Buy.com has outsourced 100% of their CSR to India.

I've been in my own black hole of buy.com CSR. There truly is no end in sight. They listed a genuine APC battery replacement, and I ended up getting a generic "ABC" battery. Didn't catch it until 17 days b/c I was out of state and somebody else received it for me. Anyways, they refused to do anything even though they clearly were in the wrong. All I wanted was what I had ordered.

It's embarassing this company can get away with CSR like this. It truly is.

Ok, I just read all of that, and I got frustrated having to read all that.. This is rediculous.

These people are stupid. They are probably trained to be stupid. It's these type of things that will loose customers for life.

Lets see they could either read the damn emails, and just ship him another pack of 100 cd's. or they could make him do the tango and maybe he wont go through with it after a while.

Or he will do the tango and never come back to you to buy anything....

They can't have CSRs read the e-mail you send, then they would actually have to hire people who are competent.

i've had a largely identical experience with buy.com. i will never order from them again, and i advise everyone i know to steer clear.

They wasted all their customer support budget on those moronic TV commercials.

I have quit buying from Buy.com a while ago. They don't seem to understand 'expedited shipping.' I paid for 2 day shipping because I needed it in 2 days, not 4 or 5 days. Or for it to sit in the 'warehouse' for several days without any update on the site or in the email...

American Musical Express understands this...they have only got me once with a late shipment (turned out to be weather related, not their fault) and they refunded my shipping.

NewEgg understands this...once I ordered a hard drive second day with rush processing and they didn't ship it the same day (even though I had ordered in time)...they shipped it the next day OVERNIGHT and did not increase my shipping fee.

OneCall understands this...they did the same thing as NewEgg did (although props to OneCall as the item was much more expensive to ship overnight than a hard drive).

I compliment good service, therefore I am entitled to bitch about bad service.

This is when you contact your credit card company to "dispute the charges." I've learned to do this very early in the process. It takes most of the stress and hassle away. And there's something very satisfying about setting two corporate behemoths at each other's throats.

I'm done with buy.com as well. Similar crap as posted above. Did anyone notice some of the way products are listed on their site? Some seem to be loaded automatically without human checking into some incomprehensible model/manufacturer code.

@celyn

Chargebacks are about the only good thing I can say about credit cards. Other than that, I think revolving credit should be banished from the Earth, like the evil that it is.

A long time ago, maybe 10 years or so, someone stole my credit card number and ordered $400 worth of stuff from buy.com. I called them and their response was, "Are you sure it wasn't you?" Like I was lying. I called my credit card company and they jumped on it. I can't believe they're still in business.

I had tons of problems just placing an order with Buy.com. They don't say in any of their policies that you must have the same shipping and billing address (even if it's on file with your CC company). It took four emails and two phone calls for them to finally process the order. I also was forced to change the mailing address on my CC. After being on hold for over 40 mins, finally just got disconnected. The only way I got through was endless googling for internal phone numbers and found someone in the credit authorization department. I'm just super glad nothing was wrong because I know it would be like this.

If I were to ever have an issue with them I think the credit card dispute would prob. be the sanest way to go. Or a small claims court order just for the fun of it.

Giving Buy.com the bye.

the biggest problem with buy.com is the fact that they do not stock anything. They depend 100% on 3rd party fulfillment suppliers to ship to consumers. I work for one of those suppliers (don't shoot me! it's not "this" supplier!) NewEgg stocks goods...Amazon stocks goods..buy.com does not. This usually is not a problem since primary suppliers must perform to pretty high standards to maintain their status with buy.com, but when you are dealing with all outside vendors more things tend to go wrong than if you are shipping things yourself. Now, as to this specific incident, since buy.com never owned the goods shipped (which were clearly mis-labeled on the site..I never heard of a 150 spindle from TDK) buy.com cannot ship the extra 100. They did offer to take the goods back, which would be proper in this case. The consumer should demand a call tag and a refund in a case like this, IMHO, and buy elsewhere.

Sometimes I think companies like that are using reply-bots, and other times I think that no computer could be that stupid.

Thanks, I'll never do business with buy.com based on that transaction. Absolutely horrible.

