I was one of the people who took advantage of the buy.com DOTD Austin Powers DVD for $9.99 a few weeks back. Well my order appears to be stuck somewhere in Texas for the last 3 weeks. I emailed buy.com about this and was told to check my post office, which told me it seems to be lost. So I emailed buy.com again asking for a replacement and got the response IT WASN’T BUY.COMS POLICY TO REPLACE DOTD ORDERS!!? And I had to be credited. So pretty pissed I called their customer service. First I get this woman that seemed to be barely able to speak proper English mumbling and slurring words. After deciphering this code of hers I realized she really didn't understand anything about my order or situation. When I asked her about receiving a replacement instead of credit she replied with “credit for what?” then promptly put me on hold. After being on hold for 14 minutes I get, for lack of a better word this BITCH on the phone that whole purpose was to talk me into submission. Sheesh, I would of preferred mumbles. She would repeat the same statement over and over again that BUY.COMS POLICY FOR DOTDS WAS TO NOT REPLACE THEM ONCE ALL THE SUPPLIES WERE SOLD. I said that it’s not like the DOTD was a specialty item for Christ’s sake it was an Austin Powers DVD!!! They had plenty in stock! She replied with there policy. I said it says nowhere on buy.coms DOTD page that they won’t replace missing orders! She said BUY.COM DOESN'T HAVE TO STATE THIS ON THEIR WEBSITE!!! Then repeated their policy. I told her she already told me that, she replied by saying their policy again!! Her answer to anything was the written policy! What time is it? “Our policy is to…” Where is the bathroom? “Our policy is to…” When she repeated this policy for the 5th time I asked to speak to a supervisor. After another 12 minutes on hold I got the supervisor. I stated my case that I had already placed a purchase that buy.com never fulfilled and she said that she couldn’t send me another copy because it was a DOTD. Unbelievable! I was being treated like I was trying to order the DOTD after it had expired! I placed my purchase on the day, was billed for it on my credit card and buy.com did not complete my order! Its simple! But they said that it was a ONE-DAY ONLY OFFER!! Finally I gave up and hung up.

This was very disappointing to me; I had generally regarded buy.com as one of the best DVD etailers until this incident. They had always had excellent service in the past and was quickly becoming my favorite place to buy DVDs. But this just confirms what I have read about buy.com in this forum that when they’re good they’re really good and when they’re bad they are really bad! It’s basically a crapshoot and sometimes it comes up snake eyes. Buy.com basically sold me out for a lousy $9.99 and soured a loyal customer. I don’t know if I want to buy from them again after this incident.


[This message has been edited by Crono (edited November 14, 2000).]

[This message has been edited by Crono (edited November 14, 2000).]

Crono,
I feel your pain, but man, you just made
me laugh so much....
"what time is it ...' our policy...'"...
oh man...good thing im alone at work now.

Neitzl

Thanks Neitzl, it would be funny if it weren't true.

I think that maybe we should all get together and ban buy.com for a while. I was so happy with them when I started, but now I have been having alot of problems with them.

I don't want to even get started telling you my buy.com nightmare. Only took me 15 emails and 10 telephone calls for them to fix my problem. After all that I got no apology, no coupon or anything for my trouble and this was a situation where they were 100% at fault. I support having a ban on them. It's a terrible shame that a company with such good prices has the worst customer service I have ever seen in my life.

Actually, I can see why Buy.com is doing this - maybe.

Where I work, we get calls from several distributors that say "if you can take x number of y product tomorrow, we will send you a rebate check for z amount" - or discount the product by some crazy amount that we end up making a killing on it.

So all that day and the next up to cut-off time, we push the product like crazy and take as many "pre-orders" for them as possible and fill them the next day.

I am sure that Buy.com is probably in the same sort of situation - Ingram tells them that we have a ton of x (Austin Powers) and if you sell 5,000 pieces or whatever the magic number is, we bill you $8.99 or something. So they go and sell a ton of these, they all get sold, and the new cost is $11.99, so of course they don't want to purchase and sell it again for $9.99...

Oh well, I suppose I am just rambling, but it is a pretty common thing to offer awesome discounts for selling x amount of product on a certain day (usually a "floor day" where our sales rep from the vendor gets a bonus for selling a certain amount of product on a given day)...

quote:<HR>Originally posted by jellis:
Actually, I can see why Buy.com is doing this - maybe.

Where I work, we get calls from several distributors that say "if you can take x number of y product tomorrow, we will send you a rebate check for z amount" - or discount the product by some crazy amount that we end up making a killing on it.

So all that day and the next up to cut-off time, we push the product like crazy and take as many "pre-orders" for them as possible and fill them the next day.

