Napa Auto Parts (Midland)

I complain a fair bit about poor customer service on this blog. It started with TDCanadaTrust, and seems to have just continued.

And there are some more not very nice posts in the wings …. but hey, not every business sucks!

One example of that is Napa AutoParts in Midland Ontario. They ordered in the filters that hubby needed for our boat; they came when they said - and not only that, they actually called us to let us know when they were in.

AND they were extremely pleasant and helpful when we went back in to pick them up, and not only listened to us go on about the boating accident that led to the need for the filters, but also went out of their way to provide us with a phone number we needed.

Excellent customer service can happen. Even in small town Ontario. And we really did appreciate it.

Tags: boat, Midland, Napa Auto Parts, Ontario

More About Not-So-Perfect Pens

Buddy hung up on me today!

I called to pay my bill - minus a totally unjustified late charge - and the guy that answered the phone hung up on me!

WHAT customer service those people have! Truly unbelievable.

I’ve already written about the amount of time and energy it has taken to get a single order of pens with our actual business name on them.

The first set was printed up with Cottage Country Pest.

NOT Cottage Country Pest Control.

There IS a difference, it seems to me.

Anyway - after many many phone calls and much aggravation, the correct pens finally arrived last week. Had to drive down to Barrie to get them, as Perfect Pens’ ~stellar~ customer service (they brag about it on their site - the same site that gives a customer service email address that goes no where) does not allow one to choose a preferred shipping method. They ship it their way - and if that means an 82km round trip for me, tough noogies.

The box has a big orange sticker on it that says INVOICE ENCLOSED. Only it wasn’t.

In today’s mail, we got a past due notice which included a late charge! We only just GOT the damn pens!

When I called to complain - and to pay - I discovered that the late charge was regarding the original messed up order. We had agreed - because we didn’t want to drive that 82km round trip to send them back - to keep the first messed up order at a discount.

I paid for the damn things - I thought - the same day that I agreed to keep them for the discounted price. I certainly gave Rebecca my credit card info, and she told me that it was all done, and asked if I wanted to pay for the second corrected order as well. I said no, I would prefer to actually GET them before I paid for them, but to go ahead and put through the payment for the first batch.

She didn’t.

Anyway - after all of the aggravation we have been through to get this order, I was most certainly NOT paying a late charge after already having tried to pay them. It is not MY fault they are totally incompetent!

When I called back, after the oh so charming guy hung up on me, I asked Susan, the person that answered the phone, if that meant I did not need to pay.

She was totally unresponsive to ANY of my complaints but did take my credit card info for both charges - and waive the late charge on the first one, although it was patently obvious she did not shive a git, nor believe me.

When I asked for an email address that actually worked so that I could express my concerns about my experiences with them she told me to “send a letter”. Again, obviously did not shive a git, or think that I actually would.

Wrong.

I will.

I can be a bitch like that.

Will let you know if I ever get a response. And in the meantime, we will no longer be dealing with PerfectPen.ca. Not EVER.

Tags: customer service., or lack thereof, perfectpen.ca

Rethinking Dell

I have a Dell laptop. It held up really well even though it was in the car when I hit a tree - monitor broke, but could still use it with an external, and it just keeps going. I have been, for the most part, happy with it.

So when my kids decided to buy laptops they both bought Dell. One of them has had no problem at all. The other - the only one of us that paid extra for an extended warranty, I think - has been a total stinking LEMON.

One problem after another.  Lost a week or more sorting out the last hard drive problem; multiple glitches and other issues that prevented its use, and now it’s totally kaput yet again. Dell, of course, doesn’t care that during the time it takes for them to send stuff in the mail etc etc the kid does not have a computer to use. Nor do they care about the fact that every time the hard drive has to be replaced BECAUSE IT IS CRAP it takes time and energy to restore everything even if you DO have a complete backup. And they don’t care that spending hours and hours on the phone redoing the OS (because they don’t have a restore disk image that actually WORKS - drivers and other assorted nonsense all has to be done while on the phone with their technicians) costs people who use cell phones a heck of a lot of air time.

