Dog-like sycophants that we are, we love loyalty. Especially when people are more loyal to The Consumerist than the organization that helps them have a roof over their hands. A little bird tweets into our ear about the sugar daddy who pays his bills, Gap, Inc. Looks like they had a lot of whacky doodle malarkey going on with their online shopping system this week. Looks like we got a new stoolie as well.

Hear his plaintive cries, after the jump…

Our tipster writes:

“Hello.

I just thought I’d offer any info I might be able to give to y’all. I’ll just say that I have a lot of information about Gap Inc and their business practices. I’m not sure exactly what may be of interest to you guys though, as I have probably become a bit immune to all the bullshit that happens. A while ago I submitted the thing where Old Navy’s website had women’s t-shirts marked up to like $105. That actually happens virtually every week. Usually not that much, but often items will have a sale price higher than the regular price.

Most recently, there was a ton of orders across all three brands, Gap, Old Navy, and Banana Republic, that were processed and shipped as usual, however nothing happened in the ordering system the websites use. When the order would be looked up the normal way, it looked as if the order was still in processing. So a lot of customers were getting automatic e-mails that their orders were not going to be shipped on time. I’m not sure if the probably has actually been fixed as of right now. While none of this is really a huge deal, since the ordering system doesn’t see the orders as being shipped, that means it also did not charge the credit cards when the orders went out. These were orders placed in the first week of May. While it is certainly a person’s own responsiblity to keep their finances up to date, not everyone does obviously. Since people are getting charged a couple weeks after they made their online order, if they just go and check their balance for their current balance, and then the next day they’re charged for their $150 order, that could send a lot of people into the messy world of overdraft fees. This is way too long to explain whats happening, I’ll try to make a quick timeline.

1. Customer places order
2. Order is processed
3. Order is shipped (at this point when customer checks the website, it tells them their order is still processing and the customer has no way to track their package)
4. Order is received (hopefully)
5. Customer receives e-mail that they will not receive the order on time
6. Customer e-mails saying they already got it
7. Company e-mails back saying the e-mail was sent in error
8. When the order finally is pushed through the system, the credit card is billed, possibly weeks after the order was placed.

I don’t know if this is even really that big of a deal. But personally, I’d be upset if this happened to me. I once totally screwed up my checking account because a gas station didn’t charge me for like 4-5 business days after I made the purchase, and when all was said and done, I ended up paying my bank a couple hundred bucks in fees.

Let me know if there is anything you’d like to know or are curious about.”

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