NEW YORK, 7:17 AM, WED JUL 9 | 20 POSTS IN THE LAST 24 HOURS | tips@consumerist.com | RSS
Posts Tagged “

Csr

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bait and switch

Dell Reduces Instant Discount By $200 Somewhere Between Shopping Cart And Order Confirmation

Before we get to the typical bad-company shenanigans—in this case, Dell's $599 discount mysteriously shrank to $400 between when he placed it in his shopping cart and when he reached the confirmation screen—we want to share this bit of ridiculousness. Dell's CSR Vanessa gives us the scoop on Dell's sophisticated order fulfillment system:

Jack: Can you look at sales history today and verify whether you sold this system at $599 off today? This was to be my third dell purchase, now I will not purchase again!
ATG Vanessa: There isn't a cart history unfortunately.
Jack: Sales history! Actual people who purchased this system today!
ATG Vanessa: We don't keep record of that.
Jack: You're telling me dell does not know what it has sold today?
ATG Vanessa: Remember this is done online and there's some confidential information we usually erase to protect customers.
Jack: Like what computers you have to build?
ATG Vanessa: So no, there isn't a record where you can see how much have been sold.
Jack: How do you know what you have to ship?
ATG Vanessa: It depends on what we have available at the moment.

More »

1:27 PM on Fri May 30 2008
By Chris Walters
8,842 views, 53 comments

follow-up

Follow-Up: Citibank Steps In, Forces Sears To Remove The $1070 Charge

Tom just sent us a follow-up to yesterday's post, and it's good news:
Score another one for The Consumerist!
 
This morning I contacted Sears' Executive Customer Service Department. They attempted to contact the store manager on my behalf. I stress "attempted" because they were hung up on too.

More »

6:42 PM on Tue Apr 15 2008
By Chris Walters
16,576 views, 58 comments

fraud

Sears Refuses To Refund $1070 For TV They Never Delivered

Update: one day after being posted here, the issue has been resolved. Sears strikes again! They sold Tom a TV for $1,070 on Black Friday last November. "Of course, it wasn't in stock but they assured me that they could order it," he writes. They were never able to deliver it, however, so finally Tom arranged for a similar discount on another TV and bought that one instead.
 
Now it's four and half months later, and Sears still won't remove the charge for the original out-of-stock TV from Tom's Sears Card.
More »

12:43 PM on Mon Apr 14 2008
By Chris Walters
42,466 views, 71 comments

Latest by n/a: After reading about "Tom's" problem with Sears and a television purchase, I thought I'd let you know about a similar problem I'm having with them. On December 14th, I ordered online, 2 Sony 32" flat screen TV's for our game room more »

insiders

Former Sprint CSR Tells All

A man who worked on the front line of Sprint's customer service department sent us some dirt on what goes on over there, including officially designated fake supervisors, obnoxious personal notes left in your account from your last call, and credit quotas of about $2.50 per call. "I was once punished by a Supervisor and written up because I was giving too many courtesy credits. Apparently Sprint doesn't feel that being transferred 7 times and then hung up on is worth $10 in return." More »

11:14 AM on Mon Mar 31 2008
By Chris Walters
14,606 views, 56 comments

Latest by n/a: All I want to say is that online chat with Sprint CSR has proven invaluable to me more than a few times. You get all the documentation of the conversation e mailed to you in the form of more »

macy's

Macy's Keeps Lowering Shopper's Credit Limit Without Warning

Trey is upset. Four times in the past year, Macy's has reduced the credit limit on his card without advance notice, even as his card membership level keeps going up. (Apparently he really likes liked to shop at Macy's.) "I lit into them for not advising me of my credit limit decrease, especially considering just three days before I received a brand new Macy*s platinum card in the mail, where they had the perfect opportunity to let me know it was now only $800." More »

1:43 PM on Mon Mar 17 2008
By Chris Walters
7,017 views, 51 comments

Latest by n/a: I agree with Trey. I have been a LOYAL Macy's customer and today I called to find out my balance and come to find out it said I had no credit available. What?!? They too lowered my limit without more »

bad service

Pepsi & Amazon Won't Fix PepsiStuff Error, Keep Ignoring Customer

Jon saved up a bunch of PepsiStuff points and decided to redeem them for an item PepsiStuff is promoting on its website. That's how these point redemption programs usually work, you see. PepsiStuff.com apparently thinks otherwise—they'll let you redeem the points for a COBY player (ha ha ha ha), but the Sony alarm clock is just redemption bait. You're not supposed to actually pick that. More »

7:11 PM on Tue Mar 11 2008
By Chris Walters
13,997 views, 50 comments

customer service

Newegg Doesn't Deliver PS3 With Spiderman 3, Blames Sony

Okay, everyone together in Moe Szyslak's voice: "Whaaaaa?" We're just as confused as you are. Newegg, which has one of the most stellar reputations of any retailer, online or b&m, apparently sent a customer a regular PS3 box instead of one with a Blu-ray copy of "Spiderman 3." Here's where it gets all evil alternate universe: when the customer called to complain, the CSR told him it wasn't Newegg's problem and for him to talk to Sony.
Update-3/7/08: Newegg contacted the OP and resolved the issue—see the OP's comment below. More »

