Look at that. I’d like to say it’s to scale, but depending on your screen size and resolution, it probably won’t be. But it’s my latest purchase - an 8Gb (yes, you read that right) USB memory stick, called the JumpDrive FireFly. And just £18.

It’s a touch slow compared to my Passport, but then it’s likely to be - an actual hard drive does tend to be rather quick. Never-the-less it’s middling compared to my other USB sticks (slower than my Samsung but faster than my Crucial). Reviews say the write speed is slow, but then I’ve seen more recent ones that say otherwise. I can’t tell. I just know it’s slower than the passport, but still eminently usable.

I’ve also given up on onlinememory - in all senses. Phones and emails have all gone unanswered, so I’ve bought the Sansa from Play.com. I’ve also picked up a travel kit (including leather case) and memory expansion whilst I’m at it (that will bring it up to 10Gb in total). Nice.

Well, there’s a shock. Nearly a week later and my Sansa hasn’t turned up.

I know I’m playing right into their hands, but I’ve sent an email chasing it up. I’m sure I’ll be able to hear them cackling from here.

Ahhh, onlinememory.co.uk. After getting my refund from them, and not receiving ANY responses to any of my emails, I thought I’d never hear from them again.

Until last Thursday.

I received an email to say my Sansa was in the post. Eh? This order was cancelled. I got my refund. Worried, I checked my Google Checkout account… nope, nothing has been taking. According to my account on their site, they have taken the money for my Sansa.

It would appear that, for once, their ineptitude has worked to my advantage. The order has been cancelled and refunded, but they haven’t realised that. As a consequence, I get a £70 MP3 player for nothing. I just hope it turns up now!

Poor service is always something I believe in not ignoring but doing something about. So here’s one part of that.

Let’s get the naming of the culprit out of the way straight off…. onlinememory.co.uk

After a positive review in PCPro, I was interested in purchasing a Sansa MP3 player. Onlinememory had the 8GB version at a shade under £70, including P&P - a lot less than anyone else. The reviews of the retailer were generally positive on the comparison site I was using, so I went ahead and ordered. The item was in stock, so I looked forward to it turning up.

After 4 days the status on their website was still stating “Processing” so I emailed them. Days later I didn’t have a response so, on Monday of this week, I used their “Online chat” facility to ask them about it. It was apparently out of stock and I should have been sent an email. Well their website still said they had stock and, no, I hadn’t been send an email to tell me otherwise. They apologised and said they were due stock “later this week” but I couldn’t pin them down to anything more accurate. The fact that they were so vague and that their website was telling me they did have stock set alarm bells ringing.

Soon after that conversation they sent me an email apologising again and stating that “We are having difficulty in regards the supply of this product as it is all being rebranded by the manufacturer at this time. We endeavour to supply your purchase as soon as this item is available.” (their spelling and grammar mistakes, not mine).

Today I guess they gave up because I received a refund from Google Checkout. What they didn’t do, though, is contact me to let me know they were refunding me and why. And, yes, still the website says they have stock.

I’ve now emailed onlinememory back to tell them about my poor service and the fact that I won’t purchase from them again. I’ve also queried the rebranding with Sandisk and told them of my issues (you never know, enough complaints and they might drop them as reseller).

I’ll update in due course to let you know of any response I get from either company.

Update: I heard back from SanDisk same day to say that they had recently launched a V2 version of the Sansa in the US, but didn’t have a release date for it in UK. 3 days later and nothing from onlinememory…