@narfcake I’m caught in their bottleneck. After 2 weeks, they’re finally getting some movement and starting to cancel items on people. They also sent out a shipping delay notice that essentially says “You’re hosed. Cancel if it makes you feel better.”
@MrGlass Yup - tons of delays with Amazon here too! They’ll just push it a day or two and say it is on time, they try to sneak it by you. I called, they said no to any remedy (usually a free month of Prime), they have buried a high traffic holiday clause in their Prime TOS (or so the rep I spoke to claimed). I didn’t feel like arguing; I hung up. They’ve missed on every package this week by at least one full day. And that is a lot of packages when you add in the stuff going to our office . . . I’m on year 4 of not paying for Prime with the office account anyway due to delayed packages, and I only call in on about 1 in 20 of them I should, they’ll kick you off of making any delivery guarantee if you “take advantage” of the free month thing . . . Fuckers.
@Pavlov They just offered me a free month, but I don’t pay for prime. Then they gave me a $5 credit (yay I can buy a coffee!). When I stuck to my guns, they eventually offered me a full refund ($140), if my item doesn’t come by tomorrow night (its new on time date).
I am lucky enough to be in an area with a lot of same day stuff available. If I have a delayed prime order I care about, and its available same day, I can often convince them to let me place my order again with same day and waive any fees.
@MrGlass Yes, Amazon has been really bad lately, but it just seems that is their new standard, not really just for the season.
It’s come to a point where it is just best to buy B&M from Target or Best Buy since Amazon merely just price matches them instead of beating their prices. I can get my items today, or wait for an Amazon delay…
@Pavlov@MrGlass@ELUNO I must just be super lucky I guess. I’ve ordered several times from them since the start of November and haven’t had any trouble. I’ve never had Prime either.
@ELUNO I had an Amazon package being delivered this past Sunday. My email in the late morning said it was delivered so I figured they just stuck it in the mailbox. I didn’t check it all day as I was bundled up on the couch watching football. Around 6:30 pm, someone knocked on the door with my package in hand to deliver it. One of the ‘local’ delivery persons they’re now using who seem to be driving their own cars. I wonder how much those people make…
@cinoclav Here in SoCal, Ontrac, California Overnight, Dynamex, Amazon Logistics, and FedEx Home all use “independent contractors”. As for how much they pay, it all depends on how it’s structured. Some are compensated only by mileage and delivery, some are hourly, some a combination.
I think it’s $72 for a delivery route that takes 3-4 hours to complete - for those drivers who contract directly with Amazon. They are 1099 independent contractors. Amazon takes no deductions and no taxes are withheld. All expenses accrue to the driver.
@ELUNO I have a po box since usps doesn’t deliver to my house, ups/fedex do. I used to just write my address on line 1, the box number on line 2. That way if it went usps the post office would keep it for me, if it went to fedex/ups it would come right to my door. Now if I do that they change it to just po box and refuse to let me have 2 day shipping
@compunaut@f00l That was my first thought. I’d imagine there’s more money to be made driving for those services but I guess not everyone has an appropriate car for it. You can deliver someone’s crap in any old vehicle as long as it gets you there.
@Pantheist Do you know the USPS has a program where you can use your PO Box for FedEx and UPS delivery? It gives you a street address that you can then use for FedEx/UPS/Amazon/Etc. It is great! They sign for it, they store it, they put a note in my box. The only downside is that it occasionally takes an extra day for delivery because of timing issues with checking it in at the PO.
@TimWalter I don’t think my post office will- it’s just run by two old ladies who kindof make up their own rules for everything. It couldn’t hurt to ask though.
Always assumed at some point Amazon would turn into eBay. Guess we’re there already.
Haven’t ordered from them in two years at least. Convenience and decent but not great pricing will never make up for the risk of getting counterfeit goods, imho.
@ELUNO Got a notice on my Amazon app that they had delivered an order to my mailbox (which it couldn’t because it couldn’t have fit) . . . . this was on a Sunday. Nothing there. Per their recommendation, I waited 36 hours for the package to turn up in addition to talking to my two neighbors who might have gotten the delivery. Nothing doing. Amazon issued a refund right away. Didn’t seem to care (as I did) if the problem was the delivery service or if the package was stolen from my front door. Just simply issued a refund.
@huja I had a release date delivery video game, and the tracking showed all day “out for delivery before 8 PM.” I waited ALL day for the damn thing. At 8:15 PM it still said the same thing. I got in touch with amazon and they told me I might have to wait up to 4 days! That’s crazy. I told them to cancel and recall the package. I simply drove to Target and got it there. I could have done all day, but I was waiting like a fool for a package that wasn’t going to arrive.
Know someone who did Uber and is now driving for Amazon.
Amazon won’t guarantee work. It’s almost certainly part-time and irregular $ for everyone.
Uber can be full-time but you have to work where and when you’ll get rides. Which means trying to get biz and airport runs daytime, or working the food and bar circuit in the evenings. And you have to put up with drunks and jerks in your car. Also Uber alters the compensation levels as they please.
1:13 PM EST 11/23 - Order #AAAAAAAAA placed for $6,416.50 for a server, client’s credit card specifically pre-authorized with bank for large transaction, confirmation received at 1:18 PM
4:23 PM EST 11/23 - Order #AAAAAAAAA cancelled “As requested” and yet nothing of the sort was ever requested. No explanation given for the cancellation.
4:43 PM EST 11/23 - Called and spoke to Jude Solomon, Jude attempted to re-place the order using client’s credit card but without the pre-authorization the card was declined. Jude made arrangements on his end to apply for Dell Finance and told me I was preauthorized for $7,500 in credit, re-placed the order and all was supposedly set (Order #BBBBBBBBB), I was to expect a call from Dell Financial Services to finalize details and my order would be headed to production. I did not hear back from Dell that night.
10:05 AM EST 11/24 (THANKSGIVING DAY!!!) thru 4:33 PM EST - I received an email about another order (#CCCCCCCCC) being confirmed, calls to all Dell numbers at my disposal revealed nobody was there (so who placed the order?!) due to the holiday. I attempted to cancel the order online. A Twitter conversation also took place between myself and @DellCares / @DellCaresPRO at the end of which I was assured that the improper order was cancelled and that my issue was being escalated for investigation.
1:19 PM EST 11/25 - Sabrina Rao emailed me regarding the investigation mentioned above with no real information to explain the issue. She did, however, mention that the order was on hold pending completion of my application for business credit and directed me to call Dell Financial Services to resolve this hold.
4:34 PM to 6:01 PM EST 11/25 - I was hung hung up on by Dell’s system because the department I was calling is closed after being transferred around by every single person that I spoke to.
During my call it came out that Jude Solomon somehow managed to access a Dell Business Credit account that was applied for at some unknown point in time by an employee of my client without my having directed him to do so and linked the order I was trying to place with that account without my authorization while misrepresenting it as my applying for a new credit account in my name.
I was eventually transferred to the sales team who were supposedly the ones who would apply for a new account and straighten this mess out but they then transferred me to DFS where I dealt with a representative who didn’t listen to a word I said and continued trying to approve the credit account in my client’s name, upon demanding to speak to a supervisor it came out that I needed to talk to sales, supposedly, and I was transferred back only to get hung up on. The rep who didn’t listen to me was literally at the ‘read the terms and conditions and get a verbal confirmation’ step that would have resulted in a credit account being opened in my client’s name before I stopped them.
After much perseverance I was able to get through to a US rep in their Austin, TX office who was an absolute pleasure to deal with. She was friendly, helpful, listened to what I had to say, and I was made to feel like she actually cared about the fact that I was having a negative experience and wanted to help fix it. She helped me get rid of the order Jude Solomon placed using Dell Financial Services and re-place a new order #DDDDDDDDD with the credit card I used originally. Then, after I got help from her Jude Solomon somehow inserted himself into things again and tried, again, to put the order on a Dell Finance account that did not belong to me while re-placing the order for unknown reasons. New order number #EEEEEEEEE.
As of 11/30 I was assured that my legitimate order placed originally with the Austin rep (leaving her name out to avoid linking her with this BS) and then re-placed by Jude Solomon after I drilled into him the fact that it needed to be on the credit card is 1) in Production, 2) being Expedited, and 3) Being shipped next-day with the shipping costs being comped by Dell at my insistence.
On 12/1 I again got contacted by Ms. Rao erroneously, which was straightened out by a gentleman whose name I neglected to record. He was very sympathetic, again promised to escalate, again promised to upgrade shipping, and told me that the prior rep was incorrect in promising that it would ship 12/1. He also promised to continue the investigation into the original escalation, the erroneous Thanksgiving day order, talk to his supervisor about some kind of compensation, and call me back. That call never came.
As of 12/6 I still had no server, it had been shipped out ground and had no call back so I contacted Ms. Rao requesting that the gentleman who I spoke to on 12/1 contact me. Ms. Rao called me instead and, after much apologizing promised to look into some kind of financial compensation for my constantly slipping schedule and hours wasted on the phone with Dell. Finally, after some twelve hours wasted and over a week’s worth of days of scheduling pushed I was offered a $250 coupon for Dell.com as compensation for all of these colossal fuck ups. And this was all on a $6,500 server purchase from their Small Business Sales department. I can only imagine the horror for consumer purchases (though I’ve read of plenty on the Dell subreddit).
@Pavlov at that point I was just tired of being on the phone with them. I’m going to use the coupon plus the $320ish I’ll be getting in rewards credit to get a brand new PS4 Pro for free and whatever other $170 in stuff I want.
@f00l oh that’s what you meant. I thought he meant looking for hits on my credit score for them trying to open the account. We’ve been monitoring the credit card constantly.
@jbartus You could have saved yourself some typing by stopping once you said, “Pretty sure it’s Dell.” That says everything right there.
Btw, I’ve had pretty good luck with Lenovo for their consumer products. I did have a tablet go on the fritz but it was sent back under warranty, fixed and returned in about a week. They then extended the warranty another 6 months.
One of the issues with companies like Dell - their businesses are complex and the divisions have a number of overlapping functions. And their CS and Sales reps, whether here or abroad, are often poorly trained, and do not understand the way the biz decisions interact, have been trained to work from v limited scripts.
It’s often not the rep’s fault. The rep was often given near zero chance to actually learn how to deal with problems or how the business operates. Or Dell just needed bodies and put people in place who could not handle complex situations, as @jbartus’s became after the first fuckup.
Those reps are seen as disposable interchangeable bodies, and companies will not invest in bringing them to competence. And the best of them - the ones who actually solve problems - are penalized and get written up because they took the time to handle something properly.
@cinoclav most of it was copypasta from an email sent to Ms. Rao (and copied to Michael Dell, might be how the guy who never called me back got involved) which itself was copypasta from a Twitlonger sent on Thanksgiving Day to @DellCares and @DellCaresPro. I only added the last paragraph or so and changed a bunch of “you” stuff to “they” stuff.
I generally dread any contact with any Customer Service.
The first concern: will English be their first language. And then everything.
However, when I get a professional gem of an agent, I sometimes ask to talk to their supervisor or how I can provide feedback. And say to their supervisor something like “If every interaction with your company were like that, I’d never consider to a competitor.”
@jbartus I ordered a Dell laptop on Cyber Monday. Was suppose to arrive around the 7th. I called when nothing showed. Apparently they had not even started to build it. With out me asking, the customer service rep asked if I wanted cancel it since it was going to be weeks late. I said yeah, so back on the market for a laptop.
