Jared shops at Kohl’s a lot, but buys from them online instead of going to one of their stores. He might have to start leaving his house and changing out of his pajamas if he wants to shop there in the future. The store’s web site doesn’t want to let him place orders. Guess his money isn’t any good.

He wrote:

I shop a lot from Kohls.com and have been having some trouble with my account for the past several days. Basically, I can’t check out and actually buy anything.

You’d think they’d be interested in fixing something like that. But after getting no help through email or phone, I tried to go the public shaming route on Facebook. They responded to me immediately, but they gave me the same canned response and a flat out refusal to explore any other possible causes of the problem. In all three venues they were basically saying, “the website is working just fine, we don’t know what to tell you, have a nice day.” After one final attempt emailing them, they finally sent a very nice and apologetic response, even admitting that it is a known technical issue on their end and that they were working on it. It took four attempts for someone who wanted to give them money to get any reasonable response.

Facebook exchange:

Me: Hey, Kohls. I’m having a problem with your website that is preventing me from ordering. Your email support couldn’t help and said to call phone support. Your phone support didn’t have a clue and says there is no technical support for the website. What gives?

Kohl’s: Hm, it’s hard to say, Jared. Can you give me a few more details about the problem?

Me: My shopping bag indicates there are 6 items in it, but when I click on it, I only get this message: “We’re sorry. An error has occurred. Please click here to go to the Kohls.com home page.” It’s been like this for three days.

Me: I’ve cleared all cookies and all browser history. I’ve tried using IE and Firefox. I’ve tried from different computers. It’s clearly on the Kohls.com side.

Me: From the email correspondence: Incident: [redacted]

Kohl’s: First, I would definitely recommend clearing your cache and cookies on your internet browser. If that doesn’t work, using another browser like Firefox, or Google Chrome has seemed to work for most people. [this response came several minutes after my last response]

Me: you’re kidding right? did you read what i just wrote?

Kohl’s: Sorry about that, Jared. I didn’t see your further comments. We aren’t having any issues with Kohls.com on our end, so unfortunately, I’m not sure what the problem could be.

Me: Sorry if that came off as rude, but that was the third time I’ve been told to try clearing the cache and using a different browser.

Me: And you’re unwilling to investigate any further? I’ve ruled out the issue being on my end by trying different computers and different browsers.

Kohl’s: I do completely understand your frustration. Unfortunately, we don’t really have any other troubleshooting tips to give you. As far as our web-site tech support team can see, our web-site is currently functioning normally. Sorry for all of the trouble!

Me: Unbelievable.

Okay, having to visit the store to buy things isn’t the end of the world, though maybe Jared wears a size that isn’t normally in stock or tends to buy things only available online.

There probably is someone who cares very much who is involved in running the website, but Jared has no way to know who that person is, or to get in touch with them for troubleshooting.

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