The computer is a LEMON. Their ~fixes~ are not acceptable.

1/3 doesn’t seem to be very good odds to me. So, I guess my next computer will NOT be a Dell.

Definitely not so Perfect Pen

Cottage Country Pest Control pen proof

Weeks later, still no perfect pens from perfectpen.ca.

It took 4 more phone calls to actually get the proof (needed because THEY screwed up the first order). By EMAIL. How is it possible that it should take 4 phone calls and more than 2 weeks to get a simple EMAIL proof?

So fine - it finally, after the last of those phone calls, came. I sent it back within minutes. Everything was - SUPPOSEDLY - finalized and my new pens on their way.

They did not come.

Another week… still no pens.

Bluddy hell!!

I called them yet again (what am I up to now; 10 phone calls for one stinking order of pens?) and was told that yes, they had the proof, but oopsie - they forgot to remove the hold.

Bluddy ******* hell!!!!!

Vistaprint, here I come.

They did offer to waive the $14.95 set up fee on our order. After all this, sorry. SO not enough. 

I should have just cancelled it.  I certainly will not be ordering from them again.

Tags: customer service., not so perfect pen, perfectpen.ca

Canada loses prison farms

So… when you have a program that works for inmates of Corrections Services Canada (CSC) in Stephen Harper’s Canada the obvious tactic is to get rid of it, right?

CSC has SO many huge problems I wouldn’t even know where to start to detail them. The short version, from my research to date, seems to be that they don’t bother to follow their own policies & procedures. They write and speak the rhetoric of human rights - but there is seldom any real connection between policy & practice that I can find.

People are dying. Men. Women. Aboriginal people, especially. But hey - rather than spend some time, energy & resources on fixing the many existent problems, this government has chosen, it seems, to instead focus its efforts on breaking things that DID work, and on building new facilities so that we can lock up more (Aboriginal) people.

The more I learn about Canadian prisons the more disgusted and ashamed I am.

Stephen Harper’s Canada is not mine.

Not so perfectpen

I am getting SO frustrated with perfectpen.ca

Not enough they messed up our first order- now I can’t seem to get the corrected order through!!

How many phone calls IS it going to take before I actually am able to get the pens we ordered?

It seems to me that 4 should have been enough! Perfect my arse!

Tags: perfectpen.ca

Beavers vs Dogs

Just caught a bit on CBC News over the lunch hour about beavers, in Alberta, who are attacking & mauling dogs in an off leash dog park. What should be done?

The options that were mentioned - both in the tv news interviews and in the various online articles I read - seem to be either killing the beavers (humanely though, of course), or relocating them.

Have yet to find a single person in the media that suggests relocating the dog park - why is THAT not an option, inquiring minds want to know.

One of the women that was interviewed said that there were lots of other very nice areas near-by that the beavers could be moved to. MOVE THE DOGS, why don’t you?

Or - here’s a thought - while the kits are young enough that the adults are all about protecting them - don’t let your dogs off leash down there.

Honestly, the arrogance of people is astounding sometimes.

Surveillance cameras

Am listening to CBC’s news coverage of the newly released report into the 1985 terrorist bombing of Air India flight 182 and getting thoroughly frustrated by the recurring focus on the fact that surveillance cameras that were “supposed to protect” a key witness.

Where did we get the idea that cameras ~protect~ anyone?  Even if the cameras had been working (they weren’t) what difference would it have made? Might have made it easier to catch those who did it - after the fact. But the poor man would still be dead.

Damn right those who were supposed to protect him failed - but the cameras, working or not, have little to do with it. Surely there is actually stuff that matters in the Major Report? Perhaps we could touch on that just a bit?

Funny, I don’t feel like Quickbooks is saving me time & money

I am on hold at the moment…. being told every couple of minutes that Quickbooks is saving their customers time & money.