I am sure that Buy.com is probably in the same sort of situation - Ingram tells them that we have a ton of x (Austin Powers) and if you sell 5,000 pieces or whatever the magic number is, we bill you $8.99 or something. So they go and sell a ton of these, they all get sold, and the new cost is $11.99, so of course they don't want to purchase and sell it again for $9.99...

Oh well, I suppose I am just rambling, but it is a pretty common thing to offer awesome discounts for selling x amount of product on a certain day (usually a "floor day" where our sales rep from the vendor gets a bonus for selling a certain amount of product on a given day)...<HR>

If what you say is true it’s all the more reason to replace the order since they made out so well in this deal with their distributors. Although I believe the deal of the day is more of an inventory clearance thing buy.com does. Even if it’s a clearance they could still send a replacement copy of such an easily replaceable product at a minor loss of the discounted price. Which would go a long way in satisfying the customer by correcting their mistake. But instead they decided not to because the customer is not always right at buy.com. They would rather risk potentially losing a loyal customer for a lousy $10 dollars. With all that said it still doesn’t explain the absolutely terrible customer service I received in trying to file my complaint.

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"A plan is just a list of things that don't happen"

quote:<HR>Originally posted by Crono:

If what you say is true it’s all the more reason to replace the order since they made out so well in this deal with their distributors. Although I believe the deal of the day is more of an inventory clearance thing buy.com does. Even if it’s a clearance they could still send a replacement copy of such an easily replaceable product at a minor loss of the discounted price. Which would go a long way in satisfying the customer by correcting their mistake. But instead they decided not to because the customer is not always right at buy.com. They would rather risk potentially losing a loyal customer for a lousy $10 dollars. With all that said it still doesn’t explain the absolutely terrible customer service I received in trying to file my complaint.

<HR>

Oh, don't get me wrong, I am not sticking up for Buy.com in any way - we have been round and round a couple of times. As a matter of a fact, I think that I spoke to the first woman that you spoke with - and jeez, you actually spoke with a supervisor? I am always told there is NO ONE I can talk to - must all be doing the coffee or smoke break thing or something...

But back to the story at hand - in my dealing with Buy.com, they do not look at it as - well, we made a crap load of money (whether they did or did not), but rather - it will cost us $x.xx to replace this product which is $x below cost - get them to take a credit and we will break even.

Of course this is just my opinion and I have no clue what their thinking is, and I DO NOT know for a fact that they made a killing...

Anyway, good luck...

Thanks Jellis, Lol about the cs representatives. I was just a little upset at how they handled the situation. To be honest I think there biggest problem is their customer service I would generally rate the rest of there store from good to excellent. Its just when you run into a problem with your order things really hit the fan dealing with cs. I can understand with there low prices/coupons they decided to cut costs as much as possible offering a truly poor customer service. In many ways they seem like the opposite of amazon in how amazon can be pretty shaky and shady with the rest of their store but offer a truly great customer service.

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"A plan is just a list of things that don't happen"

I have two words for any online retailer problems: American Express.

American Express, although not perfect, are at least good on stopping payment or withholding payment with problems. They are particularly straight forward with lost or missing shipments that do not require signatures. If you claim it didn't arrive... it didn't -- you don't pay. No paperwork either... just a phone call.

I've found this actually gets merchants on the phone to you and allows you to get what you want, like a replacement, rather than what they want to give you (a stupid credit).

Here's my parody of MasterCard ad for Amex:

Filling out charge reversal forms: Written Letter to Credit Card Company, Stamp, and 5 to 7 business days.

Waiting for Credit Card company to notify merchant: four to six weeks.

Calls from merchant two days after one phone call to American Express: priceless.

-Beebs
Not an employee of Amex.

[This message has been edited by beebs (edited November 14, 2000).]

Hehe well beebs I really didn't have a problem with my credit card charge they recredited my credit card rather fast. I would of much rather have them send me a replacement dvd that I ordered at the dotd price.

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"A plan is just a list of things that don't happen"

quote:<HR>Originally posted by Crono:
Thanks Jellis, Lol about the cs representatives. I was just a little upset at how they handled the situation. To be honest I think there biggest problem is their customer service I would generally rate the rest of there store from good to excellent. Its just when you run into a problem with your order things really hit the fan dealing with cs. I can understand with there low prices/coupons they decided to cut costs as much as possible offering a truly poor customer service. In many ways they seem like the opposite of amazon in how amazon can be pretty shaky and shady with the rest of their store but offer a truly great customer service.

<HR>

EXACTLY!!! I onced had a messed up order with amazon, someone else got my dvd player and I got their globe. They sent me a HUGE gift for my trouble. I won't say what exactly but it was more than suitable compensation. Right now I am trying to find a web site that I saw advertised on tv, it takes peoples complaints about a company and puts them all together to bring action. Sounds like it would be a big help. If someone knows what it is let me know please.

www.ugetheard.com is one that I know of that you can voice complaints - I have not really looked at the sight to see what happens, but worth a shot...

