it.

[Savant]

I just wanted to add that I also have ordered a number of times from Meritline and haven't had any major problems. I've probbaly spent about $2000 on media at Meritline in the last couple years.

As for their return policy, I had an experience with it during my previous order. While tedious, (it took a week for my return to be credited after the merchandise was received) I did receive a full credit for what I returned because I sent them a message RIGHT AWAY, and I made sure that they understood exactly what the problem was and why I was returning it.

In the example by the original poster, I think it just goes to show you that you should always buy a SMALL quantity of media to test BEFORE you buy any significant quantities.

This is not to mention that Meritline actually sells sampler packs, allowing a person to test out a couple discs from various brands. I have yet to find any other company offering it.

I think it's unfair to suggest that Maritline WILLFULLY atttempted to deceive anyone. As for the discrepancy over the Maxells, how do we know that Maxell didn't have a third party make the discs for them? Companies do this ALL the time. If the maker of the actual disc was important to you, then you should have BEFORE you ordered. Never assume that what is on the box is what is IN the box. That goes for ANY product, not just media.


My only gripes with Meritline are occasional difficulties in getting through to a live person in customer service and their choice of shippinng options. I live in Canada and they only offer Express overnight shipping. Of course the price for this kind of shipping is MASSIVE. I had a $450 order last month and the shipping was $175. What bothers me is that UPS offers GROUND shipping to Canada, and that would only have cost $50. I've repeatly asked Meritline to consinder adding a ground shipping option for orders to Canada, but I've received no response. (heck, even the cheaper 'expedited' option would be welcome)

Anyway, shipping costs aside, I have yet to have an order from Meritline where I didn't get what I wanted.

Regards,

Savant

[dc91gt]

I've ordered from Meritline "once".

I ordered a 50 pack of Riteks and they sent me LeadData instead.

They basically said "how do you know they aren't ritek?"

first and last time. I only order from supermediastore now. I get what
I order and they ship pretty quick and free.

-d

[w00tski]

Here in australia,

i actually bought some Laser brand 2x media. Thinking it would be the old fake TDKG02000 code, i was surprised it turned out to be maxell. After reading this thread it turns out that they may infact be the fake code disc or whatever, but the disc works fine on my DRU500a 2.0f and have tested it upto the full 4.3gb on my dvd player and xbox, so far so good....
So it may be fake, but its definately working ok...

[Jester700]

Just another voice...

I used Meritline a few times, and have never had a problem.

[chaseru]

It clearly states they are UNBRANDED Maxells. That should be the first clue that they aren't as good as real Maxells.

"Unbranded" doesn't mean that the discs are not made by the manufacture that they are attributed to or are otherwise sub-standard; rather, it means that they don't have a manufacture's label printed on the disc. Unbranded media is often used by those that print on the disc or use sticky labels.

Since I use a disc printer to label my discs I always order "unbranded" whether the discs are Pioneer, Mitsui or, cheap media.

[daywalker71]

Oh I have been waiting for someone else to have a problem with these guys too...lol

Here is my history with Meritline (and Paypal).

Just a word of warning to those of you who run small businesses.

THIS IS ALL completely factual. As always I will qualify the following like so:

This is what happened to me, I have documented proof of everything written here. My dealings with these companies may not reflect the service you will receive when dealing with them.

In a day and age where companies are going out of business left and right, and you depend on the people you do business with to come through, I have only had 2 companies pose a problem. Paypal and Meritline. Both seem to be out for only themselves and will watch your business go down the tubes rather than do what they promised of claim any accountability.

Meritline's inability to link their site and front end with their warehouse and backend is cause for real concern for any small business. This inability causes one to be charged before Meritline even knows if they can fill an order. What does that mean to you? In an economy where even the slightest mistake or delay could put you out of business, they could tie up a huge amount of you working capital and still never come through. I know what you’re thinking... Why would anyone do something like that, to their own customer, in this economy, or to the very people that keep them in business? Who knows why? I would venture a guess at laziness or greed.

