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CDNow randomly canceling items on orders?...

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CDNow randomly canceling items on orders?...

Old 12-14-01, 11:30 AM
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CDNow randomly canceling items on orders?...

Is anyone else having problems with this? My suspicion is that they are changing things in their database and perhaps that and other things associated with them shifting fulfillment warehouses are leading to this, but it's been a bit annoying lately having to get on the line with their phone customer support (which no longer is available on weekends either).

Most of the time I've had good experience with their phone customer support, so this isn't meant as a complaint towards them. However, recently I've had quite a number of DVD's that are backordered canceled on orders that were placed less than a week ago. In one case, I tried cancelling an item myself I found cheaper someplace else on an order and a couple of days later, instead of cancelling that one, they cancelled the only other backordered item on that order and shipped my order with the canceled item. Now I have two of those DVD's with the other one I bought on half.com.

They've recently canceled items such as El-Hazard Wanders 2 DVD (saying that they no longer carry it), which I think they switched db entries on when it got delayed. I bought it again on a subsequent order and have already had it shipped to me now.

Now they just canceled a copy of America 911 DVD on the same order that had the earlier canceled El-Hazard DVD saying that they no longer stock that (though it's still on and has been on their web site for the last few days). My order has been shipped yesterday and this time they left my two remaining backordered items on backorder (not cancelling them). Does anyone else have this still on their orders (or has recently received this shipped from them)? I suspect that this may be another case of them changing the DB entry for it and "conveniently" cancelling existing orders of the previously defined item. I'd be leery about ordering it now (though it isn't worth it anymore without preorder pricing).

If they were consistent and had an understandable policy about cancellations, etc. then I wouldn't be that concerned, as I'd know how to work around them. I still buy from them as they are one of the few sites left that I can preorder a good selection of items for 40% or more off with the 15% off coupon.

If anyone else out there feels they have a better understanding of their current cancellation policy, please help out here...

Thanks
Old 12-14-01, 08:57 PM
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I placed an order a week ago for 31 items, a couple of days later 11 items had been canceled for no apparent reason. Today I received a shipment of 23 items including 7 of the eleven items that had been canceled plus 16 of the 20 that had not been canceled. All of the items were pre orders with the same release date and all of the items that had been "canceled" were still available for order on their web site. I trust that what ever the problem is/was it will be corrected.

Mike
Old 12-15-01, 01:00 AM
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I had the same problem, in that I had ordered 3 movies, tried to cancel one. The one I cancelled ended up getting shipped, because the other 2 (a backorder and a pre-release) got cancelled by some error that no one understands still. I spent 40 minutes on the phone with a supervisor, and still got nowhere.. Now I'm waiting for a return label so I can get my money back for this DVD they sent me, and I get stuck eating the original $3.99 shipping charge, even though it was their fault.

I reordered the 2 DVDs that were cancelled randomly, and they seem to be fine so far. I'm really irked with their customer service. I will never buy from them again.
Old 12-15-01, 10:38 AM
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I now have had three straight orders where they've shipped the in stock items and have left the other backordered items in the order without cancelling them. Perhaps they got too many people calling in on the cancellations and figure it's best not to cancel the backorders now.

There was a short period of time after they had the policy of making two shipments per order that they were trying to wait for the whole order to be in stock before shipping. Obviously that must not have worked either.

I suggested on a few occassions that they do it somewhat like Amazon and others have done, where if you don't want them to ship it every time an item comes in stock (which racks up huge shipping costs), that instead of having to wait for the whole order to be in stock, you just ship what's in stock every 30 days or when the entire order is in stock (maybe make it two or three items or more so that they don't lose too much on shipping that would happen if they were to just ship one at a time). That way for each order, you have at most one shipment per month.

However they choose to do it, the most important is that they quickly select a "permanent" policy that most folks can deal with and stick with it or at least find some way of communicating far enough in advance the policy for new orders or stay the same policy on older existing orders so that people aren't confused about how their existing orders are going to be handled. I now have at least two DVD's shipped to me that I also bought from half.com that were also shipped before I could cancel them effectively off my order (which was the appropriate thing to do earlier when trying to clear existing and "potential" backorders from your orders when finding them cheaper elsewhere).

One other thing that annoys me that I wish they'd fix is when they do these cancellations, they should still show the same price on the item as when you bought it and not change the price to the current non=preorder price. It's always a pain to have to explain to some of their CS when making a replacement order that the 15% coupon should be off of the earlier 30% off preorder price and not the one that's listed. What compounds this is the order confirmation that you get in the email doesn't contain the line item pricing either, so it's not easy to forward that email to note to them what the earlier per item pricing was.

With few exceptions though, I've had pretty good workings with their customer service. There was one that was new that was a bit confused about preorder discounts pricing I mention here and was adamant about not being able to have "two percentage" discounts on the same order, but others who'd been there most of the time have been very friendly and helpful and could help us overcome these problems. It's too bad though that they've cut back their weekend hours now though.
Old 12-15-01, 03:29 PM
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Wow, I just got another shipping notice. Noticed also in the Twin Peaks deal thread that they are saying how their's are shipping (wish I got in on that deal! )

Anyway, it looks like they are trying to clear out their inventory of standing orders by shipping what's in stock. Not sure if it's a factor of them having a new warehouse, or if they're just trying to get some revenue before the end of the year or what, but it looks like they're trying to get "caught up"... I guess as long as they don't cancel any of my DVDs and don't charge me extra for shipping, I don't mind. Though my CC bill will probably be pretty big next month!
Old 12-16-01, 04:36 PM
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Had the same experience 2 weeks ago. I ordered 1 in stock title and a backordered item. I decided to cancel the in stock title, but instead they cancelled the backordered title and shipped the in stock title. I emailed them to explain the problem and demanded that they ship the backordered title (that is when it gets available), at the old price (with the 30% off and additional 15% discount). They were kind enough to replace the order (at the old price)
Old 12-18-01, 03:08 PM
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Well, I checked my order status and one backordered DVD had been cancelled (the release date had been changed and it was finally released last week). I'm waiting to hear from CDnow.

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