An employee in the franchise office told Wade about what the woman had said. Wade said, "The employee had stated to her, 'Imagine if you saw a snake or a spider, how would you respond?' And that employee said she understood that. And I said, 'That's unbelievable. I am a human being.'"

"How could you compare the fear of a snake and spider to a human being? That makes no sense to me," Wade said. "I've seen kids kind of react like that. Understandable. But grown adults to act like that? That's just not acceptable."
 
The restaurant deferred comments on the matter to the franchise office.
 
The person who answered the phone at the franchise office when WYFF News 4 called said the only people who could discuss this case are the franchise's attorneys, insurance company and the owner, but they refused to give out any of their names.

After WYFF spoke to a media spokeswoman at the corporate level, the franchise owner, Cynthia Samour, released a statement saying, "We take these matters seriously and do our very best to serve our customers with the utmost care and respect."

We've bolded the dumb "go look on PepsiStuff.com" responses from Amazon:

After amassing a lot of PepsiStuff.com points, I decided to try and redeem them to get a Sony Alarm clock as a gift for my parents. Upon visiting PepsiStuff.com, you can easily login with your Amazon ID, and then click on the category for the prize that you wish to redeem. I clicked on "Electronics" and then on the "Sony ICF-CD815 AM/FM Stereo CD Clock Radio" link to try and redeem my points for the clock radio. However, there is no link anywhere on that page for redeeming my Pepsi Stuff points for the item. In fact, Amazon.com doesn't even sell the item itself, and its being sold entirely through third party resellers.

Note that if I click on the Coby CD player instead, I do get a nice "Redeem with 125 Pepsi Stuff points" section:

So, I e-mailed Amazon and the first response came in at 1:46 AM almost copying the Pepsi Stuff FAQs verbatim. That wasn't the answer I wanted. I e-mailed them back asking them again how to order it, and I received a reply at 11:34 and was asked for the ASIN. (Never mind that I already gave him the verbatim link to the product, as well as how to get to the product from the PepsiStuff.com home page.) I replied back and received another e-mail at 12:43 PM (wow - quick response), however the answer was this:

Thank you for contacting us at Amazon.com. First, please allow me to express my sincere apologies for any frustration that has been caused. The item "Sony ICF-CD815 AM/FM Stereo CD Clock Radio with Dual Alarm" you're inquiring about is offered by one of our Amazon Merchants. Right now, all of the information we have on this item is on the product description page. Our information is limited to what the Merchants supply to us; this information appears on our Web site. If you'd like to know more about this particular item, we encourage you to contact the Merchant's customer service team with your inquiry. Merchant customer service contact information is available through a link at the bottom of each item's product detail page. 1. Click the "(Seller name) Returns & Exchanges" link. 2. Click the "At A Glance" tab and look for contact information in the bottom right corner of the page. Thanks for asking about the possibility of using your Points from the Pepsi Stuff promotion in order to get "Sony ICF-CD815 AM/FM Stereo CD Clock Radio with Dual Alarm". I'm sorry to say that item isn't eligible for the promotion, but thousands of other items are. You also can find links to eligible products on PepsiStuff.com. Only designated items from our MP3 Music Downloads, Unbox Video, Apparel, and Electronics stores are available with Pepsi Stuff Points. To read more about the eligibility and promotion rules, please visit the Pepsi Stuff Promotion Rules on PepsiStuff.com.Thank you for contacting us at Amazon.com. I hope that this will help you find the information you need. Thank you for shopping at Amazon.com.

Well, that wasn't the answer I was looking for. I e-mailed Amazon.com again and tried to be as clear as possible, stating that the item was on the PepsiStuff.com website, and linked directly to that page, so how wasn't this an orderable item? I received another e-mail at 5:28 PM today, and nothing has changed.

Greetings from Amazon.com, Please accept our sincere apologies for any inconvenience this issue has caused you. As mentioned by our previous colleague the item "Sony ICF-CD815 AM/FM Stereo CD Clock Radio with Dual Alarm" you're inquiring about is offered by one of our Amazon Merchants. Please note that this item cannot be bought using Pepsi Stuff Points. Your understanding is highly appreciable in this regard. But thousands of other items are. You also can find links to eligible products on PepsiStuff.com. Only designated items from our MP3 Music Downloads, Unbox Video, Apparel, and Electronics stores are available with Pepsi Stuff Points. To read more about the eligibility and promotion rules, please visit the Pepsi Stuff Promotion Rules on PepsiStuff.com. Please do understand if there was any possibility we would have done it for you when you have contacted us earlier. Thank you for contacting us at Amazon.com.

I seem to be caught in an infinite "we can't help you" customer service loop. I asked in my fourth e-mail to get a supervisor's help, because the representatives (all with Indian names) cannot seem to understand that 1) This is a Pepsi Promotion that they are servicing and 2) The product is listed as an eligible product, so 3) Find out why I cannot order it and please fix it so that I can. Note that he completely ignored my request to escalate the matter.

I have been extremely polite and clear/to the point the entire time, but after four e-mails like this, I'm wondering if Amazon even knows what "Customer Service" is. Is there anything that you suggest that I do that I'm not doing?

Thanks,
Jon

This is what I got back when I wrote Pepsi. I'm still not getting anywhere. You would expect someone to help or volunteer to find a resolution, but nothing seems to be happening.

