It seems that Shopee Malaysia has mostly been the centre of negative attention in recent months and Reddit user Jafarul’s post about his alleged experience with them was no different.

What started as a simple purchase of a laptop that cost over RM6K turned into a major headache and a waste of time for him as his parcel never reached him and then he struggled to obtain a refund from Shopee Malaysia for almost a month last year. He had to go into full ‘Karen mode’ and enlist the help of the Ministry of Domestic Trade and Living Costs (KPDNHEP) before he managed to get his money back.

Here's the breakdown of what happened according to the Reddit user:

29 November

After checking on the seller’s status and their past orders, Jafarul placed his order for a laptop that cost over RM6k and was assigned ShopeeXpress as his courier delivery service provider.

30 November

The seller dropped off the parcel at Sunway Pyramid and the estimated delivery date was set for 4 December.

4 December

There was no further movement or update so he chatted with the Shopee Seller Chat agent, who said they would look into it and advised him to select the option to extend his ‘Shopee Guarantee’, upon which he was given an RM8 voucher as compensation.

5 December

A generic tracking update was posted by Shopee stating ‘parcel is being processed by the logistic partner.’

8 December

However, there was no further update following that and the date was the end of his Shopee guarantee. After chatting with the agent again, the tracking status was suddenly updated and they wanted to give him another RM8 voucher but he refused as he was incredibly fed up at this point.

11 December

There was still movement and upon chatting with the agents again, Jafarul found that the agent did not know where his parcel was exactly so he decided to request a refund as it was within his rights as he had waited long enough. In the refund status, it stated that ‘It will take two days for the refund to be reviewed’.

12 December

There was suddenly a new update to his delivery with the status showing ‘Parcel is being delivered to the destination address’ but he decided to stick to receiving a refund.

13 December

Despite the claim that his refund request would be processed within two days, it still hadn’t been reviewed by Shopee. Incensed at this point, he gave the agent a piece of his mind while chatting with them and the agent said that it was actually 3-5 business days and Jafarul received an email stating the same clause. He was only further angered by this as it was clearly stated as two days on the Shopee app.

16 & 17 December

On both days, Jafarul chatted with an agent for an update but got the same reply with the words ‘high priority’ and ‘expedite’.

19 December

He decided to place a direct call to them and ‘went Karen on them’ and the first agent hung up on him. After speaking to a second agent, he demanded to speak to someone higher up but received the answer, "I can get you any higher-ups you want but the answer is the same, you have to wait because no one in Shopee can help. This is a ShopeeXpress matter" He then decided to submit a report to KPDNHEP.

21 December

He received an email from the ministry the day before saying that his report was too brief. He then “wrote an essay, and attached all the screenshots of my order, uploaded their promise of 2 days refund review & their ‘new policy’ of 3-5 days review.” It was close to a month after he had first made the purchase and told KPDNHEP that Shopee was “practically stealing my money.”

23 December

After still receiving no update from Shopee on the day that he was supposed to, he called Shopee saying, “I don't care if you have to get your CEO, get me an update NOW” but his call was not entertained, and they hung up on him. However, he had recorded the clip which he then sent to KPDNHEP.

27 December

He finally received an email from Shopee as KPDNHEP had reached out to them and they had to copy the ministry in any future communication with Jafarul. He pointed out that Shopee themselves had broken all their promises to him and broken all their policies.

28 December

With KPDNHEP’s help, his refund request was finally approved.

29 December

He then received three different emails from three different people from within Shopee to apologise for the trouble that he had been through, but it did little to pacify him although he was just relieved that he managed to get his refund.

Other users on the Reddit thread also voiced their grievances and shared their issues with the shopping platform:

If you personally face any issues while making purchases, you can submit complaints to KPDNHEP on Whatsapp or via these channels.

Image credit: @shopeemy, Andras Vas on Unsplash