First shopping experience with barnesandnoble.com may well be my last!!!
by envirosw - Written: Dec 20 '03
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First time out with barnesandnoble.com, may well be my last. I ordered a DVD on Dec. 8th that showed to be in stock, delivery within 24 hours, for Christmas delivery. I received confirmations that my order had been received, that they expected to send out the order the next day, and that it was in process - only to receive yet another message that due to unexpected problems, there would be a one to four day delay.
I later checked with a team leader (Danny), who reported that often they will run out of stock, but won't update the online status of an item if it's been reordered. Then, they'll send that stock response about "unexpected problems."
After receiving the stock response, I went back and checked the status, and it showed as being in stock.
My order eventually shipped out via their package expediter, Drop Ship Express. DSE trucks the packages out to local postal facilities, and you receive your package from your local friendly USPS delivery person. Not in my case. I live in Southern California, so my package was carted out to a mail facility in Bell, CA (80 miles from where I live). After three days, I still hadn't received my package. I went online to check - it was in Hazelwood, MO!!! (2,000 miles from where it should be!!!)
Since it's now getting close to Christmas, and it appears clear that this package won't make it back to where it should be in time, I called up BN's customer service, hoping that they could ship out another package for expedited delivery. Their response: wait until Christmas Eve - if it doesn't show up, they'll issue a credit. I asked Danny (BN's team leader) whether he'd ever seen a package ping-pong across the country like this, and he said that he'd never heard of anything like this before.
I've run into this before, when the package was mislabled, or when the package was so badly mangled that it had to be returned to the shipper (which seems to be what's happening here...)
In sum: misleading information about product stock on their web site, poor choice of vendors to ship their items (Drop Ship Express), and customer service personnel who are unwilling to provide service.
Recommended:
No
What product did you purchase or try to purchase? Godfather DVD Collection (5 disc set)
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