As we reported last week, a recent survey showed that the website for Toys R Us came in dead last among top online retailers for its average delivery time. Unfortunately, this news came too late for Consumerist reader Victor who had already been waiting 11 days for his order from the site.

See, Victor had found at good deal on something called a Silly Hair Lalaloopsy doll (these kids today, I tell ya), which ToysRus.com was selling for $29.97. So he placed an order for three and received a notice on Dec. 5 that they were being shipped by UPS.

But every time Victor checked the tracking on his shipment, it never updated beyond the “UPS shipping label has been created” stage. So after almost two weeks of waiting, he contacted the company to see what was going on.

Writes Victor:

They told me that there was a shipping error and they would just refund my order. I had a problem with this because these dolls are very hard to find now, so I asked that they replace the missing shipment instead.

They said that no, they wouldn’t be doing that, but I should just go to a Toys R Us Brick and Mortar store and get them.

The problem with that was twofold — one, they’re hard to find in stores, even The World’s Biggest Toy Store, and two, Toys R Us is now charging $49.99 for the dolls I ordered and paid for 3 weeks ago for $29.97 each.

That’s a difference of over $60 across the three dolls.

I told them if they wanted to give me a $60 Toys R Us credit to account for this difference, I
could try to find them in store and buy them.

However, the wind-up customer service robots that operate out of the Toys R Us HQ on the North Pole seemed to take Victor’s suggestion as a price-matching request, which they quickly shot down.

“While ToysRUs.com and BabiesRUs.com try to stay competitive with pricing as much as possible, we do not price match against any online or land-based store,” wrote TRU. “Also, it is not our policy to honor promotions, price reductions, or sale prices outside of the time period they are offered. I am sorry for any disappointment or inconvenience this may cause you. Therefore we cannot credit you for the difference of the price listed.”

The canned apology did not sit that well with Victor.

“Toys R Us lost my shipment of dolls, refused to replace it, suggested I buy it in-store at $20 more per doll myself, punishing me with a tab more than $60 extra because they made an error,” he writes. “I told them they failed at Customer Service school. That was about as nicely as I could put the summary of this situation.”

We here at Consumerist understand that mistakes happen, especially around the holidays. But it’s one thing to allow someone to place an order and not have the inventory to fulfill it. It’s another to take that order, charge the customer, send them shipping info and then refuse to be amenable to a reasonable suggestion.

Thank heavens Toys R Us stores are staying open for some unholy amount of hours leading up to Christmas, so that you won’t have to deal with the company’s website for last-minute gifts.

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