Category: the Rant Board
Soooo, I bought a monocular from www.maxiaids.com and thought all was well and good.
That wasn't the case. Within the next few days, my credit card number was stolen and over $400 was charged to my account. This also happened to a co-worker of mine within the same week... My bank was able to trace the activity back to maxi-aids so y'all beware!
This kills me because their site is littered with notices of safe and secure transactions. It's been a week and a half and I'm still in the red while the bank investigates further. So much for paying bills on time.
god, that's offal, did they even appologize? Wow, product for the blind, taking advantage of the blind.
that's so fucked up.
Wow. I wonder if it was a Maxi Aids employee or someone else who hacked into the site's credit card info.
I hope they straighten it out soon.
Yeah, glad I don't do business with Maxi-Aids. I go through Independent Living Aids. That's really horrible what happened to you. I really hope you get every penny of it back and are able to pay all your bills. I had something similar happen with Pay-Pal. They took the amount for my laptop out twice and so I ended up over two-hundred dollars in the hole and no savings to sreak of for almost two weeks.
Well, I ended up lodging a complaint with maxi-aids itself as well as with the Better Business bureau. The maxi-aids site advertises that it's BBB certified so I figured that maybe I can get help from the Bureau. I asked for my money back and I also told them I want them to pay all of my overdraft fees. I haven't heard back from either place but I placed the complaints on Friday night so we'll see what happens this week.
I'm really sorry that this has happened to you. I've heard so many bad things about MaxiAids in the past couple of years. I definitely won't be doing business with them. I'm very glad to know that you put in a complaint with the BBB. I was going to suggest that you do so. Good job. I hope it all works out for you.
I certainly will never do business with maxiades!
the only exposure to this particular company I had was with a labelling system, the voxcom 2, that was £100 for a piece of plastic shit that you shoved special cards into which broke after six months of moderate use. it was crap crap crap.
I will never, ever get anything from Maxi-Aids. is independent Living aids more reliable when it comes to buying things from them online?
you all should know that that company has been sued many times, they cheat even taking braille writers that were meant for poor countries and reselling them at regular price I oppose that company and all they stand for, go and do the research yourselves. ila and speak to me are good places, and irti for eletronics and computers. maybe pricey but always have been helpful. Again, these are my opinions!!
maxi aids sold their products to a UK firm from whom I bought the voxcom product, so i have no problems with the UK firm itself, though have told them the product is shit and that they'd do better getting an alternative. the only alternative is not being made any more though, which is a thorough pest.
Damn, I didn't know Maxi AIDS was such crap. I've only bought from them once and was pretty satisfied, but this new insight is disturbing.
UPDATE:
I called them on Wednesday and basically, they did the following:
1. tried to say that perhaps I lent my card out and forgot I did so.
2. Said that maybe I should check the firewalls on my computer.
3. Asked why I ordered online... I should have called it in instead.
Anyway, the co-worker of mine who had the same thing happen to both of her credit cards had grater success. Her husband badgered maxi-aids until they relented and promised to check into it. Well upon further investigation, they discovered that there was cause for alarm. Apparently, they out-source all of the credit card transactions to a 3rd party and this 3rd party is the culprit. Maxi-aids is planning on prosecuting and since whomever took our card numbers wracked up charges that amounted to more than $1,000, it's considered a federal offence. As you may have guessed, I got my money back real quick after that. :P.
That's all I know for now.
Honestly, the wankers! I love that when people question the credibility of a business, said business often tries to make the customers look like the guilty party. And if they don't think anyone should order online, why do they have that option available? It impresses me what lengths some businesses will go to cover their asses, and to hell with people who get hurt in the process.
businesses often do this, and it pisses me off. all the troubles i've had with bisuinesses have been their fault in the end, but the amount of times I've been told, it's my fault, when it's not, and on previous investigation it's been their end or a third party. wankers!
hey danielle! I'm glad that you're getting justice!
