SVB online shop - if you ever change your address - be in for a surprise - and perhaps a law suit...

[MathiasW]

I have been buying from SVB online shop for many years, but a recent experience was so shocking that I cannot trust that shop anymore...

What happened:

- In 2019 I asked for a quote for many things, out of which only a part was ordered, eventually, as I was pressed for time and did not want to wait for the backorders... This first order was correctly delivered to what subsequently I will call my old address.

- I then moved house and changed my address in the online shop to my new address (billing and delivery address, both got changed, and the old address got deleted).

- I ordered a few more items from the original quote, and they got correctly delivered to my new address. Great!

- 2 months later, I ordered the last remaining items from that initial quote. Those were shipped to the OLD address and got lost. Not so great!

Luckily, I had not paid yet and so I left it as it is, but SVB insisted that I have to pay, arguing I had only made a one-time change of my address, and I had failed to flag the billing address as incorrect. As if I were to do a one-time change of address when I move house... And normally I do not care about billing address, as long as the stuff gets delivered to the correct address, which it did for the 2nd order. Consequently, at the time I could only assume the new address had been correctly logged into their system.

Anyway, SVB kept harassing me and in the end sued me. In court they produced as proof an acknowledgement of order ("Auftragsbestätigung"), which contained the wrong old delivery address. Now, the copy I had received at the time did NOT contain such a delivery address, neither old nor new. So, in my view, they tampered with this document, which in my naiv view is a criminal offence.

In the end, the judge saw through that and rejected their law suit and also awarded me the payment of outstanding credits accumulated from earlier orders that SVB still had to pay me, but had refused to do so. (And of which I only became aware in the course of this law suit... they had failed to notify me before, nor had they automatically deduct it from the next order...)

So, all in all, I find it quite shocking, really. They make a mistake, try to blame me, and even go to the troubles of manipulating a document to prove their point.

I am not going to shop there anymore, that is for sure.

If you never change address, this will not be relevant, but if you ever have a dispute with them, I have court-vetted proof that they can be very economical with the truth...

Of course, they have put me on a black list now, but so have I with them...

 

[Ningaloo]

Sorry to hear of your experience but be aware that SVB sell items for BOATS not houses. Boats actually have the ability to routinely move from place to place so it is quite probable that SVB have designed their processes to readily accommodate this.
From memory you can create multiple addresses and you select the one you want for delivery at the time you checkout.
Personally I have used at least 5 different addresses (probably more) in three different countries.
The only issue I have encountered was my last order which was put on hold due to Brexit related VAT issues (billing address in UK but delivery to EU), but these were resolved after a quick phone call and the goods were despatched (to the correct marina address in Italy) the same day.

 

[MathiasW]

Sure, I am aware of that. But they do deliver to houses a lot. I had only deliveries to my house for 10 years. And I definitely had only a single address in the system... I can only speculate as to what happened. Perhaps the person working on my order used the old address from the initial quote and did not verify it in the system. Can happen, but then trying to frame me by modifying the document is really not ok. I was a very good customer, and they should have dealt with it differently.

 

[Koeketiene]

Sorry to hear about this and thanks for sharing your experience.

I've ordered from SVB a couple of times as due to Brexit ordering from my UK suppliers (mainly Jimmy Green and Seamark Nunn) has become somewhat complicated and expensive due to Brexit.
Never experienced any problems ordering from SVB (so far - fingers crossed).

On future orders from SVB I will now doubly check billing and delivery address.

 

[[70521]]

Did you not remove the old delivery address from the account? First thing I do when knowing that I cannot collect any goods from a delivery address.

 

[syvictoria]

I haven't used SVB personally, but they normally receive good feedback here and I had considered it likely that I would use them in the future.

Often on line ordering systems have a 'keep this address for future use' or similarly titled tick box. Does the SVB system have this, and is it just possible that this wasn't ticked on the correctly delivered order to the new address?

It's not clear from the OP whether the third order was placed on line or in person/via phone. If the latter, then sadly there is the opportunity for (human) mistakes and/or misunderstandings. It can only be assumed that SVB must have believed that they were on quite solid ground to have pursued the matter through the legal system. I'm sorry to pick holes OP (and I appreciate that it's undoubtedly been a very frustrating and worrying experience for you), but your admission that

And normally I do not care about billing address

perhaps says something. I assume that it was a large value order and so most would, I think, be quite diligent about all aspects of the order, including getting written confirmation of the delivery arrangements. That's undoubtedly a lesson for us all.

 

[pandos]

I have ordered a few times from these guys, and have found them really good to deal with and with ok prices.

I always pay at the time of ordering, so the OPs situation is not going to happen to me.

I am sceptical at the notion that a multimillion euro company would "tamper with" or "Manipulate " a document for a small court case.

The idea that the suppliers copy of a confirmation of an order would not have a delivery or billing address, unless tampered with, is not credible.

Surely if ordering on credit, you have an obligation to ensure the billing address is correct.

 

[MathiasW]

Did you not remove the old delivery address from the account? First thing I do when knowing that I cannot collect any goods from a delivery address.

Yes, I did and I double checked. The old address was not present in the system anymore. I also verified - later - in the online order history of the correctly delivered order and the address was correct there. It remains a mystery why the address fell back to the old one. I can only assume that it was a manual copying of the address from the old quote, without verifying the current address in their system.

 

[MathiasW]

I haven't used SVB personally, but they normally receive good feedback here and I had considered it likely that I would use them in the future.

Often on line ordering systems have a 'keep this address for future use' or similarly titled tick box. Does the SVB system have this, and is it just possible that this wasn't ticked on the correctly delivered order to the new address?

