I was looking for a birthday present for my girlfriend. Having waited until two weeks before hand, time was limited, but I knew it was not only possible, but fairly easy to get everything I needed on time. So I did a search on eBay to see if I could snag some good deals. My goal was to find the last three seasons of Felicity, which I personally don’t like, because it’s not a manly man show, and because Felicity is a slut, breaking Noel’s heart like that! Whore…

Shockingly, Felicity was in high demand, since everyone was bidding the item nearly up to (and sometimes beyond) retail price. Luckily (though this sentiment wouldn’t last), I found moviemarz was selling every season I needed, and for a price that, even after shipping, would have saved me twenty dollars off of the lowest retail price I managed to find otherwise. At least this would be the case in reality. On Movie Marz, things are horribly different.

Movie Marz is actually an online movie retail company that sells certain new DVDs at deep discounts. From what I can tell, they deal with oppressively large values of wares, which you would think could cost a fortune to post on eBay. If you’re wondering how they stay in business, it’s pretty simple: they rip customers off.

My first hurdle with Movie Mars was trying to figure out what I actually owed. Their shipping chart was vague at best, but I figured that it couldn’t be that bad. Because of the intense love I have for my girlfriend, I decided shipping via uninsured Media Mail would do the trick.

So the total cost should have been no more than $5, but I could have expected double to cover materials and seller greed. Considering the quantity, this would have been acceptable. I went to check out to get an idea of how much I owed on shipping, and was informed I owed $28.50.

Now I’ve dealt with companies extorting money via shipping fees, but this is the worst. I sent the money to my Paypal account anyway, and during the time it took for the money to be deposited, I researched other retailers to compare prices again (which I should have done in the first place). All of the other retailers were charging full price for these box sets, and if it wasn’t the price, it was the shipping that put it over the edge.

With the exception of Target’s website, which I had done business with before and can attest to their quality and price. This was holding true again, which was selling the box sets for more than ten dollars less than full retail. Usually, retail stores jack up the price of shipping. Target’s shipping price for three DVD box sets? $4.50.

Overall, I would have had to pay an extra fifty cents to go with Target, which I would have gladly paid out just to support them and get my stuff on time. I eventually decided I wanted to go with Target, so I e-mailed Movie Mars and told them I wasn’t comfortable with paying $28.50 in shipping fees and I didn’t think they could get the DVDs to me in time anyway, so I told them to just cancel the transaction.

They replied by requesting my transaction number. I assumed this meant they were going to go ahead and cancel the order. Relieved, I went ahead and ordered from Target, which could easily get my items to me in less than a week. Later that night, I checked my e-mail on a whim, and was horrified to find that Movie Marz refused to cancel the order, instead sending me news of legal threats and solutions that would result in me giving them free money.

Here was their solution: they couldn’t simply cancel the transaction, because they would have to pay out the eBay fees. Fair enough, even though they shouldn’t be extorting money via shipping fees anyway, but we’ll ignore that.

Because they’re such a big and professional company, they would have to send my items no matter what, which is their way of justifying charging me $28.50 in shipping fees. I could then send the items back, at my expense, to get a full refund… minus the $28.50. So basically, they’re getting over twenty bucks for nothing, and if they felt like it, they could claim they never got the return or ignore my refund and keep the box sets, giving them almost $150 for free. Oh, and negative feedback. Big whoop.

I sent them a very angry e-mail about how I’ll go along with the transaction, but only because I was stuck. I informed them when I needed the box sets, and considering I was paying $28.50 (a fact I made sure didn’t slip by the wayside), I expected Priority shipping at MINIUM, if not Express. Keep in mind if they sent each box set individually via Priority, it would cost them around $12 total, and combining them would have cost just over $8, so $28.50 was plenty of shipping credit to play with. They weren’t taking any hits to the wallet.

Oh, and it’s their policy that they can’t be bothered to send anything out less than five to seven days after payment is made.

So my girlfriend’s birthday came and went, and, big surprise, no box sets. I received an e-mail two days afterward (and more than a week after they received their payment) informing me that my items were shipped. I scowled at the e-mail and resolved that anything but negative feedback was not possible for these idiots.

So twelve days later, my $28.50 managed to carry the box sets to my house, via $5 Media Mail, two weeks too late. I should note Movie Marz decided to throw the DVDs into a cheap shipping mailer with thin bubble wrap, which looked like someone stepped on it. The boxes were slightly damaged to boot, which wouldn’t have happened with Target, which ships its $150 merchandise in a box, which would have set them back a nickel.

Mind you I wouldn’t even complain about any this if it weren’t for Movie Marz’s shipping extortion and the fact they refused to make amends after I called them on it. Fortunately for my case, they’ve received a healthy amount of negative feedback, most of which deals with buyers not receiving their items or refunds at all, so I got lucky, and we see how the Movie Marz system works. From now on, I’m turning to Target over eBay for my close-to-retail-price needs, and I recommend you do the same.

By the way, Target refunded my order automatically and without any fees, because they’re a real retail company, and not something operating out of some guy’s garage. A garage that also deals with laced cocaine that they sell the children. And thirteen-year-old prostitutes. And terrorism. Okay, I’m really just bitter now.