7:29 PM on Thu Mar 6 2008
By Chris Walters
10,284 views, 69 comments

Latest by n/a: @Rodalpho: You don't get what you need 100% of the time. I've had several issues over the years with Newegg, and never had to "go public" with any. A short phone call cleared it up each time. If that doesn't do more »

sabotage

T-Mobile CSR Lies About Making Changes To Account, Causes $75 In Overage Fees

Ric L. is having problems with T-Mobile's CSRs—specifically, they don't seem capable of actually making any changes to his account or recording anything about his calls, and when that leads to $75 in extra fees, they say they can't fix it and offer him "free" text messages. Ric says he suspects the CSR he talked to "takes the responsibilities of his job about as seriously as a cat with a ball of yarn," but we all know that's incredibly disrespectful to cats everywhere, who take their various activities quite seriously. Read Ric's email to T-Mobile after the jump. More »

1:59 PM on Fri Feb 22 2008
By Chris Walters
5,998 views, 57 comments

Latest by howie_in_az: This is one of the reasons I've started calling out through my GrandCentral account, which can record the conversation. It's a bit more of a hassle, but outweighing that hassle is the ability to say "well I just so more »

bad service

TigerDirect Screws Up Order, Then Screws Up Customer Service Response

Matt bought a camera from TigerDirect. He monitored the status of the order online, and saw that it was marked "shipped" a few days after he placed the order, so he returned the other, more expensive, camera he'd bought at Best Buy. Unfortunately, the TigerDirect camera never arrived. Matt logged in again to see what the problem was and saw that it was now marked both "shipped" and "canceled." That's when the problems with TigerDirect's customer service started.
More »

12:44 PM on Mon Feb 18 2008
By Chris Walters
7,322 views, 51 comments

Latest by n/a: This is Matt - I've contacted the company and I'll see if I end up receiving the camera I wanted as an alternative. more »

funny

Sprint Invents New "Concerned Department"

It's good to know Sprint is taking your concern very seriously these days. When Peter tried to get a corporate discount for his company, Sprint told him sure, then told him no because he already had a discount with them. He wrote back and pointed out that he was told the corporate discount would be in addition to the existing one, at which point he received the following helpful email. More »

9:29 AM on Wed Feb 6 2008
By Chris Walters
4,784 views, 32 comments

text messaging

After Twitter Snafu, T-Mobile Reminds Customers Who's Boss

Last weekend, T-Mobile users who sent SMS updates to their Twitter feeds found that their messages were being blocked. Naturally, tempers flared. Many customers contacted T-Mobile to complain about the problem, but T-Mobile had no answer for the sudden blockage. (It turns out it was a technical glitch on Twitter's end.) What's interesting is that T-Mobile's Executive Customer Relations rep responded to one user's complaints with a hardcore reminder that when it comes to customer rights, his pretty much begin and end with being required to pay his bill on time. Nice PR work there, T-Mobile.
My name is Marianne Maestas and I am with the Executive Customer Relations department of T-Mobile. I am contacting you on behalf of Mr. Robert Dotson in regards to the email that you sent him yesterday evening.
More »

11:20 PM on Thu Dec 20 2007
By Chris Walters
5,850 views, 21 comments

Latest by n/a: As an insider, they should have the right to pick and chose which short codes they will honor. There are a lot of companies who commit sketchy acts of business, like Thumbplay, who will refuse to quit charging customers. Those more »

hey now

Sirius Cancels Loyal Customer's Lifetime Subscription, Charges Him For A New One

Say you're a satellite radio company with a loyal, even evangelical customer—someone who listens daily, who keeps buying your products for the people around him, and who steadily expands his own collection of your hardware and subscriptions. Wouldn't that be a great guy to screw over? Sirius seems to think so. More »

7:38 PM on Tue Sep 11 2007
By Chris Walters
11,728 views, 39 comments

complaints

Circuit City Is A Douche

Sheridan's girlfriend hoped to buy him Simpson Season 8 for $19.99 from Circuit City, based off this week's flyer. She ordered online, only to find herself charged $39.99. More »

5:50 PM on Wed Nov 22 2006
By Ben Popken
1,081 views, 21 comments

consumerist kit

Cut Monthly Bills In Half

This technique for getting companies to reduce your monthly bills is so classic and effective, it bears explicit reiteration. More »

11:23 AM on Tue Nov 14 2006
By Ben Popken
802 views, 15 comments

readers

Old Mother Brownlee Likes T-Mobile

Sometimes Ben uses the royal 'we' in confusing ways, like when he talks about 'our' appearance on 20/20 (his!), 'our' meeting with Edelmann (his!) and 'our' girlfriend (which, god willing, Ben doesn't know about). More »

6:35 AM on Fri Oct 13 2006
By consumerist.com
170 views, 12 comments

internet

Ma Bell in Canada Scams for Internet

What the hell is going on up in Canada with Bell? More »
csr

Where's My Applecare? "Trust Us!"

Outside of the gaggle of shiny faced cretins obsequiously smirking behind the Genius Bar, we love Apple. But do we love them enough to be reassured when they respond to a complaint by leaning back in their chair and sigh "Trust me?" Yeah, uh.... no. More »

7:37 AM on Wed Sep 20 2006
By consumerist.com
335 views, 17 comments

america online

Parsing AOL Cancel Semantics

They say...

"Okay, I'm canceling billing on your account as of today." More »
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