It's not clear from the OP whether the third order was placed on line or in person/via phone. If the latter, then sadly there is the opportunity for (human) mistakes and/or misunderstandings. It can only be assumed that SVB must have believed that they were on quite solid ground to have pursued the matter through the legal system. I'm sorry to pick holes OP (and I appreciate that it's undoubtedly been a very frustrating and worrying experience for you), but your admission that

perhaps says something. I assume that it was a large value order and so most would, I think, be quite diligent about all aspects of the order, including getting written confirmation of the delivery arrangements. That's undoubtedly a lesson for us all.

Yes, you can have multiple addresses in the system, and one must be picked as the default one. If you only have one in the system, then that is the default by, well, default. So, the address as I could see it, was definitely correct.

All oders were done by mail. Had worked well for 10+ years.

It all happened at the time when I was preparing for our sailing around the world, and those of you who have done that - with all the work around job, house, and vessel, will appreciate that it is impossible to follow up everything in detail. When you get an order correctly delivered to your address, you tick this one off and say, ok, that change of address has worked, you do not need to pay attention anymore. And that means you do not read further emails very carefully and read all attachments. Why would you, when it has worked for 10 years and the change of address apparently had worked as well?

In any case, the court case was ruled in my favour. That should say something as well...

 

[MathiasW]

I have ordered a few times from these guys, and have found them really good to deal with and with ok prices.

I always pay at the time of ordering, so the OPs situation is not going to happen to me.

I am sceptical at the notion that a multimillion euro company would "tamper with" or "Manipulate " a document for a small court case.

The idea that the suppliers copy of a confirmation of an order would not have a delivery or billing address, unless tampered with, is not credible.

Surely if ordering on credit, you have an obligation to ensure the billing address is correct.

Hmm, are you saying I am lying? I have the two documents on my computer. The one I had received does not have a shipping address, the one SVB presented to court does have a shipping address, but the old one. I think this is fairly straight forward and cannot be disputed, unless you call me a lier.

And no, according to German law, I do not have an obligation to ensure the billing address is correct. I have made all reasonable attempts to give SVB the correct address, and that is enough. In fact, according to German law, if the vendor changes anything in the order confirmation and does not get me to confirm it, the order gets nullified.

In any case, I only wanted to give a heads-up about what had happened. You can blame me for what happened, or blame SVB, but the facts remain as they are, and the court ruling was also clear. I am not going to defend myself in this forum.

 

[Spirit (of Glenans)]

Since Brexit and the difficulties it has brought to buying from GB, I have bought some items from SVB and have found them easy to deal with, but then, my billing and delivery address are one the same and are unlikely to change within my sailing lifetime.

 

[dgadee]

You got a judgment. Not easy to persuade a judge in those circumstances. Well done.

 

[pandos]

Hmm, are you saying I am lying? I have the two documents on my computer. The one I had received does not have a shipping address, the one SVB presented to court does have a shipping address, but the old one. I think this is fairly straight forward and cannot be disputed, unless you call me a lier.

For many reasons there can exist two or more different versions of a document, without either party being engaged in fraud.

I presume what happened is that the case was brought by SVB and they were unable to prove their case so they lost.

That is not a judgement that they were comitting fraud or that either side were liars.

Obviously something went wrong in this transaction,

I remain sceptical that SVB were engaged in fraud in order to win a case in an attempt to extract money from you.

 

[Kelpie]

If not SVB, then who?

 

[Barbaria]

Used SVB many times, different addresses almost every time as I sail around, never had a problem.

 

[syvictoria]

I think perhaps the moral of this story is to place orders on line where ever possible, so that everything is in black and white in front of you. Any other method invariably has (more) opportunity for (human) error.

 

[Lucy52]

I have used SVB in the past, but do they now export VAT free?

 

[Neeves]

Don't shoot the messenger

Different story, different outcome.

We ordered some parts through eBay, they were obviously coming from China. They never arrived, (if 6 months is considered sufficient time). We, advised eBay, received the money back. Later, or more recently, the parts arrived (packaging looking very much worse for wear).

The fault was with the delivery system, no fault on ebay, nor fault on supplier.

Did anyone take us to court, no - or not yet, would we buy from the supplier or through ebay again - of course, no doubts.

We ordered some kit from a well known UK chandler, G40 and G70 chain.. To save money I arranged that delivery would be to our daughters address in Manchester which we were soon to visit. I also ordered a specific 8mm connector (for the chain). I'm a trusting soul and did not check. On arrival back in Oz I discovered that I had 2 pieces of G40 chain (no G70) and I had a 10mm connector not a 8mm connector. I was glad I had not ordered 100m of G70 and received 100m of G40 . The check was easy - the chains were embossed and the connector clearly marked 'G100'. Incompetence, stupidity - no question. Would I buy from them again, not if there was a choice.

Mathias is not asking for redress through YBW - He is not asking for sympathy, he is simply raising a flag. You can ignore his experiences or take note and double check (or not). People and companies do make mistakes The legal system has found Mathias to be the injured party - that's more than good enough for me. There are plenty of other suppliers of product similar to SVP - I'd vote with my feet (and wallet - being a tight fisted Scot).

Accepting that organisations employ fallible humans - check and double check.

Now -If I received a delivery note with an order number, invoice number, date and (correct, delivery address). and another document was surrendered to court with different information but obviously for the same item (and I was provided with both documents and I was a judge) I would question the validity of one of the 2 documents. The court made its decision and Mathias has been found to be honest.

Don't shoot the messenger.

But its your money (not mine) - just check and double check.

Its easy to spend money - it takes time and a lot of anguish to get the money back if you do not dot the i's and cross the t's. Mathias post is not to ask for your judgement but to offer you his experience.

Take care, stay safe

Jonathan