Thanks jellis, I filed one with them. There were quite a few other complaints against them also. All I want is a sincere apology for all the trouble they caused me. Every email I recieved from them would give me a generic sorry for the delay and such but what I want is for someone to say yes this was our fault and tell me exactly why my issue was so hard to resolve that it took a month. All it was was a missing digit to a gift certificate that once I got the right customer service rep it was fixed in five minutes.

quote:<HR>Originally posted by Don Catchpole:
Right now I am trying to find a web site that I saw advertised on tv, it takes peoples complaints about a company and puts them all together to bring action. Sounds like it would be a big help. If someone knows what it is let me know please.[/B]<HR>

Maybe you are thinking about planetfeedback.com: http://www.planetfeedback.com/


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My DVD List courtesy of DVDProTrack.

The same thing happened to me (in regards to the initial post.) I ordered the Austin Powers along with that special "hidden" Matrix DOTD, doubled them both and used a coupon. Basically, about 7 bucks per DVD. Then, it got lost, they said it was at the post office, and they credit my account a week later and won't send more. Maybe it's a buy.com conspiracy. Then again, maybe not.

What you need to understand is the idea of the deal of the day is just that. Once you start making exceptions, you open up the flood gates to have one request after another come through. A customer service person is there to follow policies, not to make their own decisions. Hence, item is lost, so they give you a refund. The price of the item is now higher, so it is no longer available at the price. No matter what people say, when it comes to things like movies and cds, companies are not getting "sweet-heart" deals with the distributor, if they sell way below retail, it is at a loss. This is the case 99% of the time. It sucks that you did not get your item, but give me a break people. "I say we boycott them". Are you kidding me. Why? Because you have had a few problems? Shop anywhere long enough, and you will have problems. People make mistakes, hence problems arise. The only way to avoid customer service problems is to shop at the highest priced retailers, as they usually have the best service. You get what you pay for.
I, for one, have shopped there forever, and never had a problem. I use them almost exclusively, unless I get some great coupon. So as you can tell I am a huge supporter.

quote:<HR>Originally posted by elnutsacko:
What you need to understand is the idea of the deal of the day is just that. Once you start making exceptions, you open up the flood gates to have one request after another come through. A customer service person is there to follow policies, not to make their own decisions. Hence, item is lost, so they give you a refund. The price of the item is now higher, so it is no longer available at the price. No matter what people say, when it comes to things like movies and cds, companies are not getting "sweet-heart" deals with the distributor, if they sell way below retail, it is at a loss. This is the case 99% of the time. It sucks that you did not get your item, but give me a break people. "I say we boycott them". Are you kidding me. Why? Because you have had a few problems? Shop anywhere long enough, and you will have problems. People make mistakes, hence problems arise. The only way to avoid customer service problems is to shop at the highest priced retailers, as they usually have the best service. You get what you pay for.
I, for one, have shopped there forever, and never had a problem. I use them almost exclusively, unless I get some great coupon. So as you can tell I am a huge supporter.<HR>

You really do not seem to get the idea here, I can understand the idea of the deal of the day being an one day offer but you have to understand that I purchased the deal of the day on the day! I not only picked it put it in my cart but also checked out and had my credit card billed all in the day. So basically I had already paid for it buy.com failed to fulfill their part so I am not at fault.

Your right mistakes happen but there is such a thing as responsibility and at the very least doing right by the customer. Your idea of floodgates is also a little exaggerated for that to happen everybody that ordered would have to lose their shipment or had something defective and if that was true buy.com has bigger problems. And I never said I believe they had a deal with their distributors, in my follow up posts I said I believe it's a inventory clearance sale buy.com does. Also I never said I would boycott them. I did not even say I would never buy from them again if you read the end of my first post.

Your theory of you get what you pay for is also not always true are you saying places like cdnow have the best service, never a problem?? It really all depends on company’s business model. I personally think Amazon has the best customer service with fair (middle ground) but not great prices.

Furthermore I was not even that upset with there policy however unfair and underhanded but as how they handled my inquiry about the order. I was made to wait 3 weeks for them to determine if the package, which was obviously lost, was so. Then a barrage of absolutely terrible, unhelpful, under trained and rude cs representatives I had to deal with after being put on hold for 12 mins at a time just to get to the next one. The time I wasted is much more valuable to me than what I lost on the order. So once again I repeat myself buy.com sold me out for 10 dollars and if they can do it to me they can do it to you.

You are obviously a little biased to buy.com because you are one of the lucky ones that has never really had a problem with them and love them as most do before they have to deal with their customer service. I once loved them too now I just moderately like them. Unless you got awfully thick skin your attitude will change once one of your orders get messed up which is bound to happen if you keep ordering from them because like you said "people make mistakes"

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"A plan is just a list of things that don't happen"


[This message has been edited by Crono (edited November 16, 2000).]

