This is now the second time that I have tried to make a purchase with Toys R Us online here in Canada and unfortunately this is the second time in a row that I’ve had problems.
In each instance ToysRUs wound up shipping me the wrong item, but the last instance was in a class all by itself:
Several weeks before Christmas, my wife placed an order for an art easel for our son. We order a red one. Just before Christmas the easel arrives – unfortunately it is ‘hot pink’.
My wife calls customer service. They don’t offer to ship out the correct one immediately and have the courier pick up the wrong one. Instead they tell her that she needs to physically return the easel to a store across town where they will exchange the easel for the correct one. This easel is larger than I am, and my city is socked in with several feet of snow and an ongoing snowstorm and she is supposed haul this thing 10 miles through a blizzard to rectify their mistake?
As it turns out the store apparently doesn’t take returns and exchanges for online purchases…
***good thing nobody told us to return it there***
Now I’m calling customer service where I get the run around from several employees, none of whom are interested in or able to do anything for me.
Please let me say right here that I realize that Christmas doesn’t come from a box or a store, but this is my child’s primary Christmas present and nobody that I talk to at customer service really seems to care or be interested in helping me salvage my son’s Christmas present.
“Yes there is a shipping warehouse here in my city, yes they have several easels in stock that aren’t hot pink, and no, we aren’t interested/able/willing to simply pick up the phone and ask someone at the warehouse to check that the right one is there and then send out the correct item so that it will arrive here in time for Christmas… that’s not our policy. Instead you will have to wait 10 days for the item to ship”
Perhaps they think it is an Easter present? That might explain why they aren’t interested in shipping it in time for Christmas and why the last one was hot pink…
They also inform me that that the hot pink easels may in fact be in the shipping bins meant for the red ones by mistake, but rather than have someone check immediately so that other people don’t receive the wrong order, ToysRUs insists that it would be more prudent to file some paperwork and have someone check it out several days later…
Anyhow, I finally get a supervisor on the phone who then proceeds to talk over me every time I open my mouth. I am trying very hard to be polite and patient but it is becoming painfully clear that this person has no interest in listening to me at all. And by listening to me I simply mean hearing me out, which is often enough to satisfy a frustrated customer.
I actually have to politely explain to him that I will listen to anything that he has to say with an open mind and then ask him in return if he would then extend to me the same courtesy? Alas no… I can barely get 3 words out of my mouth when he is again finishing my sentences for me and telling me I am wrong without having any idea of what I was actually trying to say.
My Christmas good cheer eventually evaporates and I let the guy know that I don’t want a 10 dollar gift card mailed to me – I want the situation resolved in a satisfactory manner or my status as a ToysRUs customer will come to an abrupt end.
After much pressure from me I finally get him to offer to send the correct item for free which is not unreasonable given that I have now spent several hours on the phone and had an unsuccessful jaunt across town and back in the middle of a snowstorm with a hot pink easel and I still have no Christmas present for my son.
He tells me to take the hot pink easel to my local post office and present them with the packing slip bar code, which he assures me is used as prepaid postage to return the item using Canada Post. Apparently he will then call me on Friday to personally confirm for me that the item was shipped (At first I was told that I had to call him back, and that only then would the item ship??? Apparently my time must be seen as some sort of infinite resource like ’solar power’ or some such).
Out into the snowstorm I go again with my 6 foot hot pink easel. This time I get to my local Canada post, eventually arrive at the front of the line and only then do I discover that ‘no’, Canada Post will not accept the barcode on the shipping paperwork as return postage for the easel which now seems to be turning into the 6 foot hot pink cross that I am destined to bear back and forth across the very snowy greater Vancouver area.
After much debate and an angry crowd growing behind me, we get the post office manager involved. I suspect that he notices that the idea of plunging back into the snow yet again with my little parcel is not an option for me and that I’m starting to lose it in the middle of the now crowded post office so he suggests that I just refuse to accept the parcel and ToysRUs can deal with the return bill.
Back home I go through the snow…
Friday rolls around and what a surprise: no call. Tuesday rolls around and I finally give up and call them back. Yes my easel is in and yes the bin has been checked and ‘no’ it has not been shipped.
Would I like a 10% off coupon?
Thank you but what I would really prefer if it is not terribly too much trouble is for you to perhaps return a small fraction of all my lost time, maybe lower my blood pressure ever so slightly, possibly provide me with a modicum of customer service and a tiny bit of follow through, or oh… perhaps, only if it’s not too, too much trouble, an art easel if you happen to have one to spare that isn’t say… pink?
At this point I learn they can ship it to me overnight.
After all of that, after missing Christmas you now tell me that you can ship it overnight? Really? At this point I’m pretty much speechless so I just thank the person for their time.
Wednesday comes and goes – no easel.
Thursday – no easel.
Friday – the original supervisor finally gets around a week from when he had promised to call me to let me know that they might have an easel.
The weekend comes and goes no easel.
About 10 days later my overnight easel finally arrives. I’m almost too scared to open the package at this point. I’m willing to bet my wife a week’s worth of vacuuming that it will turn out to be hot pink.
I wonder if anyone has bothered to refund the original purchase on my credit card yet?
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