Let me not even take into consideration that it took me 5 phone calls in one day, 4 days after the order was placed before I even found out that my order could not be filled. Chalk that up to being in an age where the un-hirables are being hired. The person who answered the phone told me my order already got sent to the warehouse (I am sure she meant the guy who drives the company Yugo over to the pay per month storage unit) and tried to guilt me into keeping my order placed. I canceled it when I finally got one of them to admit they could not fill it due to lack of stock.

Part of my purchase was an order for 500 Riteks among other things. They could not fill this order so they were going to keep my money and ship them if/when they ever came in… and we all know how unpredictable Ritek’s delivery has been lately, so that could be weeks. I personally sent 8 emails to them requesting that they fax Paypal and alert them my order was canceled and to release the funds... I did not get one single reply in 10 days from Meritline. Not one. Meritline refused to take steps to correct a mistake made on their part and ignored me… the customer, who if it weren’t for, they would surely go bust. IF they had done so, they may have gotten more of my business over the next few months. Now they will never get dime one of my money. Luckily I had the funds to go and buy more supplies elsewhere while I wait the 11 days for Paypal to refund my account, on top of the initial 5 days it took to even get Meritline to admit they could not fill the order. I can take a $700+ hit for 2 weeks without problem… but how many of you people with small businesses could not? How many smaller businesses would suffer and lose it all because $700 of working capital was everything to them? Don’t shrug it off… it is a very real situation out here in this economy.

I decided to test the system and try to get Meritline and Paypal to come through for the little guy. I tried to get Meritline to supply Paypal with their required paperwork, and tried to get Paypal, FOR ONCE, to stand up for me. I lead them both to believe that the $700 would be difference between staying in business or folding, and that I needed the funds WAY before the 20th of May (when the money defaults back to me via banking laws). They both shunned me. Paypal would not even stand up for me. They handled over 300k worth of transactions for me in 2002, and they would not even go to bat for me over $600. They actually tried to talk me out of doing a charge back (something they try to convince their customers can’t be done… but it can people). My reserve with Paypal would take care of many many $600 charges should I be lying… but that is not good enough for them, they would rather see me go under, than lift a finger to help someone who ran hundreds of thousands of dollars through their company last year and is on track to do even more this year… well, they just lost me as retailer.

I will wait for my money to be released from Meritline and Paypal. Close my Paypal account and tell everyone out there I can find about how badly both of these companies have treated me. I led them both to believe this would put me out of business… and neither one cared or even made the very smallest of efforts to help me out. Even though this was completely Meritline’s fault. They had the balls to claim that they had no idea what was in their warehouse and that is why they can’t put “out of Stock” notifications on their site. So they both need to be gone forever from my life.

I figured it out too. If Meritline Fraudulently holds 5 million dollars in transactions per year for just 1 week each, they would make over a quarter of million dollars per year in interest. Just something to think about while searching for a reason why they can claim funds in 10 minutes, but can’t refund them for over 2 weeks.

Beware my friends.
Andy

[dafoe]

<<
On other threads I now see issues with Verbatiums sold at BestBuy that are actually CMC's, and more posts about fake TDK's being sold. Its getting hard to trust anyone

I was just wondering what you heard about TDK at Best Buy. I was interested in getting a 100 pack there. But at $2 per disc they are more than twice what I pay for generic media. The only reason I'm interested is beacuse I want a name brand that offers good compatibilty for commercial use.

[Metaluna]

I use Meritline at home and sometimes even as a vendor at work. They are great. Slow a few times, but overall great.

The MAXELLS are bogus. So don't buy them. Meritline may have been duped too. They need to take that up with MAXELL, as it is deceptive advertising, and they are opening themselves up to legal action by continuing to sell them as MAXELL discs. The should call them "House Brand 2x with MXL media codes".

