I placed a pre-order for a DVD in September '04, for a title to be relased in November '04. December rolled around, and I hadn't received the item yet. An online chat with Customer Service proved useless - they could provdide no information on availability. (Keep in mind I had pre-ordered this two months prior to its release)

Shortly after my December chat, the item mysteriosuly changed from DVD to VHS format in my order history. Upon contacting their CSR once again, I was informed that the DVD was no longer carried. Fine - case closed. I've been screwed over by better companies.

Fast-foward to February, '05. My daily visit to DVDPriceSearch lists same DVD title, featured at Overstock.com once again - and at a price about $5 lower than average. Again, I place an order...against my better judgment, but at least I have the foresight to take screenshots of various stages of the order.

A week and a half later, the shipment arrives. I open it to find...a VHS. I contact them for an RMA number, which is issued several days later. The item is returned to them, and received by them on 2/26.

Two weeks later, and still no update. I contact their customer service, who tells me it can take "up to 14 business days" for them to react to the return shipment.

On the fifteenth business day, I contact them. They inform me that my "VHS tape" will ship shortly. I tell them this is not correct, I ordered a DVD. They point me to my order history, which once again reads "VHS". I volunteer to provide aforementioned screenshots, but they bounce my emails with attachments. (I've volunteereed screenshots during several correspondence, but they've consistently ignored that part of my email).

Today, I receive my second VHS tape from them. Upon contacting them for another RMA, I am told I will be required to pay a restocking fee.

I have now written what could be described as a rather "impolite" email to their latest in a long line of Customer Service Droids, informing them that I will let my credit card company handle this from here.

I'm now taking this personally - they've not heard the last of me.

I'd be pissed, too. They didnt handle it well from the sounds of it, and what's going on with it changing from DVD to VHS in your account order is just odd. I have ordered once from overstock, (Scarface SE Collectors Set), but thankfully the one order went through fine.

I've orderd from them in the past, as well, without incident.

Here's an update - on a friend's advice, I uploaded the screenshots to the web, and pointed them at the links. After sharing the screenshots with them, I got a reply earlier today telling me to just keep the VHS and posting a $6 credit to my account.

This, of course, isn't enough to make it all even - I couldn't care less about having the VHS. However, I might be able to eBay it to make up for the difference....or I can continue to give them shit over it. Still not sure which direction I'll take.

This is good news. At least you didn't get a shrug of the shoulder and "you're shit out of luck" kind of attitude.

Article on Overstock.com
-------------------------

Overstock denies shipping problems

By Matt Hines
http://news.com.com/Overstock+denies...3-5623377.html

Story last modified Thu Mar 17 11:14:00 PST 2005



Online retailer Overstock.com said Thursday that a Federal Trade Commission inquiry into its shipping policies was triggered by an increase in the number of orders it is fulfilling, not by widespread customer dissatisfaction.

The Salt Lake City-based e-commerce company detailed the FTC investigation in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday. Overstock said that it received notice of the inquiry in January and that it is cooperating with the FTC on the matter.

An FTC spokesman confirmed that its regulators are investigating Overstock but declined to comment further.

According to Jonathan Johnson, vice president of corporate affairs for Overstock, the FTC automatically launches such an investigation when it has received a certain number of consumer complaints regarding a particular service. He said the increase in reports to the FTC was likely driven by the fact that Overstock has steadily increased the number of shipments it is making, not by fulfillment problems at the company.

"We don't think that the percentage of complaints has gone up, but as the denominator got bigger, the numerator got to a point where it crossed a line, and the FTC sent us an inquiry," Johnson said. "We don't believe that we have a problem here; there may be some minor things that we need to tweak or fix, but we don't believe that this is a material issue."

Johnson said that a vast majority of Overstock's orders ship within two days, as the company promises. He said the company handles 40 percent of its order fulfillment in-house and it works with some 300 shipment partners to deliver the remaining 60 percent. Overstock charges $2.95 for basic ground shipping, but also offers customers expedited services at an extra cost.

"We're always looking at policies and trying to make everything clear for the customer," Johnson said. "As a result of the inquiry, we're reviewing our policies, but we believe that we're largely compliant."

http://news.com.com/Overstock+denies...3-5623377.html

A "certain number" of complaints? that sounds quite silly. If the number is, say, 5000....
Overstock.com with 5001 complaints out of 100,000 orders = 5 percent complaint rate. Sets off the investigation.
But CrappyInternetCompany has 4999 complaints out of only 20,000 orders = ~ 25% complaint rate. No investigation.

