I Would Avoid Jubees - But It's Up to You

I wanted to warn other online technology shoppers about a bad experience I had (and am still having) with the website http://www.jubees.com/. On June 7, 2009 I ordered an external hard drive from this website because they offered a fantastic deal - a Western Digital My Book Mirror Edition 2TB drive for only $130.39, shipping included. (2TB drives start at around $180 right now, so maybe this was an example of too good to be true...)

I needed the drive fairly quickly, so I checked my order every day, and when there seemed to be nothing happening, I phoned Jubees. That's when I got two indications of potential trouble.

First, the number listed on their website is incorrect - it's shown as 1-800-4JUBEES (1-800-458-2337), but if you click their (inaccurately named) Customer Service link at the bottom of the page, you find out the phone number is really 1-888-458-2337. Not such a big deal, but it's the kind of error that sets off a warning siren in the brain of an experienced online shopper - especially when dealing with a store for the first time. It also makes you suspect that the website isn't doing much business, otherwise wouldn't one of their customers have pointed out the error. (As of today, 7/5/2009, the number is still incorrectly listed.)

Second, once I did dial the correct number, I couldn't get ahold of a person. The automated answering machine gives three options, sales, customer service, and technical service, and I tried all three but no human being. Finally I left what I think was a polite message, simply asking them to let me know what was going on with my order. I think I even left my email address so they didn't have to phone me. But no response, by either phone or email. The warning siren got a bit louder...

But things started looking better on June 15th, when the status of my order finally changed from "pending" to "processing", with the further note "Drop Shipped from DBL, PO # IMS061509A-JUB, Date 6/15/09". So cool, it's shipped now. Since I needed the drive by June 20th, I figured it would arrive in time, so no harm, no foul.

(By the way, the incessant buzzing of my warning siren and the fact that I really needed the drive caused me to order another drive from Amazon.com, just in case the Jubees order didn't pan out. The Amazon order was also a pretty good deal - $130 for a 1.5TB drive, plus I get 3% towards a future gift certificate by using my Amazon.com Visa card. But when the status of my Jubees order made it look like the order had shipped, I almost called Amazon to cancel the order. But my warning siren, though muffled, was not completely silent because of the fact Jubees hadn't contacted me, so I let the order stand, as I was going to need another drive later this year anyway. I'm sure glad I did.)

So another week passed, with nothing from Jubees. So now I was past my drop dead date for when I needed the drive, but my Amazon.com drive arrived, so at least I didn't have to go to Best Buy some other store to pay a much higher price plus pay the 8.25% sales tax we have here in Texas. But if my Jubees order had really shipped, unless it was coming from China or India, it should have arrived by now, so on June 22nd, I made another phone call to Jubees. I assumed I'd only get their machine again, but amazingly, a real person answered! I explained my situation and the guy I talked to seemed pleasant enough. He said that he thought he remembered that my order had been completed, but after the sound of typing on a keyboard, he said he would check into it further and get back to me soon. I assumed that soon meant within an hour, but two hours later I hadn't heard from him, so I phoned again. I caught him again, but he claimed he was at lunch so he couldn't check anything at the moment, but he did promise to get back to me by the end of the day.

Ah, broken promises... When I didn't hear from Jubees for the rest of the week, and my order status on their website didn't change, I took the drastic action of calling my credit card company in an attempt to cancel any charges. They were sympathetic and agreed to look into the situation. (I charge almost everything, and the last time I called in a similar complaint was over five years ago, so they have no reason to suspect that I'm scamming them.) They couldn't give me much more information, but they did tell me that Jubees did charge my card the day I placed the order - at least they had no problem doing that!

So I'm still waiting for my "fantastic deal" from Jubees to arrive. I'm not going to waste any more time phoning them, but I do check my order status on their website from time to time - nothing's changed. If the drive finally does arrive, I'm going to refuse the shipment, as I've ordered and received another 1.5TB drive, this time from NewEgg, so I'm pretty set for storage right now. I don't expected anything new to happen except for my credit card company to verify that they've cancelled the charges, but if something else does happen, I'll post further.

I hope this helps someone avoid a similar problem.