Customer Service Rants, And VONS/Safeway Delivers
(CRAP! This blog was supposed to be posted on the 16th!!! Stupid me!!!!!!)
Expect this one to be another really long blog entry. Apologies in advance!
BTW, Happy Birthday Dad!
Quick-hitters:
- Over at Bargainshare.com, I’m running both a Pro Football Pick’em (you pick the teams that you think will win each week) and a Fantasy Football league. We need signups! NO football knowledge required! The winner and runner-up of our league last year both were casual football fans (and female :P)!
Fantasy Football league instructions can be found here. I have not yet opened the Pick’em league yet.
- So I’m chilling out here, with a Vanilla Coke, and…I WANT MEXICOKE!!! <cry>
(BTW, by “chilling out,” I certainly don’t mean temperature-wise. Yesterday was a cool, crisp 99 degrees, which was four degrees cooler than Monday and Tuesday.)
- Slickdeals is positively evil. In the last couple of days, I bought some groceries online (more on that later), some sandals and shoes from Target.com (three minutes after I saw the deal), and several software titles (FAR, of course). What really stinks is that I know my credit card number, expiration date, AND three-digit security code by heart, so shredding the credit card won’t do a darn thing.
Customer service rants, a quick-hitters edition (yes, I created a new category for customer service rants):
- I had the joy of waiting in line at the Post Office, behind a couple that wanted a particular stamp. Unfortunately for me, and those also waiting in line with me, they could only provide a vague description of the stamp they wanted (Oh, it has hearts on it, and some of the hearts are pink!).
When I got to the PO, there were about eight people in line, and the couple was already starting their search for those elusive stamps. By the time I was done, the couple were still there. No word on whether or not the employee called for a sketch artist for help.
- Speaking of the Post Office…a few days ago, I got a bubble mailer from Buy.com wedged into my mailbox. It was obvious my mail carrier forcefully bent the mailer into a U-shape before jamming it into my box. Too bad the box contained a software title. Good news, though; although the software box was bent almost perfectly down the middle, the CD itself survived! Thanks, USPS.
- I bought my hard drive for my new computer build about a week ago, and was wondering why I hadn’t received it yet. I checked Outpost.com, pulled a DHL tracking number, and noticed that DHL had attempted a delivery on the package each of the last two days. I checked my phone logs, and noticed no missed calls!
(Background: I live in a condominium complex, and we have an intercom at the front gate. When a courier has a package that needs to be delivered, the driver will contact the tenant, and the tenant remotely unlocks the gate using his phone.)
I called DHL, and they’re going to schedule another delivery attempt tomorrow. Yay.
(At least my RAM, which I expected to arrive sometime next week, has already been delivered.)
- Seven rebate emails received today, and seven rejections. Such is the life of anyone who files rebates offered by Parago. Three phone calls + four emails later, and all seven rebates are now approved. Twice, I just gave the CSR my rebate tracking #, and the rep said he would go ahead and approve the rebate manually.
- The Vonage deal I got in on became just a little bit colder. Apparently, Vonage charges a disconnect fee (yes, on top of an activation fee) of $39 if I were to cancel my Vonage service after one year, but before two. I called Customer Service to see if this applies to me, since I did not purchase the PAP2 adapter from Vonage directly, and the customer service rep I spoke to confirmed the fee. He also added “It’s in the fine print. <pause> You should have read it.”
I was going to hang up on him, but my phone dropped the call. The guy called me back, and I didn’t bother answering the call. Do you blame me?
- Speaking of Vanilla Coke, did you know VONS/Safeway offers delivery service in select locations? I got in on this deal and got a ton of soda, spaghetti, sauce, a few frozen items, and (most importantly) cookies, and the net cost was $20 for ~$60 worth of stuff! Sure, I could probably do better with the coupons in the Sunday paper, but no coupon-clipping + no going to the store + no carrying groceries from car to my front door = w00t!
I got two cases of Coke Zero, one case of Cherry Coke, two cases of Vanilla Coke, three jars of spaghetti sauce (for those days that I don’t want to make sauce from scratch), four bags of spaghetti, two boxes of Stouffer’s paninis, my cookies, and some other canned food. Now if only I could use coupons on an online order.
By the way, I also bought a pack of ready-to-bake cookie dough, and they left that out on the order!!!!!!!!!!
(Yep, a fitting way to end this blog entry, eh?)
Next time: part two of the fun phone call, some thoughts on Michael Vick’s situation, and whatever else I can think of. Happy blogging!