Monday, December 22, 2008

Overstock.com Sucks

I'm very frustrated/annoyed/disappointed right now.

I ordered a gift from Overstock.com on December 13 - not only did this give Overstock essentially 11 days to deliver the gift, it was one of the items that came with Overstock's special holiday promotion, promising free delivery by December 24.

I was tracking the item online and noticed it was delivered on December 20 - to Chelsea.

Chelsea you ask? I'm as confused as you are. I double check my order, and yup, both my shipping and billing address reflect my correct address in Newton.

I wait a day to see if it shows up at the house - after all, Chelsea could be some sort of sorting facility for USPS.

No package is waiting for me today so I give Overstock.com a call.

The CSR is very nice, tells me that "USPS often puts up the wrong information, so give them a call, confirm that it's been delivered to Chelsea, and call us back so we can send you a duplicate of your order."

After twenty minutes of fruitlessly navigating the USPS IVR system (and calling several different numbers), I decide to call Overstock back, tell them that USPS is confirming online that the package has been delivered to Chelsea and get them to ship me the order to the correct address in time for December 24.

The second CSR I talk to at Overstock is also very nice but after checking on my item, tells me it's sold out. He can only tell me that he will "put a trace on my item and get me a refund within 3 - 5 days." I tell him that I'm frustrated since I ordered this item with more than enough time, it's obviously a Christmas gift, and I am now concerned that anything I order won't make it in time. He expresses his apologies but can only tell me to "look for items with the guaranteed shipping logo" to get something by the 24th.

I want to tell him, "Look buddy, do you realize that the very order we're discussing had that exact same logo and look at where it's gotten me." Seriously, at the very least, Overstock should've offered free overnight shipping on an item of my choice. And we're talking something very small that wouldn't cost much to ship. I also tell him that this is the second time I've ordered from Overstock, and the first time I placed an order with them, I was shipped the wrong item.

You're thinking why didn't I just order another item? Because at this point, there aren't many items with that guaranteed logo anymore and what I wanted to order fell into a very specific category.

So the moral of the story is - Overstock.com may have nice CSRs but their service sucks. Overstock's guarantees have no weight and the way they process orders is crap, considering that they've now shipped me the wrong item and also shipped an item that wasn't delivered to address that was marked clearly as both my home and billing address.

Bah humbug. They've lost any future business and I intend on spreading the word as far as I can. It looks like Macys/Kohls/Target/Sears may be getting my money instead.

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