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As some of you may know I have recently ordered an EZ Flash 3 in 1 tool for my Nintendo DS. Well that’s not strictly true. I have now ordered two of them. The first one was ordered quite some time ago and I still haven’t received it. I am filing a case with PayPal so I can’t give any more details until the case has been resolved and I have been refunded.

I’m not 100% happy with the service I have received from the other store either, but again I will give this more time before writing a full review on these stores and of course the 3 in 1 tool itself.

I guess the real problem here is that many of the bigger and better known stores like to steer clear from modchips, flash cards and anything that could void the warranty of a games console. There has always been a link between emulation and piracy, so really I can’t blame them for making that decision.

With the void of these bigger, well established online shops and stores we are left with the only people willing to take the risk in selling such products, the small or one man band companies. Unfortunately, a lot of these people don’t seem to have the staff, training or systems in place to make the process of actually ordering a product and receiving it easy. I am not criticising all small online shops, far from it: I think its a great thing, but I really believe a bit more effort in the customer services department wouldn’t go a miss. I guess this is probably true for bigger stores also. To me, and I believe most shoppers, whether its online or down the local high street, decent customer services is of vital importance.

I have a few words of advice to bear in mind when shopping online.

• Firstly, check that the shop your are ordering from actually has some form of contact other than just an email address. A phone number and postal address is essential, and legally commercial websites need to display this information along with any company registration numbers they have.



• One way of checking the level of service you will receive, if at all, is to contact them before purchasing a product. For example you could email them a general question about the product you are looking for and see how long it takes them to reply. Personally, I would expect a reply no later than a few hours later, assuming the shop is in the same time zone and it is business hours.



• Make sure their payment system is 100% secure. Look out for some sort of logo or crest that links to an authoritative site such as PayPal, WorldPay or Thwarte. Follow the link and make absolutely sure the site is valid. Also when actually paying for the item, ensure that your browser has a secure encrypted connection. You can usually tell this by seeing a padlock somewhere near the address bar, or at the bottom right of the window.

In my next update about my ordering fiasco I will be mentioning some very specific things to look out for which are a bit more technical. Anyway, that’s all for now, I will keep you updated!