Whaddaya mean you can't deliver it to me today?

The BBQ Pit
1

Dear, dear PC Richard & Sons (all of whom should’ve played in abandoned refrigerators as children so I wouldn’t have to deal with such a lazy, bloodsucking, smarmy piece of shit appliance retailer):

I came to your place of business (a term I use loosely, assunming that “Buttfuck the Customer Without Lube” is, in fact, your business) yesterday afternoon, in search of a particular model of Avanti refrigerator, the one that’s frost-free, 24" wide and has real shelves instead of stupid wire things that tip over my salad dressing bottles. I had actually almost purchased said model from a competitor of yours, the estimable J&R, but they’re new to major appliances and still a little clueless.

(“You mean you aren’t going to take my old fridge away? Gee, you’ve only been in business in New York City for 50 years, so might have heard of this little thing called the recycling law? The one that makes it illegal for me to dump it myself? Oh, never mind.”)

So I was ever so pleased when I found the very same fridge on your showroom floor, sitting pretty and new and white. And you could deliver the very next day! And take my old one away for free! Perfect.

Your salesman told me that the delivery could take place any time between 8:30 and 5:00. He then handed me a receipt with a phone number at the bottom, over which he scrawled “9:30-10 AM” - and told me to call it during that half hour so that I could get a closer idea of delivery time. I then gave him my cell phone in case I wasn’t home.

I go home, and later borrow a pair of coolers to serve as temporary lodgings for my perihsables.

This morning at about 8:30 I start emptying the fridge, figuring it’ll be a while before delivery. The Very Perishables go in the coolers, and the not-so-perishables go in the sink, various grocery bags, etc., sprinkled over half of my (tiny) apartment. I move the microwave from atop the fridge, and clean it, too.

It’s now 9:15. Door hasn’t buzzed. I shut the fridge off and start defrosting the freezer. Meanwhile, I scrub the entire interior, since I have the time.

It’s now 9:45. I call the number, and find that the delivery’s scheduled for between 8:00 and noon. (8:00 to noon? Then why did he suggest I call the number between 9:30 and 10:00? Oh well, no sign yet.)

I start wedging the fridge out of its slot, to see just how it’s going to fit out the kitchen door. It’s gonna be tight. So I rumble around for a Philips screwdriver and start undscrewing the freezer door. But one of the screws is in like a sonofabitch, so I stop and breathe and think to myself,

“I wonder if maybe they’ve called the cell to tell me they’re close. Better turn it on.”

It’s now 10:15.

There’s a message.

Left at 9:00.

A nasal voice informing me that the truck was at my door and I would have to call to reschedule.

WHAT THE BLOODY FUCK DO YOU MEAN THEY WERE AT MY DOOR? IF THEY WERE AT MY GODDAMN DOOR WHY DIDN’T THEY BUZZ? I’VE BEEN HERE THE ENTIRE FUCKING TIME!

So I call the store in a fury slightly hotter than a Bessemer forge. My sales rep is “off today.” (I’m sure sales reps are always “off today” when a customer is justifiably pissed off.) I’m asked to wait for a manager. So I wait. And wait. And wait.

TWENTY MINUTES LATER some snivelling little asswipe of a corporate functionary deigns to answer the phone. From his tone it’s clear he thinks that it was perfectly reasonable of them to skip my residence when - jeepers! - I wasn’t able to answer the phone in advance of their trying my door, at the very minute they chose to call me.

So I said that they failure to buzz me was unacceptable. And that I was waiting for the delivery and wanted it today.

“Well, I’m gonna have to call dispatch…uh, I’ll call you back.”

Five minutes later (now 10:40): “Um, well, they’re too far away to come back to your place today.”

“Look, either it gets to me today or I’m cancelling the order.”

“Okay, we’ll cancel the order.”

YOU CHINLESS, SPINELESS, LEPROUS, SIMPERING FUCKWAD OF A CLINGING TURD! Let’s see, it’s 10:40, and there are just shy of seven hours until 5:30 pm. WHERE DID YOUR TRUCK GO - RICHMOND? And besides, don’t give me that bullshit about how it “must” be delivered by 5:30. No, 5:30 is when you have to start paying your delivery guys overtime. That’s your problem, numbnuts, not mine. YOU FUCKED UP, YOU MAKE IT RIGHT.