Maybe the standards bodies (DVD Forum, etc.) need to create some kind of mechanism where the media codes themselves are copyrightable. That way any factory that makes e.g. MXL-coded media without a license can be sued by the original manufacturer or by consumers for fraud.

[Metaluna]

<<
On other threads I now see issues with Verbatiums sold at BestBuy that are actually CMC's, and more posts about fake TDK's being sold. Its getting hard to trust anyone

I was just wondering what you heard about TDK at Best Buy. I was interested in getting a 100 pack there. But at $2 per disc they are more than twice what I pay for generic media. The only reason I'm interested is beacuse I want a name brand that offers good compatibilty for commercial use.

Are you talking about +R or -R media? I haven't tried the TDK 4X +R's from Best Buy but I bought some from Circuit City as well as some Verbatim 2.4 and 4X +R from Best Buy. They all had a media code along the lines of RICOHJPN. Does anyone know if Ricoh uses CMC?

I normally avoid CMC like the plague but I have had nothing but good luck with this media so far.

The situation with DVD media seems to really be getting ridiculous. At least in the CD-R world there are a few names you can trust (Fuji/Taiyo Yuden, Verbatim/Mitsubishi, Mitsui, and Kodak until they stopped making them). In the DVDR media market it seems to be a free-for-all with no clear standout manufacturers, and a lot of outright crooks.

[jnk76]

I have used Meritline often and have had mixed results.

I have always received what I ordered but some of the problem were:

ordered Riteks whites and got some other junk. Was credited for shipping them back. All I lost was time about 3 weeks later than expected.

I ordered a pack of 100 Ritek (silver/purples) and on there site it said "IN STOCK" but when I got the confirmation it was Back ordered all of a sudden. It took an extra 2 weeks which I was not expecting.

It is hard getting a hold of customer service and there email responce can be slow at times.

Will I order from them again.

YES.

[Meritline]

Hello,
Meritline ships thouands and thousands of orders a day.
Due to exciting product and pricing offerings, the orders have doubled and tripled in a very short time.
This increase volume has pounded customer service, warehousing and accounting divisions heavily.
Sites like EVERTEK had the same thing happen, and they posted...
"Sorry for the delays, but due to high sales and call volumes, we will not be able to get to your questions for 3 weeks".

We are human and as such are subject to human error. What we do after that, is what makes a company good or bad. We endevour to fix it as soon as possible, in a fair and honest fashion.

One thing for sure. WE ARE IMPROVING. Your comments are treated very seriously, and we scurry to prevent the issues from occurring again.
We want to IMPROVE by hearing your comments in an open honest forum like this.

The main issue that resellers are contsantly fighting is PRODUCT SHORTAGES.
RESELLERs like meritline, are at the mercy of suppliers, and in good faith accept the orders and ship immediately. If there is no stock, we pay extra, at our expense to overnight product into our warehouses, but when our suppliers don't have product what to do?, we rely on them to tell us when they will re-stock, and then customers are notified via email.

Shortages and media compatability issues have been the 2 toughest things for ALL the online media distributors to handle. Since re-sellers don't make the product, it's unfair to blame them, the blame should fall squarely on the MANUFACTURERS....unless the re-seller is aware of problems and continues to supply its customers JUNK. MERITLINE does not subscribe to that mindset.

Any assertion that we hold onto credit card or paypal payments for interest is
based on lack of knowledge of the credit card monopolies function.

Having said that, we welcome any suggestions.

M-line

[mkelley]

meritline,

I appreciate your responses here on the forum. I don't think, as some, that you are behaving fraudulently -- that's a pretty naive assumption for anyone to make, since the loss of custom is far more important to a business like yourself (how odd addressing an email to a *business* :>) with small profit margins than trying to work the float.

But I also understand how people feel -- no matter how big (or how small) a customer you are, you feel like your order should be treated special, and when you don't get good service you are apt to start casting asipirtions everywhere.