I’ll give the overseas rep a chance if the prob is routine. Sometimes overseas is all there is.
For a number of companies you can ask to xfer to a US based rep. Amazon does this. I only make the req if I can’t accomplish anything with the foreign rep. Or if it’s really complicated.
I think Dell HP etc have US based tech support at a higher price - mostly used by very large companies.
@f00lmy patience with foreign based CS agents is as short as their English language and cultural skills.
And “script bunnies” can exist anywhere. You know - where you’ve clearly explained the issue several times and they keep going back to the script.
An example: our area had a several day power failure. We ran our house on our generator and all three local internet providers had generators keeping their local nodes up.
Our provider, AT&T, rather than running little Hondas and Yamahas like Comcast and Wow!, had what looked like $10,000 diesel generators.
The little genset guys were driving around keeping them fueled.
But AT&T? No. After about a day theirs ran dry and quit. It sat there silent for the rest of the outage.
When I called AT&T (India) all I wanted them to do was open a ticket with the local service folks letting them know their genset was empty. But no way could she figure out how to do that. She kept saying “sir, we’re showing your area is without electricity due to weather conditions, we cannot do anything until the electric company restores electricity.” Same answer from her (India) supervisor. And “no, we cannot transfer you the the US because it is after hours.”
@RedOak
That ATT thing would drive me near to a full irrational explosion.
When I deal with more tractable problems, I have been known to (nicely) insist the rep go off script and have (nicely) insisted the rep repeat my prob descriptions back to me until it wascomprehended. Then sometimes they still can’t do anything.
I try hard not to take it out on the rep, and apologize to them if I get too “hot”. I thank them for their patience if I am irritable or angry. Their lack of power and lack of training is something they cannot control. It’s there deliberately by management design.
@f00l True, getting abusively angry and threatening with the CS agent is just as effective as it is in other routine life interactions. But showing a little urgency and frustration can help, even explicitly saying something like “can you see this from my perspective?”
Well trained agents automatically repeat back to you what they heard and even say “I understand your frustration.”
When I am on the phone w one of these, after the “verify identity” stuff is done, I control the conversation from then on. But I do give plenty of space for the rep’s responses or seeking info or proposing solutions.
If I don’t control the conversations, it takes too long and doesn’t go where it needs to go.
I try really really hard to always be polite and decent about it.
Well trained agents automatically repeat back to you what they heard and even say “I understand your frustration.”
That Jedi mind trick shit works very well on ex-wives also. The current @MrsPavlov would just ask me if I was feeling well and punch me in the nuts for being disingenuous if I tried it on her though.
@Pavlov Haha! Women want to to be listened to, not corrected or offered solutions to what might appear to men to be problems/challenges. (Unless they explicitly ask for advice… the rareness of this action being truly illustrative of the point.)
The sooner men learn that the sooner relationships become more peaceful. Yes, I’m generalizing but I believe it is more valid than not.
@RedOak
I know you are generalizing. Without hard data, given my personal experience, I suspect you are wrong.
Growing up, girls and boys develop and practice different forms of common communication in single gender situations. Behavior customs may well be different with a given gender’s current practices and habits and may be intended to achieve different goals. The different behavior often promote slightly different sorts of relationships.
It can pay the learn the methods, meanings, and practices of “the other side.”
Both methods of communicating are entirely logical taken as is within their spheres.
If I hear a person make a claim that the other gender is “less logical” or “less goal directed” en masse, I’m pretty sure I’m either hearing humor and kidding, or else I’m hearing more about the person speaking that I am about the other gender.
Scripted or let-me-get-off-the-hook “I feel your pain” type responses make me want to kill something if they are offered in lieu of solutions. I stay polite and civil despite a gut reaction otherwise.
I still haven’t killed anything, except a few commercial relationships.
@f00l yes, generalizing is dangerous. But the above statement was in reference to couples relationships and based not only upon decades of relationships (capped by a single 26 year and growing marriage and four kids, three of them girls, the oldest, married) but also from reading the advice of relationship counselors.
I believe men tend not to be naturally good listeners.
I did not and would not make any claims about whether one sex is more or less logical than the other.
If the above tells you more about me than the observation with which you disagree, then so be it. Just my opinion. Compensation-free and easy to ignore.
only point I intended:
in a personal relationship of mine that’s productive, I try to pay attention to the all the other party’s spoken or unspoken desires and expectations when I am aware of them. And to respond both to obvious content and inferred intent or desire directly and openly.
That’s ideal circumstances.
Of course I am perfectly capable of, and sometimes all too accomplished at, being quite insensitive. And not to mention frequently off my rocker.
Shorthand, I can be a “dumb motherfucker”.
Having the other party be capable of compassion and tolerance toward me helps things along.
@f00l Please don’t get me wrong - I am experienced in the art of acid words. Personally, I find going to church every week helps me to keep it under control. Most of the time. It seems to be a permenent condition that requires constant vigilance.
This isn’t much consolation, but when I read your saga I decided that I was greatly blessed in not having enough money to try to buy a server from Dell.
@RedOak@jbartus Back in another era, we received a super-mini (one full 6-foot tall rack) that was assembled on Friday December 24th. Bad news. They replaced every component trying to get that system to run reliably over the next few months.
In the end, they shipped out a new chassis/rack (this was in the days of wire-wrap backplanes) and moved everything into that to get it going.
@jbartus Well, I hope all ends well. People do screw up more near holidays, I think. In my story, it was a lone server, back when tower meant 6 feet tall.
(Completely OT: Now my brother has a Dell c6100 at home as a compute node. So much power.)
All the major retailers I ordered from this year must really like me or something because I ordered tons of stuff online on and around Black Friday and had no real issues at all. Target even shipped me a second Christmas tree by accident. Still debating whether I should let them know about that…
@Al_Coholic my post is below…I just wrote it out. I mean granted it is a first world problem and all…but it was hours of time dealing with calls and being on hold for the lack of resolution and my tears for the epic failure.
@cbilyak sorry but I cannot reconcile theft, no matter how ill you have/feel you have been treated. Keeping something that isn’t rightfully yours is theft.
@jbartus I understand. Target admitted to me that they sent a bunch of merchandise to people and refunded them and were not going after them for payment, somehow thinking this would make me better understand why they were in such a tight bind to make my situation right, they know they jacked up big time, yet they did nothing for me for jacking me…sorry, I am good with it. Not theft, he did not take anything, they gave it to him like they gave a bunch of other people free merchandise this year…their problem.
@jbartus If they send it to you by mistake it’s yours legally, I’m pretty sure. If I get your address and send you a pony are you going to ship that pony back to me? Are you going to pay me for the pony? I hope Santa brings me a pony.
@cbilyak Yeah, that sounds like a major pain in the ass. If the alternative is wasting hours of my time and possibly my money as well to rectify someone else’s mistake, I think I’ll just keep the damn tree.
@sammydog01 If I receive a pony that I didn’t order, I’m keeping it. Actually I did order one, when I was six. And seven. And eight. And nine. And ten. Still waiting.
@Al_Coholic My thoughts exactly- either they will tell you to keep it or make you return it in some totally inconvenient fashion. If it was a small time retailer I would feel differently.
@jbartus As a big time retailer I feel that they should be able to absorb their fuck-ups. Morally and ethically a small time retailer is still responsible for fucking up but I might be more inclined to help them out. Unless they acted like dicks.
I think what @sammydog01 is saying is that a company like Target has more important things to deal with than one tree. Kind of how like a company like Amazon is a bit generous when it comes to mistaken orders either because they want to keep the person as a client, or because they can’t be bothered.
This is opposed to a small retailer where each mistake plays a factor.
Of course, I don’t know how much a tree costs, so I’m entering this discussion blindly.
@PlacidPenguin the idea that it isn’t a factor for large retailers is a fallacy.
@sammydog01 I wasn’t hitting on you, and I’m not trying to be mean. I am disappointed however.
I don’t know how to say it non-offensively but suffice to say that I thought we had people of high moral fiber here in the Meh community. Based on what you’ve said if someone left something behind at your house you’d make a reasonable effort to try to return it to them, but you’re here trying to rationalize someone not even making a phone call to alert Target to the issue on the basis that Target is a large company.
I don’t buy into that kind of deflection of moral responsibility, this idea that because they are large companies they should be held to a different standard than smaller entities or individuals is ludicrous to me. It’s one thing if they make a conscious decision not to provide you with a shipping label, it’s an entirely different matter to just keep it without saying a word.
Furthermore while some apparently feel this is a victimless crime because they’re a big company and it happens the fact is that every bit of this contributes to shrinkage which affects the budgeting of that company. The impacts of this kind of thing are far-reaching affecting everybody from the employees of the company whose next pay raise is weighed alongside the rest of the budget to customers for whom markups are affected because the company has to get the money to cover this from somewhere.
Should the company have shipped two items? No, but companies employ people and people are imperfect and prone to errors, mistakes. Keeping the second without saying a word, that’s no mistake, that’s a conscious decision not to do what’s right.
@PlacidPenguin Oh sure, drag me into this argument!
/image a pony for a penguin
/image a pony for a goat
/image a goat for a penguin
/image a penguin for a pony
/image a penguin for a pony for a goat
@jbartus you know that people are allowed to have views on morality that differ from yours. You can have the opinion that this difference makes them less moral, but that’s just, like, your opinion, man.
@PlacidPenguin@sammydog01 Yeah it was like a $30 tree and I totally agree. In fact you could even make the argument that not wasting their and my time on such a small issue would be doing the right thing; after all they have to pay those call center associates by the hour, and my call takes their time away from dealing with other, more important issues. In the company/department I work for, one of our bigger goals is minimizing calls to the call center.
But apart from all that, my main worry here is that they would punish me for my honesty, either by charging me for something I didn’t order, or by trying to make me return it at my expense. And I’m especially concerned about that after hearing about the lovely experience @cbilyak had with them. And if that happens, then as mentioned above, I will be paying for someone else’s mistake.
@Al_Coholic
Have a close relative who owned and ran a very large and profitable multiple-city retail operation all his life. He’s gone now and the business was bought finally by a national chain.
His attitude, spoken frequently, was than it cost more to fix errors under $10 if the customer had already left the store, than to let them go. He had systems in place to check for frequent and repeating errors.
As the chain grew, he didn’t even really want customers who had gotten accidental small freebies to call in, tho his staff was always gracious if they did, and always offered a small gift certificate as thanks. Just dealing with a prob like that often cost more than ignoring it, assuming it was something rare.
Other relatives who own and run retail or wholesale operations seem to feel the same. Not tiny businesses tho.
@Al_Coholic they cannot legally charge your card without your authorization to do so, if they do you simply initiate a legitimate chargeback and go on your way, and they have no means by which to compel you to go to extraordinary lengths to return their product. If they demand you take it to the store you demand that they send someone out to pick it up as you never ordered it and it’s their issue to fix. Hell, they might even tell you to keep it, but that’s their decision to make and choosing to keep it is taking that decision away from them. They can’t make you do anything, but just keeping it without even trying to return it to its rightful owner… you can equivocate all you want but in the end you’re keeping something that isn’t rightfully yours.
@f00l while all of that is very well and good beyond being anecdotal at best it also relates only to one man’s attitude on the matter. The fact that they gave a gift certificate shows them recognizing the people for doing the right thing, whether it was a hassle or not. I’m not taking anything away from your relative, just noting that it hardly constitutes justification for keeping an item you didn’t purchase.