Crono,
Please understand that I was responding to the thread as a whole, and not only you. I am sorry if I did not make that clear. However, I do have a firm grasp of your post, and stand by what I said. You claim that you went through the whole order process so you are in the clear, but you did not get your product, so buy.com is at fault. I understand that they have an obligation to you as a customer, but your statement is not correct. They sent out the product, it was lost in the mail, they refunded your money. While it is disappointing that you did not get your item, they did fulfill their obligation, and the shipping company is actually at fault. I know most of you do not see it that way, but it is hard to hold them completely at fault for a portion of the transaction they are not involved in. They did the right thing and gave you back your money, but that really is all any company does on a special promotion.

As far as your statement about the floodgate theory, I believe that I did not make myself clear. My argument was that as soon as they allow for people to contest the validity of the deal of the day policy of only being available for one day, they open themselves up to having everyone contest the policy. Please do not tell me that message boards such as this, do not spread these "tricks" of how to get around certain policies. The majority of problems etailers have run into with pricing errors or in correct wordings are a direct result of message boards passing around the "deal" to other members. How many people would you estimate, say on the Die Hard trilogy deal, tried to say that " I put in an order, and it wouldn't take it. You owe me a set at that price", when they never really put in the order in the allotted time. These are thing things I am talking about.
I am not questioning the validity of your claim, merely stating that sometimes the legitimate problems people have suffer b/c those unscrupulous shoppers out there ruin it for the rest of us.

quote:<HR>Originally posted by elnutsacko:
Crono,
Please understand that I was responding to the thread as a whole, and not only you. I am sorry if I did not make that clear. However, I do have a firm grasp of your post, and stand by what I said. You claim that you went through the whole order process so you are in the clear, but you did not get your product, so buy.com is at fault. I understand that they have an obligation to you as a customer, but your statement is not correct. They sent out the product, it was lost in the mail, they refunded your money. While it is disappointing that you did not get your item, they did fulfill their obligation, and the shipping company is actually at fault. I know most of you do not see it that way, but it is hard to hold them completely at fault for a portion of the transaction they are not involved in. They did the right thing and gave you back your money, but that really is all any company does on a special promotion.

As far as your statement about the floodgate theory, I believe that I did not make myself clear. My argument was that as soon as they allow for people to contest the validity of the deal of the day policy of only being available for one day, they open themselves up to having everyone contest the policy. Please do not tell me that message boards such as this, do not spread these "tricks" of how to get around certain policies. The majority of problems etailers have run into with pricing errors or in correct wordings are a direct result of message boards passing around the "deal" to other members. How many people would you estimate, say on the Die Hard trilogy deal, tried to say that " I put in an order, and it wouldn't take it. You owe me a set at that price", when they never really put in the order in the allotted time. These are thing things I am talking about.
I am not questioning the validity of your claim, merely stating that sometimes the legitimate problems people have suffer b/c those unscrupulous shoppers out there ruin it for the rest of us.<HR>

elnutsacko I do understand where you are coming from but I do not agree with your statement about it not being their fault when a shipment was lost. I had considered this before I posted this thread but since you usually pay an etailer, in this case buy.com to ship your order they are the ones doing business with the USPS and their mistake is up to buy.com to deal with. You are buying a complete service which is a product and a delivery to your door, you never deal with the USPS yourself. Considering most etailers charge their customers a little extra then if you would ship the same package just strengthens my point. In this case the USPS are responsible to buy.com but buy.com is still responsible to their customer. You paid buy.com for a product, shipping and for them to arrange the delivery to your door. A perfect example is Amazon who takes full responsibility on lost packages and usually goes full out to correct the problem. Although the dotd does not charge shipping, I still believe this applies because the free shipping is part of the special deal thus you paid for it within the price.

Also I think we might have misunderstood one another about the "floodgates" response. We are really talking about two different things. I am not talking about buy.com’s policy to have the dotd as one day only price. My whole original point was I am not REORDERING the dotd, I am trying to have my original order fulfilled. I am well entitled to get my order because I met all the requirements of the dotd and buy.com did not come through with their part of the deal. You seem to be talking about fraud or griping from people that did not take advantage of the dotd in time. I agree completely with you in these cases, but this just is not the case here.

Once again I also have to say this is not what really upsets me about buy.com it is the absolutely terrible customer service, when a company pays this little attention to their cs department they are cutting costs a little too much. But I do understand this might be a necessary evil to maintain buy’s great prices, coupons, and shipping methods without going under. So right now I can accept buy.com’s faults but it does not mean I have to like them.

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"A plan is just a list of things that don't happen"