Uh… no… at this point, Intuit is costing me time and aggravation. Have already been on hold for a good ten minutes, listening to really bad quality music interupted regularly by the assurance that they’re saving their customers time and money…. ah there we go

Finally got to talk to a ~customer support agent~ OMG I am frustrated.

Just hung up on him. Did I mention that I am FRUSTRATED?!

I wish I had stayed with the stripped down, cheaper version, as at this point in time I am feeling totally ripped off.

First of all, he wouldn’t give me my registration info until I gave him more information than I wanted to give him. Actually asked him why I needed to provide so much info and he didn’t answer the question - and THEN launched into a sales pitch for a support package.

I just coughed up $200 for the software and now they want more money to support it? I asked him if what he was telling me is that the software is so badly designed that it requires an inordinate amount of technical support.

At which point, he seemed to take offense (go figure) and said “That is not what I’m saying; if you are comfortable with the idea of paying $90 for every support call you need, fine.” (Obviously, by his tone, suggesting that I’m an idiot for refusing to cough up even more money).

And then, to make me even more thrilled with my purchase, after I finally got the Customer Number and Registration Number I needed out of him, I asked whether I had to call back when I put it on my other computer or whether those numbers would work there.

“You can’t DO that!!!” he insisted - and continued to do so even when I assured him that I had made sure, before purchasing, that I most certainly could.

So THEN he told me that I should buy additional licenses and that I could do so for the “discounted price” of $300+ !!!! AS IF! I can go buy another copy for $200 and at MOST would only need one additional license.

Guy doesn’t listen, and is only interested, it seems, in selling me crap I don’t want/need - not in customer service.

SO not impressed with the start up process; hope the software turns out to be worth the aggravation!

Tags: customer service., Quickbooks

Customer ~service~

Wow! What a day for really BAD customer service.

Perhaps it is me!

Started at Koodo earlier today. Got hubby a cell phone through them about a month ago - guy that signed us up assured us that there were no hidden charges or surprises - and that if the plastic case that we bought broke it would be replaced, no problem, “just bring it in”.

So. It broke, we took it in and did they exchange it? No, of course not.

And their response to my observation that in spite of their claim that there would not be additional costs, they were now charging us an extra $3/month to send us a bill, the girl said “it’s only $2, and all the cell phone companies do that.”

First of all, no, they don’t, actually - and they don’t claim, either, that there won’t be any surprises or additional costs, either.  Mostly it was her snotty tone that I didn’t appreciate.

We left without our case replacement, and I will not be switching my Blackberry service to them when I’m ready to do that (soon).

Went down the hall to one of their competitors and bought another new (and shatterproof) case to replace the POS, didn’t last a month one they’d sold us.

Also stopped in a Soft Mocs in the same mall. Last time I was in there I was impressed with the woman that served me. The boots I bought don’t work - but that’s my fault for having bought them when I didn’t have my orthotics with me to try them.

While I was there, I had looked at some Doc Martens boots, but they did not have them in my size. Afterwards, I went online and looked at the models that Soft Mocs does carry in my size - could order online, but thought I would stop in to see if they might have a pair, even in the wrong colour, of the size I want so that I could try them on and at least have a better indication that they might work.

In addition to needing orthotics for plantar faciitis, I have terrible ankles ever since I broke one and badly sprained the other. I need the RIGHT shoes/boots, and am quite willing to pay for them.

Anyway, young man working there today - and not a very bright one.

Do you have ANY Doc Martens in a size 10 (Euro size 8)?

No, those (the one I had in my hand) are a size 9.

Yes - but do you have any in a size 10? I know that Soft Moc doesn’t carry the purple ones I want in that size - but they do carry black or cherry red - both the clerk I dealt with last time I was in, and the website told me so.

No, neither of those styles come in a 10. (wrong, but whatever…)

So I asked what styles do come in a 10.

“None of them - but I can get you a 9 in any….”