@Al_Coholic You could split the difference and donate it to a homeless shelter, abused kids or battered women’s shelter. Or take it to a church and ask them to give it to a family in need.
My family member’s attitudes is something I have heard from more than one person, in more than one type of business. But yes, anecdotal.
I have no idea what a survey of biz wonders and executive on only this topic would yield re small errors and small accidental freebies. Too much of tiny error correction can take a biz’s eye off the ball of keeping the biz healthy and growing. Of course, if a customer was the one shortchanged, a decent biz always tries to fix that.
My relative offered gift certs to strengthen the bond to a customer who reached out. He said that, financially, hearing about and fixing those errors was in itself a net loss even before the gift cert. but it paid off in the long run in a better and stronger relationship with a good customer. So they rewarded.
In general they tried to reward friendly customer conduct openly. It simply paid in the long haul. You give a great customer a gift cert and then you get their entire school shopping list or fall office supply order or possibly even more - perhaps a partnership deal or exclusive relationship.
His attitude may be a little old-fashioned in today’s price competitive world. His stores offered a lot of custom and attentive service and friendliness. The olde days, huh?
Most companies don’t give me accidental freebies. If they do, I try to figure out what the company would want in terms of notification, and do that - unless they then expect a bunch of my time for free. And some do. I protest at that point.
@f00l it’s the same deal when the companies let you keep an item. The point is that the worth or cost of re-obtaining the item is up to the business to determine, a choice taken out of their hands when they aren’t made aware of the issue.
Kmart… bought each kid a bike, the week of Thanksgiving. Under $50 each, with coupons, etc. Had a hard time securing a vehicle to transport two bikes, and I called and explained. I was told no problem, they would hold them. Hubby somehow was alerted to a cancellation “by our request”. After hours of arguing with people, when he asked for a manager, the woman sent him to a mailbox that was not being answered because we had crossed the 11pm CST threshold and the woman didn’t bother to tell him that. After him fuming for hours, I figured out he had almost $65 in points from Kmart, re-ordered, having shipped and saved $65 buck…
Thanks for the warning about Old Navy, I have two orders not shipped yet, but with Christmas presents in them… oh well…
@RedOak@f00l The three nearest to me have all closed. I can’t say I miss a “discount” department store that manages to combine quality lower than Walmart at prices higher than Target.
@narfcake same here, the closest is 20 minutes away, which was near to where my husband was working at the time. It was never a pleasant experience to shop there. I remember it from when I was a kid, and it didn’t change in all those years.
@mikibell I don’t know how old you are but I have fond early memories of Kmart visits with my dad. Kmart was pretty much the only “discount” store and they seemed well run (at least from a kid’s perspective). This was long before Target was even a dream. And I don’t recall Walmart existing - at least not in our state where the Kresge Corporation was HQ’d.
As Kmart failed to modernize, their final nail in the coffin (they died but never admitted it) was the arrogant & clueless CEO Joseph Antonini. He was such an odd duck and poor fit to that role.
When it came time to build a new HQ, he was afraid of heights so a high rise in the city was out of the question. Instead he built a massive, sprawling 4 story complex of mini “towers” in the fields of a largely undeveloped suburb. Then he senselessly filled it with expensive paintings and sculptures.
Ten years after Kmart-Sears moved to Chicago, that complex sits (on very valuable land), un-touched, directly next to what might be one of the highest end malls in the US, Somerset Collection.
@RedOak I like visiting KMart on Black Friday, the employees are much more cheerful and helpful than at other retailers and the customers are generally nice. I usually get my winter warm fuzzies there each year but I got cold early and bought fuzzy sliipers and socks and loungepants in mid-November. But year before last I actually saw people sharing stuff from their carts with people who’d missed out on an item, I did it myself. I had filled my cart with $3 lap throws and I passed by a lady looking sadly at the empty shelf and let her take three of mine. When I got to the cashier an item I really wanted rang higher than I expected, I set it aside and when she saw I was disappointed the cashier just smiled and overrode the register to enter the price I’d expected.
Target - bought my kids hoverboards from them on Cyber Monday for a killer deal to be delivered on Monday, Dec 5. Woot had better ones for about $20 more on December 2 but when I contacted Target and they confirmed mine were on their way I did not cancel that order and buy from woot but rather kept the Target order. Dec 5 comes, no hoverboards, and UPS tracking does not show details…call customer service and they tell me not to worry, they are coming and with 2 boxes under 1 tracking number it often messes with UPS. Ok, I wait. Next day, no hoverboards…call UPS, they confirm that although a label was generated no packages were ever shipped. Contact customer service again, they tell me no worries, they are coming. I point out the UPS status and am put on hold for a long time…guy comes back and tells me sorry the item is out of stock I will refund you. I say no, I do not want a refund, I want to find out when they will be back in stock. On hold forever again, he comes back and tells me to be patient, the packages will probably arrive in a few days…um, what!? Asked if he was just trying to get rid of me and asked for a manager. She is all sympathetic, says the item is sold out. I ask when they will have more, she does not know, has to escalate this and I tell her to do so and also find out how much of a deal I can get on the hoverboards that are in stock. She says she will do so and they will get back to me in 1-3 days. 2 days later I receive a form letter advising me of my pending refund, all I have to do is return my merchandise…WTF! I call immediately and ask for a manager, have to go through everything again, she has to escalate it again, promises me I will hear back later that day. About 4 hours later I get 2 more generic emails about my refund, I call back. Am on the phone over 1 hour, 3 transfers escalated to a 4th tier manager/service rep with still no resolution…they do not know when the product will be back in stock and even though I received about 30% off the initial purchase they cannot authorize that off hoverboards in stock without sending to a department that the manager I spoke with 2 days previously claimed she was doing and never did. I asked them to do so and they said I would hear back the next day…no response next day so I called them back…we are sorry ma’am but your refund has been processed and is irreversible…they never even allowed me to purchase other hoverboards at a discount like they promised…fuck them anyway as I do not want them to ever have my business again. Nobody else has any even close to the price i bought on Cyber Monday and Woot has not thrown theirs back up unless it was briefly during the Woot-off and I missed it.
Bottom line…no hoverboards for my kids for Christmas this year…not in the budget without the Cyber Monday pricing. . And Target has lost a client for life.
If you use twitter sometimes it works if you tweet-hit them on this sort of thing. Some companies respond by offering contact to a better tier of customer service.
That whole thing was pretty awful tho. A constant hazard of online shopping.
Yeah, Old Navy is getting worse. Still haven’t shipped orders from 11/28. Cancelling items from those orders - but those items are still for sale on their website, just for more money.
If you call CS, the wait times are over an hour.
If you email CS, you get a canned “we’ll get back to you in 3+ days” response. Then, 3 days later, you get a copy/pasted answer that doesn’t address the email you sent.
When a smaller company takes 3 days to answer around the holidays, it makes sense. When Old Navy does it, it’s a bit on the ridiculous side.
On the good note, Monoprice CS is amazing. They are jumping through hoops to make sure my son’s 3d printer is up and running as soon as possible. We didn’t buy the printer from them, so technically, it is Amazon’s problem. But Monoprice is being awesome!!!
@mdrcoast I actually like Microcenter. But since we have one close by, I don’t think I’ve ever ordered via their website. Use it merely for research.
Yah, their stores can be chaotic and randomly organized. And those silly stickers their salespeople use to get credit for a sale trigger really odd customer treatment.
But it is nice having such a rich supply of PC components and off-lease PCs in a local B&M. And I’ve had excellent experience with their customer support, often getting a call from the store manager.
I’m curious, what are these “special codes”? We’re conditioned to them on Newegg, but Microcenter? How do I get them?
@RedOak Have to sign up for em and you get them in e-mail.
I like having the store in town, not easy to get to but it always has parts I need.
They just meltdown over Christmas with these Code Only “BlockBuster Deals” (Codes don’t work or they only have 1 or 2 items in stock. I don’t even try to shop online with them them between Thanksgiving and Christmas)
I used to love them, you shopped on Thanksgiving night and picked up your order at the store on Black Friday. Don’t know why they changed that policy.
@mdrcoast I’ve been signed up and getting their emails for years, since they opened their local store. Still recall getting some amazing loss-leaders at that opening, crazy as it was. Like an Apple eMac (the CRT with clear case) for something like $300.
And I picked up the original MS Surface + keyboard cover (special MS package) for something like $179 a couple years ago. Yah, Windows RT. But it does Office fine and is built like a tank. Decent and durable laptop alternative for the kids.
But I’ll admit I avoid them on BF - geek-swarm hell. I wonder if they do those codes at all stores?
@dashcloud package is in OH…delivery date has already slipped a day… My son’s coat is in the mix…nothing that will excite him. If I could just find a way to ensure he leaves a place with the coat he brought with him, I would not need backup coats!
@mikibell your son bought a 3D printer?! Earnings?! How old is he? I’m 26 and even I haven’t been able to justify that kind of purchase! If he’s earning an income and being careless with the coats you buy him I’d definitely make him pay for them if I were in your position! When it’s your money it’s easy to be careless, when it’s his…
@jbartus he did buy a 3d printer. He has been working since late summer. He painted metal trellis like railings in really hot weather and he has been raking and blowing leaves at each set of his grandparents. Relatively inflated wages have fed his arduino habit and the 3d printer. To be fair, he shared his bank during the period of time whenever we were short on cash . Any more lost coats and he will pay for them. It all is part of the learning process. How to price a job fairly for a customer. How to make a profit, after calculating hours and materials, etc. How much grandma will interfere with mom trying to teach morals and ethics? He magically earned the last $40 on Thanksgiving. He also weighed cost of build your own vs. Pre-built, mini vs. Medium, etc. The monoprice he bought was $259 on black Friday.
@compunaut my husband started teaching our kids when they were little about money in terms they could understand…one trip to mcds cost the same as two trips to the bagel shop, a trip to olive garden cost five trips to mcds, etc. So, as much as my son loses his coats, he is really conscious of how he spends his money. When his tablet screen broke as well as the button, he as willing to wait 3 weeks for the button to ship from China rather then spend 10x as much to get it sooner.
@jbartus they have been so good to the kid…the control board is wacked and they are jumping through all sorts of hoops to get it up and running for him…
@jbartus Some of my kids’ older classmates can talk their parents into cheap used cars, but they have to pay for their auto insurance, so they get a job. A few have figured out that if they keep the job but drop the car habit, the $$ accumulate pretty quick.
I went to Best Buy today. My husband was going to buy me a laptop for my birthday that was last month. I know very little about computers. This nice man (non employee) helped up out and I picked out a nice shiny one that cost $700. The sales guy told us, without looking it up, that there were none in any store in the state and none in the warehouse. So why was it on display? And why didn’t he mention that during the half hour we were looking at it? Fuck you, Best Buy.
Ask here. Start a thread. Whatever you were thinking if at a b&m BB for $700, I bet the people here could come up with something better for the $ or similar spec’d but cheaper.
Also check slickdeals. read a thread if you are thinking about buying an item..
@sammydog01
Do you like b&m stores because you can try before purchase? Or because you want to purchase locally to have a local connection if there are issues?
I haven’t used HP in a long time. HP tends to load their machine with crapware, unless they’ve changed. I haven’t dealt with large or power laptops in a long time either. That machine appears to have ok specs. But unless it’s a BB special purchase, it’s prob not the best value for the $.
