I'm a horrible consumer.
I
spent quite a few years as a customer service rep for various companies. I was
actually a call center monitor for a couple years, and I'd listen in to various
calls and critique the "customer service" skills of the representatives. I got
to deal with so much venom and hatred that I vowed to myself that I'd never,
ever, EVER be one of "that kind" of customer.
I went and bought a
refrigerator there on February 4th, because my current one is running nearly
constantly and I don't relish the thought of smelling fresh-from-the-cow-warm
milk after the compressor dies. So I head down to the local store, pick out the
model I want ($450 Frigidaire) and go to the service kiosk where the nice man
informs me that he has 0 of these in stock, but will upgrade me to the next
higher model ($500) for free. Sweet.
I pay for delivery and haul-away of
the old unit, and set up an appointment for the upcoming Saturday. I go home and
am a happy little consumer who is going to have ice cream that doesn't melt come
Saturday night.
Saturday morning comes, and the delivery guys show up.
They come up to my condo (3rd floor... they're going to get a fat tip because I
remember how much it sucked moving stuff into the place), tell me to empty my
current fridge and move the couch out of the way, then proceed to prepare to
deliver my new fridge.
Here endeth the happiness.
The driver
runs back upstairs approximately 4 minutes later to tell me we have a problem. I
follow him downstairs and manage to interpret that the reasons he will not be
giving me my new refrigerator are a) one of the blades on the power plug has
been ripped out, and b) there is a huge rip in the gasket of the main door. He's
very apologetic, tells me "They'll deliver you a new one on Monday," and leaves.
This makes me very sad, but I figure I'll just go ahead and suck it up for
karma's sake.
I call Monday morning, after having not heard anything
from the delivery warehouse, and am told that they will not, in fact, be
delivering my fridge that day. Apparently they cannot schedule any deliveries
with less than two days' lead time. Okay, whatever. Come give me my fridge on
Saturday. Works better for me anyway.
Except when you don't actually
show up.
I called the following Saturday afternoon (Feb 15th) and
politely asked where the fuck my refrigerator was. I was then told that they
didn't actually have any of that model in stock, but that they were expecting a
shipment during the next week. Fine, whatever, reschedule me for next weekend.
After hanging up I go down to the store, armed with this little piece of
information, and charm free delivery and haul-away out of the CS manager. I get
$50 back, which makes me feel vindicated, and then I go home to await next
Saturday.
Friday morning I receive a call confirming that my delivery
will, in fact, happen Saturday afternoon (Feb 22nd). Friday evening I get a call
from a very apologetic gentleman who informs me that sorry, we don't actually
have your fridge, and won't for 30 days. Maybe you want to go down to the store
and pick out a different unit.
Okay.
Following that advice was
probably my biggest mistake. I'd already been dicked three times by the
warehouse, but I trusted that the store, whose friendly reps had already given
me free stuff TWICE as recompense for their contracted warehouse's idiocy, would
be able to solve my problem.
I continued to believe this until I got to
the store and learned that my order had been cancelled without my authorization
or any mention of giving me my money back.
The problem with this is that
I'd purchased the unit on my debit card. This meant that if they were to refund
my money to me, it would be several days before credit appeared on my card. I
was in no way, shape, or form going to give them any more money, but
unfortunately they couldn't do a simple exchange because "the warehouse
cancelled the order and we can't modify it." Oh, that damn warehouse.
Foruntately, the nice rep at the store understood my plight and offered
to help me out. Unfortunately, her idea of "help" was to sign me up on a Best
Buy credit card so that I could save 10% off the full retail price of the unit.
Way to sell!
I declined to take this option, deciding to instead to cool
off by look around at the open box items. I figured I could take my chances on
one of them, as there were no new units in the same price range with anything
close to the same cubic footage. She followed me, and as we were walking around
the appliances, she perked up and said "Hey look! This is the same model that
you ordered, and it's open box so it's on sale for $50 off! You wouldn't have to
pay any extra!"
Blink.
However, being the desperate, fridgeless
bastard that I am, I bite. At this point all I want is my cold, hard ice cream
next Saturday. I walk over to the CS counter, start to fill out the paperwork,
and have an epiphany as I am being asked to sign my last name. I excuse myself,
walk back over to the appliance department, and inspect my
soon-to-be-coming-home Frigidaire. Power cord? Check. Main door gasket?
Motherfuckers.
I walk back to the other side of the store and
inform the still-chipper sales rep that I will not, in fact, be accepting
delivery on the unit I'd already refused two weeks ago. Her face falls like a
two-ton heavy thing, and she begins to apologize profusely and berate the
warehouse guys for my benefit. Because, you know, they're outsourced and
therefore inferior.
We're back to square 0, faced with the small issues
of me not having a fridge and her not having a clue. She does, however, get
another idea - she decides to check on the status of the first unit I'd looked
at - the one from which the original salesdrone had upgraded me. Joy of joys,
it's in stock! And once again I won't have to pay any extra because it's the
same price as I'd already paid for a superior model!
