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At the last weekend's GMLTC showing, I found out from another club member that
LEGO still had some of the light gray brick packs available. Still in need of
several thousand pre-2004 light gray bricks to finish the stand for battleship
project, I ordered $366 worth through the web site on Sunday afternoon. With 2nd
Day air shipping at the bargain price of only $15, I thought I could be on the
way towards completing the stand as of this evening.
Later that night I received an email saying my order was not going to be
shipped, because my credit card had been declined. I thought this strange,
because the card had been authorized and approved earlier in the day. So, I
checked Paypal (to which my card is connected to) and sure enough, my account
had been debited not once, but twice for the order. With only about $500 in the
account, the second attempt was declined. Seeing as their customer service
department was already closed for the evening, there was no one I could talk to
about the order.
Now I work between 60 and 70 hours Monday through Friday being a partner in my
own mail-order company. I have very little time during the week to do anything
but work, and the few precious hours I am not working, I spend with my family.
Knowing it would be an inconvenience for me to try to call them on a Monday (my
busiest day and probably theirs too), I tried to send their customer service
department and email through the web site. After composing a fairly detailed
letter explaining the situation with my order, I tried to send it through the
customer service contact page on the web site. Little did I know the contact
form only accepts a message about 200 characters long - far to short for any
real communication. So, I summed up my situation and went to bed.
On Monday morning I managed to find a little time to call and explain the
situation to a customer service rep. I explained that they had already
authorized my card and froze $366 of the $500 in my account. It was explained to
me that their web site only authorizes the card, but the authorization only goes
to settlement stage when the order is ready to ship. Clearly they didn’t follow
through on the original authorization, but instead charged the card a second
time. (I’ve used the same card to make similar purchase in the past and never
run into this kind of problem before.) Their only solution was to try to run the
card again (which, according to my Paypal logs, they did) and then ask me for
another card. At that point I said no, because the mistake had been made on
their end. The customer service rep then went to talk to her supervisor. After
being put on hold for a bit, I was asked for my bank’s phone number and told
that the supervisor would call me back shortly. The only number I have for
Paypal is on the back of the card, so I gave them that.
By mid-afternoon, I had received no call, so I called again and asked for the
supervisor by name. The rep who answered would not let me speak to her, but
tried to solve my problem by again running trying to run the card a third time
now (again I did not say it was OK to do this). I had to explain the whole
situation all over again and finally she went and talked to the supervisor.
After more time on hold, she came back saying they could not get through to
Paypal and could not reverse the original authorization. Having gone through all
this trouble already, I had to force myself not to slam the phone through my
desk, and instead paid for the order with a different bank card.
Late the next evening, I received an email stating my order had shipped. Hooray!
At last some progress - even though the 2-day shipping was a complete waste by
now.
Also there was still the problem with, $366 in my Paypal being tied up by their
original authorization. I kind of need that money, so I did some research into
Paypal’s policy in regards to freeing up the authorization. Late last night I
finally had a moment to look it up. I forwarded the info to customer service
through their stupid email form (this time I wrote the whole message, but sent
it in several small parts). I also called early this afternoon and left the same
info with customer service. I was again told that a supervisor would call me
“shortly” back when the info was sent to Paypal. Of course, customer service now
closed. I received no return phone call, nor have my funds been unfrozen.
So if my time is so important, then why am I spending so much time writing this?
It’s because I am angry that I’ve already had to spend several hours of my time
dealing with what is ultimately their mistake. It took 15 minutes on the web
site to place my order, but so far I’m about 10 hours additional time into it
and they still have not completely followed through. Mail-order should not be
such a hassle. I strongly suspect the box will arrived burst open, like so many
previous bulk parts shipments, even though I’ve complained about their piss-poor
packing jobs on numerous occasions.
Also, during the lengthy periods being of being placed on hold, I decided that
this was my last time I would be dealing with this company and it’s products.
Through my close involvement in the AFOL community, I have witnessed too many of
the company’s shenanigans: been betrayed too many times by corporate
know-nothings, been made empty promises, and put up with too many lies. I just
can’t believe in the company or it’s products anymore. Other than a few odds
and ends for my battleship (which I will buy at Bricklink, where there is real
customer service) I do not plan to buy any more LEGO products for myself,
friends, or family (In fact I haven’t bought any LEGO sets at all since the
great 2004 gray brick debacle). At this point, I’m feeling really used, abused,
and totally unamused.
Daniel Siskind
an ex-AFOL
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