Anyway, keep holding them to the fire.

Isn't overstock the company that charges your CC as soon as you preorder? I remember reading that someone preordered the PS2 game Gran Turismo 4, which was delayed for at least a year, and they held his money the whole time, with no chance of cancelling...

yeah they charge your CC for preorders..but I think they'll refund if you ask for it..

A summary of my most recent email to them - thanks for that link!

ive had so many problems with them. I usually either take the abuse; they are so inept, because their prices are so good. One time i ordered psycho and they sent me a movie called rat and it changed on the website that i ordered rat. they didn't believe me but gave me a credit. i got a vhs instead of a dvd too. they really, really suck but their prices are great so order with caution.

That's good that their prices are great, but it does me no good if they send a VHS copy of the wrong movie... I don't think I'll ever order from there now.

Oh shit. I forgot all about this thread and I just ordered Dinner For Five from them. *smacks forehead* I guess I should hope for the best and prepare for the worst.

It usually takes about two weeks to receive my order from Overstock....and I live in the same city where they're based!

I rarely have problems with them. However, I have had problems with the service, not their shipping.

1 word of advice though...if you don't get the answer you are looking for ask for a supervisor. We recently ordered a bed topper and they shipped the right box, but the topper inside was too small. It took them over a month to credit us our $109.00 that we spent re-ordering, per their instructions. Finally, my gf called them and got it fixed however she had to contact a supervisor because the people she was dealing with were rude to her and they disconnected her from the chat. She calls, gets everything fixed and the next day we get a call from the supervisor's supervisor apologizing and told us that the person who was rude is going to be re-trained.

I ordered the Time Out Film Guide from them a while back. They didn't ship it in a proper box... just one of those "envelope boxes" where they glue four sides to make a faux box. You know what I'm talking about? Anyway, because the book is bigger than a lot of phone books and weighs a ton, the crappy "box" popped open during shipment and the cover was torn.

It took almost 5 weeks of back-and-forth with their "RMA system" to finally get an RMA issued, and by the time THAT happened, they had run out of replacements, so I had to get a refund.

I'll never order from them again, even if they do have some killer prices.

Overstock has a history of bait and switch tactics. I have ordered an item, and then they send me wrong item (similar to the vhs instead of dvd you ordered). You then call them to see what happened, and they feign ignorance, but tell you the item you ordered is no longer available. It took me three months for them to issue me a credit, and I returned the incorrect item right away (well as soon as they finally sent me the shipping label so I wouldn't have to pay for shipping). Throughout this whole ordeal, theit customer service was clueless.

Funny thing is, I have heard this from a few other people that they recieved an item they did not order.

I am glad the FTC is looking into it, becuase they really suck.

I just tried ordering a couple of DVDs from them and I was sent to the international store, where during checkout I recieved a message saying that the DVDs couldn't be sold because of license restricitions in my country. What the hell?!!! I'm buying region 1 DVDs for them to be sent to Puerto Rico, which is a US territory, with US laws, US dollar currency, US postal service and most important of all: Region 1. I just sent a somewhat angry email pointing out their ignorance and I just hope they fix this soon, so I'll consider doing business with them.

Re-trained? What, they're bringing out the torture mechanisms? If they're rude the first time, retraining isnt going to help the second time around.

After trying to cancel a pre-order with two different customer service representatives and being told by both that they only can cancel a pre-order 1 week prior to release, I am a little stunned.

This seems completely counter-intuitive. Shouldn't I only be able to cancel a pre-order until 1 week prior to release?

On top of that, an online CSR told me that he was issuing a credit for not applying a 10% coupon last week but today, after calling about it, I find out that it was only a coupon toward my next purchase that he issued and they won't issue the credit instead.

The problem occured in their chat based customer service and the CSR purposely disconnected the conversation between my gf and this person. I agree that re-training isn't going to do anything, but at least the supervisor was nice enough to address the problem.

Man I went through hell with these guys,I had ordered 3 movies,Rainman,Major League and Kingdom Hospitle for my GF for Valentines Day,but after waiting for them for over 3 weeks I had to cancel my order because it was a day away from Valentine's Day,So I canceled my order and the rep said it would take around 14 buisness days for me to receive my money back,so I gave them 3 full weeks and it still wasnt there,I talked to about 5 diffrent reps and finally got my money about 2 months later,it takes them 1 day to take your money out of your bank but it takes you 3 months to receive the money back,I refuse to buy from them again and I tell everyone I know that orders online to stay far away from OverStock,Im makeing it a point to screw over Overstock untill there bankrupt.