Complaint Review: Viabox - Elkhart Indiana

Hello. There is a short and long version (which contains all the sources and details).

 

 

The short version: Viabox (a company based in elkhart) refuses to refund me $329.43 for a missing monitor. Told me they would refund me but failed to do so. Kept blaming the courier service. Provided 0 proof for courier service's fault. Now before you think this as 1 insignificant disgruntled customer yawn-fest, but i did research on viabox and found they have a murky criminal past. WSBT-TV did an investigation on them in 2011, and they still havent changed! The elkhart county police is currently in contact with them again about this matter. There is evidence to suggest many hundreds more "missing" items possibly being stolen by viabox. Most customers are from overseas, so lack any proper measures to counter viabox. FAA fined viabox for $70K. Past customer experiences telling me what im experiencing, except for thousands of dollars. Suspicious business practices. Complaints have been filed to BBB, FTC, Elkhart county police, anti-fraud organizations, Indiana's attorney general's office, etc. Btw, viabox bills itself as a "leader in package forwarding". Therefore as a "leader" we'd expect a higher standard of business than what has been given.

 

 

Long version with all details: viabox is a reship / forwarding service. So I sent my amazon.com purchases to their warehouse, which viabox then sent to me by aramex (the courier service). After receiving all my items except for a costly computer monitor, we exchanged emails over the course of 2 weeks about the location the monitor, who's fault is it, how long before I get a refund, etc. They provided vague statements as to who was responsible for the loss, and they kept blaming the courier service, even though the courier service repeatedly told me they received no such item. Aramex proved as much from their emails and attachments of receipts. They told me that investigation for the missing monitor will take 4-6 weeks from 16-19 august 2015. But viabox never shown me any documentation or evidence whatsoever of aramex making such an investigation time estimation.  So after this, I became annoyed and suspicious of their continual blame shifting and vague responses, and preceded to do some searching on the internet about this company. Long story short, I found out they have a murky and criminal reputation as written below. 

 

They told me they will refund me the cost, if aramex doesn't find this monitor by 27th august 2015. After emailing aramex, it seems that viabox gave aramex the wrong package, as the package given weighs 4 LB, while my monitor weighs 19.2 LB. Not only that but when the police officer asked them about the shipping package information, they gave a previously sent package which weighed about 17 lb. I don't even know why they keep giving confusing and misleading information to 3rd parties involved. The sheriff goes asks them about the situation, and they tell him that someone's causing a panic making a confusing situation in the warehouse, somehow blaming me for causing a panic without proof of such a claim. That a panic did even exist, that I was the main cause for the panic, and that a panic would somehow release them from certain legal obligations. So now im waiting for an email from aramex to clarify whether that 4 LB package is mine or not.

 

https://www.faa.gov/news/press_releases/news_story.cfm?newsId=18175

"$70,020 civil penalty against Viabox of Elkhart, Ind. The FAA alleges that on July 19, 2014, Viabox offered two containers containing flammable aerosol automotive products to FedEx for shipment by air to Montreal, Canada. FedEx employees discovered the aerosol cans and notified the FAA."

"Viabox did not respond to the FAA’s notice of proposed civil penalty within the required 30 days. The FAA has issued a final notice to Viabox. In response to the final notice, Viabox may pay the amount proposed, pay an agreed-upon amount, or request a hearing."

http://articles.wsbt.com/2011-04-05/elkhart-county_29386799

"Elkhart company under investigation after complaints filed from around the world"

"According to the attorney general's office, they have received complaints from all over the world, including Canada, Russia, Australia, the United Kingdom and Switzerland. The Better Business Bureau has 45 complaints on file and in just four months the Elkhart County Sheriff's office has received 180 complaints."

http://www.bbb.org/northernindiana/business-reviews/mailing-services/viaddress-in-elkhart-in-90055684

If you check BBB's website, which is an established consumer protection agency, viabox or Viaddress has a F rating. F being the lowest from A to F.

"BBB file experience shows a pattern of complaints alleging that the firm did not deliver the packages as agreed."

In the "industry comparison" link at the bottom of the page, you will find 53 companies within the same business category (mailing services). Viabox has the most complaints over a 36 month period. There is only 1 other company close to viabox and its not even in the same range as viabox (5-25 complaints vs 25-99 complaints). A whooping 50 out of 53 have 0 complaints over a 36 month period. There is only 1 other company in the 1-4 complaints range.

