A Tauranga woman has spoken out about her "nightmare" dealings with a New Zealand online marketplace as a warning to others.
She's sharing screenshots of messages from the company that appear to be abusive and share her private information publicly.
However, the store says it is the victim, accusing the woman of harassing and threatening the business after changing her mind about a purchase.
Amber White, 25, bought a dress for an upcoming party off 'Auckland E Store', a shopping website which also has a Facebook page.
As documented on her TikTok, White says the dress arrived weeks after she needed it and after contacting the store, she was offered a full refund upon the item's return.
"They promised a refund in full - even paid postage so I could send it back which was awesome," she said in her first TikTok video.
"I sent the dress back and they ghosted me."
White shared with Newshub screenshots of her repeated messages to the company asking to be refunded for the money.
In a series of increasingly abusive message, the owner appears to have sent back a thumbs up emoji, claimed he wasn't "details-oriented", called her a "time-waster" and even chastised her for making the purchase "a real f**king headache" for him.
Eventually, White says she was refunded only $16, leaving her $63 out of pocket.
"I said to them if they didn't respond to my emails or messages I'd be going public, which I did," she said.
The video quickly went viral and has racked up almost 90,000 views.
White said she was unaware at the time of purchasing the store's reputation as a dropshipping site, but learned of it afterwards through commenters on her TikTok.
'Dropshipping' is a term referring to an online shopping store which buys stock from a third party - in this case what appears to be global powerhouse Ali Express - and list the products at a higher price.
Dropshipping sites usually have no storage centres or product holds of their own.
The owner of Auckland E Store eventually told White to take her claims to payment service AfterPay, a spokesperson for which told White she should be dealing with the shop directly.
In a further series of messages, the store owner appears to have told White he'd be contacting "f**king AfterPay" and threatened to "see you in the court".
When a friend of White's contacted the owner, he defended his position and appears to have shared White's personal information publicly in an act known as "doxxing".
He then apparently attempted to add White on Facebook using his personal page, which she called "so weird".
White continued to document her encounters on TikTok and made a public post on her personal Facebook page warning friends not to shop on the online marketplace.
Finally on Thursday she says she received a refund in full from the store, which she credits to the numerous TikTok users who "blew up" her videos.
"TikTok will forever blow my mind, you guys are like little FBI agents," she said in a video.
While she updated her publicly visible Facebook post to reveal she had finally been given a refund, the store's official Facebook account left at least seven comments on the post calling her a "liar and scammer".
In these comments - which have not been removed at the time of publishing - the store stands by claims it refunded White immediately.
Auckland E Store did not deny sending White the abusive messages, but in a statement to Newshub insisted she was refunded before she published her first video on TikTok.
"You will find that we have been threatened and harassed from Ms White from the beginning of her changing her mind of her purchase. Consumers have duty of care to read through websites thoroughly before they purchase," the company told Newshub.
"This is a stressful time for small business owners due to COVID-19. Ms White has personally attacked my business, the fact that I don't speak proper English and is now putting a bad review on social media out of spite.
"Please read our terms and conditions. They are typical of all online stores. If there is something that is not right, I would like to know so that I can make it right."
White told Newshub she was wary of putting her story out there as she thought people might criticise her for going after a relatively minor amount of money.
"But I wanted to make sure other, maybe more vulnerable people, aren't going to get ripped off or take threats from the company," she said.
"If you buy something off the store and it doesn't come for weeks, and then returning it takes 30 or 40 days... the owner can just keep pushing it out until the buyer is entitled to nothing."
