Online Ordering

Third Times The Charm

We have been ordering Donna Celestial Seasonings DECAF Green Tea K-Cups from Amazon since before we moved to Oregon in 2019. There have been several different K-cup quantities over that period, but sometime late last year or early this year we started buying them in 96 count boxes. A few of months ago we couldn’t get the big boxes anymore so we found a seller that was selling the same thing, but they were listing it as 4 boxes of 24. This worked out well until early this month we repeated the usual order and when it was delivered it was a single box of 24…

We contacted the seller and they told us they even though they were the seller, the order was fulfilled by Amazon and we needed to contact them. Well, as you might expect, with Amazon there is no way to contact a real person by phone. Returns are dead easy, but because the tea is food item, returns were not allowed. After fumbling around their help center, I finally found a bot thingy and it took a couple of wrong selections before I did find a way to get it to refund our money or more accurately, added the total purchase price to a virtual gift card and we even got to keep the single 24 count box.

After the money showed up as a gift card in the Amazon account we reordered the 4 boxes of 24. It wasn’t two day delivery, but it was still free, so a few days later the order arrived. As you could tell from the title of this post, this second order once again contained just one box of 24 K-cups where we ordered and paid for ninety-six. This time when I found the bot there was no option that I could find to pick that would give us the purchase price and keep the money. I did find a way to have it put me in a queue to chat with an actual human. After a few minutes I was connected and after repeating my problem in a couple different ways, I got the same results as the first time, keep the 24 and the full purchase price in a gift card. Plus a guarantee that it wouldn’t happen again.

This time, thinking that the problem was the Amazon fulfilling part, we opted for a seller said that it was fulfilled by them not Amazon. We waited with baited breath to see whether we would get 1 or 4 boxes of 24, but when the packed showed up on our doorstep several days there was a large box that contained 4 boxes of 24 K-cups.

Was it the different seller or that guarantee from a chat bot? I don’t know, but we’ll see in a couple months when we order tea again from Amazon.

Adventures in Online Ordering

On the afternoon of June 15th I ordered a couple items from Home Depot online for our continuing effort to put our stamp on the new House of Bogardi. One item was a matching bathroom mirror for the vanity we bought at the store because they didn’t have one there. The other item was a small flush mount LED light to put in the hallway to replace the ugly contractor grade item that hung from the ceiling there.

The mirror shipped on the 17th with an expected delivery date of the 21st, but there was a late truck so it was delivered a couple days late. No big deal.

The light was a different story. It was shipped the day after ordering it on the 16th with an expected delivery date of the 19th. It left Arcadia, CA (basically LA) on the 17th and then it fell into black hole.

JUN 16
11:21 PM
Arrived At FedEx Location ARCADIA, CA
JUN 17
10:35 PM
Left FedEx Origin Facility ARCADIA, CA
JUN 18
10:46 AM
In Transit MT SHASTA, CA
JUN 19
8:00 AM
In Transit TROUTDALE, OR
JUN 20
8:01 PM
In Transit TROUTDALE, OR
JUN 21
8:02 PM
In Transit TROUTDALE, OR
JUN 22
8:03 AM
In Transit TROUTDALE, OR
JUN 22
8:03 PM
In Transit TROUTDALE, OR
JUN 23
8:03 AM
In Transit TROUTDALE, OR

On Monday the 21st when I checked the status there was a note that said if there is no update after 3 days to contact Home Depot. So on the morning of Thursday the 24th I did just that and gave them a call. After only a couple minute wait I was connected to a very helpful Customer Service Rep. When I explained the situation, she thought the same thing I did, FedEx lost the package. She gave me two choices, she could open a ticket with FedEx or she could cancel the order and refund my money.

I said, “I’ll take the refund and probably just reorder the light.” She said, “Hold on, I’ll see if they are still in stock.” She said they are available and we proceeded to order a replacement. As she was telling me that I should get a confirmation email shortly, up popped the email. I thanked her and we hung up. Later that evening the new light shipped with an expected delivery date of the 30th.

This afternoon around 2:00 I heard a truck stop out front, we weren’t expecting anything, so I figured it must be for a neighbor, until the door bell ranWhe I opened the door a FedEx truck was just driving off. That’s right, sitting on the welcome mat was a small white box that could only be one thing, a small flush mount LED light.

Because my friendly Home Depot CSR already has the light marked as returned in their system, so she could refund my money, I guess I’ve got a free light.