WHY SHOPPING AT RETAIL.ERA.CA IS RISKY
April, 2023
Based on experience learned from multiple successful (lucky) purchases and multiple purchases with issues.
WHO THEY ARE
retail.era.ca
is the “Electronics Shop” of era.ca (see below).
They are also known as Electronics Recycling Association. retail.era.ca is located in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
www.era.ca
**In all fairness, I like the premise of era and what they do. The staff at era.ca have been helpful and professional. This write up is strictly about retail.era.ca, the “Electronics Shop”.
WHY AM I WRITING THIS?
I fell victim to feeling comfortable with my purchases based on my many many, many years of doing business on this planet. When retail.era’s operation is looked at from a whole, their operation appears shady and possibly intentionally deceptive, at least to me. However when looking at it piece meal it seems okay. This is NOT a “don’t shop here” write up. This is a “just in case you didn’t read the fine print” write up. You decide if interacting with them is worth it for you. No different than Craigslist, eBay etc.
I am obviously disappointed that what could have be such a great resource for us Home Lab tinkerer's is risky to deal with. I will still purchase from them, but won't be making big purchases. I'm not willing to risk having to go through the headaches of re-shipping, credits, and reordering. Of course though, small purchases equals more money to Fedex.
THE RISK
Lets get right to the heart of it. Below is their return policy. Pay close attention to the underlined items.
retail.era.ca
Translation
(1) Once you part with your money, you are not entitled to get it back regardless. Even if an item arrives at your door defective, you are still only entitled to receive a credit or exchange.
(2) The majority of their items are initially listed marked up compared to going market rates for that particular item. Other than waiting for an item to go stale and get put on sale, submitting an offer is the only way to purchase an item at a fair value. They themselves promote “MAKE AN OFFER”, of course this is great for them as that relieves them from accepting a return. Some items are listed “AS-IS” and “For Parts” but most are not, this of course makes you feel that your purchase is safe, which it isn’t. This is approaching the deceptive practice territory in my opinion, especially when you take all the little things into account.
(3) If you are lucky enough to have your return accepted, you will need to get it back to them. If anyone out there has experience ordering from them, you will know that they build boxes out of multiple pieces of cardboard that are taped together and wrapped in plastic wrap. What this means to you is, if you purchased a 70lb server and removed it from the box, the box would most likely be destroyed. The boxes are so bad that I had a server bend in half in transit, there is no rigidity in a box that has been made of up many different pieces. Trying to find another suitable box and repackaging a server isn’t an easy task, especially if you have to build it to meet their scrutiny of it being in the same condition. The irony there is, they didn’t even know that it was defective before they sent it to you. Can you trust them to deem the condition “as it was sent” to you originally? Keep reading and decide for yourself. Getting a replacement isn't easy either as they're selling used recycled equipment. They don't always have multiples of what you're purchasing.
(4) This is another area of caution. To be able to return your item, you will need to go through their “Returns” procedure. This procedure is fairly standard asking for your order number, photos, description of issue etc. However... to actually complete the process you MUST accept a “Store Credit” option. So just in case you weren’t totally appraised of the fact you weren’t ever going to get a refund, this should be a quite clear.
So here we are, after stating all of the above, you make a purchase anyway. You may be thinking the company will do the right thing or make it right by the customer or how often do ten plus year old electronics fail (lol). You are most certainly at their mercy that’s for sure, but what if I told you that who you will be dealing with at the company will be unprofessional, rude, possibly dislike dealing with people in any shape or form and may even hate their job. Their delayed replies to your correspondence will be of the fewest words possible, in most cases no more than a sentence. Their reply will be unsigned so you won’t even know whom you are dealing with. Unless you’re lucky and you really get their attention, you will most likely be playing email tag once a day taking a week to settle five minutes worth of correspondence.
After you have some issue related correspondence you will at least be able to laugh at the following:
RECOURSE
Little to none actually. You would think that selling a defective product and not providing you the option for a refund would be ludicrous, but that is the fact of it. There are multiple statutes that cover “bad” business practices in Canada, however, by the time they reach a level to where the government will act, they will be in the territory of actual criminal behavior where you could simply call the police. Of course you will need to do your own investigation and evidence gathering to get to that point. Short of going undercover as an employee, you won’t get the information you will need.
Service Alberta did state that if there are enough complaints then they may be able to step in.
The Alberta Sales of Goods Act(1) does have a much lower standard and states “there is an implied condition that the goods are of a merchantable quality.” However this act allows you to sue for damages, it does not fall under the enforcement of Service Alberta.
