If people are looking to buy a Fairphone 4 or accessories from the Murena store, I would recommend against doing that, at least for the time being. The past few days dealing with Murena have been a nightmare, and I want to share my experience. I will also be posting this to the Fairphone subreddit.
Two days ago, I attempted to buy a Fairphone 4. As a U.S. customer, Murena is one of my only options. As I purchased the product, I checked the option to create my account. I received an email confirmation and directions to set a password. However, when clicking the link to set my password, I got redirected to the account homepage with no option to set a password. So I went to the “forgot my password” page and entered my email address, and it said “no account found.” With no way to set my password, I would eventually get locked out of my account, with no way to opt into Murena’s five-year warranty. So I submitted a refund request in the hopes of making a new account and trying again.
The next day, I got an email saying my purchase has been refunded, along with a sketchy email titled “Credit 00040.” So I made a new account and tried to buy a Fairphone again, and little did I know that things would get so much worse. I attempted to place an order and got a “502 error - bad gateway.” I assumed this meant the order failed to go through, so I tried a couple more times, and then when that failed, I tried using a different payment method, and then PayPal to see if one of those would work.
I received no email, no order confirmation, and at this point, nothing was on the “Orders” page on the website. I then checked my bank account to see that, despite no order being placed or confirmed, a pending charge of over $500 from Murena went to my bank account. Then I checked my credit card to find seven pending charges, one of which being the first order I placed on the 31st that will supposedly get a refund.
These charges add up to $5934.54. As of today, I have not received any confirmation and $2173.84 has been posted between my bank account and credit cards, and now I have less than $100 of current balance in my checking account. More may be posted later. I don’t know.
I checked the “Orders” page on the Murena website multiple times, and while for the most part, it’s been empty, on two occasions, randomly, it has shown the orders. There are two things you can click, “View” and “Pay.” Both lead to 502 errors. There is seemingly no way to cancel these orders from their end.
This is a nightmare scenario. Both my bank and credit card company will not do anything about it until the funds either fall off or get charged. I hope they will honor a dispute when this exorbitantly large amount of money fully clears. Murena does not have a phone number, and they have not responded to help desk tickets. I’m in a position where I cannot pay my bills this month, and unless action is taken, I will lose my entire savings, which will still not be enough to pay the fraudulent charges Murena applied without confirmation or fulfillment.
Until Murena fixes their Set Password process for accounts made during the order, as well as the ordering process to prevent 502 errors that charge money to your bank account, do not buy a Fairphone from this company.
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