Avoid Sabrent and Their Incredibly Rigid, Customer-Hostile Policies
I recently purchased an item directly from Sabrent's website. The same item then went on sale on Sabrent's website shortly afterward, so I contacted their customer service to ask if they would honor the new sale price and refund me the difference (or, even give me a store credit, or a partial refund - really any gesture of goodwill whatsoever).
After waiting over half-an-hour to get connected to a customer service representative, I was curtly told that "it's their policy" to not do any sort of price-matching under any conditions, even from their own website.
I then asked to confirm that if I at least returned the item I had received (as I had not even opened the shipping box that the item arrived in, much less the item itself), they would at least then provide me with a refund for returning an unopened item.
I, once again, was curtly told by the customer service representative that they only accept returns to replace defective items, but "it's their policy" to never provide any sort of refund for any returned item, even if the item was still factory-sealed inside a completely unopened shipping box, like my item was.
I also, quite astonishingly, was told that if I tried to return an item that they "determined to not be defective", then "it's their policy" to just keep the item without refunding me the money I paid for it (nor would they ship a replacement item - or even the same item I had returned to them - back to me). Basically, they told me that if I tried to return the item, they would keep both the item and the money I had paid for the item - which sounds an awful lot like stealing to me.
So now, due to the most rigid, customer-hostile price-matching/return/refund/etc. policies I have ever seen from any company, I am left not even wanting this item from Sabrent anymore, as I don't wish to give my business to any company that operates in such a customer-hostile way.
But, since Sabrent told me that if I returned the item, they would not give me a refund and would simply keep both my money and the item I returned, it seems that my only recourse left is to attempt to dispute the charge with my bank - which unfortunately involves spending valuable time collecting the information/documentation that my bank requires in order to dispute a charge.
So, unless there are major changes to the multitude of the most unreasonable, rigid, customer-hostile policies (price-matching/return/refund/etc.) that Sabrent so strictly adheres to, that are the worst I've ever seen - from any company - I will never buy a Sabrent product again.
I strongly advise others to do the same, to show that we, as consumers, will not support companies that attempt to conduct business in the least customer-friendly way possible - and, at the very least, so that no one else ever ends up stuck in the situation that I find myself stuck in due to Sabrent's insistence on using these horribly customer-hostile policies.
If you are shopping for the kinds of products that Sabrent sells, there are countless other companies that sell the same kind of products (that are often cheaper, better, or both) and have much more customer-friendly corporate policies that are more typical in the industry. Going forward, I will exclusively be using these kind of alternative companies for all of my needs for the kinds of products that Sabrent produces, and I strongly recommend everyone else does too. Sabrent's customer-hostile business practices simply have no place in the marketplace in the 2020's, with so many alternative companies that actually respect their customers.
But, if you simply must buy a Sabrent product for some reason, then I cannot recommend strongly enough that you avoid buying it directly from Sabrent's website, because, if you do, you will also be subject to all of their terrible, customer-hostile policies that prevent you from returning or price-matching the item you purchased.
If you must buy a Sabrent product, then, please, at least buy it from a reputable third-party reseller instead of from the Sabrent website. That's because most reputable resellers have a reasonable return policy of some sort (really, any return policy that allows you to return unopened items for any sort of refund at all is better the - frankly, ridiculous - "policy" you are subject to when ordering from the Sabrent website, where they will simply keep any items you return, even if they are unopened, without providing any sort of refund for those items under any circumstance), and many resellers have a fairly good price-matching policy as well.
Not to mention, pretty much every company in the world will have more friendly customer service representatives who will answer your questions with more than just "it's our policy".
11 May 2023
Unprompted review