I’m no laptop expert, but this isn’t a gamer laptop since no special graphics hardware. If you don’t game heavily, that doesn’t matter. Gaming laptops are a kinda sinkhole to purchase anyway. Insanely expensive and quickly obsoleted by the “new new”.
Some laptops run really hot - too hot, they can be difficult to handle - so always check reviews for that.
I’m into the small light ones. But laptop choice is very personal.
I have an older gen transformer book and love it. It can be a bit finicky. The battery life is insane. Like 12-14 hours or something.
The screen is a little small. Mobile chip, so this doesn’t run fast and you don’t want to load it down with software. If you get one, make sure it’s at least 64g memory. NOT just 32! You can get used to it’s quirks. I got a refurb from newegg for under $200 2 years ago, it’s been fine.
@f00l You just had to tell my teenage son he was right, didn’t you. That screen is smaller than I would like, and the rest of what you said went over my head. I probably don’t need anything as nice as the one I was going to buy but I don’t really know. I just don’t want it to get obsolete soon. And I like brick and mortar stores so I can take whatever it is and ask for help. I have a good pathetic face.
With that kinda keyboard this machine wouldn’t be that good for most people who work mostly in text or who grew up with conventional keyboards. I can’t imagine something like that for command line or all day typing.
As a play machine or kids machine or couch/purse machine it might be great.
Btw the kb on my transformer book is very good.
Perhaps someone who grows up w a Kb like that can adapt to it beautifully, but my instinct it that it would always be an inferior text interface.
@f00l My mom is used to using her I-pad all of the time, and I would assume that it would be quite similar. It would take some time to get used to but you can also install typewriter sounds, which I use all of the time.
If you want non-obsolescence and value for the money - I’d find a really well-reviewed laptop and find a place that has a good rep selling refurbs and a good return policy jic and get a refurb from that place. Buy an extended warranty if you’re worried and if the warranty price is ok.
That way you didn’t spend so much in the first place so you don’t feel you have to use it beyond when it’s what you need, just to get your $ out of it.
I don’t get a great built-in warranty buying returns that way but I’ve almost never needed to mess w the warranty anyway. Most “refurbs” are returns.
Make sure the laptop is well-reviewed on amazon, and has a great processor and at least 8g of ram min. 16 is better. If the laptop is a high end current model, ram can usually be added, but check that model to be sure. Go see it in a store if you can. Make sure you like using the screen, keyboard and mouse. If you can’t find that model in store to test, read reviews on the keyboard and mouse and screen, and try some other similar spec’d oned from the same manufacturer.
Make sure you understand what it means to carry a 2lb machine vs a 4kb machine if you plan to leave the house with it. I don’t like heavy machines. Others want all the options and don’t mind the weight.
I used to buy from Cowboom but that’s gone. I don’t need a laptop right now, if I did I spoze I would buy from here or newegg or Amazon. Perhaps microcenter. Perhaps the Dell outlet or Lenovo outlet. Depending on the machine, perhaps Woot. I’ve had some luck on Ebay (tricky) and at Frys.
It’s nothing to do with the sound.
A practiced typist can type with insane speed and accuracy you can’t match using a even a good sensitive flat keyboard. Real keys give tactile and detailed hand position info that a flat keyboard can’t offer. That’s where you get a lot of the speed and accuracy. And hand fatigue matters a great deal over many hours.
And try running your command line server from a touch keyboard for hours upon hours. Not what I’d want.
Many people who type all day buy really nice keyboards and consider them a bargain. People under some cutoff age may often use computers differently than older folks, and care less about keyboard quality.
Or perhaps younger people are simply far more adapted to a touch keyboard because their brains had a chance to learn and wire for that input method at an optimal stage in learning development.
Not sure Sprint is a major retailer…but 2 hours to add a phone and upgrade another…had to undo all the plan changes my husband did, then add/upgrade…all the while dealing with a CS rep who was puking…and my dad who had leukemia hoping against hope that he didn’t get whatever she had. If it wasn’t for bogo free and him needing a new phone, we would have bailed. Not to mention, I still have lots o presents to make/wrap!!
Now the younger kid has a phone (thank you auntie!) my hair will be totally gray with this kid/phone.
December 3rd I used Dell to order a new Nintendo 3DS XL using $177 promotional credit I had from them and some cash. The day before the delivery window was due to open I get an email telling me my orders been delayed two weeks. That’s fine no problem delivery date still Before Christmas. Tuesday morning I get an email informing me that my product has been put on back order and will not be delivered until March 2017. March 2017!
The limited. I have an order for pants placed dec 12 that has not shipped yet. Stores are closing but they won’t confirm this. Facebook isnfull of unhappy people. I just want my pants to arrive so i can try them on and return the ones that don’t fit (pants are always variable in fits)
Limited is one of the few places that sell long womens pants.
That sounds like what TeeFury went through last year. They were still fulfilling December orders in February.
@narfcake I’m caught in their bottleneck. After 2 weeks, they’re finally getting some movement and starting to cancel items on people. They also sent out a shipping delay notice that essentially says “You’re hosed. Cancel if it makes you feel better.”
Wow, that is pretty bad for them to drop the ball like that.
Amazon’s deals for black friday sucked this year, so I doubt they had any issues.
@ELUNO Ive been seeing a bunch of delays from amazon lately, actually. about to contact CS about a late item for the third time this week
@MrGlass Yup - tons of delays with Amazon here too! They’ll just push it a day or two and say it is on time, they try to sneak it by you. I called, they said no to any remedy (usually a free month of Prime), they have buried a high traffic holiday clause in their Prime TOS (or so the rep I spoke to claimed). I didn’t feel like arguing; I hung up. They’ve missed on every package this week by at least one full day. And that is a lot of packages when you add in the stuff going to our office . . . I’m on year 4 of not paying for Prime with the office account anyway due to delayed packages, and I only call in on about 1 in 20 of them I should, they’ll kick you off of making any delivery guarantee if you “take advantage” of the free month thing . . . Fuckers.
@Pavlov They just offered me a free month, but I don’t pay for prime. Then they gave me a $5 credit (yay I can buy a coffee!). When I stuck to my guns, they eventually offered me a full refund ($140), if my item doesn’t come by tomorrow night (its new on time date).
I am lucky enough to be in an area with a lot of same day stuff available. If I have a delayed prime order I care about, and its available same day, I can often convince them to let me place my order again with same day and waive any fees.
@MrGlass Yes, Amazon has been really bad lately, but it just seems that is their new standard, not really just for the season.
It’s come to a point where it is just best to buy B&M from Target or Best Buy since Amazon merely just price matches them instead of beating their prices. I can get my items today, or wait for an Amazon delay…
@Pavlov @MrGlass @ELUNO I must just be super lucky I guess. I’ve ordered several times from them since the start of November and haven’t had any trouble. I’ve never had Prime either.
@ELUNO And have a much more convenient return if the item doesn’t work out.
@moondrake Plus you get an extra discount with red card or points at Best Buy.
@Al_Coholic It’s usually when they use something other than FedEx/UPS. Now they use local shippers and USPS a lot of the time.
@ELUNO For me, it’s the opposite. Fedex and UPS are almost always late, USPS is rock-solid dependable. I guess it all depends on where you live.
@ELUNO I had an Amazon package being delivered this past Sunday. My email in the late morning said it was delivered so I figured they just stuck it in the mailbox. I didn’t check it all day as I was bundled up on the couch watching football. Around 6:30 pm, someone knocked on the door with my package in hand to deliver it. One of the ‘local’ delivery persons they’re now using who seem to be driving their own cars. I wonder how much those people make…
@cinoclav Here in SoCal, Ontrac, California Overnight, Dynamex, Amazon Logistics, and FedEx Home all use “independent contractors”. As for how much they pay, it all depends on how it’s structured. Some are compensated only by mileage and delivery, some are hourly, some a combination.
Beyond that, don’t be surprised by what vehicle they’re pulling up in either:
https://consumerist.com/2015/12/10/ups-dont-panic-if-your-package-is-delivered-by-a-driver-behind-the-wheel-of-a-u-haul/
@cinoclav
I think it’s $72 for a delivery route that takes 3-4 hours to complete - for those drivers who contract directly with Amazon. They are 1099 independent contractors. Amazon takes no deductions and no taxes are withheld. All expenses accrue to the driver.
Pay may vary by region.
I suspect the net is near minimum wage.
@f00l I wonder how it compares to Uber/Lyft for the same amount of time…
@compunaut Uber is determined by mileage right?
@ELUNO I have a po box since usps doesn’t deliver to my house, ups/fedex do. I used to just write my address on line 1, the box number on line 2. That way if it went usps the post office would keep it for me, if it went to fedex/ups it would come right to my door. Now if I do that they change it to just po box and refuse to let me have 2 day shipping
@compunaut @f00l That was my first thought. I’d imagine there’s more money to be made driving for those services but I guess not everyone has an appropriate car for it. You can deliver someone’s crap in any old vehicle as long as it gets you there.
@Pantheist Do you know the USPS has a program where you can use your PO Box for FedEx and UPS delivery? It gives you a street address that you can then use for FedEx/UPS/Amazon/Etc. It is great! They sign for it, they store it, they put a note in my box. The only downside is that it occasionally takes an extra day for delivery because of timing issues with checking it in at the PO.
@TimWalter I don’t think my post office will- it’s just run by two old ladies who kindof make up their own rules for everything. It couldn’t hurt to ask though.
Always assumed at some point Amazon would turn into eBay. Guess we’re there already.
Haven’t ordered from them in two years at least. Convenience and decent but not great pricing will never make up for the risk of getting counterfeit goods, imho.
@ELUNO Dumb question, what’s B&M?
@mehbee Brick and mortar, aka local stores.
@mehbee brick and mortar: a physical store or location
@mehbee Brick and Mortar, stores you physically shop at as opposed to web stores operated by the same entities.
@ELUNO Got a notice on my Amazon app that they had delivered an order to my mailbox (which it couldn’t because it couldn’t have fit) . . . . this was on a Sunday. Nothing there. Per their recommendation, I waited 36 hours for the package to turn up in addition to talking to my two neighbors who might have gotten the delivery. Nothing doing. Amazon issued a refund right away. Didn’t seem to care (as I did) if the problem was the delivery service or if the package was stolen from my front door. Just simply issued a refund.
@huja I had a release date delivery video game, and the tracking showed all day “out for delivery before 8 PM.” I waited ALL day for the damn thing. At 8:15 PM it still said the same thing. I got in touch with amazon and they told me I might have to wait up to 4 days! That’s crazy. I told them to cancel and recall the package. I simply drove to Target and got it there. I could have done all day, but I was waiting like a fool for a package that wasn’t going to arrive.
@ELUNO
I get my Amazon stuff pretty much on time. Nothing stolen. But I use a commercial maildrop (they’re awesome.)
Downside - you have to pick stuff up when they’re open.
@compunaut
@ELUNO
Know someone who did Uber and is now driving for Amazon.
Amazon won’t guarantee work. It’s almost certainly part-time and irregular $ for everyone.
Uber can be full-time but you have to work where and when you’ll get rides. Which means trying to get biz and airport runs daytime, or working the food and bar circuit in the evenings. And you have to put up with drunks and jerks in your car. Also Uber alters the compensation levels as they please.
Both are precarious.
@f00l I’m sure you’re right.
But at my age & specialized niche work experience, there may not be many better alternatives if I got laid off.