A Message from Consumer Relations XXXXXXXXXX Dear Jon, Thank you for your thoughtful response to our e-mail. We appreciate you taking the time to follow up with us. Please be assured that we will share your sentiments here at headquarters. We value your feedback and the constructive manner in which it was shared. All the best, XXXXXXXXXXXX Consumer Relations

Amazon: "Thanks for bringing this to our attention. We will investigate and remove the merchandise from the PepsiStuff site if it is no longer being offered for redemption."

Pepsi: "Thanks for bringing this to our attention. We will contact Amazon about removing this item from our redemption list."

Good luck with those PepsiPoints, Jon. We hope your parents enjoy COBY. (The alarm clock probably had a rootkit in it anyway.)

So the first thing I did was call in to Tiger Direct and ask what was up with my order - since I had not received it and it showed both SHIPPED and CANCELLED.

I was told that they ran out of stock and the best thing they could do was give me free shipping on a comparable model (40-50$ more expensive). I explained my entire scenario and asked why it stated shipped and then later cancelled and he admitted it made no sense. I also asked him why I was never notified if my order was cancelled and after stuttering he said, "It shows up here that you were notified - by mail." I explained that I checked my email regularly and never received anything and he said it was by REGULAR MAIL. Are you kidding me? They send out order cancellations by REGULAR MAIL when someone orders online? I'm calling lies on that one. By the way, I never received an order cancellation in the mail either to this day. He said I'd have to speak to a manager to escalate the issue - told me to call back at 9:30am.

I called back at 9:30am and waited on hold for 3 minutes and no PERSON even picked up (never mind a manager) so I resorted to email to follow up.

I asked for a comparable model at the same price in email and explained the inconvenience that was caused because I spent time returning a different model at Best Buy once the order was shown as shipped.

The response I received 6 days later:

"We apologize for any inconvenience. The reason this order was canceled was because we longer had this item in stock. Unfortunately we can not go below our cost for the replacement camera that you want.

TigerDirect.com and TigerDirect.ca are part of the same parent corporation but they operate individually and as separate companies. TigerDirect.com is U.S. based with U.S. offices, employees and warehouse facilities. TigerDirect.ca is a Canadian company with Canadian offices, Canadian employees and a warehouse which accepts returns from customers in Canada. As separate companies each has its own unique and specific costs of doing business. In many cases similar or even identical products are procured from different distributors, suppliers or vendors under different terms and costs. Delivery costs, duties, taxes, returns costs and provisions for warranty coverage all play a part in determining sales price as do operational costs ranging from employees salaries to facilities leases and overhead. Each of these costs varies by market and these variances may result in different sales prices for similar or even identical products. Sales prices may differ but Tigerdirect.com and TigerDirect.ca both exist to bring value to all our customers in each of the markets in which we operate."

Nowhere did they acknowledge the fact that they messed up with the shipped/cancelled and explain why that happened. Nor did the tell me why I was never notified that my order had been cancelled - had they done this, I would have kept the camera from best buy.

Matt wrote back and explained again how he felt they should honor the original price, since they told him it was in stock when he placed the order, then told him it had shipped, and without those two pieces of information he would have never returned the other camera (which was no longer on sale) to Best Buy.

The is the brief reply I received from them where they quote me:

"I spent my time and money returning another camera to bestbuy which is no longer available on sale."

thisd was a choice issued by you as we have no involvement in the transaction between you and Best Buy

My wife, suspecting this was coming again since the same thing happened last time, waves a document issued by AA stating that international flights such as this one (to and from an overseas city, including the legs inside US) were 70 pounds maximum..."

The AA lady doesn't read it and proceeds to repeat the same garbage over and over. My wife waves the document again and again stating: please read this. Is this not an AA policy? Do you question the validity of this? Why don't you go access the same information. through one ear and out the other.

Sometime later the conversation turned into the AA lady stating to my wife, and I quote: "your daughter cannot travel for free.". My wife takes out my daughter's plane ticket, takes out the ticket receipt, and shows her: "oh this is not a receipt". My wife explains: "here is the amount paid + tax + fee = total, it is printed in the same paper as a plane ticket but it is a receipt, AA said this is the receipt, we paid for it, please call the sales agent if your computer somehow doesn't show. AA lady: "this is not a receipt, your daughter is not booked in the flight and she cannot go". My wife: "that is fraud from AA". At this point I lose it, yell at the AA lady and go away to take care of my screaming daughter (she is 1 year old).

And so the conversation goes on and on for 1 hour and 40 minutes. When it was 10 minutes before the plane departure time somehow, mysteriously, everything gets resolved, my wife gets her boarding passes, luggage gets checked in, no explanations given, no apologies, no nothing.

Our comments section is just great — even when you disagree with us, there's some great insight and advice, and we try to highlight it when we can. Like this word of practical, responsible advice from flyover, in response to our 'Bad Waitress' post:

Always get a manager involved. Always. Leave a shite tip, fine, but that does not prevent that person from offering horrible service to every other person walking in that door. Of course, you'd have to care about more than yourselves to do that. And I realize, a competent manager should *notice* if you're not being taken care of, but if s/he doesn't, give a heads up! Before you're storming out the door! Also, bad interactions with guests can give us the documentation we need to get rid of poor servers.

This is really the kind of thing we like to see — not the "wouldn't it be awesome" wishful thinking of some irked customer publically fantasizing a vengeful flip-off, but the kind of objective, real-world advice that, if applied by a lot more of us, would lead to better service all around. Thanks, flyover, and to the rest of you — keep commenting!