Fanatec have a great scam going
Timothy Reeves
Member
So on the 20th October I ordered a Fanatec bundle for £1266 three months later still no sign of my Clubsport DD wheel base and no communication so I cancelled it. Fanatec only refunded me £1196 so basically stole £70 for the privilege of banking my money for 3 months.... this has to be the greatest online scam going!
What a company I really hope you go bust!!!
Comments
Fanatec Europe deals un Euros et Fanatec US in USD. What you got is a difference in exchange to British pounds. Not Fanatec problem....Its part of the risk of purchasing things in foreign currencies...
It is their problem when they charge up front in full instead of just holding it and don't deliver a product, Then there is also the fees... Fanatec is an absolute joke of a company. this is where they scam you! they charged conversion when you buy at 1.1012Euro when infact the market rate was only 0.8707 that day but when they refund you they only give you market rate! hay presto they pocket some money for a nice little scam!
First and last time I will ever use them!
Do you think Fanatec control the currency exchange? Thats down to your bank/whatever method you used to pay.
Fanatec dont pocket anything - they got their money back IN EUROs. They dont 'pocket' anything for a conversion.
And what fees?
Currency conversion fees? Down to your bank.
Import fees? Thank Brexit for that. Although, its just the UPS handling of about £12. The rest is just UK VAT, which again is nothing to do with Fanatec
I do agree taking your money before shipping is a bit crap though
All this 'scam' talk is going too far, in my opinion. Slow shipping and almost non-existent communication: Yes. Scam: No.
It's no secret that they immediately charge your credit card. From the terms and conditions:
They implement the paymant method of paypal for the UK to purchase their equipment who yes set an artificiallyhigh conversion rate not the market rate. like I said the rate charged wasn't the real rate of the day on the market so it's an absolute scam in the first place. Any losses due to fanatecs incompetence should be covered by them not me! I shouldn't have to be paying up front for a pre order item in the first place.
It has nothing to do with brexit because I never received anything to be charged for anything!
If the exchange rate was in your favor, would you have sent the extra money back to Fanatec?
Like someone else said, we can blame them for the poor client service, sales approach and shipping process. But purchasing in foreign currency is a risk YOU take not them. Its the same for every vendor. Its not a Fanatec thing.
I live in Canada and often purchase in the US. When i return items and get reimbursed, i have an exchange rate discrepency. Sometimes in my favor, sometime not. If the vendor sell you something at 1K USD, he will reimburse you 1K USD. Thats totally normal. If you own bank account currency is different, its you responsability, not the vendor. If your bank or paypal or your credit card charge you an exchange rate you dont agree with, contact them, not Fanatec....
It was never going to be in my favour as the interest rate wasn't charged at market rate it was a hyped up false exchange rate of 1.1012 euros to favour them in these situations...the real exchange rate that day was 0.8709 euros. so it has nothing to do with real market exchange rates! Of course when they refund you they want to only pay less than market rate also. its a rigged system for Fanatec so they win win no matter what. If I had even received anything and returned it fine but this was for a pre order something that still to this day dosen't exist. If they had kept their end of the bargain this wouldn't be an issue, but they have failed to deliver - earn interest on my money for 3 months and then short pay the refund of £70 all for absolutely nothing.
You Fanatec fan bois my want to protect your precious company, but as far as I'm concerned their practices are scummy as hell.
here are the market rates that you all seem so keen to point out!
market rate on the 20th October 2023 (0.8709 euros) todays market rate is (0.861039) that is not £70 difference
I am not a Fanatec fan by any means. I am really disapointed with the whole pre-order/licensing issue. However, i do not agree with blaming Fanatec for everything.
Fanatec dont charge you an exchange rate. Fanatec charged you in Euro or USD and reimbursed you in the same currency. Either your credit card or Papypal charged you the exchange rate, not Fanatec. Thats pretty simple...So again dont blame Fanatec for the exchange rate, blame your bank or Paypal.
You can blame Fanatec for not have delivered the goods at the expected date they told you, but not the exchange rate. You cannot blame them of charging you when your ordered instead of shipping, cause you knew that the moment you confirmed your order. So by doing so, you agreed with their terms of service at the moment.
You could have always not paid via PayPal. Nobody forced you to use that method. You could have paid in Euro via a market rate bank such as Revolut or Wise.
When i ordred my DD+, i paid with Paypal. The exchange rate i paid below is Paypal exchange rate, not Fanatec.
It was order at that rate or nothing - it's not like there were other options available. The interest rate charged by paypal for Fanatec was bogus, but Fanatec are the ones who benefitted from that rate they got paid more money. As far as I'm concerned £1266 left my bank - I received nothing for my money so the £1266 should have been returned anything else is just theft.
OMG, sorry dude but you blaming a company for your inability to understand international banking transactions....