(1) https://www.canlii.org/en/ab/laws/stat/rsa-2000-c-s-2/latest/rsa-2000-c-s-2.html
I can't imagine PayPal will help you either as it's all spelled out in their policies.
YOUR RISK LEVEL
This is all dependent on your own situation but let me lay out the two extremes.
Low Risk – You live in Calgary and can personally pickup and return your purchase. You also have patience and don’t let nonsense torque you up.
High Risk – You need to have the item shipped to your residence where you don’t have immediate access to shipping supplies etc. Your time has value as does your money. You have a low tolerance for nonsense and have high expectations of how a business should operate.
Your Skill Level – If you are experienced with electronics repair, soldering, BGA chip removal, IC programming, scoping etc, then you can lower your risk level a couple notches and just deal with whatever happens.
TL’DR
Once you give them your money, it’s gone. You have next to no recourse whatsoever, even on a defective item that was described as being working. They can deceptively misrepresent, hide, ignore, tell you to pound sand, essentially do anything they want with no recourse unless you want to sue. Their communication skills are horrid, so lower your expectations. If you’re purchasing something of low value then maybe it’s worth it. Purchasing a server for hundreds of dollars, I’d check your risk factor (see above).
MY SHOPPING EXPERIENCE
I have made 25+ orders within the last year totally in the multiple thousands in value. Out of those orders I’ve had the following issues:
PURCHASING TIPS
CONCLUSION
It’s not every day that you have to actually dissect the fine print. However with this company you really need to know it. Normal customer service and consumer conventions do not apply here so go into the purchase thinking accordingly.
April, 2023
Based on experience learned from multiple successful (lucky) purchases and multiple purchases with issues.
WHO THEY ARE
retail.era.ca
They are also known as Electronics Recycling Association. retail.era.ca is located in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
Computer Recycling Vancouver Calgary Edmonton Saskatoon Winnipeg Toronto Montreal
ERA is a non-profit computer and electronic recycling association in Vancouver Calgary Edmonton Saskatoon Winnipeg Toronto Montreal Canada
www.era.ca
**In all fairness, I like the premise of era and what they do. The staff at era.ca have been helpful and professional. This write up is strictly about retail.era.ca, the “Electronics Shop”.
WHY AM I WRITING THIS?
I fell victim to feeling comfortable with my purchases based on my many many, many years of doing business on this planet. When retail.era’s operation is looked at from a whole, their operation appears shady and possibly intentionally deceptive, at least to me. However when looking at it piece meal it seems okay. This is NOT a “don’t shop here” write up. This is a “just in case you didn’t read the fine print” write up. You decide if interacting with them is worth it for you. No different than Craigslist, eBay etc.
I am obviously disappointed that what could have be such a great resource for us Home Lab tinkerer's is risky to deal with. I will still purchase from them, but won't be making big purchases. I'm not willing to risk having to go through the headaches of re-shipping, credits, and reordering. Of course though, small purchases equals more money to Fedex.
THE RISK
Lets get right to the heart of it. Below is their return policy. Pay close attention to the underlined items.
Policies
Shipping Please allow up to 5 business days for us to ship your item. Shipping and handling times are separate Shipping time will start after we send the item. As an example, If you select 2 day shipping, It will take 1-5 days for us to prepare the item for shipment and then 2 more days to...
retail.era.ca
Translation
(1) Once you part with your money, you are not entitled to get it back regardless. Even if an item arrives at your door defective, you are still only entitled to receive a credit or exchange.
(2) The majority of their items are initially listed marked up compared to going market rates for that particular item. Other than waiting for an item to go stale and get put on sale, submitting an offer is the only way to purchase an item at a fair value. They themselves promote “MAKE AN OFFER”, of course this is great for them as that relieves them from accepting a return. Some items are listed “AS-IS” and “For Parts” but most are not, this of course makes you feel that your purchase is safe, which it isn’t. This is approaching the deceptive practice territory in my opinion, especially when you take all the little things into account.
(3) If you are lucky enough to have your return accepted, you will need to get it back to them. If anyone out there has experience ordering from them, you will know that they build boxes out of multiple pieces of cardboard that are taped together and wrapped in plastic wrap. What this means to you is, if you purchased a 70lb server and removed it from the box, the box would most likely be destroyed. The boxes are so bad that I had a server bend in half in transit, there is no rigidity in a box that has been made of up many different pieces. Trying to find another suitable box and repackaging a server isn’t an easy task, especially if you have to build it to meet their scrutiny of it being in the same condition. The irony there is, they didn’t even know that it was defective before they sent it to you. Can you trust them to deem the condition “as it was sent” to you originally? Keep reading and decide for yourself. Getting a replacement isn't easy either as they're selling used recycled equipment. They don't always have multiples of what you're purchasing.