@compunaut
Do you anticipate getting laid off? That’s a horror.
I get the idea that you either work at LM or at one of the feeder industries to them.
@f00l
Probably shouldn’t say one way or the other
@compunaut
Ok. Dunno if you can say this much, but …
Do you possibly work in defense related industries based around DFW?
Since there are several major employers and lots of small ones, and you don’t have to point any particular direction, that should give you some cover.
Don’t worry, the social media guy will be back from vacation Feb 13th.
@thismyusername that poor bastard is trying to walk the line between not engaging and not promising and helping. It’s going… not well.
Pretty sure it’s Dell.
1:13 PM EST 11/23 - Order #AAAAAAAAA placed for $6,416.50 for a server, client’s credit card specifically pre-authorized with bank for large transaction, confirmation received at 1:18 PM
4:23 PM EST 11/23 - Order #AAAAAAAAA cancelled “As requested” and yet nothing of the sort was ever requested. No explanation given for the cancellation.
4:43 PM EST 11/23 - Called and spoke to Jude Solomon, Jude attempted to re-place the order using client’s credit card but without the pre-authorization the card was declined. Jude made arrangements on his end to apply for Dell Finance and told me I was preauthorized for $7,500 in credit, re-placed the order and all was supposedly set (Order #BBBBBBBBB), I was to expect a call from Dell Financial Services to finalize details and my order would be headed to production. I did not hear back from Dell that night.
10:05 AM EST 11/24 (THANKSGIVING DAY!!!) thru 4:33 PM EST - I received an email about another order (#CCCCCCCCC) being confirmed, calls to all Dell numbers at my disposal revealed nobody was there (so who placed the order?!) due to the holiday. I attempted to cancel the order online. A Twitter conversation also took place between myself and @DellCares / @DellCaresPRO at the end of which I was assured that the improper order was cancelled and that my issue was being escalated for investigation.
1:19 PM EST 11/25 - Sabrina Rao emailed me regarding the investigation mentioned above with no real information to explain the issue. She did, however, mention that the order was on hold pending completion of my application for business credit and directed me to call Dell Financial Services to resolve this hold.
4:34 PM to 6:01 PM EST 11/25 - I was hung hung up on by Dell’s system because the department I was calling is closed after being transferred around by every single person that I spoke to.
During my call it came out that Jude Solomon somehow managed to access a Dell Business Credit account that was applied for at some unknown point in time by an employee of my client without my having directed him to do so and linked the order I was trying to place with that account without my authorization while misrepresenting it as my applying for a new credit account in my name.
I was eventually transferred to the sales team who were supposedly the ones who would apply for a new account and straighten this mess out but they then transferred me to DFS where I dealt with a representative who didn’t listen to a word I said and continued trying to approve the credit account in my client’s name, upon demanding to speak to a supervisor it came out that I needed to talk to sales, supposedly, and I was transferred back only to get hung up on. The rep who didn’t listen to me was literally at the ‘read the terms and conditions and get a verbal confirmation’ step that would have resulted in a credit account being opened in my client’s name before I stopped them.
After much perseverance I was able to get through to a US rep in their Austin, TX office who was an absolute pleasure to deal with. She was friendly, helpful, listened to what I had to say, and I was made to feel like she actually cared about the fact that I was having a negative experience and wanted to help fix it. She helped me get rid of the order Jude Solomon placed using Dell Financial Services and re-place a new order #DDDDDDDDD with the credit card I used originally. Then, after I got help from her Jude Solomon somehow inserted himself into things again and tried, again, to put the order on a Dell Finance account that did not belong to me while re-placing the order for unknown reasons. New order number #EEEEEEEEE.
As of 11/30 I was assured that my legitimate order placed originally with the Austin rep (leaving her name out to avoid linking her with this BS) and then re-placed by Jude Solomon after I drilled into him the fact that it needed to be on the credit card is 1) in Production, 2) being Expedited, and 3) Being shipped next-day with the shipping costs being comped by Dell at my insistence.
On 12/1 I again got contacted by Ms. Rao erroneously, which was straightened out by a gentleman whose name I neglected to record. He was very sympathetic, again promised to escalate, again promised to upgrade shipping, and told me that the prior rep was incorrect in promising that it would ship 12/1. He also promised to continue the investigation into the original escalation, the erroneous Thanksgiving day order, talk to his supervisor about some kind of compensation, and call me back. That call never came.
As of 12/6 I still had no server, it had been shipped out ground and had no call back so I contacted Ms. Rao requesting that the gentleman who I spoke to on 12/1 contact me. Ms. Rao called me instead and, after much apologizing promised to look into some kind of financial compensation for my constantly slipping schedule and hours wasted on the phone with Dell. Finally, after some twelve hours wasted and over a week’s worth of days of scheduling pushed I was offered a $250 coupon for Dell.com as compensation for all of these colossal fuck ups. And this was all on a $6,500 server purchase from their Small Business Sales department. I can only imagine the horror for consumer purchases (though I’ve read of plenty on the Dell subreddit).
@f00l
I have a headache now from trying to decipher all this.
I mean, I DID, but most of it wasn’t absorbed.
@PlacidPenguin
@jbartus
@f00l accepts blame for
@PlacidPenguin’s headache which
Must hurt very much
@f00l accepts some blame
For Dell fuckups - most of those
Were in November.
@f00l
Guess nobody is gonna take blame for November issues.
@jbartus You should have asked for more.
@Pavlov at that point I was just tired of being on the phone with them. I’m going to use the coupon plus the $320ish I’ll be getting in rewards credit to get a brand new PS4 Pro for free and whatever other $170 in stuff I want.
@jbartus Keep an eye on your credit reports for yourself and the other parties who wound up involved!
@jqubed not sure what good it would do me to be honest. Even if it showed up how would I get it resolved?
@jbartus
Call cc company and contest if you can’t resolve thru Dell
@jqubed’s idea seems sound. Some of those orders might have been charged anyway, even tho all that mess.
Also check to make sure no biz account was opened for you, unless you want to have one open. The whole mess sounds like a tangle of loose ends.
@f00l oh that’s what you meant. I thought he meant looking for hits on my credit score for them trying to open the account. We’ve been monitoring the credit card constantly.
@jbartus tl;dr
@f00l @jbartus Exactly, if there’s a new account go back to Dell, and be prepared to ask for their legal department if they continue to be problematic.
@jbartus Ugh.
Alas, HP hasn’t proven any better either, which is why we mostly have Dells at work.
@hems79
/image teal deer
@narfcake may try Lenovo next
@hems79 shame your attention span is so short. It’s quite the tale.
@jbartus Whoa. All of that could have been handled by 1 competent rep on the first call
@jbartus You could have saved yourself some typing by stopping once you said, “Pretty sure it’s Dell.” That says everything right there.
Btw, I’ve had pretty good luck with Lenovo for their consumer products. I did have a tablet go on the fritz but it was sent back under warranty, fixed and returned in about a week. They then extended the warranty another 6 months.
@luvche21
One of the issues with companies like Dell - their businesses are complex and the divisions have a number of overlapping functions. And their CS and Sales reps, whether here or abroad, are often poorly trained, and do not understand the way the biz decisions interact, have been trained to work from v limited scripts.
It’s often not the rep’s fault. The rep was often given near zero chance to actually learn how to deal with problems or how the business operates. Or Dell just needed bodies and put people in place who could not handle complex situations, as @jbartus’s became after the first fuckup.
Those reps are seen as disposable interchangeable bodies, and companies will not invest in bringing them to competence. And the best of them - the ones who actually solve problems - are penalized and get written up because they took the time to handle something properly.
@f00l Agreed. Additionally, to the number crunchers, CS is looked upon as a cost, not an asset.
Of course, the best CS for any company is the one that doesn’t need to be used because everything has gone correctly.
@narfcake
The few times I have held such jobs briefly, I was always in bad stats because I took a minute or so longer or on average.
But the customers I dealt with never called back. The prob was solved. Every rep I knew who worked this way got penalized for it.
@f00l @narfcake
That’s why I kind of feel bad when I speak to CS.
I KNOW they can’t help me, either because of lack of training, they need to follow a script, or they’re worried about their stats.
However, I need certain problems resolved, and my options are generally limited.
@cinoclav most of it was copypasta from an email sent to Ms. Rao (and copied to Michael Dell, might be how the guy who never called me back got involved) which itself was copypasta from a Twitlonger sent on Thanksgiving Day to @DellCares and @DellCaresPro. I only added the last paragraph or so and changed a bunch of “you” stuff to “they” stuff.
I generally dread any contact with any Customer Service.
The first concern: will English be their first language. And then everything.
However, when I get a professional gem of an agent, I sometimes ask to talk to their supervisor or how I can provide feedback. And say to their supervisor something like “If every interaction with your company were like that, I’d never consider to a competitor.”
@jbartus I ordered a Dell laptop on Cyber Monday. Was suppose to arrive around the 7th. I called when nothing showed. Apparently they had not even started to build it. With out me asking, the customer service rep asked if I wanted cancel it since it was going to be weeks late. I said yeah, so back on the market for a laptop.
@RedOak
I’ll give the overseas rep a chance if the prob is routine. Sometimes overseas is all there is.
For a number of companies you can ask to xfer to a US based rep. Amazon does this. I only make the req if I can’t accomplish anything with the foreign rep. Or if it’s really complicated.
I think Dell HP etc have US based tech support at a higher price - mostly used by very large companies.
@f00l my patience with foreign based CS agents is as short as their English language and cultural skills.
And “script bunnies” can exist anywhere. You know - where you’ve clearly explained the issue several times and they keep going back to the script.
An example: our area had a several day power failure. We ran our house on our generator and all three local internet providers had generators keeping their local nodes up.
Our provider, AT&T, rather than running little Hondas and Yamahas like Comcast and Wow!, had what looked like $10,000 diesel generators.
The little genset guys were driving around keeping them fueled.
But AT&T? No. After about a day theirs ran dry and quit. It sat there silent for the rest of the outage.
When I called AT&T (India) all I wanted them to do was open a ticket with the local service folks letting them know their genset was empty. But no way could she figure out how to do that. She kept saying “sir, we’re showing your area is without electricity due to weather conditions, we cannot do anything until the electric company restores electricity.” Same answer from her (India) supervisor. And “no, we cannot transfer you the the US because it is after hours.”
@RedOak
That ATT thing would drive me near to a full irrational explosion.
When I deal with more tractable problems, I have been known to (nicely) insist the rep go off script and have (nicely) insisted the rep repeat my prob descriptions back to me until it wascomprehended. Then sometimes they still can’t do anything.
I try hard not to take it out on the rep, and apologize to them if I get too “hot”. I thank them for their patience if I am irritable or angry. Their lack of power and lack of training is something they cannot control. It’s there deliberately by management design.
@f00l True, getting abusively angry and threatening with the CS agent is just as effective as it is in other routine life interactions. But showing a little urgency and frustration can help, even explicitly saying something like “can you see this from my perspective?”
Well trained agents automatically repeat back to you what they heard and even say “I understand your frustration.”
@RedOak
When I am on the phone w one of these, after the “verify identity” stuff is done, I control the conversation from then on. But I do give plenty of space for the rep’s responses or seeking info or proposing solutions.
If I don’t control the conversations, it takes too long and doesn’t go where it needs to go.
I try really really hard to always be polite and decent about it.