In my case (see up there), Fanatec received 1038.95$ USD. I paid Paypal 1463.19$ CAD. If anyone made a profit on exchange rate, its Paypal not Fanatec. Its the way foreign currency transaction works.
If you dont want to take the exchange rate risk on you, buy from a UK vendor but in most cases you are going to pay more because you are transfering this risk to the vendor....and guess what, he will charge it to you with a Markup...
In Canada, i can order the DD+ from a local vendor for 1600$CAD which is a lot more than the 1463$CAD it cost me ordering directly from Fanatec. I wont cancel my order because, yes, i could suffer from an exchange rate loss and in the end i would have to wait anyway to get my DD+ from a local vendor....
I paid Fanatec they failed they should make sure I'm not out of pocket for their failure.
If paying a premium on exchange rate by using Paypal or a credit card bothers you, open yourself a bank account in Euro and tranfer money from your british pound account to your euro bank account and pay from there. Thats the best way to limit the exchange rate. But, its a pain in the ass to manage and you end up paying for bank fees....so if you dont purchase often in that currency, its pobably cheaper to pay a premium exchange rate with Paypal or your credit card. Or even better, never purchase from any vendor in foreign currencies...you will never have to deal with xchange rate matters...
Please stop being reasonable!
So you think the customer should be out of pocket for Fanatecs failure?
If you are purchasing overseas regularly, it might be worth considering opening a UK bank account that allows you to pay in other currencies without charging a fee or using manipulated exchange rates. You paid Fanatec an amount in Euros and they refunded you the same Euro amount. Any loss you have encountered has benefited your payment provider - not Fanatec.
One last thing you could try is to contact your payment provider and explain what has happened and they might be prepared to treat the refund as a reversal and minimise your loss that way.
Don’t know what Timothy is moaning about. £70 for a lesson on global banking transactions seems like a fair price to me.
A lesson to never use the shit company fanatec ever again
ppl are right about u fanatec fan bois, it's sad that you feel the need to stick up for a failing company lol
It’s a joke dude. No offence meant. Im not sticking up for them. I myself was moaning about them on this forum only a few days ago.
but yeah, as shitty as fanatec have been across multiple disciplines recently, the fact you got £70 less when refunded isn’t their fault. As said previously, that’s down to PayPal
Go cry on the PayPal forums, they're the ones who have ripped you off.
OK Fanatech little bitch fan boi
Cool. Bye.
This is the best discussion so far 😂
I‘d like to add:
If you cannot afford your hobby, look for a different one.
If you have to save money for you hobby, you cannot afford it.
If you spend all your savings for your hobby, you cannot afford it.
If you have to wait for your money to be refunded to place a different order to continue your hobby, you cannot afford it.
and last but not least:
If you are complaining because of exchange rates, VAT and other charges, you cannot afford it.
this guy makes the OP sound like he has a masters degree in logic.
You should contact the ukicc for help. They work in collaboration with consumers European center. I don't know if it applies for UK buying in eu, but eu directive about remote selling clearly states that the seller must refund the total price paid, including fees.
Imagine treating people worse than Fanatec treated you and thinking that it's somehow not ok for them to treat you like that, but that you are ok to treat others like that simply because they disagree with what you are saying.
Congrats on that one.
Yea it sucks, Fanatec fucked up. Yea, their communication sucks as well, but for some reason I can't understand why everyone thats had this happen to them suddenly thinks that Fanatec is out to get them, or that they purposely did this, or that they are laughing at your disappointment/suffering. You guys are absolutely delusional if you guys think those things. They aren't. They dropped the ball pretty hard and its probably been a not so great few months for nearly everyone who works at Fanatec.
Do you really think Fanatec would want you to be refunded not the whole amount? They lost a potential customer over this even if it isn't their fault and truthfully I get it, I'd be upset too. But calling their company a scam is just bonkers and you guys are losing touch on reality because you had one bad purchasing experience. Hate to break it to you, this won't be the last time shit like this happens and this won't be the last company that you deal with this type of thing from. I've dealt with these kinds of issues even with Amazon, one of the largest companies in the entire world. Shit happens, don't lose touch on reality just because you are pissed.
On my side, I never said that fanatec is or isn't a scam. Only a court could say it. I just said that there are European règlement that company must follow, first to prevent problems. And when problems occur, what I agree, could occur, there are laws, at least for European consumers, with obligations for companies regarding what must be done to find solution.
Since I am not sure if European directives still apply for buyers in UK after Brexit, I adviced Timothy to contact ukicc. They will give advice, and if everything was done correctly by fanatec, they will also explain it. This advice will be better than my mines, and probably better than most advices he will get on this forum.
Pointless as nothing unusual has happened. The OP effectively converted a sum of money from one currency to another, then back again and lost money in the process due to fees and currency fluctuations. He could have minimised these losses by using a different payment provider. This is just life and nothing specific to Fanatec.
Just because they tell you still don’t
make it right.