On the 12th, I made an order on Zales.com for my girlfriend. A diamond ring. On that day, they had a promotion that with any jewelery purchase, you'd receive a silver diamond accented bracelet for free ($129 value). Great.

It was said to have shipped on the 14th, via 2-day FedEx.

The weekend came and I still hadn't gotten my package. No biggie, I figured that with the holiday, shipping might be a little bit slow. Then today came and I decided to call the 'hotline' (which took me twenty minutes just to get a FedEx tracking number).

Went to FedEx.com and tracked the shipment - turns out it was sent back to Texas for some reason (where their warehouse is located). I called FedEx to ask why it was sent back...after some conversation with the customer service rep, it seems that Zales didn't put my apartment number on the goddamn package (which was on the order, as evidenced by my conformation e-mail...no screw up on my part).

So I called Zales and after much debate, they said there's nothing I can do. Once it's at the warehouse, they'll refund my money (after the holiday she said, considering they're concentrating on "getting orders out right now, not really worrying about what's coming in" and I'll have to purchase it again. Not only does this mean that my girlfriend won't have her ring on Christmas, it means that the bracelet that was free with the promotion, won't be valid any longer.

I'm extremely pissed that this has happened. That was her big gift and now what the hell do I do? I can't just go down to a store and get one, because the money still isn't in my account, since they haven't refunded it yet.

= J

sorry, they don;t have strikthrough any more. but why don't you try going to an acutal zales store, or other jewelry store. online shopping is always a crapshoot especially around the holidays, and i believe it should be avoided unless it is done well in advance. it sucks what happened but bitching about it at a dvdtalk board isn't going to do much

Actually Tarantino, that situation really sucks. Sorry to hear this, sounds like they totally screwed things up for you.
I know I would be plenty pissed off if it were me.

You, sir, are a class act.

Sorry for your bad luck Tarantino.

I urge everyone to make a note of wennma01's name so that the first time he comes on here to vent about some crappy thing that's happened to him, we can all be as sympathetic as he has been here.

Tarantino, I'd be demanding to talk to some supervisors. Surely they can just resend your order overnight. I guarantee their hands are not as tied as they would like you to believe.

Exactly, don't let some customer service rep have the final word. This is a big screwup on their part. As Boot said, they can clearly have it overnighted to you.

I feel for you. I'm experiencing this same thing with 2 different places right now. it completely sucks to be banking on these items for gifts only to have them screw up royally this soon to christmas.

Tarantino - this is funny because virtually the SAME thing happened to me! Zales put my name and city on the package....but no address! Fortunately, my local FedEx center called me on the phone and had me call them and give them the correct address so they could deliever it...but I wonder how many other people this happened to?!

That definitely sucks. I don't want to sound heartless, but if it was something that had the potential of "ruining Christmas" if it didn't show up, then you really should have gone to a store and bought it yourself. I work for an online retailer, and I'm sick of people saying "you ruined my Christmas." Most of our orders are held up for legitimate security reasons (high ticket items), but sometimes - as in your case - mistakes happen during the fulfillment/shipping process. People make mistakes; that's just the way it is. It's not worth getting bent out of shape about, and if it *is* something important enough to get worked up about, then you should have gone to a store and made sure you physically had it in your hand.

Sidebar: I had one lady say I ruined her wedding because her wedding ring (which she ordered express, a couple days before the wedding) wasn't going to arrive in time. Gee, it's perhaps the most important day of your life. Do you think you could have taken 5 minutes to drive to the mall to pick out a ring? (End of unrelated rant.)

There's still time to get them to do the right thing and get your ring to you by Christmas. It's their fault; they should do whatever it takes to correct the problem. Talk to a manager there. If they can't fix your problem, ask for their boss. Keep climbing up the chain of command until someone fixes it for you.

Best of luck to you.

Good point

Thats all bullshit. If you cant process and send orders online right, then dont do it. Plain and simple. Yes mistakes happen, but when they happen companies should be trying their best to rectify the problem. Giving some half-assed line like there is nothing we can do about it, is not correcting the mistake. Thats the difference

Sorry to hear that Tarantino. I agree with those who say you should talk to a manager or someone higher up in the chain. It was their mistake so they should do whatever they can to make it up to you.

Sorry to hear that Tarantino, that really bites. And people wonder why I do all my online shopping Thanksgiving weekend now!