@RedOak
That Jedi mind trick shit works very well on ex-wives also. The current @MrsPavlov would just ask me if I was feeling well and punch me in the nuts for being disingenuous if I tried it on her though.
@Pavlov Haha! Women want to to be listened to, not corrected or offered solutions to what might appear to men to be problems/challenges. (Unless they explicitly ask for advice… the rareness of this action being truly illustrative of the point.)
The sooner men learn that the sooner relationships become more peaceful. Yes, I’m generalizing but I believe it is more valid than not.
@RedOak
I know you are generalizing. Without hard data, given my personal experience, I suspect you are wrong.
Growing up, girls and boys develop and practice different forms of common communication in single gender situations. Behavior customs may well be different with a given gender’s current practices and habits and may be intended to achieve different goals. The different behavior often promote slightly different sorts of relationships.
It can pay the learn the methods, meanings, and practices of “the other side.”
Both methods of communicating are entirely logical taken as is within their spheres.
If I hear a person make a claim that the other gender is “less logical” or “less goal directed” en masse, I’m pretty sure I’m either hearing humor and kidding, or else I’m hearing more about the person speaking that I am about the other gender.
@Pavlov
@RedOak
Scripted or let-me-get-off-the-hook “I feel your pain” type responses make me want to kill something if they are offered in lieu of solutions. I stay polite and civil despite a gut reaction otherwise.
I still haven’t killed anything, except a few commercial relationships.
@f00l yes, generalizing is dangerous. But the above statement was in reference to couples relationships and based not only upon decades of relationships (capped by a single 26 year and growing marriage and four kids, three of them girls, the oldest, married) but also from reading the advice of relationship counselors.
I believe men tend not to be naturally good listeners.
I did not and would not make any claims about whether one sex is more or less logical than the other.
If the above tells you more about me than the observation with which you disagree, then so be it. Just my opinion. Compensation-free and easy to ignore.
@RedOak
Cool.
only point I intended:
in a personal relationship of mine that’s productive, I try to pay attention to the all the other party’s spoken or unspoken desires and expectations when I am aware of them. And to respond both to obvious content and inferred intent or desire directly and openly.
That’s ideal circumstances.
Of course I am perfectly capable of, and sometimes all too accomplished at, being quite insensitive. And not to mention frequently off my rocker.
Shorthand, I can be a “dumb motherfucker”.
Having the other party be capable of compassion and tolerance toward me helps things along.
@f00l Please don’t get me wrong - I am experienced in the art of acid words. Personally, I find going to church every week helps me to keep it under control. Most of the time. It seems to be a permenent condition that requires constant vigilance.
@RedOak
I have those in my head.
When I am rational, I can remember that it’s dumb to say them.
When I’m not rational, after a while, I starting dragging my ass around to apologize.
This isn’t much consolation, but when I read your saga I decided that I was greatly blessed in not having enough money to try to buy a server from Dell.
@gertiestn last server order was fine but that wasn’t a Thanksgiving week order
@jbartus possible lesson: don’t try to do anything really critical and/or complicated during Thanksgiving week?
@RedOak we have needs that don’t conform to holiday scheduling. I still placed my order before any of the sales started (Wednesday)
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@RedOak @jbartus Back in another era, we received a super-mini (one full 6-foot tall rack) that was assembled on Friday December 24th. Bad news. They replaced every component trying to get that system to run reliably over the next few months.
In the end, they shipped out a new chassis/rack (this was in the days of wire-wrap backplanes) and moved everything into that to get it going.
Now we call that the good old days?
@sligett this lone tower server seems to be doing the trick, just took forever to get here.
@jbartus Well, I hope all ends well. People do screw up more near holidays, I think. In my story, it was a lone server, back when tower meant 6 feet tall.
(Completely OT: Now my brother has a Dell c6100 at home as a compute node. So much power.)
@sligett what’s he doing with a C6100? O__o
@jbartus Monte Carlo simulations. Many. He works at home, and now has the C6100 to help heat the place.
@sligett I haven’t need a space heater in my office for years.
Overly powerful PCs. 
Sears, But it hasn’t had game in years…
@Oldelvis Sears and Kmart have been doing a really weak job of pretending to still be in business for many years.
Thank goodness for all that valuable real estate or nobody would float them a dime.
@Oldelvis Saying Sears is having a bad holiday season is like saying the Sahara is is going through a dry spell.
Wonder why they don’t try to jazz the biz up? They could go after Walmart or Target and make that interesting if they had the energy.
All the major retailers I ordered from this year must really like me or something because I ordered tons of stuff online on and around Black Friday and had no real issues at all. Target even shipped me a second Christmas tree by accident. Still debating whether I should let them know about that…
@Al_Coholic Not until you’ve had your second Christmas.
@Al_Coholic depends. Can you sleep with yourself at night knowing that you have something that isn’t rightfully yours?
@jbartus Yeah.
@Al_Coholic well… okay then… I guess.
@Al_Coholic do not let them know…they fucked me big time, they deserve to be screwed…they were going to be my rant on this thread.
@cbilyak because two wrongs make a right.
No wait… that’s not it…
@cbilyak Wow, sounds intense. What did they do?
@Al_Coholic my post is below…I just wrote it out. I mean granted it is a first world problem and all…but it was hours of time dealing with calls and being on hold for the lack of resolution and my tears for the epic failure.
@jbartus I may be very bitter toward Target at the moment…not my normal mode of operation.
@cbilyak sorry but I cannot reconcile theft, no matter how ill you have/feel you have been treated. Keeping something that isn’t rightfully yours is theft.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@jbartus I understand. Target admitted to me that they sent a bunch of merchandise to people and refunded them and were not going after them for payment, somehow thinking this would make me better understand why they were in such a tight bind to make my situation right, they know they jacked up big time, yet they did nothing for me for jacking me…sorry, I am good with it. Not theft, he did not take anything, they gave it to him like they gave a bunch of other people free merchandise this year…their problem.
@jbartus If they send it to you by mistake it’s yours legally, I’m pretty sure. If I get your address and send you a pony are you going to ship that pony back to me? Are you going to pay me for the pony? I hope Santa brings me a pony.
@sammydog01 @cbilyak
Legally? Maybe so.
Morally? No.
Ethically? No.
@sammydog01 @narfcake (you’ll figure out soon why I tagged you.)
Great. Now besides a goat and a penguin, I want a pony.
@cbilyak Yeah, that sounds like a major pain in the ass. If the alternative is wasting hours of my time and possibly my money as well to rectify someone else’s mistake, I think I’ll just keep the damn tree.
@sammydog01 If I receive a pony that I didn’t order, I’m keeping it. Actually I did order one, when I was six. And seven. And eight. And nine. And ten. Still waiting.
@Al_Coholic My thoughts exactly- either they will tell you to keep it or make you return it in some totally inconvenient fashion. If it was a small time retailer I would feel differently.
@sammydog01 I see, so because they’re a large company morals and ethics no longer apply. Interesting.
@OldCatLady I would keep it too. I guess I’m a thief at heart.
@jbartus As a big time retailer I feel that they should be able to absorb their fuck-ups. Morally and ethically a small time retailer is still responsible for fucking up but I might be more inclined to help them out. Unless they acted like dicks.
@sammydog01 and that absolves you of the moral obligation to at least try to do the right thing, interesting.
@jbartus @Al_Coholic
I think what @sammydog01 is saying is that a company like Target has more important things to deal with than one tree. Kind of how like a company like Amazon is a bit generous when it comes to mistaken orders either because they want to keep the person as a client, or because they can’t be bothered.
This is opposed to a small retailer where each mistake plays a factor.
Of course, I don’t know how much a tree costs, so I’m entering this discussion blindly.
@jbartus And you’re being pretty mean to me for someone that hit on me just last night.
@PlacidPenguin the idea that it isn’t a factor for large retailers is a fallacy.
@sammydog01 I wasn’t hitting on you, and I’m not trying to be mean. I am disappointed however.
I don’t know how to say it non-offensively but suffice to say that I thought we had people of high moral fiber here in the Meh community. Based on what you’ve said if someone left something behind at your house you’d make a reasonable effort to try to return it to them, but you’re here trying to rationalize someone not even making a phone call to alert Target to the issue on the basis that Target is a large company.
I don’t buy into that kind of deflection of moral responsibility, this idea that because they are large companies they should be held to a different standard than smaller entities or individuals is ludicrous to me. It’s one thing if they make a conscious decision not to provide you with a shipping label, it’s an entirely different matter to just keep it without saying a word.
Furthermore while some apparently feel this is a victimless crime because they’re a big company and it happens the fact is that every bit of this contributes to shrinkage which affects the budgeting of that company. The impacts of this kind of thing are far-reaching affecting everybody from the employees of the company whose next pay raise is weighed alongside the rest of the budget to customers for whom markups are affected because the company has to get the money to cover this from somewhere.
Should the company have shipped two items? No, but companies employ people and people are imperfect and prone to errors, mistakes. Keeping the second without saying a word, that’s no mistake, that’s a conscious decision not to do what’s right.
@PlacidPenguin Oh sure, drag me into this argument!
/image a pony for a penguin
/image a pony for a goat
/image a goat for a penguin
/image a penguin for a pony
/image a penguin for a pony for a goat
@narfcake
/image Rainbow Dash
/giphy Rainbow Dash
/youtube Rainbow Dash
@sammydog01 @PlacidPenguin @narfcake I ordered a unicorn, too. Apparently they’re out of stock everywhere.
@OldCatLady
I could give you my unicorn plush…
@OldCatLady
http://www.teeturtle.com/products/i-dont-care
@jbartus
Two wrongs don’t make a right.
But two Wrights can make an airplane
@MehnofLaMehncha so say we all.
@MehnofLaMehncha @jbartus @PlacidPenguin
@narfcake I groaned.
@Al_Coholic have you checked your credit card activity? It would be perfectly moral to keep that second tree if they charged you for it.
@RedOak even I can’t fault that logic.
@jbartus you know that people are allowed to have views on morality that differ from yours. You can have the opinion that this difference makes them less moral, but that’s just, like, your opinion, man.
@jbartus ok Lisa!
@PlacidPenguin @sammydog01 Yeah it was like a $30 tree and I totally agree. In fact you could even make the argument that not wasting their and my time on such a small issue would be doing the right thing; after all they have to pay those call center associates by the hour, and my call takes their time away from dealing with other, more important issues. In the company/department I work for, one of our bigger goals is minimizing calls to the call center.
But apart from all that, my main worry here is that they would punish me for my honesty, either by charging me for something I didn’t order, or by trying to make me return it at my expense. And I’m especially concerned about that after hearing about the lovely experience @cbilyak had with them. And if that happens, then as mentioned above, I will be paying for someone else’s mistake.
@RedOak Yeah I checked and they didn’t charge me.
@Al_Coholic
Have a close relative who owned and ran a very large and profitable multiple-city retail operation all his life. He’s gone now and the business was bought finally by a national chain.
His attitude, spoken frequently, was than it cost more to fix errors under $10 if the customer had already left the store, than to let them go. He had systems in place to check for frequent and repeating errors.
As the chain grew, he didn’t even really want customers who had gotten accidental small freebies to call in, tho his staff was always gracious if they did, and always offered a small gift certificate as thanks. Just dealing with a prob like that often cost more than ignoring it, assuming it was something rare.
Other relatives who own and run retail or wholesale operations seem to feel the same. Not tiny businesses tho.
I suppose this varies biz by biz.
