UngsungBlog: A (Fantasy) Sports Blog

Quick-hitters (possibly the longest in UngsungBlog history :P):

- Eliot Spitzer. Elliot Stabler. Anyone could mistaken those two names…right?

*sigh*

- I was going to complain about how cold it has been here lately (especially at night!), but I’m afraid of getting berated by at least one person who shall remain nameless.

- Current rebate-o-meter: $1600, after receiving about $150 in rebates over the last three days.

- On Saturday, Fedex left a door tag on my door. For some weird reason, when I punched the Door Tag # into Fedex.com, it said that the next delivery attempt would be made on Tuesday.

I guess my local Fedex hub got to the green beer a bit early

- Does anyone own, or knows anyone that owns, a Motorola HS820 Bluetooth headset? My sister’s headset will charge for about five minutes, and then shut off, and yet the headset won’t turn on at all.

*EDIT*: The headset now turns on, but it works for about a few minutes at most. I’m guessing the battery is cooked, which is awfully strange, considering that the headset is only a couple of months old.

- Prior to this story, “The List” looked like this (quoted from here):

1) Bank of F’n America (still in a class by itself)

2) AllRebates/Ohana Companies (and yet I still insist on doing business with them; at least I now know that I have backing from Fry’s)

3) Citibank (thank you, Citibank)

4) Time Warner

5) (tie) Parago/USPS/Buy.com

(Tangent: I should follow Krunk’s lead and post an updated List every week, with up and down arrows :P).

At the end of February, I ordered some FAR software and had it shipped to my parents’ house. Three days later, I got a delivery notification, and I asked my sister to be on the lookout for the package.

Five days later, still no package. I checked the status of the package, and USPS reported:

Your shipment was accepted/picked up at 2:45 PM on February 28, 2008 in CITY OF INDUSTRY, CA 91715 .

Background: Two weeks prior to this order, I had a package held up in my local USPS hub for about a week as well. Eventually, the package made it to my local Post Office, and was delivered to me. I figured that this package was just being delayed as well.

A week later, the package was still stuck in CoI. I sent Buy.com an email, and they replied the next day:

As the claim was for replacement and you are in immediate need of the missing items from the order, we suggest that you place a new order for the items on the Buy.com website and change the claim to refund. If you would like us to make the change from replacement to refund, then please email us and we will gladly do so for you.

Please provide us a valid phone number to investigate lost item claim on your order.

So far so good. In my reply, I explained that I wanted a refund if the package wasn’t going to come in a timely manner. I sent Buy.com the information they requested, and got another response a day later:

Our records show that your claim request was submitted on 3/12/2008. The claim process may take up to 5 business days from the date the claim was submitted. This claim processing time may take longer depending on some factors i.e. type of shipping method used, the carrier, weight of the package, etc. This time is necessary to investigate every aspect of your claim to reach an accurate resolution.

If you are in immediate need of the missing item from your order, we suggest that you place a new order for the item on the Buy.com website and change your claim to refund. If you would like us to change the claim from replacement to refund, then please email us and let us know.

Further, we would like to inform you that we will not be able to honor the rebate that was available at the time of your original purchase on the replacement order. Therefore, please let us know if you would like a replacement of the same item with its full price or refund for full amount.

(*EDIT*: Upon further review, I guess this email wasn’t as bad as I first thought it was. My original response, below, has not been edited.)

I was a bit peeved at the tone of the text. I understood that a claim—issued a day after Buy.com sent me the first response, which I give them credit for—takes 3-5 days to complete, but didn’t Buy.com tell me to respond to the first email? Secondly, Buy.com wouldn’t be able to honor the rebates on the replacement order? I never requested a replacement! I wanted Buy.com to either get USPS to locate and release the package, or refund my money if the package could not be found. And I don’t recall asking Buy.com to honor the rebates; I expect the rebate processors in question to do so, so as long as I got my order in time to submit the rebates in question.

I sent Buy.com a terse reply, requesting a refund, and got this reply:

We really apologize for the inconvenience you have experienced with this order. We understand that it could be upsetting to wait for the shipment. We also understand that the processing of the claim is taking longer time. As you would like to get the refund, we have updated the lost shipment claim to reflect a refund instead of a replacement. We assure you that we are working diligently to resolve this issue.

As of today, I have yet to hear from Buy.com about my claim.

*EDIT*: Apparently Buy.com approved my claim, and they are applying a refund to my credit card. I guess I should really be directing my hatred towards USPS.

So the List, as of March 17, 2008, looks like this:

1) Bank of F’n America. One of the main reasons why Consumerist.com exists, I bet.

2) AllRebates/Ohana Companies, on the strength of the CompUSA rebate fiasco, where CompUSA rebates were issued as bank cards for the “convenience” of the buyer.

3) Citibank, where you can earn up to 1% in Screw You points on every $1 in purchases.

4) Time Warner (and they just jacked up my Road Runner rates by $5/mo…I thought cable companies don’t nickel and dime their customers).

5) USPS. My carrier probably thinks I like my mail—packages, too!—bent three ways.

6) Buy.com.

- Upon first glance of the NCAA Tournament Bracket, here’s what immediately jumped off the page:

1) USC v Kansas St. in the first round??? What a shame that Mayo and Beasley don’t play the same positions. What I’d give to see a USC v Kansas Midwest Final!

2) Every year, a 12 beats a 5…or so people say.

Dare I go out on a limb and pick George Mason over Notre Dame? No thanks; Villanova over Clemson or W. Kentucky over Drake seem safer.

3) I’m sure 100,000,000 junior Bracketologists have already said this, but what did Tennessee do to end up in the same bracket as North Carolina? Also, look at who Memphis (South) might have to beat to make the Final Four: Oregon/Miss. State in round 2, MSU/Pitt in the Sweet 16, and Marquette/Stanford/Texas in the Elite Eight. Yikes!

4) Some potential early- to mid-round games I’d like to see: UNC v Indiana (East, Round of 32), Louisville v Tennessee (East, Sweet 16), USC v Georgetown (Midwest, Sweet 16), Texas v Stanford (South, Sweet 16), and UCLA v UConn (West, Sweet 16).

5) And finally, I just don’t see how people are saying that, among the #1 seeds, UCLA has the easiest road to the Final Four. Who does Kansas (Rock Chalk Jayhawk!) have to deal with until the Elite Eight? UCLA might have to go through BYU, UConn, and Duke/Xavier just to make the Final Four. As strong as Vandy has been this year, and as hot as Clemson currently is, I don’t see Kansas having any trouble until Georgetown.

The only argument I buy with regards to the Bruins having an easy road to the Final Four is their huge home court advantage. But that’s about it.

More thoughts, and my full bracket, to come later.

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