Mr. Grover:

I have spent the better part of today going through the horribly difficult process of trying to cancel an order with Buy.com and receive confirmation that the money paid, and already taken from my bank account, be returned in as timely a fashion as it was charged to me. I have never had such a difficult time dealing with a company.

First, when I ordered my item, your website listed it as being in stock, and the price was in fact much lower. But, three days after placing the order, I received an email noting that the item was not in stock. Fearing that I would not have the item for Christmas, I began the process of canceling my order.

I first tried to cancel through Buy.com, but received a message that I was unable to. My next step was to place a call to your customer service, and as I am sure you know, there is no customer service phone number on your website – which disgusts me, as it sends the message that you don’t want your customers to have easy access to good service.

I sent an email through your site, and still have received nothing back. After doing some internet research, I found a customer service number. I called the number, and after waiting on hold for more than 40 minutes, spoke to an Indian woman who could not help me and transferred me to the “Credit” department. I waited another 40 minutes, and received no answer from the credit department. I called back, got another Indian woman who couldn’t help me, and upon telling her I wanted to speak with a supervisor, was hung up on.

I did more research and found the office number for Doug Pearce. I called Mr. Pearce’s office and was not allowed to be transferred through. I spoke to another man who said that he could not take care of the issue, and it would have to be passed along to another person in the company – but, that I would receive email confirmation of the cancellation and refund within five minutes.

It has now been several hours, and I am very upset. Like I said before, it has never been so difficult to deal with a retailer.

You are my last hope, as I feel that I am being given the runaround to the point where I want to quit because my time is almost not worth the $50. I refuse to quit until this matter is swiftly resolved.

You may recognize that besides copying Mr. Pearce and Roger Andelin on this email, I have also copied the editors of Consumerist.com so they may know of the difficulties I’ve experienced in trying to receive a simple refund.

I hope you are able to quickly resolve the situation. My order number is: [redacted].

Thank you for your time,

KC M.

Buy.com, why do you hate your customers so much? Why is your “customer service” an impenetrable fortress? Oh, right, because it’s more profitable that way. Some companies like to do that by out-sourcing their customer service to countries where labor is cheaper and speaks less English. It appears you’ve gone a step further and have invented a new cost-cutting measure: non-sourcing. Kudos.

That said, KC, and everyone else, probably a better thing to do then send this complaint letter off to us and other consumer reporters is to first tell Buy.com that you will send a complaint letter, unless they talk to you. There’s nothing more useless than a threat you’ve already used. Now the only incentive they have to help you is shame. Perhaps they will help you out of shame. Or maybe you could see if Neel Grover will friend you on his LinkedIn network. Barring that, you could always try a chargeback.

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