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Fair Go: 'If it's too good to be true, it probably is' - Gisborne woman's steep return cost for sandals from online shop

Shar Wharehinga’s dealings with Sandy Shop NZ was left frustrated after her attempts to send shoes back come with a big price attached.

What you see is not always what you get - that's the lesson Shar Wharehinga from Gisborne learnt the hard way when buying shoes from a website.

She bought two pairs of arch support sandals from Sandy Shop NZ. She was attracted by the design, the promise of sturdy support, the glowing reviews, and of course, the price. "They were $48 each," Wharehinga explains.

But a low price is still too much to pay when the product is no good.

"They didn't fit and they're not what they said they'd be. There was no support, no arch support."

She'd even played it safe, ordering a size that was one bigger than usual. But her toes still hung over the front of the sandal and she couldn't do up the strap around her ankle.

She wanted her money back, but could she get it?

Wharehinga says she's done lots of online shopping and never had a problem before.

She thought this looked like a reputable website, and believed it was a New Zealand company due to the 'NZ' in its name and email address, plus the offer of free shipping in New Zealand.

She was also relieved to see a post on the company's Facebook site offering free returns. But when she emailed the company as instructed, she was told she had to pay for postage and packing to an address in the USA.

The cost was $98. Shar found this ridiculous, saying, "that's the price of the shoes. Why would I want to pay the price of the shoes?"

She followed up with further emails and was told the company were sorry for her frustration but there was nothing they could do.

They said it was clearly stated in the fine print on their website that the cost of returning any product was down to the customer and that refunds could only be made once the products had been sent back.

So Wharehinga approached Fair Go.

She felt the company was ripping people off and wanted to help others avoid shopping on this site.

It turns out, Shar wasn't the only frustrated customer.

Fair Go had lots of complaints about Sandy Shop NZ - all within a couple of months.

The good news for these customers is that overseas companies are expected to comply with the Fair Trading Act and the Consumer Guarantees Act, just like domestic companies.

This means if goods are faulty or wrongly described then it's up to the company to foot the bill for the return postage.

But there's bad news too. Although these rules apply, it is much harder to enforce them.

Shar felt she wasn't getting anywhere, so Fair Go took over.

The company told us that "if a product is defective, we refund it immediately without the customer having to return the product".

Fair Go argued that Wharehinga felt her product was defective because there was no arch support at all, despite the sandals being described as orthopaedic.

To Wharehinga's joy, they agreed to refund her money without having to send the sandals back.

The Sandy Shop NZ website doesn't appear to be in operation anymore.

But it’s not hard to find other websites with similar shoes and deals.

It's really a case of 'buyer beware'.

Read all the small print thoroughly before purchasing, and Shar says it pays to heed the old adage "if it's too good to be true, it probably is".

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