Ditto! I used to work for an online retailer that went under a few years ago, and I couldn't believe how many people said that. Oddly, it was mainly people trying to pay with maxxed out or expired credit cards, or trying to do overnight shipping at 8pm on the 23rd and not understanding why it wouldn't get there in time for Christmas. People always want to put the blame on someone else when they're the ones who dropped the ball.

I agree. It's up to the company to rectify their mistake, because it is their mistake, and they have a responsibility to their customer. You can't just say "mistakes happen." I realize that we live in a nation where "the customer is always right" has been taken to extremes, but this is not an unreasonable situation.

Does this refer to customers, or store employees?

Well, I put in another call and left my number for a manager to call me back. I'll update you all when I find out what they can/will do for me.

As for wennma01, let me explain...I've done all of my shopping in store this year...the only thing I bought online was this gift. I know what it's like out there, I work in a Best Buy that's attached to a mall, so please...before you judge, have facts. There were two reasons that I went online and bought this gift - one, the prices are usually better online and even if they're the same, I don't like jewelery sales people most of the time...I'm just not comfortable in that situation. Two, the free bracelet promotion, which was only available online.

I know 'bitching about it on a DVDTalk forum won't get me anywhere' in the grand scheme of things, but if they're not going to take care of me and they ultimately don't want my business, I'm going to let my friends and aquaintances know about it.

This does put a dent in my Christmas, but I've learned a lesson for next year. I'll shop early, September if possible, leaving all room for doubt to the wayside. However, I still believe that if you're going to have an online business, you run it right and treat your customer as if he were in front of you.

= J

for those who say "shop early to avoid disappointment", I placed an order(site #1) for a few "offensive" board games back 2 weeks ago. I recieved my order last week and they shipped the wrong games. I called them up and told them about it and they said they would ship out the correct games asap. a few days pass and nothing. I call them back time and time again but they shut their phones off. I finally get someone on Friday and find out that they never shipped them out. this brings us to this Monday. I call again and again and finally get through. they then tell me that there is nothing they can do because there is no time. after a bunch of pushing about it they agree to ship it out via Priority mail and guess what, it was supposed to be delivered today and it ended up going to the wrong area because they incorrectly labeled the package. now I'm trying to rack this thing down before it goes to "return to sender" mode.

situation #2: I place an order for these same 2 games through another site and mentioned that I was having a ton of trouble with site #1. they say "yeah, that site is complete garbage. we are a hell of alot better than them". I ask about stock status. they confirm they have them in stock. I ask about shipping and was told that with standard UPS ground it would definately arrive before christmas. they tell me they ship all items within 24hrs. I think about it for a second and decide to go with 2 day instead of the standard 3-4 ground. this was done last Sun. guess what, their guaranteed by christmas using standard ground was complete bs since I opted for 2 day and it still won't be here by christmas. they just shipped my stuff a few hours ago. I was told I should have them by Tues of next week. I told them that christmas was this weekend not next Tues. and I confused them.

why would anyone promise guaranteed delivery by a certain time if they can't follow through?

Congrats on both of your engagements, I hope the three of you will be very happy.

Me. Not with Zales, but with another company who uses FedEx as their primary shipping company. The thing that gets me about it is that there are only four apartments in my complex, and it would not be that big of a stretch to think that when in doubt the driver could just go and check the mail boxes and match the name with the apartment number, but I guess they don't get paid to think like that. I guess they would rather spend the money and waste the time of the customer and mail it back.

Whichever shoe fits, wear it.

I consider Mid-November to be 'early', 2 weeks ago is full-on Christmas shopping/shipping time.

There definitely is a problem with apartment numbers on shipping labels- a few months ago my DVD recorder went nuts and I had to send it to Philips in Kentucky to have it fixed. I included all the info they told me to send, and I TRIPLE-CHECKED to make sure that my complete address was on it, including my apartment number. A month goes by and I hear nothing, turns out they had it fixed weeks ago but when they sent it back to me, they forgot to put the apartment number on the address so it ended up coming back to them! I finally arranged to pick it up at a UPS station since I happen to work right next door to it, but I'd already taken a week off before hoping to spend the time transferring old tapes to DVD but couldn't do that since I hadn't gotten my recorder back.

Exact same thing happened when I got high-speed internet- they had to send me the modem, and again my apartment number was left off so it ended up coming back to them and they sat on it until I called. People suck.