Tuesday, November 12, 2013

The Case of the Disappearing Order

Two weeks ago I ordered both a desktop computer and a tablet from Dell.  I ordered them online, at the same time, and in the SAME ORDER.  I quickly received an email confirming my order (so I thought) and showing what I had ordered, the price, tax, shipping, etc.

Fast forward to today, when I received an email that my "order" had shipped.  Except when I followed the link in the email I received conflicting messages.  It said my "complete order" had shipped, but the detailed listing on the shipment only showed the desktop, no tablet.

Now obviously, tablets are much smaller packages than desktops, so my first thought was that they had broken the order up into 2 orders for shipping purposes.  But I couldn't get Dell's website to show me any other part of my order and I wanted to be sure, so I called....which is when the fun began.

Several minutes on their website finally produced a phone number for ordering.  Of course the automated system that initially answered wanted to know what type of product I wanted to buy, but I finally came up with a series of words (i.e. just give me a live damn person) that got a response.  I politely explained to the first person somewhere in India that I just wanted to confirm an existing order, and was transferred to another person, also in India, to whom I explained the order I had placed, and the email regarding shipment I had received. 

After taking order number, customer number, name and address, and a promise to name my next dog after him, he finally informed me that he saw where I had ordered a desktop computer, but there was no tablet on my order.  What the ?!?!  So of course he transferred me to an "order specialist".

This next person (also in India) retook all my details and informed me again that I had not ordered a tablet.  Why then I asked, do I have an email that says I ordered both a desktop and a tablet? He asked for my order confirmation number...at which time I realized that the email I had received indicated that I would receive an order confirmation email within 24 hours.  Only problem was, I had never received an order confirmation email, therefore, no order confirmation number.  And therefore, as far as Dell is concerned, I never ordered a tablet.

So someone please explain to me how I ordered two items at the exact same time, in the exact same order, and received a NON-confirmation email indicating that I had ordered both items, but somehow I really only ordered one of those items?  I never received an email confirmation for the desktop computer, but they know that I ordered that.

So finally, I was transferred to yet another person (in the US this time) to re-order the tablet that I thought I had ordered two weeks ago.  I was admittedly fed up by this point and may or may not have been a little bitchy (who me?) to this guy when he first started talking.  I reordered the tablet, forwarded the guy the email I had received showing the price I was originally paying (because it was $40 cheaper than what he was quoting me today) and finally got it ordered, with a promise that it should ship tomorrow.  We'll see if I get a shipping notice tomorrow or not, but I damn sure got a confirmation email this time.

No comments:

Post a Comment