Well, that settles it. I was considering the purchase of a UMPC. Buy.com was a contender. They're off the list now. I'll probably go with CDW (crummy prices) or Newegg (no return policy, but above the table and good prices).

I find that calling them on it is pretty effective. Amazon once got a very terse email from me when I pointed out that they were only sending me stock replies, none of which actually applied to my complaint, and I'd like to communicate with a human being, and not a robot. I got a decent, human-written response after that.

ramit over at iwillteachyoutoberich wrote an excellent article about situations like this dubbing it "failure of the last mile":

http://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/blog/the-failure-of-t...

do they have trained monkeys working in CS at buy.com???

Someone on a previous post thread said that "Scripts ensure consistent customer service."

Yeah, scripts ensure consistently bad customer service.

@Hawk07: File a chargeback.

They shipped him a wrong item, you just can't treat 2 spindle 150 CDs as 300 CDs. You order 2 spindle of 150CDs and they ship u the wrong items, you can't ask them to ship u another spindle of 100.

Does google checkout have a dispute resolution system?

There is an easy fix and it includes you getting 200 free CDs.

Since you did not recieve your order you do a chargeback and get your money back.

At least in Indiana, you can keep the 200 cds as those were unsolicited.
In Indiana anything mailed to you unsolicited is yours to keep for free. Since they did not send you what your ordered it was unsolicited and they loose out.

I went through the same process about a month before christmas. I had a number of different orders with Buy.com -- I never recieved a complete shipment. Most were incomplete (in-stock items that went mysteriouly out of stock overnight) or had items indefinitely delayed. I ended up buying the items retail at the last minute. The orders weren't resolved until well after christmas, and only after filing vigorous complaints through google checkout. Some were finally cancelled, some shipped weeks later (which I then had to ship back). All the support emails were cookie cutter replies. I'll never shop there again.

As Type-E said, the order was for 2x150 disks. Part of the CSR idiocy is because he keeps emphasizing that he wants the missing 100 disks, and the CSRs aren't smart enough to put two and two together.

It might be too late now, but emphasizing to them that he was sent incorrect items (Two 100 disk spindles instead of two 150 disk ones) might get a more intelligent response.

A chargeback might be the only way to cut through the BS at this point.

I used to like buy.com, but a few years back I noticed that while their prices were usually good, their shipping costs were usually a ripoff. I priced an identical large order of CD's, books and a few other items with buy.com and Amazon, and Amazon worked out a fair bit cheaper after shipping. Then I read a bunch of buy.com horror stories of this type and worse, and haven't bothered with them since.

Also to point out, he spent way to much on those CDRs, if they were DVDRs that would not be so bad.

I have bought from buy.com before. I got my order, and it was right, but the amount of time it took left alot to be desired, as well as packaging. I would say Amazon does a much better job.

I've never had any problems with buy.com The only time I did, I used their phone number (which I had to google for, unfortunately) and they were pretty nice. And girl was American, or sounded like it.

I was told by buy.com that is was my fault fedex did not deliver my order to my house a couple months ago. I ordered a belkin ups from buy.com but never recieved it. I went through weeks of emails and claims processes through buy.com AND fedex. only to be told by both it was my fault and there was nothing they were going to do about it. Address was correct, order was paid for, item never received.

I resorted to calling my credit company and they kicked buy.com's are by doing a charge back. I will Never buy anything through buy.com again.

@ShadowFalls: CD-R's were expensive back when all this started!

@LAGirl: Sadly they aren't *even* trained monkeys.

I called to inquire about the odd shipping policies at one point. It clearly states in their faq that you can add $25 of items to get the free shipping, so long as all items are marked with one of the two truck symbols, and all items are of the same general type (electronics/books+music/etc).
I'd attempted to add a couple of $25 free shipping books on to a "free shipping" (over $25 item) textbook, yet it was charging me for shipping on the smaller items (it always does this for some reason, contrary to their policy).
The woman I spoke with claimed that to get the $25 free shipping they had to all be the same item. Not the same type, the SAME FREAKING ITEM (UPC/SKU). When I pointed her to the faq page, she stuck to her guns. I asked to speak to her manager/supervisor, and she claimed he was not there.
"Where is your manager?"
"Not here."
"But where?"
*snort* "He's not here"

I followed this up with an email, but was directed by CS to the faq for all info on shipping policies. >

Buy.com cs doesn't even know their own shipping policies...don't expect them to handle anything larger. Or anything *period*.