Was I hostile? YOU BETTER FUCKING BELIEVE I WAS HOSTILE, BECAUSE YOU FUCKING DESERVED IT. I had just spent two hours emptying, cleaning, defrosting, and partially disassembling the goddamn fridge that YOU were supposed to be removing from my premises and replacing.

WHY DID YOU MAKE THIS SO FUCKING DIFFICULT FOR ME?

2

I can’t get you a refrigerator, Oxy, but I sure can commiserate.

The week I moved into my apartment, I scheduled the cable and phone hookups for the same day, and took that day off from work. Since I had no phone, I sat by the window all damn day reading and looking out for the trucks, which in theory wasn’t really necessary since I have a working buzzer.

By late afternoon, no one has shown up. I’m alone in a new, empty apartment with no phone, no food, no TV, no computer, nada, zip, nothing because I didn’t want to leave all day and have them come while I was out. In the very late afternoon it’s getting too dark to read (no lamp yet, no furniture!) and I finally break down and go call them from a pay phone a couple blocks away. While I’m out, friends who fear that I’m dead because they can’t reach me come looking for me. (The only bright spot that day-- Patty gave me laundry quarters and Matt went out and bought Oreos, Pepsi, and a set of screwdrivers for me.)

Once on the phone, I the phone company tells me that the guys just “didn’t make it.” Gee, thanks.

When I call the cable folks, it gets even better. I get a service rep telling me “They rang your buzzer, you weren’t there.” Bullshit! I told her I was sitting there all day, watching. She stammers a bit and insists they were there, but I wasn’t. Again, bullshit. I was way too polite, I wish I had complained, but by this point I was about ready to cry-- it was a no good, horrible, very bad day and I didn’t know about the Oreos yet. I’ve since heard similar stories from friends who were moving, and it’s always the customer’s word against the guys in the truck. How can you prove that they weren’t friggin’ there?!

3

**

That’s not a very good manager, obviously. For starters he didn’t make any attempts to please his customer. You’re unlikely to go to them again and you’re likely to bad mouth them them to others. Oh, you did bad mouth them to us!! I wonder if his sales people are on some sort of commission. If so then he’s probably going to be pissed that he lost a sale.

Customer service doesn’t seem to be all that great in many places and management sometimes doesn’t pay enough attention. I had a bad experience with Circuit City in 1993 and I will never ever go back to them again. For the most part I’ve had positive experiences with CompUSA and BestBuy so I will continue to shop there. This might be unfair to Circuit City because I may have gotten there on a bad day or met a bad apple. But that juts goes to show you the importance of making the customer happy.

Marc

4

We had a similar delivery problem. We bought a new couch, and when they finally got around to delivering it they apparently sent their stupidest deliverymen. They could not get it in the door of my apartment. This was obviously due to the way they were trying to get it through - see, there is a short wall with a closet door in it facing the front door, you have to turn to the left after entering to go into the living room. They just tried to push it straight through via brute-force, when it was obvious it wouldn’t go through that way. I told them they had to get it more upright and turn it over, then turn it as they put it through the door, and even tried to show them what I was talking about, but they wouldn’t listen, and kept trying to force it through, which was knocking soundproofing off of the ceiling. They then said the couch was too big to get in the apartment, which was when I showed them the much bigger couch we already had. They said that they could get it in if I signed a waiver giving them freeing them from liability for damages caused - they thought they needed to punch a hole in the ceiling of my apartment to get the couch in. I pointed out that they already did damage the ceiling, and the wall, and I wasn’t going to give them permission to damage it more when all they had to do was try doing it a little differently. They said they had other deliveries to make and left. At this point I was ready to say ‘fuck it’ and get the money back for the couch, but my wife wasn’t, chewed them out thoroughly, and a couple of weeks later they send out different delivery people who managed to get it in.

5

OxyMoron, reading your post was like deja vu all over again. Something nearly identical happened to us about 5 years ago with a futon we had purchase and scheduled for delivery. Same circumstances – claimed the drivers were there and we didn’t answer the door, claimed it was too late to come by again, implied that the truck had somehow teleported to some ungodly distance in only 15 minutes, the rude treatment by employees and the assistant manager on the phone . . . I was in the store that very night getting my money back, and I told the manager, “I’m going to go down the street to your competitor tomorrow, and buy one from them.” And I did, and had it in the house that day.

