'Tendency to trust things online when we shouldn't:' Contact 6 with online shopping advice
MILWAUKEE -- Shopping online can be like the wild wild west. Especially when visiting websites you've never heard of before. For one Milwaukee ministry, it turned out the risk wasn't worth the reward.
In a Milwaukee neighborhood is a building filled with gratitude. But even those who trust the Lord to lead the way know when to take matters into their own hands.
"We're not rich people and these days, everything counts," said LaShawnda Hibbler with Manchild Ministries.
That's why LaShawnda and Cedric Hibbler of Manchild Ministries reached out to Contact 6.
"Sometimes we have a tendency to trust things online when we shouldn't," said Cedric Hibbler.
The Hibblers bought plane tickets, for a man they wanted to honor with an award, on iCheapFlight.com. They found roundtrip tickets from Fort Lauderdale to Chicago for $111.
"We did do some research on it and it seemed like they were a reputable company," said LaShawnda.
The e-tickets never came.
"I was hoping that maybe you guys could make contact with them," said LaShawnda.
So Contact 6 emailed iCheapFlights and the Hibblers got a refund and equal credit toward future tickets, plus a refund for the $125 they spent on Expedia buying replacement tickets.
"We want to make a difference in how our customer experience has been and how you want it to be," said Anurag Sharma with iCheapFlights.
iCheapFlights said its ticketing agent made a mistake and its email inbox wasn't manned properly. It's also short-staffed, dealing with flight cancelations related to coronavirus.
Lisa Schiller
The Better Business Bureau gives iCheapFlight an 'F' and said there are red flags on its website.
"It sounds like English maybe is a second language, the grammar just isn't there, small letters where there should be capitals, extra spaces or not enough spaces after punctuation," said Lisa Schiller with the BBB.
iCheapFlights said it has staff in New York, Canada, and India, and it would fix the grammatical errors.
When shopping on a website for the first time, call the company to see who answers, look up its address online, and see how its prices compare to other websites.
Manchild Ministries won't dwell on regrets when there's thanks to give.
iCheapFlight resolved this issue within 24 hours of hearing from Contact 6. Its spokesman said the company's BBB rating is low because they have been too busy to respond to complaints, but that is now a top priority.