Not So Satisfying Encounters With Business This Season
1. American Express
Generally I've had good relations with this place and have had two card accounts with them for about ten years. One is a credit account and the other is a charge card account that gets paid off every month. All that changed last night.
You see Mrs Lipstick loves her Portland Trailblazers. For some inexplicable reason she enjoys watching sweaty, muscular young men run up and down a ball court. I'm not into sports but she loves to watch them play and we even got special cable that will broadcast the games. What makes her happy makes me happy.
Anyway I thought I'd get her a wide screen hi-def LCD television to replace the aging set we own. A nice unit on sale at Radio Shack was perfect - a quick purchase to avoid the jostling shoppers and everybody would be happy.
But no.
American Express denied the charge card and urged the clerk to call them. Bear in mind that not once in ten years have I ever been late for monthly payments and that I was trying to use the charge card which under our contract has no pre set limit. The clerk had finally contacted AmEx and handed the phone over. I found myself speaking with some guy calling himself "Trevor" who could barely speak english. He was obviously an outsourced Bangladeshi or Pakistani who denied my request to buy the TV.
Why?
Because I hadn't paid my January bill yet. That's right. Some underpaid/outsourced foreigner halfway around the world had the power to decide whether I could buy a gift on a previously open ended card, and told me no because a bill which wasn't due for weeks wasn't paid yet.
2. Proflowers and FedEx
My sister and my mother have birthdays in early December. I send them flowers. I ordered bouquets in late November. My mother got them, but ten days after my sister's birthday she was flowerless. I called FedEx and was told said flowers were sitting in a corner gathering dust. I called Proflowers and was told new ones would get there by yesterday. I'll leave it up to you to guess if she got them or not.
By the way I had paid for them with AmEx. It's a vicious world.
Generally I've had good relations with this place and have had two card accounts with them for about ten years. One is a credit account and the other is a charge card account that gets paid off every month. All that changed last night.
You see Mrs Lipstick loves her Portland Trailblazers. For some inexplicable reason she enjoys watching sweaty, muscular young men run up and down a ball court. I'm not into sports but she loves to watch them play and we even got special cable that will broadcast the games. What makes her happy makes me happy.
Anyway I thought I'd get her a wide screen hi-def LCD television to replace the aging set we own. A nice unit on sale at Radio Shack was perfect - a quick purchase to avoid the jostling shoppers and everybody would be happy.
But no.
American Express denied the charge card and urged the clerk to call them. Bear in mind that not once in ten years have I ever been late for monthly payments and that I was trying to use the charge card which under our contract has no pre set limit. The clerk had finally contacted AmEx and handed the phone over. I found myself speaking with some guy calling himself "Trevor" who could barely speak english. He was obviously an outsourced Bangladeshi or Pakistani who denied my request to buy the TV.
Why?
Because I hadn't paid my January bill yet. That's right. Some underpaid/outsourced foreigner halfway around the world had the power to decide whether I could buy a gift on a previously open ended card, and told me no because a bill which wasn't due for weeks wasn't paid yet.
2. Proflowers and FedEx
My sister and my mother have birthdays in early December. I send them flowers. I ordered bouquets in late November. My mother got them, but ten days after my sister's birthday she was flowerless. I called FedEx and was told said flowers were sitting in a corner gathering dust. I called Proflowers and was told new ones would get there by yesterday. I'll leave it up to you to guess if she got them or not.
By the way I had paid for them with AmEx. It's a vicious world.
posted by nolocontendere at 5:56 AM
2 Comments:
I hate FedEx and even more especially DHL. Since I don't live in town they often can't find my house. One year I had a fruit basket gift from Harry and David that was completely moldy by the time FedEx got it here. DHL can't even manage that. I give them directions and it is still never delivered.
Sorry to hear that you too experienced the wonderfullness that is FedEx. They probably hire worthless help for the busy holidays. I got quite a bit of satisfaction when I scorched the poor flunky who answered my last call to them.
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