We recently got a little burned by Buy.com. We bought a printer two weeks ago, and they were offering free shipping with it. 8 days later, the very same printer was advertised on their site for $20 less. So I emailed, asking about their price protection policies, which is when I was informed that (a) since I used a free-shipping promotion, I am no longer eligible for price protection, and (b) they only have a 3-day price protection period. 3 days is ridiculous! The order sits in a processing status for a day, gets passed off to the shipping company for another day, and then it's in transit for God only knows how long. Everywhere else I've ever shopped has at least a 14 day price protection period. And who would have thought that opting for free shipping waived your price protection freedoms... that's the last time we are shopping on Buy.com.

He can't file a chargeback. It's been more than 60 days, unfortunately.

He's basically, for all intents and purposes, screwed - unless someone with other than a form macro at buy.com decides to help him out.

@Buran:

Thanks, I did actually email my CC company, USAA, about it, but it was going to be too much of a hassle. I knew I was in the right, I knew I would win, but in the end, it would just end up costing me more money and time than it was worth.

Basically, USAA wanted me to get a notorized letter from a "expert" saying that the product was indeed not what I ordered. Then, I was going to have to ship it back and get some kind of signature confirmation delivery. Shipping a 10 lb battery back with sig delivery would have been $10-$15. For a $25 battery, it wasn't worth it.

Another thing I forgot in my original post but I'll direct towards all. To do returns or correct THEIR mistakes, you must ask for an RMA# within 14 days of purchase. This time frame INCLUDES the time it takes to ship to you. Real cute. On top of that, I went back to the website today, and it even goes on to say that a shipping carrier must have it in their hands within that 14 day time period. so basically, if you're hellbent on ordering something from buy.com it might be worth it just to ask for an RMA# to be on the safe side regardless of the outcome of your transaction

@nickripley: November 2006...not that far ago. dvdrs were still cheaper back then.

@ShadowFalls: Even for good quality Verbatim or Taiyo Yuden 16x dvd+/-rs that price can still be a bit expensive, particularly considering shipping too.

Reading the first few comments I thought I was the only one to notice what kind of ripoff the cd-rs were...glad I'm not the only one :p

It would be kind of amusing to see how long you can make them go in circles.

When are companies like buy.com going to learn. If you treat your customers like crap, you shouldn't have customers. Problems do happen but it is they way a company handles it that can make or break it. Poor customer service, I HOPE, will kill Buy.com.

Welcome to the club. I supposedly signed for Harddrives I never received. Buy.com still hasn't made it right. Been waiting over 6 months.

i have pretty much the exact same letters from a complaint to PAYPAL about PAYPAL. you can complain to PAYPAL about a transaction you made using PAYPAL, but complain about PAYPAL itself? impossible. you are directed into some kind of moronic-CS-space-time-mobius-continuum...if BUY.COM and PAYPAL ever merged the entire universe would go supernova...

I stopped using buy.com a year or so back after a very similar problem. I purchased two albums for download from their site and everytime I tried to download them, half the songs would not be available and it would ask me to try again later. They were never available after about 30 tries. It took me three months to get them to understand what the problem was and to credit me for the purchase. I will never shop there again.

I had a very similar incident with purchasing dvd-r's online with another retailer newegg.com, but a completely different outcome.

I purchased a 100 disc pack, which was two 50 disc pack taped together per the picture on their website.

When the package arrived, it contained just one 50 disc pack, and the remainder of the tape from the missing package.

I immediately called customer service, I got a rep who appeared to be in the country. It was a difficult problem to explain to even an english speaking rep, I could not imagine trying to explain it to a second language rep.

Anyhow, since there was no way he could figure out to just ship me one package, he shipped me an entirely new package.

Three days later I got a call back from the SAME representivate, saying he was unable to ship it because they were out of stock, and asked if he could refund me the majority of the cost of the dvd's (I believe it was something like 70%.) I agreed.

Three days later a pack of 100 dvd's arrived at my doorstep and I also received my refund.