@becca there’s a difference between having a different idea of what is moral and having a double standard.
@ELUNO
@Al_Coholic they cannot legally charge your card without your authorization to do so, if they do you simply initiate a legitimate chargeback and go on your way, and they have no means by which to compel you to go to extraordinary lengths to return their product. If they demand you take it to the store you demand that they send someone out to pick it up as you never ordered it and it’s their issue to fix. Hell, they might even tell you to keep it, but that’s their decision to make and choosing to keep it is taking that decision away from them. They can’t make you do anything, but just keeping it without even trying to return it to its rightful owner… you can equivocate all you want but in the end you’re keeping something that isn’t rightfully yours.
@f00l while all of that is very well and good beyond being anecdotal at best it also relates only to one man’s attitude on the matter. The fact that they gave a gift certificate shows them recognizing the people for doing the right thing, whether it was a hassle or not. I’m not taking anything away from your relative, just noting that it hardly constitutes justification for keeping an item you didn’t purchase.
@OldCatLady Good luck with that! Just watch out for the pointy end.
/giphy christmas unicorn
@Al_Coholic You could split the difference and donate it to a homeless shelter, abused kids or battered women’s shelter. Or take it to a church and ask them to give it to a family in need.
@moondrake Not a bad idea but I’m not sure they would accept “STOLEN PROPERTY!!”
@jbartus
My family member’s attitudes is something I have heard from more than one person, in more than one type of business. But yes, anecdotal.
I have no idea what a survey of biz wonders and executive on only this topic would yield re small errors and small accidental freebies. Too much of tiny error correction can take a biz’s eye off the ball of keeping the biz healthy and growing. Of course, if a customer was the one shortchanged, a decent biz always tries to fix that.
My relative offered gift certs to strengthen the bond to a customer who reached out. He said that, financially, hearing about and fixing those errors was in itself a net loss even before the gift cert. but it paid off in the long run in a better and stronger relationship with a good customer. So they rewarded.
In general they tried to reward friendly customer conduct openly. It simply paid in the long haul. You give a great customer a gift cert and then you get their entire school shopping list or fall office supply order or possibly even more - perhaps a partnership deal or exclusive relationship.
His attitude may be a little old-fashioned in today’s price competitive world. His stores offered a lot of custom and attentive service and friendliness. The olde days, huh?
Most companies don’t give me accidental freebies. If they do, I try to figure out what the company would want in terms of notification, and do that - unless they then expect a bunch of my time for free. And some do. I protest at that point.
@f00l it’s the same deal when the companies let you keep an item. The point is that the worth or cost of re-obtaining the item is up to the business to determine, a choice taken out of their hands when they aren’t made aware of the issue.
@Al_Coholic They don’t generally ask for a receipt.
Best Buy actually got my online BF order right this time for the first time in years. The only other store I hit on BF was a brick and mortar Walmart.
@moondrake I’ve ordered from them the last three years and they’ve gotten it right every time.
But I think I only ordered one or two items each time.
@Al_Coholic I usually order 10-20 seasons of TV shows and they usually fail to send 3-4 of them. This year they sent all 17 DVD box sets.
@moondrake When I first read this, I thought you were telling us about your online boyfriends order, haha.
@conandlibrarian I’d like a link for that website.
Kmart… bought each kid a bike, the week of Thanksgiving. Under $50 each, with coupons, etc. Had a hard time securing a vehicle to transport two bikes, and I called and explained. I was told no problem, they would hold them. Hubby somehow was alerted to a cancellation “by our request”. After hours of arguing with people, when he asked for a manager, the woman sent him to a mailbox that was not being answered because we had crossed the 11pm CST threshold and the woman didn’t bother to tell him that. After him fuming for hours, I figured out he had almost $65 in points from Kmart, re-ordered, having shipped and saved $65 buck…
Thanks for the warning about Old Navy, I have two orders not shipped yet, but with Christmas presents in them… oh well…
@mikibell Kmart has “Customer Service”?
@RedOak
There are K-Marts?
@RedOak @f00l The three nearest to me have all closed. I can’t say I miss a “discount” department store that manages to combine quality lower than Walmart at prices higher than Target.
@RedOak I guess that term is questionable, since they sent the hubby to an unpersoned v-mail!
@narfcake same here, the closest is 20 minutes away, which was near to where my husband was working at the time. It was never a pleasant experience to shop there. I remember it from when I was a kid, and it didn’t change in all those years.
@mikibell I don’t know how old you are but I have fond early memories of Kmart visits with my dad. Kmart was pretty much the only “discount” store and they seemed well run (at least from a kid’s perspective). This was long before Target was even a dream. And I don’t recall Walmart existing - at least not in our state where the Kresge Corporation was HQ’d.
As Kmart failed to modernize, their final nail in the coffin (they died but never admitted it) was the arrogant & clueless CEO Joseph Antonini. He was such an odd duck and poor fit to that role.
When it came time to build a new HQ, he was afraid of heights so a high rise in the city was out of the question. Instead he built a massive, sprawling 4 story complex of mini “towers” in the fields of a largely undeveloped suburb. Then he senselessly filled it with expensive paintings and sculptures.
Ten years after Kmart-Sears moved to Chicago, that complex sits (on very valuable land), un-touched, directly next to what might be one of the highest end malls in the US, Somerset Collection.
https://www.google.com/maps/@42.561332,-83.1860395,785m/data=!3m1!1e3
@RedOak I like visiting KMart on Black Friday, the employees are much more cheerful and helpful than at other retailers and the customers are generally nice. I usually get my winter warm fuzzies there each year but I got cold early and bought fuzzy sliipers and socks and loungepants in mid-November. But year before last I actually saw people sharing stuff from their carts with people who’d missed out on an item, I did it myself. I had filled my cart with $3 lap throws and I passed by a lady looking sadly at the empty shelf and let her take three of mine. When I got to the cashier an item I really wanted rang higher than I expected, I set it aside and when she saw I was disappointed the cashier just smiled and overrode the register to enter the price I’d expected.
@moondrake wow, impressive karma - is your Kmart located inside the Dalai Lama’s compound?
@RedOak Nope. This is just a mostly polite and friendly city.
Target - bought my kids hoverboards from them on Cyber Monday for a killer deal to be delivered on Monday, Dec 5. Woot had better ones for about $20 more on December 2 but when I contacted Target and they confirmed mine were on their way I did not cancel that order and buy from woot but rather kept the Target order. Dec 5 comes, no hoverboards, and UPS tracking does not show details…call customer service and they tell me not to worry, they are coming and with 2 boxes under 1 tracking number it often messes with UPS. Ok, I wait. Next day, no hoverboards…call UPS, they confirm that although a label was generated no packages were ever shipped. Contact customer service again, they tell me no worries, they are coming. I point out the UPS status and am put on hold for a long time…guy comes back and tells me sorry the item is out of stock I will refund you. I say no, I do not want a refund, I want to find out when they will be back in stock. On hold forever again, he comes back and tells me to be patient, the packages will probably arrive in a few days…um, what!? Asked if he was just trying to get rid of me and asked for a manager. She is all sympathetic, says the item is sold out. I ask when they will have more, she does not know, has to escalate this and I tell her to do so and also find out how much of a deal I can get on the hoverboards that are in stock. She says she will do so and they will get back to me in 1-3 days. 2 days later I receive a form letter advising me of my pending refund, all I have to do is return my merchandise…WTF! I call immediately and ask for a manager, have to go through everything again, she has to escalate it again, promises me I will hear back later that day. About 4 hours later I get 2 more generic emails about my refund, I call back. Am on the phone over 1 hour, 3 transfers escalated to a 4th tier manager/service rep with still no resolution…they do not know when the product will be back in stock and even though I received about 30% off the initial purchase they cannot authorize that off hoverboards in stock without sending to a department that the manager I spoke with 2 days previously claimed she was doing and never did. I asked them to do so and they said I would hear back the next day…no response next day so I called them back…we are sorry ma’am but your refund has been processed and is irreversible…they never even allowed me to purchase other hoverboards at a discount like they promised…fuck them anyway as I do not want them to ever have my business again. Nobody else has any even close to the price i bought on Cyber Monday and Woot has not thrown theirs back up unless it was briefly during the Woot-off and I missed it.
Bottom line…no hoverboards for my kids for Christmas this year…not in the budget without the Cyber Monday pricing.
. And Target has lost a client for life.
@cbilyak Sorry. That sucks.
@cbilyak that does suck. Have you noticed whether the UPS person is still walking or are they now rolling up the sidewalk?
@cbilyak
Re: Target
If you use twitter sometimes it works if you tweet-hit them on this sort of thing. Some companies respond by offering contact to a better tier of customer service.
That whole thing was pretty awful tho. A constant hazard of online shopping.
@f00l Isn’t that kind of sad that so many companies apparently feel minimal need to satisfy customers simply because?
… that it requires embarrassing them publicly to get them to “care”?
Companies that do “customer treatment” by Twitter might learn something from those that don’t.
@RedOak
Yes. Fixing a legit prob properly ought to matter.
Not be something they drag themselves to do.
Sears gave me 2 led lights for the price of 1. I was cool with that.
@someguynamedmat Pretty soon they’ll be giving away fixtures too.
My gadgets are all old.
I need new gadgets!!
Yeah, Old Navy is getting worse. Still haven’t shipped orders from 11/28. Cancelling items from those orders - but those items are still for sale on their website, just for more money.
If you call CS, the wait times are over an hour.
If you email CS, you get a canned “we’ll get back to you in 3+ days” response. Then, 3 days later, you get a copy/pasted answer that doesn’t address the email you sent.
When a smaller company takes 3 days to answer around the holidays, it makes sense. When Old Navy does it, it’s a bit on the ridiculous side.
On the good note, Monoprice CS is amazing. They are jumping through hoops to make sure my son’s 3d printer is up and running as soon as possible. We didn’t buy the printer from them, so technically, it is Amazon’s problem. But Monoprice is being awesome!!!
@mikibell
Love them.
Microcenter who requires special “codes” which are mostly worthless the web site crashes constantly. Cant remember the last time I used them…
@mdrcoast I actually like Microcenter. But since we have one close by, I don’t think I’ve ever ordered via their website. Use it merely for research.
Yah, their stores can be chaotic and randomly organized. And those silly stickers their salespeople use to get credit for a sale trigger really odd customer treatment.
But it is nice having such a rich supply of PC components and off-lease PCs in a local B&M. And I’ve had excellent experience with their customer support, often getting a call from the store manager.
I’m curious, what are these “special codes”? We’re conditioned to them on Newegg, but Microcenter? How do I get them?
@RedOak Have to sign up for em and you get them in e-mail.
I like having the store in town, not easy to get to but it always has parts I need.
They just meltdown over Christmas with these Code Only “BlockBuster Deals” (Codes don’t work or they only have 1 or 2 items in stock. I don’t even try to shop online with them them between Thanksgiving and Christmas)
I used to love them, you shopped on Thanksgiving night and picked up your order at the store on Black Friday. Don’t know why they changed that policy.
@mdrcoast I’ve been signed up and getting their emails for years, since they opened their local store. Still recall getting some amazing loss-leaders at that opening, crazy as it was. Like an Apple eMac (the CRT with clear case) for something like $300.
And I picked up the original MS Surface + keyboard cover (special MS package) for something like $179 a couple years ago. Yah, Windows RT. But it does Office fine and is built like a tank. Decent and durable laptop alternative for the kids.