Revenge is sweet, though–that store went out of business within the year. I’m sure that bad customer service experiences like mine got spread around by word of mouth, killing their business.

6

Well…

Maybe you should have had your phone on.

Flees from the thread

:slight_smile:

7

Ahh fridges.

I moved into my new apartment the second week of June, and it had a brand new fridge that had just been installed a couple days prior. Sadly, it was still warm inside. So I wait a day or so, thinking maybe it was just plugged in and needed time to cool, but no cigar. So I call GE.

GE suggests that I place water-filled receptacles in my fridge to even out the cold air. I reiterate that there is not one iota of cold air in said fridge. They finally consent to send me a technician.

The technician comes 1 week and a half later, within a pre-ordained 9-1 timeframe, and wheels the thing out from the nitch. And starts laughing. For ladies and gentleman, this brand new fridge, installed in June of 2001, had NO FUCKING COMPRESSOR.

He apologizes for the nimwits who failed to notice that this giant white box needed a compressor in the first place, and tells me he will order it, and return to install it on Saturday. I’m thrilled, because I won’t have to miss more work for this.

Saturday rolls around, and no technician.

I call GE on Monday, explain the whole situation again, and they schedule a meeting for me on Thursday. I make plans to take off work again for the 9-1 waiting period. I get a message on my voicemail Tuesday stating that my meeting was cancelled, and that the compressor had been shipped to me. Once I receive it, I have to call them and set up another appointment.

I call GE up asking them to explain why they couldn’t just SHIP a technician WITH the bloody compressor??? They failed to see the humor, and so I had to wait 3 more days.

Finally, the compressor arrives. I call to schedule an appointment. Technician comes 5 days later. It’s the same guy. I ask him why he didn’t show up that time on Saturday, and he said that he had something else come up. EVER HEARD OF A PHONE CALL, YOU CLITSWAB?

So after 3 weeks, I finally have a working fridge. 3 weeks, during summer, with NO FRIDGE. Yes, I realize that for years and years people survived with no fridges. I, however, had no alternate refrigeration solutions available to me.

All I have to say is Thank God for Chinese Food :slight_smile:

My sympathies, OxyMoron. It constantly amazes me how difficult it is to get good, fast, reliable service these days. Hope everything works out :slight_smile:

8

I once had an important packaged shipped to me overnight (UPS Red). About 1:00 PM on the delivery day, I track the package, it was delivered at 9:00AM, according to them. I call up customer service. The lady looks up my tracking number and tells me confidently:
HER: It was left on your back porch
ME: I live in an apartment, I don’t have a back porch.
HER: Do you have a back deck?
ME: No, I have a front door, that’s it.
HER: Well, check around any side doors or gates or anything, sometimes they leave it there.
ME: Lady, it’s an apartment, there is a front door. That’s it! And the package isn’t there.
HER: Well, maybe it was left at your neighbors.
ME: Then why did you say it was on my back porch?
HER: Maybe it’s on your neighbors back porch.
ME: GRRRR.

It took them 2 weeks to get me this package. Don’t even get me started on me getting a refund for the overnight charges.

9

For the best fucked-up UPS delivery story ever, read this.

10

Thank you, thank you, thank you pld for putting up that link. It’s been about a year now since I’ve been trying to find that website again. Some of the best caption humor on the internet, imo.

Thanks again :slight_smile:

11

So after the PC Dickwad and Sons fiasco, I started calling around to find another store with the same fridge. Most places simply didn’t carry the brand, and that’s fine. But my favorite was another prominent, local store called Bloom & Krup, which is listed in many NYC shopping guides:

Female voice: Bloom & Krup Appliances.

Me: Hi, I’m calling to find out if you carry a particular model of refriger-

FV: Hold on a minute.

[music starts]

[two minutes elapse]

Male voice: Appliances.

Me: Hi, I’m calling to find out if you carry a particular model of refriger-

MV: Hold on a minute.

[music starts]

[two minutes elapse]

Female voice: Who were you holding for?

Me: I’m calling to find out if you carry a particular model of refriger-

FV: Hold on a minute.

[music starts]

[two minutes elapse]

Male voice: Appliances.