Next, notice that viabox is classified under the smallest size category. For a company that claims to be the "leader in package forwarding", that's an incredible low size to be a "leader" of an international business category with so much exposure.

If you make a complaint with BBB, indiana police department, etc, they might recommend that you make a complaint to the attorney general (who did receive viaddress's complaints in 2011), as they did recomment to me.

www.sitejabber.com/reviews/www.viaddress.com

Compare this review on sitejabber, and another with

www.sitejabber.com/reviews/www.viabox.com

Viaddress is viabox's old adddress. Notice the amount of 5 star reviews in the latter, as compared with the former. Also try messaging the 1 star reviewers, as compared to the 5 star reviewers for more info. It MAYBE that they changed their name to avoid people finding out about their previous criminal record and investigations.

Look at their facebook and twitter page. Its only filled with reviews of items, and im not even sure if its automated or human. I have yet to find a human comment made on their facebook / twitter page, in response to the flood of reviews made by viabox everyday. It MAY be that if you flood a page like that with only reviews, people would think its just for reviews. But the facebook / twitter suggest to the customer it is open to customer feedback and responses. Be wary of this type of contradictory information.

Also be wary of writing reviews containing the previously mentioned links, they MAY try and take it down, even though it contains only factual sources. They MAY respond by making condescending messages which ignore the factual details, and use name-calling or insults against you, then delete their account soon after to avoid detection and trace.

　

Names of the staff at viabox and location

Principal: Arm Hass (Owner)

Kelly Snow (Accounting Manager)

Ms. Sarah Van d**e (Public Relations Manager)

127 E Windsor Ave

Elkhart, IN 46514-5522

OR

25883 N Park Ave

Elkhart, IN 46514-5001

　

Bad customer experiences

http://robinmonks.com/2010/11/viaddress-com-quarantined-possibly-shut-down-entirely/

Many people warning of making police complaints. Ray caples of elkhart county did an investigation. If the bad reviews were so blatantly illegitimate, would the police even bother to take it seriously? Also this quote proves that viabox gets their employees to make good reviews on websites.

Quote: "Admin’s note, this message was posted from the same IP addresses as Gerard/Steve before, and would appear to be someone working for VIAddress. The comment by John above is totally correct and legitimate, and I simply allow this comment to be posted to show the overall pettiness and stupidity of this person, and probably of VIAddress as a whole. /Robin"

Quote: ".. they employed spammers to post positive reviews of their service on blogs, forums and review sites. This led to excellent ratings, like on Trustpilot, where they managed to engineer a 5 star rating. However, in reality they are more like a budget, 2 star operation."

http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/specific_search/Viaddress

Quote: "Searching the internet shows I'm not the only person with this problem, there seems to be hundreds of us out there."

http://mudali.blogspot.com/2010/06/unbiased-review-of-viaddresscom.html

Again, ray caples of elkhart police choosing to use these reviews to investigate viaddress AKA viabox.

http://www.fitfreak.net/forums/off-topic-discussion/58419-scammed-viaddress-located-indiana-2.html

Quote: "And by the way this guy put it, my guess is they won't ship the item and when I opened a dispute again, they gonna come out with loads of crap stating that they have recall the shipping and get me to wire-transfer money over."

http://viabox.pissedconsumer.com/category/shipping.html

Qoute: "The only fraudulent activity going on here is the lack of transparency and deceptive conduct by Viabox."

Only 1 out 18 issues resolved

Claimed losses: $12.3K

http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/viabox-scam-c699904.html

Quote: "What I mean by lost, is that they never send me the package, and they always response with "We are sorry, We apologize". and all that ****"

　

Deceptive strategies to be aware of

First of all, I want to make clear that I am not charging or accusing viabox.com of currently doing any of these strategies, they could be or not. They are mentioned so that the customer is aware that companies (viabox or not) MAY be engaging in these strategies.

Its also likely for small amount of items, say 1-3, with a small weight, has less chance of being "lost", than bigger quantities and bigger weights. An item may go "missing" then company processes / "investigation" to find item or refund customer's money takes months. So its likely a customer becomes tired of this "refund" process, and never gets his "refund" back.

There is no oversight over the employees that transport your items. IF one of the employees steal your item, and they do not admit to their stealing the item, you will be hard pressed to prove that any such employee did steal your item. Very little oversight by 3rd parties, or data recording for which employee handles what items. So they will record your item is in a warehouse, but it MAY get "moved" or "transported", and you will have little data of who specifically is involved in the transition.