But I’ll admit I avoid them on BF - geek-swarm hell. I wonder if they do those codes at all stores?
@RedOak They say they do, but the place is a madhouse.
Old Navy has shipped my Dec 1 order with LASERSHIP CONSUMER DIRECT…oh, lovely, they are such a well rated company…
@mikibell Best of luck to you- hope you don’t become another delayed shipping story!
@dashcloud package is in OH…delivery date has already slipped a day… My son’s coat is in the mix…nothing that will excite him.
If I could just find a way to ensure he leaves a place with the coat he brought with him, I would not need backup coats!
@mikibell hurray…the rest of dec 4 order is shipped!
@mikibell make him pay for the new ones! Nothing like a little personal fiscal responsibility to teach a kid responsibility!
@jbartus I am seriously considering it…and after he bought his 3s printer, 1/2 of his earnings are being banked. Mom learned her lesson!
@mikibell your son bought a 3D printer?! Earnings?! How old is he? I’m 26 and even I haven’t been able to justify that kind of purchase! If he’s earning an income and being careless with the coats you buy him I’d definitely make him pay for them if I were in your position! When it’s your money it’s easy to be careless, when it’s his…
@jbartus Since when have kids ever justified their purchases? That’s why mine never have any money.
@compunaut I was speaking more to the relative cost of such a device. Kid must be making serious bank.
@jbartus If he’s living at home, expenses are less, and you can get non-shitty 3D printers for under $400.
@dashcloud I guess… I’d still make him buy his own damned coat!
@jbartus he did buy a 3d printer. He has been working since late summer. He painted metal trellis like railings in really hot weather and he has been raking and blowing leaves at each set of his grandparents. Relatively inflated wages have fed his arduino habit and the 3d printer. To be fair, he shared his bank during the period of time whenever we were short on cash
. Any more lost coats and he will pay for them. It all is part of the learning process. How to price a job fairly for a customer. How to make a profit, after calculating hours and materials, etc. How much grandma will interfere with mom trying to teach morals and ethics? He magically earned the last $40 on Thanksgiving. He also weighed cost of build your own vs. Pre-built, mini vs. Medium, etc. The monoprice he bought was $259 on black Friday.
@mikibell ah, love Monoprice!
@compunaut my husband started teaching our kids when they were little about money in terms they could understand…one trip to mcds cost the same as two trips to the bagel shop, a trip to olive garden cost five trips to mcds, etc. So, as much as my son loses his coats, he is really conscious of how he spends his money. When his tablet screen broke as well as the button, he as willing to wait 3 weeks for the button to ship from China rather then spend 10x as much to get it sooner.
@jbartus they have been so good to the kid…the control board is wacked and they are jumping through all sorts of hoops to get it up and running for him…
@mikibell good on him! How old is he? He’s got more self restraint than some 25 year olds I know. looks at his brother
Monoprice is a great company, they’re my go-to every time I need cables and other random bits and bobs.
@jbartus he just turned 12. It was his goal to earn the money by his birthday…wait you have a brother on here too?
@mikibell on here? No.
Oh if he’s only twelve I guess I may be being a bit harsh.
@jbartus naaaahhh…everything you said was true…
@jbartus Some of my kids’ older classmates can talk their parents into cheap used cars, but they have to pay for their auto insurance, so they get a job. A few have figured out that if they keep the job but drop the car habit, the $$ accumulate pretty quick.
@mikibell yeah I know but still.
@jbartus don’t sweat it… Please…
I went to Best Buy today. My husband was going to buy me a laptop for my birthday that was last month. I know very little about computers. This nice man (non employee) helped up out and I picked out a nice shiny one that cost $700. The sales guy told us, without looking it up, that there were none in any store in the state and none in the warehouse. So why was it on display? And why didn’t he mention that during the half hour we were looking at it? Fuck you, Best Buy.
@sammydog01
Ask here. Start a thread. Whatever you were thinking if at a b&m BB for $700, I bet the people here could come up with something better for the $ or similar spec’d but cheaper.
Also check slickdeals. read a thread if you are thinking about buying an item..
@f00l It was this one:
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/hp-hp-envy-x360-2-in-1-15-6-touch-screen-laptop-intel-core-i7-16gb-memory-1tb-hard-drive-silver/5622388.p?skuId=5622388
And I like brick and mortar stores for expensive stuff.
@sammydog01 You’re welcome, mom
@spcial_snwflake That’s tiny! I’m middle aged and need a bigger screen. That’s why you always see me looking over my glasses squinting at my phone.
@sammydog01 380$
@sammydog01 Then get my laptop and this
@sammydog01 Here ya go
@sammydog01 or just use your fricken I-pad
@sammydog01
Do you like b&m stores because you can try before purchase? Or because you want to purchase locally to have a local connection if there are issues?
I haven’t used HP in a long time. HP tends to load their machine with crapware, unless they’ve changed. I haven’t dealt with large or power laptops in a long time either. That machine appears to have ok specs. But unless it’s a BB special purchase, it’s prob not the best value for the $.
I’m no laptop expert, but this isn’t a gamer laptop since no special graphics hardware. If you don’t game heavily, that doesn’t matter. Gaming laptops are a kinda sinkhole to purchase anyway. Insanely expensive and quickly obsoleted by the “new new”.
Some laptops run really hot - too hot, they can be difficult to handle - so always check reviews for that.
I’m into the small light ones. But laptop choice is very personal.
@sammydog01 they have an openbox of that for shipping for only $650+ tax with free 2 day shipping http://www.bestbuy.com/site/hp-hp-envy-x360-2-in-1-15-6-touch-screen-laptop-intel-core-i7-16gb-memory-1tb-hard-drive-silver/5622388.p?skuId=5622388
@sammydog01
@spcial_snwflake seems to have a handle on this.
I have an older gen transformer book and love it. It can be a bit finicky. The battery life is insane. Like 12-14 hours or something.
The screen is a little small. Mobile chip, so this doesn’t run fast and you don’t want to load it down with software. If you get one, make sure it’s at least 64g memory. NOT just 32! You can get used to it’s quirks. I got a refurb from newegg for under $200 2 years ago, it’s been fine.
@communist I saw that and was thinking about it. Thanks!
@spcial_snwflake
Is that a real keyboard on that Lenovo, or some kinda semi-tablet kludge? Keyboard quality matters.
@f00l
This is partly a review of it
@f00l You just had to tell my teenage son he was right, didn’t you. That screen is smaller than I would like, and the rest of what you said went over my head. I probably don’t need anything as nice as the one I was going to buy but I don’t really know. I just don’t want it to get obsolete soon. And I like brick and mortar stores so I can take whatever it is and ask for help. I have a good pathetic face.
@spcial_snwflake
Thx. Gotta few chromebooks that need this touchscreen thing bad.
@f00l I really want to get one for my gaming laptop
@sammydog01 for what it’s worth that’s typical Best Buy.
@jbartus That is why god made amazon
@spcial_snwflake
Re Lenovo book
With that kinda keyboard this machine wouldn’t be that good for most people who work mostly in text or who grew up with conventional keyboards. I can’t imagine something like that for command line or all day typing.
As a play machine or kids machine or couch/purse machine it might be great.
Btw the kb on my transformer book is very good.
Perhaps someone who grows up w a Kb like that can adapt to it beautifully, but my instinct it that it would always be an inferior text interface.
@f00l My mom is used to using her I-pad all of the time, and I would assume that it would be quite similar. It would take some time to get used to but you can also install typewriter sounds, which I use all of the time.
@sammydog01
If you want non-obsolescence and value for the money - I’d find a really well-reviewed laptop and find a place that has a good rep selling refurbs and a good return policy jic and get a refurb from that place. Buy an extended warranty if you’re worried and if the warranty price is ok.
That way you didn’t spend so much in the first place so you don’t feel you have to use it beyond when it’s what you need, just to get your $ out of it.
I don’t get a great built-in warranty buying returns that way but I’ve almost never needed to mess w the warranty anyway. Most “refurbs” are returns.
Make sure the laptop is well-reviewed on amazon, and has a great processor and at least 8g of ram min. 16 is better. If the laptop is a high end current model, ram can usually be added, but check that model to be sure. Go see it in a store if you can. Make sure you like using the screen, keyboard and mouse. If you can’t find that model in store to test, read reviews on the keyboard and mouse and screen, and try some other similar spec’d oned from the same manufacturer.
Make sure you understand what it means to carry a 2lb machine vs a 4kb machine if you plan to leave the house with it. I don’t like heavy machines. Others want all the options and don’t mind the weight.
I used to buy from Cowboom but that’s gone. I don’t need a laptop right now, if I did I spoze I would buy from here or newegg or Amazon. Perhaps microcenter. Perhaps the Dell outlet or Lenovo outlet. Depending on the machine, perhaps Woot. I’ve had some luck on Ebay (tricky) and at Frys.
@spcial_snwflake
It’s nothing to do with the sound.
A practiced typist can type with insane speed and accuracy you can’t match using a even a good sensitive flat keyboard. Real keys give tactile and detailed hand position info that a flat keyboard can’t offer. That’s where you get a lot of the speed and accuracy. And hand fatigue matters a great deal over many hours.
And try running your command line server from a touch keyboard for hours upon hours. Not what I’d want.
Many people who type all day buy really nice keyboards and consider them a bargain. People under some cutoff age may often use computers differently than older folks, and care less about keyboard quality.
Or perhaps younger people are simply far more adapted to a touch keyboard because their brains had a chance to learn and wire for that input method at an optimal stage in learning development.
@sammydog01 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834154381
i like this laptop better for the price its $680 after $50 rebate and is much faster than the HP has a dedicated video card so you play more than just candy crush
@f00l I use a laptop keyboard so what do I know
@communist She’s looking for touchscreen for who-knows-what reason
@spcial_snwflake
Moms have reasons.
I know you’re prob a prodigy or something, but show some consideration here. Moms know stuff.
Not sure Sprint is a major retailer…but 2 hours to add a phone and upgrade another…had to undo all the plan changes my husband did, then add/upgrade…all the while dealing with a CS rep who was puking…and my dad who had leukemia hoping against hope that he didn’t get whatever she had. If it wasn’t for bogo free and him needing a new phone, we would have bailed. Not to mention, I still have lots o presents to make/wrap!!
Now the younger kid has a phone (thank you auntie!) my hair will be totally gray with this kid/phone.
I will now present Dell again.
December 3rd I used Dell to order a new Nintendo 3DS XL using $177 promotional credit I had from them and some cash. The day before the delivery window was due to open I get an email telling me my orders been delayed two weeks. That’s fine no problem delivery date still Before Christmas. Tuesday morning I get an email informing me that my product has been put on back order and will not be delivered until March 2017. March 2017!
@jbartus
Nice inventory control.
@f00l especially considering I can walk into almost any Electronics retailer and buy one today
@jbartus You’d think so, but there’s apparently a 3DS shortage going on in parts of the country: http://kotaku.com/why-is-the-3ds-so-hard-to-find-right-now-1790365066
The limited. I have an order for pants placed dec 12 that has not shipped yet. Stores are closing but they won’t confirm this. Facebook isnfull of unhappy people. I just want my pants to arrive so i can try them on and return the ones that don’t fit (pants are always variable in fits)
Limited is one of the few places that sell long womens pants.
@CaptAmehrican Time to cash out your gift cards if you have any!
TL;DR i ordered some socks and knives. so sad they are not here