(4) This is another area of caution. To be able to return your item, you will need to go through their “Returns” procedure. This procedure is fairly standard asking for your order number, photos, description of issue etc. However... to actually complete the process you MUST accept a “Store Credit” option. So just in case you weren’t totally appraised of the fact you weren’t ever going to get a refund, this should be a quite clear.
So here we are, after stating all of the above, you make a purchase anyway. You may be thinking the company will do the right thing or make it right by the customer or how often do ten plus year old electronics fail (lol). You are most certainly at their mercy that’s for sure, but what if I told you that who you will be dealing with at the company will be unprofessional, rude, possibly dislike dealing with people in any shape or form and may even hate their job. Their delayed replies to your correspondence will be of the fewest words possible, in most cases no more than a sentence. Their reply will be unsigned so you won’t even know whom you are dealing with. Unless you’re lucky and you really get their attention, you will most likely be playing email tag once a day taking a week to settle five minutes worth of correspondence.
After you have some issue related correspondence you will at least be able to laugh at the following:
RECOURSE
Little to none actually. You would think that selling a defective product and not providing you the option for a refund would be ludicrous, but that is the fact of it. There are multiple statutes that cover “bad” business practices in Canada, however, by the time they reach a level to where the government will act, they will be in the territory of actual criminal behavior where you could simply call the police. Of course you will need to do your own investigation and evidence gathering to get to that point. Short of going undercover as an employee, you won’t get the information you will need.
Service Alberta did state that if there are enough complaints then they may be able to step in.
The Alberta Sales of Goods Act(1) does have a much lower standard and states “there is an implied condition that the goods are of a merchantable quality.” However this act allows you to sue for damages, it does not fall under the enforcement of Service Alberta.
(1) https://www.canlii.org/en/ab/laws/stat/rsa-2000-c-s-2/latest/rsa-2000-c-s-2.html
I can't imagine PayPal will help you either as it's all spelled out in their policies.
YOUR RISK LEVEL
This is all dependent on your own situation but let me lay out the two extremes.
Low Risk – You live in Calgary and can personally pickup and return your purchase. You also have patience and don’t let nonsense torque you up.
High Risk – You need to have the item shipped to your residence where you don’t have immediate access to shipping supplies etc. Your time has value as does your money. You have a low tolerance for nonsense and have high expectations of how a business should operate.
Your Skill Level – If you are experienced with electronics repair, soldering, BGA chip removal, IC programming, scoping etc, then you can lower your risk level a couple notches and just deal with whatever happens.
TL’DR
Once you give them your money, it’s gone. You have next to no recourse whatsoever, even on a defective item that was described as being working. They can deceptively misrepresent, hide, ignore, tell you to pound sand, essentially do anything they want with no recourse unless you want to sue. Their communication skills are horrid, so lower your expectations. If you’re purchasing something of low value then maybe it’s worth it. Purchasing a server for hundreds of dollars, I’d check your risk factor (see above).
MY SHOPPING EXPERIENCE
I have made 25+ orders within the last year totally in the multiple thousands in value. Out of those orders I’ve had the following issues:
- Received an obviously damaged drive caddy.
- Server bent (destroyed) in transit due to incompetent (or intentionally poor) packaging.
- Received a switch with a rail mount lug broken off.
- Received more than one drive faulted through different orders, even though they were all listed as okay.
- Received an incorrect 15K drive in and among my order for 10K drives.
- Received a laptop with a locked BIOS requiring the removal and reprogramming of a chip to bypass the security (Lenovo).
- Received an order of only half the amount of listed RAM sticks.
- Received a server with a DOA (non recoverable) OOB (iDrac) management circuit. That server had visible corrosion damage that should have been shown and noted, however that was the one picture missing in the listing.
- Received a heavily used cable arm with missing components advertised as "NEW and FULLY SEALED"
- Received a another server with a dead iDrac.
PURCHASING TIPS
- Screenshot the listing and save all the images either before you purchase or immediately after. They will delete the listing page shortly after purchase.
- Pay via PayPal or any other way that gives you the illusion of protection.
- Contact their head office via the chat feature on era.ca when you run out of patience.
- Why didn’t I say ask questions before purchasing? because you most likely won’t get a reply and if you do you, the five word response won’t make you feel any more comfortable.
CONCLUSION
It’s not every day that you have to actually dissect the fine print. However with this company you really need to know it. Normal customer service and consumer conventions do not apply here so go into the purchase thinking accordingly.
Last edited:
I'd have stopped long ago if I had a list of issues that long from ONE seller.
