Yes, I know this isn’t the post I should be writing now — I’ve been doing all sorts of other things that I should be writing about. But at least this is my little bit of customer action — I’m also going to be going to all the review sites I can find and posting bad reviews.
The story is that Ellen and I went on Thanksgiving evening to the CompUSA in Cincinnati, and managed to each get a harddrive with a huge mail-in rebate (refund). However, after waiting in line for ages, the sales clerk put both harddrives on a single receipt, so only one rebate form printed — and there was apparently nothing he could do about it. So we waited in the customer service line for ages. Finally, the person there returned one of the drives and repurchased it on store credit.
Thing is, apparently this was the wrong thing to do. Even though we have TWO receipts, somehow they’re linked in the computer system, so that the rebate centre refuses to process them — this despite me speaking to people up to and including the supervisor, Michael.
So we phoned Cincinnati branch, who said we should simply take it to a local branch to be sorted out, no problem. The local Monrovia branch disagrees — each of their staff members, after much fighting, finally declared that the best that can be done is to submit it to corporate headoffice. So yesterday in we went: the person who “helped” us (Natalie, we think) said she’d get back to us the same day, since the rebate deadline is today. She didn’t, surprise surprise. And she’s off work today. And another staff person said that anyway it was impossible that headoffice COULD have replied in the same day, so apparently Natalie was just lying to us.
So yes, I phoned today to just make sure they have recorded that I did submit the rebates before the deadline. I spent ages on hold bouncing between people — apparently no-one can take responsibility for anything. But NONE of these people could seem to understand my simple request to record that the rebates HAD been submitted.
Let’s recap: two successive clerks made errors in Cincinnati — errors that it was IMPOSSIBLE for us to correct, or even know they were errors. Instead of correcting those errors, I’ve had to talk to approximately eight people, of whom only one (in Cincinnati) was even remotely polite, or understanding that, yes, they messed up and should correct it. And NO-ONE on their staff seems willing to go out of their way, or even to DO THEIR JOB, in order to help me. This over multiple branches — incompetence at Cincinnati and the rebates centre, and insulting condescension at Monrovia.
So yes, I’m now waiting on corporate headoffice to reply. I’m now so annoyed at my consistent bad treatment, that I will, if needs be, go and camp outside their store with pamphlets.
PS. I do have to decide whether to accept a full refund and return the drive — the annoyance there is that I’ve spent over $15 in the meantime buying an additional adapter I needed to attach the drive to my computer. Purchased back when I still suffered from the delusion that CompUSA was, just perhaps, not completely useless.
PPS. Another lesson to the reader: the point of a computer system is, in the end, to help you to serve your customers better. CompUSA, despite their name, apparently can’t develop a computer system that helps their customers, or even their own staff.
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