I also think it rings true that you have lately experienced a tremendous spurt in orders and business -- one only has to look at the retailers to realize DVDR as a business is suddenly taking off. I can only imagine how this is impacting you.

It's a far cry from the old days in which companies could afford to warehouse supplies -- even the very largest retailers, such as Sears, rely upon a thin tenous chain of suppliers that can be easily broken along the line. So I have symphathy for you.

I think the best thing you can do is to continue your prescence here and in other forums, and assure your customers you are trying to improve (and then, of course, make good on those promises). We are all in this together in some synergistic way, and if you do good, then we do good as well.

My one and only specific advice would be for you to try and improve communications via the web -- you need to either *have* a forum or at least address ALL customer problem email ASAP. Even if the response is only a "Hey, we're swamped but we're listening to you" it can go a long way towards making people feel they are being heard. I get regular canned email flyers from you advertising your products -- you need to be at least as responsive to people in the other direction.

I will continue to order from you as long as I continue to believe you are behaving in good faith, which I think is true. With luck we'll all come out on the other side happy and prosperous.

[daesdaemar]

Let me put my 2 cents worth in. First, I have never bought anything from Meritline so I have no personal experience with them. However, I (and my company) buy tens of thousands of dollars worth of stuff from the web every year. There are some things that a vendor should NEVER be allowed to get away with. First, they should NEVER tell you something is in stock if it's not. Second, they should NEVER charge your credit card until your ordered is shipped. Third, restocking fees should ONLY be charged for "buyer's regret." Charging a restocking fee for damaged/defective products, or for wrong product shipped is THEFT, pure and simple. I have tried to judge the postings in this thread objectively. At a minimum, it seems Meritline is guilty of poor management practices since "Meritline" seems willing to fix the problem, but the file and rank don't seem to feel the same way. At worst, Meritline is flat out wrong and is only fixing the problem cause they got caught. Like I said, just my opinion with nothing personal at stake.

[rhegedus]

Due to exciting product and pricing offerings.....

Has anyone really been excited?

[jnk76]

I was excited when my first back-up popped out of my burner and played flawlessly.

Back to topic.

A couple points daesdaemar made. Point 1 and 2 have happened to me.
Orders not being in stock when they say they are and being charged for an order and waiting x amount of weeks for product to arrive and be shipped.

Meritline.......is anything being done to prevent this specifically?

[JWhit]

Just received my first order of 4X DVDpros from Meritline. Order was shipped on time and the DVDpros work great in my Cendyne (105) drive. Unfortunately, they sent the wrong DVD cases to go with them. As for customer service, I notified them via email yesterday and they responded today. New cases due to ship soon at their cost.

So far pretty good service from what I can tell. Just have to wait and see if the new cases arrive like they say they will.


Thanks

[Faustus]

Having placed a recent order with them, then having to return it I unimpressed with their speed on some things, but they came through and did as promised, replaced the disc with a different brand that I could trust more. They simply credited me for the original purchase price and I mentioned it in my next order. Worked smooth, but a little slow, but I can't blame them to badly, only a couple of days of it was their fault, the rest was thanks to UPS.

If the ammount they sell grows many would think they should expand to allow for it, but I've worked for several small companies that took themselves out with that attitude. When the time comes to grow, do it slowly.

Anyway back on subject, there are several good online retailers out there and I do put Meritline in that list, I only wish they were a little more picky about what medias they carry, that and I wish they had an endless supply of riteks.

[jomo]

I had the same experience, I would never want to shop with Meritline.com or supermediastore.com any more they are all the same cheater. Maxell experience... I had already called up Maxell's tech support who told me Meritline, supermediastore, and many other are selling illegal products and they are in process to shut down all these companies now in matter of time. Be Awared of all these cheaters!! By the way, I had noticed they are starting playing another game now by using such as Meritline true 2x media for cheaper price and so is supermediastore, "watch out they are the same media of "fake Maxell"!!!!!!!!