"Customer Disservice": How to deal with the BBB

Before I get started, I'd like to give a quick introduction. My name's Josh, although most know me as Cav. I'm a CS major here in my junior year. I like history and reading. As far as politics go, I'm a registered independent and don't have any desire to belong to any political party. I enjoy watching just about any form of media and write as a hobby. The views I express are honest and straightforward and I hope that you enjoy reading this piece even if you disagree with me at times. I plan on discussing a various number of issues, not just any set topic.

I had a real interesting experience a few weeks back with an online customer service representative. Oh, it's not exactly the first time I've dealt with one of these idiots who couldn't give you a direct answer if their life depended on it. This particular one was from the Internet store Buy.com.

I had one particular disc that was on backorder for two months. Yes, that's right: two months. Now the only DVD that should ever be on back order for two months would be something that's hard to find, out of print, or in vast demand. This disc wasn't any of those. I could go to any other store on the Internet or go into any decent place that sold DVDs and I would be able to pick this up without a problem. But, no, there I was, two months without the last disc on the order. I think what really boiled me the most was that I had several friends who had ordered the disc after me at the store and had already received their disc! So, I decided to inquire about it.

I sent out the typical email to customer service asking where the bloody hell was my disc. One of their drones, I think Eight of Seventy-Two, sends out the standard cut and paste email that's something like, "Thank you for contacting Buy.com. We are too clueless to tell you if we're ever going to ship your item or not. It'll be sent whenever we feel like it." I've seen these before, so I'm not about ready to put up with it. I sent them a quaint reply asking them to drop the act, tell me when they're shipping my disc, and why I have friends who've already received their copies of the disc from the exact same store who ordered theirs' after me. Drone number twenty sends me a reply which basically indicates he/she didn't even look at the bloody email and just cut and paste the exact same response as the first one.

You know how many emails I went through before these idiots gave me an intelligent response? Six! And this was after I threatened to contact their supervisor, the corporate offices, and the BBB (Better Business Bureau). That and the fact that I pointed out that THEY HAD THE ITEM IN STOCK! I mean for crying out loud, they have the bloody thing listed as shipping in twenty-four to forty-eight hours. That's what it took for them to finally ship me an item they had in stock that had been backordered for two months. Now, I ask you, does anyone else find this a bit ridiculous?

As I said, this isn't the first time I've dealt with this type of thing from one of these places. My all time worst experience was with CDNow. They had a bonus point system for ordering from them. After shipping one of my orders, their system didn't register the points. It took over a dozen emails, three months, and the threat of legal litigation before they finally credited me the points!

Here is the lesson, folks: these stores are going to treat you like this unless you act like a total and complete jerk to them. Yes, threaten them with lawsuits, contacting the BBB, contacting their managers, heading over there with a machete, or sending them the complete works of John Tesh: unless you do this you're going to get the same idiotic cut and paste responses that don't help you at all. Your problem will go unresolved and nobody will give a flying you know what about you. They'll give you the same "Thank you for giving us your money. We really care about you… sure we do" line over and over, but the customer service at most of these stores is reprehensible. The best thing to do in fact is immediately call them so you don't have to deal with the wait time in-between replies from their "customer service," that could take anywhere from twelve hours to twelve days.

Have a receipt of purchase from their store? Don't assume that they'll follow it. They're not actually held to these receipts because there's no national law requiring them to. And why do you think that "usually" always appears before the shipping time of items? Don't be surprised if a "usually ships in 2-3 days" actually ships after about 3. That "usually" gives them the right to ship your order whenever they feel like getting around to it, and there's not really much you can do about it.

If you're going to go through one of these Internet stores, judge how much you're willing to deal with this before you place your order. I've had customer service problems with almost every store I've ordered from, so there's no one that is truly one-hundred percent safe.

As an aside, the editor in chief of this paper, after pre-reading this article, decided to try the same approach with a backorder he had at Buy.com. Surprise, it shipped immediately after. Email: cav@wpi.edu