She then proceeds
to give me a store credit for the original purchase and ring me up on the new
fridge plus free delivery and haul-away. She gets confused somehow and ends up
having the new receipt come out to $.97 more than the old one, but she tells me
slyly that "we'll just let that go." Gee, thanks. We set up delivery for the
following Saturday (the 1st of March) and I go back to work - having spent about
two lunch hours doing stupid things that were not even remotely like eating
lunch.
Fast forward to this past Saturday. I'm giddy with anticipation
because they're finally going to give me my new toy. It's the saddest thing in
the world to watch me from outside my own body, as I'm checking the clock every
4 minutes to see if it's time yet, and peeking out the window hoping to catch a
glimpse of the white bobtail truck of joy that will soon be dropping off my new
toy. It's a fucking refrigerator, and I'm acting like it's Christmas morning and
I already know that Storm Shadow is in one of those packages under the tree,
waiting patiently to transport my deficient little mind into virtual ninjahood.
The nice men finally show up, and I let them into the complex. They
block six of my neighbors' cars with their truck, come upstairs to inspect my
place, and then ask me to move the couch and empty the food out of the old,
beige, rattling wheezebox of not-quite-chilliness. I'm whistling a little tune
as I happily pull food from the depths of this ineffective beast, when Mr Man
comes back upstairs and tells me to stop taking food out, because my stairs are
too narrow for the fridge to be brought up.
I'm not a small guy (6'2"
230 lbs), and it's sometimes hard for me to control my scowls. I don't get
violent or raise my voice pretty much ever, but it's obvious when I'm perturbed.
In this case, I was. I quietly asked him what my options were, and he informed
me that they needed 2" of space on either side of the appliance in order to
negotiate the turn. He then showed me that the stairwell was 29 1/2" wide at its
narrowest point, which is only 1" more than the fridge if you take the doors
off.
Fine. Great. What are my options?
So you see, we really
can't carry this fridge up at all. We'd need to get more guys and, well, we just
can't do that. I'm sorry but all we can do at this point is take the unit back
and reschedule you for another date.
Wrong. I have other options... what
are they?
Next thing I know I'm on the phone with the warehouse
supervisor, who's explaining to me that they can't deliver the fridge because
the stairs are too narrow. I explain to him that I understand this, and that I
just want to know what my options are. He states "Well, you have two. We can
take the unit back to the warehouse and you can pick a smaller model (this unit
had the smallest dimensions of the non-dorm-style fridges at the store) or we
can release it at the base of the stairs and refund your delivery fee.
I
tell him that I had a third option, and that was to refuse delivery and go back
to the store to get my money back. I thanked him for his time and handed the
phone back to the driver, who was starting to get worried about the fact that he
was in a small room on the third floor with a visibly shaking angry man blocking
his exit. He asked me with a quavering voice as I handed back the phone "so,
you're not mad at me, right?" I let him know exactly what I was mad about (1
month of delays, no one bothered to mention the 4" delivery rule the first time
they came out) and thanked him for getting the fuck out of my face right now
please. He thanked me (I presume he thought he was about to get hit or
something), and ran down the stairs to his truck.
Then I go back to the
store, to deal with a third person. Because you see, I'm a moron. I decide that
I've put so much time and effort into this exercise, that I'm deserving of
something big from Best Buy. A couple hundred bucks in gift certificates at
least, plus a guarantee from the district manager that he himself would hump my
new fridge up the stairs while the cute little sales rep from episode #2 gave me
a hand job.
I explain my plight to the appliances manager, who is very
apologetic and goes out of his way to ignore other customers as he tries to help
me. We call the warehouse, and I am informed that I should not have been offered
free delivery on a unit I'd already had delivered for free, but instead I
should've been offered a $150 gift certificate to let them drop it in my parking
lot and split. We discuss various solutions, one of which is to downgrade to a
slightly less spacious model (with a significant discount, according to the
sales manager) and to attempt delivery again on March 10th. If they can't get it
up the stairs, they've promised to give me that $150 store credit. But only if I
let them leave the fridge in the parking lot.
My dad has a refrigerator
dolly, and my brother's dumb enough to try and help me haul this thing up two
switchbacks. Maybe it'll work, maybe not. Unfortunately, I won't know for
certain until the manager calls me back and lets me know whether he actually
placed the order or not, because the computer wouldn't let him modify an order
that was tagged as "out for delivery."
I am a broken, beaten man.
All I wanted was cold ice cream.
:(
Fortunately, this story does have a happy ending. The next delivery attempt was, in fact, a success. I received my refrigerator from two very nice men who put a big sling under it and carried it up the stairs. I gave them each $20 because I was so happy - which means the grand total of my savings on this wonderful venture was around $7.95.
I don't care.
I have cold food and my electricity bill has dropped around $15 a month, and that's enough for me.