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.

After you read his letter inside, you can tell us whether Circuit Shitty is able to process and ship an order within 19 minutes, or they’re total liars…

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Sheridan writes:

“My girlfriend wanted to get me “The Simpsons Season 8” (WooHoo!) for Christmas. The DVD is currently on sale for 19.99 in this week’s flyer.

Since she was home, and frankly too lazy to drive the miles to the store, she decides to order the DVD at the circuitcity.com online store. She goes through the online flyer and found the DVD at the sale price: 19.99. When she clicked on the DVD it came up at 39.99 but said on the page that the sale price will be displayed at checkout (yes, I know how foolish to believe that!) . Soooooo, she clicks through the ordering pages, name, address, CC, etc. When the final “your order is complete” comes up, the DVD is still at the 39.99 price!.

Outraged, she calls circuitcity.com customer service to find out what went wrong. Here’s where things go really bad. First, the CSR tells her that she ordered from the wrong flyer. She tells them that she saw it not only on the local flyer but also on the website sales flyer (She also keyed on random zip codes for the local flyer and the same sale price was listed on all of them). After 19 minutes of back n forth “is too – is not” the CSR tells her that the DVD on sale in the flyer is a “in-store item” only. Of course, no where is this listed on the flyer or website (you can check for yourself lucky readers). Annoyed that Circuit City is not going to budge, she decided to simply cancel the order, and drive to the store and get it.

So, she calls back and gets another CSR. She explains what happens (2nd time) and informs the CSR that she is no longer interested in the DVD and could the CSR cancel the order. The CSR tells her that they cannot cancel the order because it has already been processed and shipped. Now mind you the total elapsed time from hitting the “order” button to being told that it has been shipped was a grand total of 19 minutes – confirmed by the email sent to her. When my girlfriend questions how the heck could it possibly be processed and shipped in 19 minutes, the CSR told her once the order is processed, it cannot be canceled.

So, my girlfriend realizes that she is going nowhere with the CSR drone, she asks to speak to a supervisor. The CSR tells her that there is nothing the supervisor can do that she cannot do herself. My girlfriend insists that she speak to the Supervisor. The CSR finally caves-in and puts her on-hold.

10 Minutes of on-hold time later, my girlfriend gets “Holly” the supervisor on the phone. Again, everything is explained in full detail (3rd time) and that she wants her order canceled. The Supervisor looked at the order being processed and repeated that once the order is processed, there is nothing that can be done. Sorry.

Mind you, the elapsed time from the beginning of the second call to now is 25 minutes. My girlfriend, tired of being told no, asks Holly the supervisor, the speak to her supervisor. Once again she is placed on-hold (4 minutes). Now, Nolden answers the phone. Once again, for the 4th time she explains the situation and wants to cancel the DVD. Nolden told my girlfriend that she has no real issue because the DVD in question is an in-store special” only. Again, my girlfriend explains that no where on the sales flyer or the online flyer does it say “in-store only”. So Nolden says he tried to cancel the order but its too late because, according to his computer, it has been “processed and shipped” and there is nothing he can do. Let’s recap the fact we at this time we are talking about a grand total of approx 35 minutes from pressing “order” to right now.

While my girlfriend is waiting for Nolden who is “looking into it”, I tell her to tell him that if the order is not canceled by tomorrow morning, you will call the Credit Card (VISA) and tell them “chargeback”. When she gets Nolden’s attention, she tells him about the “chargeback” deadline – tomorrow. He tells her that he would research the problem further and that he would call her back. Of course that was 3 hours ago and I’m sure Nolden is going to do everything but call us back – we’ll see.

Postscript: When my girlfriend looked at her email confirmation; she noticed that the invoice states that the ship date is November 22nd – two days from now. Interesting that her order was processed and shipped probably as soon as she hit the order button. But the invoice tells the real truth. I wonder if Circuit City is so desperate for revenue that they feel the need to cheat their online customers just to make a few bucks.

Has anyone else had this happen to them ?

Thanks for listening.”

Nodlen is never going to call back. He’s just getting you off the phone. Get on the phone again and press your case, from supervisor to supervisor, until you get that order canceled. — BEN POPKEN

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