He should have had his credit card withhold payment the instant he found he had not received the correct items. Then when he gets satisfaction he would allow the payment to go through. Or he could have just started a dispute for the cost difference, he would have won, but withholding payment is better, as it really grabs the company by the gonads.

I ordered a 1 Terabyte MyBook from Buy.com for close to 400 dollars and it just died on me a week later. I contacted them several times for a replacement and I got the same exact email 4 times saying they were going to file a claim/ticket for me and then I played the waiting game. Three months later, Im STILL playing the game so Ive just decided to deal with the loss and never shop with them again. I know one customer wont hurt them, but I feel good about my decision. I guess it's back to Amazon.

i am a loyal buy.com customer. i have made well over 20 purchases from them. typically i get my purchase in 4 to 5 days with the free shipping. where i have had problems has always been in my favor. the post office lost my order. they got me a new one quick, (I used email only for customer service). a month later the original package came from the post office, it was clear that it had sat in a post office for the month, and when I told them, they said keep it. the last order i made, i received 2 packages, each with the same order, but i was billed once!

doctor_cos says:

I have quit buying from Buy.com a while ago. They don't seem to understand 'expedited shipping.' I paid for 2 day shipping because I needed it in 2 days, not 4 or 5 days. Or for it to sit in the 'warehouse' for several days without any update on the site or in the email...

I had this exact same thing happen, and all I got were form letter responses from Customer Service when I kept complaining. Why do people think you are willing to pay for expedited shipping that sits for days? I won't shop at Buy anymore. If they had responded well to my emails about the shipping, I could have dealt with it, but they didn't.

Okay, I'm not on Buy.com's side here, but I'd just like to say that for him to let this drag on for so long without picking up the phone is kind of ridiculous. Yes, clearly someone who actually thought about the situation could have fixed it quickly, but when it became obvious that wasn't going to happen via email, he should have just called. As much as I detest talking to CSR's on the phone, one hour being tormented over the phone should be better than dragging it out for months on end.

@crazylady: I was making a joke about how long this took! :)

@Type-E: He can and he did.

in buy.com's third email, they specifically said, "It will not be possible for us to send [insert 'the' here...] rest of the disks." this was the time to request a refund or get serious about having the issue escalated immediately. months later, we're still stuck with the same email CSRs who already said they couldn't send the rest of the order, going nowhere fast. even if the storied "short shipment claim" is eventually processed (3 months from now...), i bet they'll offer a refund before a replacement. it's usually a lot easier to refund than replace.

also, email CSRs will almost never call you, even if you ask them to. they just aren't really set up to do that, nor do they really care enough about you to pick up the phone (yay apathy!). it's more effective to ask for your issue to be escalated via email or request a phone number that you can call. listing options can also be a good tactic: request a refund or other compensation if you can't get the merchandise sent to you. better $20 now than 100 CDs never...

buy.com screwed up the last order i placed with them due to their lack of info and communication with their dropshippers. Fortunately I came out ahead in the end.

I ordered a Kensington (ipod) stereo dock which had a rebate attached to it. Order was placed 11/24/06. It was "In stock, ships in 1-2 business days" when I placed the order, but was out of stock for new orders by the next day since it was such a good deal. I felt great that I got in before it went out of stock.

The order status went from "sent to warehouse" to "on order" (that means backorder) within a few days. I patiently waited for a week and a half before contacting them, but when I saw that the dock showed "in stock, ships in 1-2 business days" once again, I was pretty steamed since my order was still "on order".

I remember making quite a few phone calls. The only way I ever got anywhere was to call the US-located buy.com sales support. By the time two weeks had passed, I found out on one of these calls that they actually did have stock available but it was from another supplier, and for whatever reason my order was stuck in limbo.

I eventually convinced them to please send me the dock from another supplier. Time was running short before the rebate submission timeframe would end. The CSR had to create a new order, and I presumed that he canceled the original one. I received a dock 3 days before the final allowable postmark date. Not much time for me to make sure I wanted the item (wasn't defective, etc) since I had to cut the UPC off the box.

Two days later when I was about to mail the rebate, I received a second dock (from the first order). I held onto that one for a month just in case they realized their error, but I was never charged. I wasn't about to bring it to their attention after all the grief it caused me.