CompUSA, "Brother, Can You Spare a Paperclip?"
Mike writes in tale of CompUSA exhibiting classic "bullet in foot" syndrome.
"Imagine my surprise when FedEx delivered a small box today containing (drumroll, please)... one tiny box of paper clips."
His shoppin' n' shippin' partay continues, after the jump...
Earlier this week I made an online purchase of a hard disk drive from CompUSA. The product, normally priced at $169.99, was reduced to $149.99, thanks to a coupon I found on DealHack. I also had a free shipping promo code that could be used in conjunction with the discount. But when I got to the "checkout", I was charged $5.00 for shipping. I "spoke" to an online CSR who told me I wasn't eligible for the free shipping; that perk applied only to purchases of $150.00 and above. In other words, I was one penny short. My argument that the item I purchased was really priced at $169.99 didn't sway him. He suggested I purchase paper clips for $1.00, which would then allow the system to waive the $5.00 shipping fee.He was nice enough to provide a link to the paper clips, so I bought them. I still saved $4.00 (plus the $20.00 discount) and got paper clips to boot.
Imagine my surprise when FedEx delivered a small box today containing
(drumroll, please)...one tiny box of paper clips.
The disk drive, according to CompUSA is being sent from the manufacturer; the paper clips were sent directly from CompUSA's warehouse. So, in order to enforce its own "no free shipping unless the order is over $150" policy, CompUSA incurred the added expense of an additional FedEx delivery to my home. I'm sure they have a very, very nice deep discount with FedEx, but still...why insist on a policy that costs them (not me) money. Couldn't their crack programmers add a few lines of code that lets the on-line shopping system know whether multiple items are coming from multiple warehouses?-Michael Theodore
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I complained about eek Technologies to both eek and Amazon -- they charged me $6.59 to US mail a Kingston 512K SD chip -- smaller than a quarter. With the packaging and the envelope, it should have cost 87 cents to mail, at most (it weighed 2.2 oz). Okay, throw in another dollar for the envelope, and a dollar for the guy who has to drag his ass five feet to pick it up, and that's $3.87. I complained to them, copying Jeff@amazon.com, to no avail. Amazong should be a leetle more careful about who they allow to do biz through their site, and how. It came up as if it was a regular Amazon product when I ordered, and yes, I was a bit asleep while ordering. I assumed (because I have been in the past -- not any more) used to trusting Amazon, that there must have been some reason for the vast shipping cost. Yeah, it seems -- GREED.
LOL! Gotta love corporate dumbness.
I also love getting good-sized boxes from Amazon and opening them to find.... a dozen of those poufy air-bladder fillers and one little book shrink-wrapped to a cardboard backing with the invoice.
Save the trees. Not to mention the petroleum.