A couple of years ago, I ordered a watch from maxi aids. I got a call from the part of the government in canada that deals with shipping and paying the duty on a product and such. They told me that I owed x amount of money for the duty on the sewing machine I ordered. I told them i never ordered a sewing machine, and what I ordered was in fact a watch. The woman I spoke to wouldn't believe me, until I called maxi aids on threeway, and asked them if I did or did not in fact order a watch, not a sewing machine. They did vouch for me, the lady told the girl with the duty place that they didn't even sell sewing machines, and then and only then would they adjust the amount of duty I owed them. Now to this day, I don't know if that was an error of maxi aids, or an error of the american or canadian postal system. But none the less, I won't be ordering from them ever again.
That's my bad experience with them, but I guess if I do need a tech aid, I'll be ordering more online eventually, because the store at c n i b up here doesn't exist anymore. Mind you, the c n i b is shite anyway. But that's another rant for another board on another day.
Cam
All these businesses can just kiss my ass. They're just a bunch of money-grubbing ass holes.
a sewing machine cam? bloody hell! heheeh what a mixup.
Ah! Maxi Aids. I also bought a watch from them in June of 2007. It was a braille watch, and the glass face shattered after two months just because a person ran into me at school. I got the face replaced for a charge, and it has been much stronger ever since. Also, the thing wouldn't stay closed after a year. O yeah, and I also bought a labler from them, and the lable paper wouldn't feed through, but by the time that happened, the warrantee had expired. With Maxi Aids, it seems like you either get a really good product, or a really bad product, depending.
Well that sucks. They should be reported to the B B B.
Interesting, thanks for putting this up here. Another bit of good information. I love to learn things.
My mom bot me a clock from maxiades, I believe. The clock was $75, and it only lasted me a year. You can get better deals at radio shack, or another distributer.
oi, and I was just thinking of buying a new talking watch from them. god, I hate it when these things happen... any ideas as to where I can find them elsewhere?
i've baught from them several times, and not once had a problem. buy it from radioshack? have you compared prices lately? Radioshack charges way more than the talking item is worth. I was hacked from a different site. They somehow got our card numbers and ordered a bunch of crap. it can happen on many sites we order on. and no, mine didn't happen on maxiaids. lol. Glad they sorted it out for you Danielle.
Ray, if your city has any kind of rehab center for the blind, you could try there. Our local one sells paper, canes, labeling tape, etc.
Becky
You can also look on BlindMiceMart. It seems to be a good site. The proceeds go toward scholarships for the blind.
Sounds about as bad as my phone company, which I recently posted a rather long rant about. I hope the bbb takes that seriously.
DO NOT USE mAXI ADS! Their online web store is not technically secure. Cause my credit card number too was stolen last year. And the only other places I went on was Pay Pal (destroyed the account after my canes were purcashed and shipped to my door.) and Amazon (Amazon has great security.)
Not to mention, if your product breaks - uh how can you be so sure your money gets back into your account? I never got refunded and I ended up losing enough for two of their canes which both broke the first 24 hrs of trying to get adapted to them.
Lucky for me whomever broke into my account was caught other wise I would've never gotten my money back.
If you must from Maxi Aids - if the price is under $100 bucks, pay by cash or check this way you can easily get your money back either way.
I'll NEVER go back to them for independant living aides. I now strictly do Lighthouse or if I'm lucky and have one close to me, a store that sells products for the blind.
Oh yeah... I complained left and right, sent the canes and cane tips back before the expiration date for returns and really I never got my money back.
I don't like suing people and I definately don't like taking companys to court. I almost did so in 2006 with a computer repair place out in Cali. I found out the guy who was fixing my computer (and not doing the job) was stealing from me blindly. I learned the guy was a crack adict and pedafile. I had to tell his former boss what work he did for me. Lucky for me I saved the recipets. Technically the costs for my computer should've never been that high and I could never get my money back. But I could never take the person to court because he was already in prison and I had to leave for the east coast. SO much for justice there.
You can never be too sure about websites being safe. All I remember was getting emails and phone calls from maxi aids and I never got my money back. I think it was for a $80 dollar order on two canes and two roller tips. When I tried to use the pencil tip it got stuck in a crack and crack. I couldn't even use it.
I was stuck buying a much more expensive cane (so durable I love it) from a different company. Only complaint is the roller tip needs to be greased every so often as it has a tendancy to stick and it made me gringe when that happened.