Why, pray tell, would I WANT a size 9 pair of boots? Am I supposed to decorate my house with them? Perhaps tie the shoe laces together and wear them over my shoulder? Or maybe I am supposed to cut my toes off?

Fail.

Just checked the website again and used their store-finder link; discovered that they have the cherry red boots in my size at both the Oshawa and the Barrie stores. Will have to get to one of those, possibly this weekend. I would still rather have purple, but since I can’t find those anywhere the red (or black, I suppose) will have to do.

And last but not least, Bell Canada continues to irk me on a regular basis.

I do not understand why I have NO problems with their service at my Peterborough house and nothing BUT problems at 1 of the 2 Victoria Harbour houses.

In addition to repeated issues with billing ever since we switched

1. inisting on dealing with Doris (who is dead) and rudeness towards me (for not being Doris?)
2. somehow, they keep reverting to a very OLD mail address - even once they (supposedly) got it through their thick skulls that Doris is dead and they have no choice but to deal with me, they still want to send the mail to her (albeit with my name on it).
3. they screwed up the bundling of our services because - duh - they were sending phone and television bill to the right person at the right address and the internet bill to the wrong address (that they pulled out from YEARS ago - that was actually changed several years prior to Doris’ death)
4. PLUS the ultimate fail, in my book - their service, at least in the Victoria Harbour area is DAMNED UNRELIABLE. Twice I have lost my Internet service …and today was the third time (in less than 6 weeks or so) that their POP server went down.

The other 2 times I waited it out - but it IRKED me. Today I was beyond IRKED - went online and ~chatted~ with a supposed customer support person.

I swear it was the same person that, back when I first set things up, kept sending me emails that said “I will be pleased to assist you…” and then went on to cancel the services I had ordered because I wasn’t Doris, etc. etc. Morons r’US @ Bell!

Before I even contacted support, I had gone in and checked my email through their online mail program (which I do not like and do not use regularly). Discovered it worked, so accessed ~support~ to ask whether there was a problem with the POP server (again!) or whether it might be an issue at my end.

I TOLD the guy that I had checked my mail through the online server and that it was only the POP mail I couldn’t get.

I also explained (well, I tried) that I rely on my Blackberry to retrieve my emails and that I do not appreciate the frequent (and usually protracted) outages. I also observed that every time the service goes down, even when it comes back on, I have to go to the trouble of logging into the Blackberry mail support and fix it, and that I should not have to do this so often. His ~solution~ was to suggest that I go online and check my email that way.

What part of I have already done that did he not understand, I wonder?

I repeated that I had done so and again explained that I want my email to come through on my Blackberry reliably and for that I need to be able to rely on their service - that would be the service that I am bluddy well paying for, by the way.

“You can check your email online at…..”

I may have become just a ~tad~ bitchy at that point. Told him that obviously he was not interested in actually listening or responding to my problem in any meaningful way, so “I will let you go so that you can get started ignoring your next customer. Have a nice day.”  ….and then I closed the window without waiting for a response.

I know from past experience that at the end of the conversation they ask whether there is anything else they can help you with today, and whether you would be willing to answer a survey about their customer survey ….  was just experiencing a moment of regret for having shut down before that bit - but then the survey popped up anyway.

Yay. I got to tell them - for about the 10th time since I switched services about 6 weeks ago - that I was dissatisfied with their ~service~. Do you think they’ll hear me this time?

Yeah, me neither.

SO… I don’t like Rogers (that’s WHY I switched everything but my cell/data to Bell in the first place). I don’t like Koodo. And I don’t like Bell.

Perhaps I am just not meant to have a cell phone at all?!

Am I too demanding?

I don’t want to be double-billed.

I don’t want to spend hours on the phone or net setting up services or dealing with issues, nor do I want to be told after I have spent hours on the phone or on the net that it was all a total waste because I’m not Doris.

I don’t want to be lied to or ignored.

And I DO want the services I pay for.

Is it me?

Tags: Bell Canada, customer service., Koodo, Rogers, Soft Mocs