Three Feathers Tobacco Company review: No Product, no refund 14

I know the following info. does not get your money back but may help with being able to get cigarettes.

A helpful poster on the Internetsmokes.com complaints board suggested contacting buydiscountcigarettes.com.

I did so and they are accepting orders and are using a private carrier for deliveries.

They accept e-checks and VISA. Their e-check processor is ebank.

The private carrier is NAPAREX which is National Parcel express. You can find them at NAPAREX.com

The price is about $5 more per carton (including shipping) than internetsmokes was.

You can order up to 12 cartons at a time unless you live in NY and then you are limited to 4 cartons per order.

However, you can order as often as you like.

You can go online and create an acct. or call them at [protected]

The orders may take a while to arrive as I was told 2-4 weeks probably depending how far you live.

I used to order from this company prior to switching to internetsmokes.com due to the price difference. I never had a problem when I used them.

I believe I calculated the price of a carton of Seneca cigarettes to be $28.66 including shipping from this company compared to $23.70 inc. shipping from internetsmokes.com

Hope some find this info useful.

CIG REFUND

Wed. 11/24/10 @ 5:47am EDT

UPDATE, PEOPLE!  I GOT EMAIL LAST NIGHT FROM ThreeFeathers, the first news from them in months... Here is the email...

(...)
From: "Threefeatherstobacco.com"
Date: November 23, 2010 10:50:54 PM EST
To: (Me)
Subject: Important Message Regarding CheckCare Refunds

**IMPORTANT MESSAGE REGARDING REFUNDS FOR ORDERS PLACED IN JUNE 2010**
 
Dear Valued Customers,

This email is for those customers who have placed an order back in June, but have not received their refund due to the investigation by the Assistant US Attorney William Houser.

If you are not one of those customers you may disregard this email. 

As you know, the Assistant US Attorney William Houser has had your funds frozen in CheckCare’s bank account which has made us unable issue refunds to our customers who are owed their money.  

However, we do now have good news, we have just been informed that the US Attorney’s Office is now ready to release our customers funds.  

Although the funds will be released the money will not be released to us.  In order to get a refund for your order, you, the customer,  must submit a request to the US Attorney’s Office.

THIS IS A TIME SENSITIVE ISSUE, THIS PROCESS MUST BE COMPLETED BY DECEMBER 17, 2010 OR YOUR FUNDS WILL BE FORFIETED TO THE US ATTORNEY

Please follow the below instructions carefully;

You must first contact the US Attorney’s Office, Middle District of Pennsylvania; you may call, fax or write the office.

US Attorney’s Office,  
Middle District of Pennsylvania
Attention:  William S Houser
PO Box 11754
228 Walnut St. Suite 217
Harrisburg, PA [protected]
Phone:  [protected]
Fax:  [protected]

You will then receive two forms of verification.

Once you receive the two forms you will need to return them along with 3 other pieces of information;
- A copy of your order receipt
- The amount of the payment
- A copy of your bank account statement showing the withdrawal by CheckCare

Again this is a time sensitive issue, this process must be completed by December 17, 2010 or you will not be able to get a refund, please act quickly.

We do know that this whole situation has been a frustrating one for all of our customers that were involved.  

We are sorry that it took so long for Mr. Houser to be willing to release your funds.  

We do understand that at this point and time with the economy being the way it is, even the smallest amount of money is substantial and many of you placed large orders which we were unable to fill due to the investigation.

Additionally, the enactment of the PACT Act does not help our customers’ situation in any way as we are still unable to ship cigarettes through the USPS.  We know that for many of you this has been one way to save a lot of money on the native made cigarettes you love.

Although, we can no longer ship cigarettes through the USPS, we are able to ship cigars and pipe tobacco.

If you visit our site you will see a wide variety of cigars, they come 20 to a pack and 10 to a carton.  Even though these are not cigarettes many of our customers who used to order our cigarettes have switched to cigars as an alternative.

However, because of the investigation we are still unable to process Echecks so if you would like to try some cigars all orders must be mailed in along with a personal check or money order.

We hope that we will still be able to offer you low prices on a tobacco product you will come to love as you did the native cigarettes.

If you have any questions please feel free to email us.

Sincerely,
Craig Chiavetta
On Behalf of:
Big Buffalo SmokeShop
Big Buffalo Cigars
http://www.threefeatherstobacco.com
(...)