Me: Hi, I’m calling to find out if you carry a particular model of refriger-

MV: Hold on a minute.

[music starts]

[two minutes elapse]

Male voice: What were you holding for?

Me: Hi, I’m calling to find out if you carry a particular model of refriger-

MV: Hold on a minute.

Me: CLICK!

Don’t these people have any clue that if you don’t answer my question on the phone, I’m not gonna haul my ass to your place of business in person? I mean, I counted five completely unresponsive replies to a very simple question. I wasn’t even asking for the price (although I have no sympathy for retailers who refuse to quote prices over the phone - don’t like it? Tough, that’s the world.).

But finally I called Krup Kitchen & Bath (not related to Bloom & Krup), on 18th and 5th. Friendly people, nice place, and a cheaper price. They’ll deliver Friday, they say.

Cross your fingers.

12

Always cool to find a link to my site somewhere. Being on the Straight Dope bb only makes it cooler.

I never heard from UPS about that complaint, by the way. Bastards.

13

Oxy: I had a similar situation to the one you had with Bloom & Krup with the phone company once over installing a second phone line. The main problem was that instead of two minute waits, it was 20-30 minute waits between being transferred between departments.

I called the phone company and waited 30 minutes for an answer. I get customer service, who says that billing will have to deal with this issue. Wait 30 minutes for billing. Billing says to deal with customer service. Wait 30 minutes. Repeat cycle. Second time I talk to billing, after waiting almost 2 hours, I tell them that I have one phone line for four people (college roommates) and that I am not going to get transferred to another department until they resolved this issue. I would have hung up, but that was the only phone company through which I could get a second phone line. Finally they set up an appointment so a tech could come and set up the second line. After all that, the phone company came out only to tell us that our apartment was so old that we couldn’t get a second line unless we knocked on the doors of all the neighbors and tried to see who has the wad of phone line cords that they could use to hook up a second line with. Sure, like people are going to let total strangers in their house to mess with their phone jacks, and like we had the time to knock on everyone’s doors. (Wonderful sludge-brained phone technician.) We shared one phone line with four people for a year. And to think that all this had happened after the phone company had just told me a few weeks earlier that to get long distance we would have to pay a $100 deposit. (I did not know that that was not normal since that was the first time I ever tried to hook up a phone.)

And that wasn’t all.

A year later, I had to deal with the phone company again after moving to a new place. I call to order phone service. They tell me okay, but I had to wait a week for a phone. Rather irritating, but what could I do? I wait a week. I get home from work a week later eagerly expecting a dial tone and…nothing. The next day, I call the phone company. (This time they actually answered after like a 3 minute wait.) They had cancelled my order and hadn’t told me! By that time, I’m ready to tear my hair out, or perhaps tear a new hole in the posterior of anyone associated with the phone company. It turns out that they had, get this, already fulfilled my order. I had to set up the order again and wait another week. Someone had kindly stolen my identity and racked up a slew of unpaid phone bills in my name. That explained the huge long distance deposits. Then a year later they paid the bills off and in the week I was waiting for my phone, they secretly set up phone service in my name AGAIN and the phone company assumed that it was me setting up service in another location, so they cancelled my order. At least the phone company was nice enough to tell me their, I mean my, address and phone number, so I could call the identity thief and tell them how much I appreciated their efforts to keep me from getting a telephone.

14

Arrr. I have a phone company story that is causing my hair to curl just thinking about it. In the interest of my sanity, I’ll refraining from sharing it.

So Spinn… Where did all the captions go?
:frowning:

15

I know exactly how you feel spinn, I didn’t detail my post like your website, but the run-around was the same. Every UPS employee I talked to just spewed what it said on their computer and never seemed to consider that that info might be wrong.

16

“where’d the captions go”? I’m not following. They’re still at http://www.spinnwebe.com/iadl/.

Unless you mean the Dysfunctional Family Circus, which I finally had to remove after five years, for legal reasons, in October 99.