FYI:  The 717 area code # in the above email is not the same 570 area code # for Houser previously provided by others in this thread.

I had never bothered to call Houser in prior months because I figured why bother if no good would become of it in the end?

But now that there is some real news that refunds are indeed possible, I first called the 717 # from the email but no voicemail unless you know the exact extension you need. So I called the 570 # from the other ThreeFeathers threads at this site with ext 244 for Houser & left voice message requesting the 2 forms described in the above ThreeFeathers email.

HTH!

So Quitely Watching: Have you done biz RECENTLY with buydiscountcigarettes.com since your prior post above from 47 days ago?

Just curious as I took a look at the site & it appears they only have cigars; but they will link you to another site with Very Expensive NameBrand cigs only (no Discount Cigs), which likely are shipped from overseas as some of the pricey Name Brands are foreign cigs.

After PACT, I noticed a lot of these type sites popped up.

Will there ever be -- or are there -- any USA Discount cigs being sold/shipped via 3rd party carrier in/to USA residents?

If anybody finds any such company, that's what we need to zoom in on next, after everyone gets their $$ back from Houser.

I never ordered from the buycigarettes.com site as I still have several cartons on hand. However, I did call them and got the info. I posted. I later noticed the site changed and called them again. They claim they had problems with their shipper and were not going to be able to offer cigarettes unless they found a more reliable way to ship.

I do have a friend that has ordered recently from the Seneca Smokeshop and has received delivery with no problems.

Note: I hope you are not trying to say that I posted false information as when I posted about buycigarettes.com, it was current at the time.
I would think there is a nicer way of asking a question other than the way you did so. Just my opinion.

I received the same e-mail today (12/05/10). Wish I'd been one of the first one's to receive this as now I have much less time to receive and process the forms. Funny how they hang onto the money for so many months, yet give such a small window of opportunity to file for a refund. I'll believe it when I see it...in my bank account or cash in hand.

12/9/10 UPDATE:

Dear fellow sufferers! (including NorCal61, I hear ya!)

QUESTION #1: WHAT DO THE 2 FORMS FROM HOUSER (that we need to fill out) SAY, &/or WHAT INFO DO THOSE FORMS ASK FOR?

I ask because I want to be ready in advance (& see below why I don't have the forms yet!) :-/

---------------

QUESTION #2: DID ANYONE's BANK STMT actually show CHECK CARE as the entity who withdrew your money?

I ask because in the further-above 11/23/10 email from ThreeFeathersTobacco, Craig Chiavetta said we need to send to Houser our bank stmt that shows CHECK CARE. (But my June bank stmt shows BIG BUFFALO, not CHECK CARE).

I am wondering if this matters? (I dont want any grief from Houser due to not correct info! See next paragraph!)

------------------

BEWARE OF DITZ BRAINED GOVT EMPLOYEES!

On Monday 12/6/10 @12:45pm, Houser's secretary left a voice message on my ph saying their forms for me were returned to them as Undeliverable!  (That's because they put the WRONG HOUSE # in the address!  She said they wrote to xx, xxx Road -- WHICH I NEVER SAID, as the correct house # is xx, xxx Road!  Grrr.  I called them back at 1:01pm same day, was given to same lady's voicemail by a switchboard operator, & raised a little cain repeating the correct address TWO MORE TIMES.  Then pushed buttons for ext.226 where there was a male's voice voicemail re the whole cig fiasco, & I left another message at THAT ext.226 as well, repeating the correct address TWICE again!  Hang up.  Total time of call to both extensions/voicemails:  7:21 minutes.)

Since I had left my original voicemail request on HOUSER's direct phone number, ext.244, on Wed. 11/24/10@5:08am (morning I first rec'd the ThreeFeathers email from the night before dated 11/23/10@10 pm), where I also had repeated the xx, xxx house # & street address TWICE, there is no excuse that they screwed up the address!  (It would not surprise me if Houser himself did it wrong on purpose, since it was HIS direct ext.244 where I left my original request for the forms.)  Either way, they caused a DELAY of 13 WASTED DAYS through Mon. 12/6/10 when they left msg for me & I called them back only to get more voicemails where I did leave 2 more msgs repeating the correct xx, xxx address FOUR TIMES, making SIX TIMES TOTAL I have given the ditz-brained govt my CORRECT xx, xxx address.

Through Wed. 12/8/10 no forms from Houser arrived via USMail.  Maybe, hopefully, by Thurs. or Fri. 12/9-10/10, ESPECIALLY because the deadline is NEXT Fri. 12/17/10!

I am tempted to just ignore your paranoid comment, Quietly Watching, & presume that you were simply PMS'ing & feeling overly sensitive the day you read my question! FOR CRYING OUT LOUD, girl! Gimme me a big fat break already! I said nor implied NO SUCH THING. You are IMPUTING WRONG MOTIVES to my SIMPLE question!

I asked because, hello duh it should be OBVIOUS from the CONTEXT, that I am looking AHEAD to where I might order NEXT! Plain & Simple as THAT! Sheesh! Please go take a Midol!

If anyone has received the forms, please let us know what they contain. I am poised with the bank statements and copies of orders...the deadline is coming soon. I think giving us such a short timeline to respond is unfair - they've held the money for six months...give us six months to respond! I also am upset that others were informed about the refund almost 2 weeks before I knew anything about it.

I called AND faxed Houser's office. If they can't understand what I say...they should be able to read it.

One form is just an authorization you need to sign stating you had money held and that you have not received a refund previously by any other means. The second for is in ACH authorization, 3 sections, the top section you leave blank, the second section is your personal info (name, address, etc). the third section needs to be completed by the ACH person at your bank and signed by them.

TIME FOR SOME HUGE THANK YOU'S to the great people on this board!

1. Thank you Svikes84 for the above description of what the forms are about! That alone was a great help! I should have posted the question 2 weeks ago! (Didn't even think of it!)

2. And so both NorCal61 & Svikes84 dont think I'm totally lost, lol. I saw After The Fact that BOTH OF YOU had INDEED helped me out tremendously via your private messages! Thank You! (I never use the PM system & it had me going in circles for a minute! :)

So 2 forms it is, people, the Verification form & then the ACH form (as described by Svikes84 above) & which the 2nd form can be found online since it is a standard form:
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22ach+vendor/miscellaneous+payment+enrollment+form%22&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&client=safari (thanks to Svikes84 for that tip! )

Having the 2nd form right away will allow you to get to the bank sooner since they have to fill in Part 3 of the ACH form!

Whew! What a day! But it turned out great!
THANKS AGAIN, LADIES, for saving the day!

12/9/10: A little more news before signing off...

Back in July I started a thread at Topix Forums/Irving NY (where ThreeFeathers/BigBuffalo is) to hopefully get some local input. But after several days where the posts with all links kept disappearing, I gave up & abandoned the thread... until tonight I went back & saw people had actually finally left some comments (2 pages). Very interesting, as some were able to get their $$ back via their banks getting it back from CheckCare. Here's a little bit about that, FWIW...

-------------

ONLINE CIG ECHECK MONIES CONFISCATED BY FEDS - Topix:
http://m.topix.com/forum/city/irving-ny/T7IFV3NVS5CRQ2UPB/p2#lastPost
(...)
The investigation (BY THIS PERSON's BANK) of my e-check dispute has finallized and I have all my money back into my account. You actually authorized Big Buffalo as the recipiant of your money and not CheckCare, so it is a voided transaction because Big Buffalo never received the money.
(...)
...contact your bank again and ask to speak with the manager of the bank. Surely, they can make an exception and I would request, that they do this. If he or she refuses your request, then ask to speak with the President of the bank. Keep bugging them until you get them to reverse that cigarette charge from CheckCare back into your account. They can waive that 60 day limit. Don't talk to anyone but the manager first! Tell the manager that this ACH transaction was charged incorrectly from your account and that you want the charges reversed back into your account. They have lawyers at all banks to do these things. The bank has an obligation to you as an account holder to persue a phone call to CheckCare to get the charges reversed. Let me know what happens...I care.
(...)
END QUOTE.

One last question: Does everyone's bank statement say CHECK CARE or BIG BUFFALO?

My June Bank Stmt says BIG BUFFALO on 6/22/10 (I had placed my order very early the day before, June 21, 2010).

Thanks.
Time for some Zzzzz's!

Fri. 12/10/10@9:25am:

Never mind on the above Bant Stmt. Question. I got an answer at the Topix forum thread this morning! :)
http://topix.com/forum/city/irving-ny/T7IFV3NVS5CRQ2UPB/p3#c63

Will check back after the first of the year to see how everyone's doing. Thanks again ladies!

Signing off the Complaints Boards for awhile.