17

We had a couch and chair delivered, and they couldn’t fit the couch in the door, so they took it back. With the chair. And we never got our money back (around $800). Now they’re out of business (Montgomery Ward)

This is a very very sore spot with me and my husband, because it was his debit card that bought it, and his signature, so he had to be the one to call them. He procrastinated almost a year before even trying. Then he sort of half-assed called and complained. Faxed them the reciept. Never followed up. sigh

Now I’m getting mad again…

18

I just moved to a new house and went through absolute hell trying to get phone service and cable TV. I’ll tell you the cable story.
I planned weeks ahead and arranged everything by phone, which meant several calls in which I waited on hold for 45 minutes each time (no kidding, AT&T Broadband’s troubles are legendary here in Atlanta). On the appointed day, I drove across town and sit in the empty house waiting. I waited all day, cell phone in hand, and no one came.
At 6 pm I called, waited on hold again for 30 minutes and asked why the fuck nobody came and nobody called. The guy apologizes and says he’ll try to get somenoe out the next day, BUT he has to get a supervisor to approve that. So he’s going run off and get approval, then he’ll call back in half an hour. He never calls.
Next day is Sunday, so I call first thing Monday. Another 40 minutes on hold. Another visit scheduled for next week.
The guy never shows (we’ve moved in by then, so we’re actually in the house all day, phones working). Mid-afternoon, I go to the front door and find a note saying he was there and we weren’t! Lying fucker! He must have creeped up and stuck it on the door.
Another 45 minutes on hold. Another appointment for next week.
This time, I’m waiting by the front door, ready to spring. I hear him knock, and when I get to the door 15 seconds later, he’s writing out the note he’s about to put on the door. I make him come in.
He comes in seems really hinky, like he can’t wait to get out of my house. I want him to check all the outlets where I want cable, but he just checks the one in the family room and wants to leave. I INSIST that he go upstairs to verify that the bedroom outlet works, and he finds out that it does NOT. So he goes into a long, dramatic explanation about the wiring being FJ-12 instead of the newer PB-1 or some such shit and, bottom line, he can’t do anything about it. Gonna be a real big deal to rewire the house, probably have to tear up a lot of your pretty new home. Says he’ll schedule a visit by a different kind of technician and, whoosh, he’s out the door.
A week later, the ‘special wiring’ technician comes. He goes up to look at the outlet in teh bedroom, takes the little plastic plate off the wall and laughs out loud. He shows me that the cable is not hooked to anything inside the wall! Ten seconds later, he has it fixed and says the first guy should have done it. He explains that they’re all freelance techs and some of them just run from house to house so they can bill for the visit.
I notice that half the channels are fuzzy. The tech says, “Well, we could fix that, but you’d have to call and schedule another visit by a different kind of tech.” Fuck that.
Six weeks later, I get a bill showing the service calls. The SECOND guy, who spent 5 minutes in my house and looked at one outlet, reported that he installed 6 outlets in my house. I was billed something like $130 for it.

My satellite dish is being installed next week.

– Greg, Atlanta

19

See foot. See foot in Pucette’s mouth. Please feel free to help wedge said foot further in.

[sub]Thanks for the link. :o [/sub]

20

Once I made the mistake of ordering some clothes and expecting them to be delivered to my home. :rolleyes: I ordered on the website of a reputable company from whom I’d ordered before via catalog.

After I placed my order, I received a confirmation e-mail which contained my name (correct), my billing address (correct), and my shipping address (same as the billing, and correct). Weeks went by. I received no package. I called the company.

Me: I haven’t received my order. Here’s my name and order number.
Customer Service: Let me check. Hmmm, it was delivered a week ago.
Me: I haven’t received it.
CS: It was signed for.
Me: By whom?
CS: (long pause) Uh…Mister Gerahgy? I can’t read this.
Me: I don’t know who that is. That isn’t even close to my name.
CS: Gerahjay? Gar… G-A-R-A… (pause) Oh! It was left in the GARAGE!
Me: (long pause, as I absorb the complete idiocy of this person) I don’t have a garage. This is an apartment.
CS: OK, it was delivered to (my mother’s address).
Me: That’s not my address. That’s my mother.
CS: Oh. She got it a week ago.
Me: But it’s my name and address on the order, and on the CONFIRMATION EMAIL you sent me!
CS: Well, your mother has ordered from us before. We must have put it on her account and under her address by mistake.
Me: But she’s never ordered from your website. Besides, you charged MY credit card. And finally, what’s the point of a CONFIRMATION EMAIL if it doesn’t confirm the information??

It still makes me mad to think about :mad: