My Retail BlackList! · Feb 21, 02:55 PM
What a year it’s been so far! I have had it with several retail outlets and businesses already, so here is my official…
Black List!!
1. Sharper Image
Thanks for canceling the order you were supposed to ship my stepmom for Christmas! It was really clever how my order never arrived in Texas. I am sure you were dying to see the look on my face when I got back to California, contacted you regarding the location of my order, and you got to be all, “Psych! We ran out of that item so we canceled your order without telling you. Hee hee!”
2. Pacific Vision Institute
LASIK, get your LASIK here! For $7000. I mean for $4000. Okay, how about we trade a turtle and three goats? If you like haggling, you’ll loooove Dr. Faktorovich’s hired sales gun, Chelsea. This is their game: You come in with hopes and dreams of perfect vision. They test your eyes to see if you’re a candidate. You meet with the good doctor to discuss your results. THEN it gets weird. You are shuffled into a glossy office with Chelsea.
She goes to town on you, and soon you agree to make a non-binding appointment just to grab a spot—Dr. Faktorovich is so booked up! As you’re about to walk out the door, Chelsea chirps, “By the way, to hold your appointment I’ll need a deposit on the $7300.” Huh? If you manage to hold onto your cajones, you will refuse and walk away.
THEN you will get this lovely email from Chelsea: what luck! A visiting doctor wants to observe the amazing Dr. F, so they’re slashing prices! Why, suddenly the procedure is half off! Hallelujah it’s your lucky day! Wow!
Well if you do your homework, you’ll find countless chatrooms full of others describing this exact same sales ruse. Unbelievable! Grab your glasses so you can read “SUCKER” written across your forehead! If Dr. F is so fabulous a doctor as she is supposed to be, why on earth do we need a dominatrix sales-bot? At the bottom of this diary is the letter I wrote to poor, evil Chelsea.
3. The Travel Gallery, Lauren Rena
When traveling from Tiburon, do avoid using this travel agent. My cousin’s wedding is in New York next month, and the family adores this here woman (Of course we were lucky to find out anything at all about the wedding or planning for it—my sister and I were never officially invited. But that’s another story…).
In this day and age of light speed communications, it took lethargic Lauren 3 days to prepare for our reservation. Could we just do it over the phone that day? No, she needed to write to the hotel first and wait for their reply. Oh-kay.
Now I’m in the travel industry as y’all know, so the days went by and I started to get nervous. I called and called, but Lauren never answered the phone. Finally, she calls back, and our conversation went something like this:
“You the one wanted the studio?”
“No. I wanted two double beds for my sister and me.”
Pause. “Oh. You sure you weren’t the one who wanted the suite?”
“No, I’m the one who wanted two queen beds at the wedding discount.”
“I think those rooms are gone now. How about a suite or something? I think I can get you a good rate.”
“Why don’t I just call the hotel myself?”
I did and managed to get a real, live hotel room myself. Hmmm… wonder if that block of discount hotel rooms went away while I was waiting for languishing Lauren?
4. United Airlines
This goes without saying, obviously. My hatred for them is legendary. Want to hear the whole horrible truth? Check out my article on Tango Diva.
5. Gateway Computers
Sadly, I owned a lemon about ten years ago. I will bid for a slide rule on eBay before I buy another one of these machines. Not if they were the last PC’s on earth, baby!
They sold me some super infected software that crashed my entire system right before my MASTER’S THESIS was due, and wasn’t it fun putting the finishing touches on my baby while the machine was having fun turning itself on and off at will?
Meanwhile, customer service was taking NO responsibility and finally, after the latest raving phone call, they opened up some file on me so that the next time I called, I was all, “Hello?”
And they were all, “PLEASE calm down, ma’am.”
And I’m all, “What?”
And they’re all, “I see here in your file that you can get violently upset. Please take a deep breath and settle down.”
And I’m all, “Well if you hadn’t sold me bad software my head wouldn’t be exploding right now. I’ll settle down when you’re company quits being an asshole. How about that?”
Good times, good times…
6. TICKETMASTER
Thanks for voiding my concert ticket order, assholes. So much for Prince at the Orpheum in San Francisco. I woke up extra early this morning like some idiot teenager thinking to myself, “I’m too old for this shit,” to order tickets.
It was a Citibank credit card exclusive, and in order to order tickets, I had to enter my Citibank card’s first 6 digits to even be allowed to order. When it came time to pay, Ticketmaster wanted to know if I would be using the credit card (non-Citibank) I had on file.
If anyone has ever used AssMaster, I mean TicketMaster, you know that as you are going through this arcane and annoying process, you will be endlessly prompted that you have like 30 seconds left before you lose your place in line. Omigosh!
So I was like, yeah, just use the stinkin’ credit card. Whatever. Fast forward 8 hours to this email:
“After review of your order(s) it was determined that an incorrect credit card was provided at the time your order was placed. Consequently, we have cancelled your ticket order(s.) Thank you for understanding. We appreciate the opportunity to do business with you.”
Huh? Well if I wasn’t supposed to do something, how was I allowed to do it? Among all the hurry-or-die prompts, you don’t think it could have said, “That is an incorrect credit card. Please try again?”
No, because email sneak attacks are way more fun. This way you get to screw your customers who aren’t aware that they fucked up until waaaaay after the tickets are all gone.
Of course my $170 tix are available on stubhub for $500. I guess that’s a consolation.
Maybe I’m an idiot for using Visa to pay for a Citibank event, but thanking me for understanding is not making my day here. And no, TicketDisaster, you will never regain this so-called opportunity to do business with me. That shop, bitch, is closed.
Letter to Chelsea
Dear Chelsea,
I feel very uneasy about an end of the month appointment and about your clinic in general. I realize that elective procedures require some kind of sales, but the aggressive and hawkish nature of yours has pretty much scared me away for good.
I do not believe that medical procedures should be bartered and traded like so many fake handbags in Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar. In researching you in particular on the Internet, I’ve discovered that this ‘deal of the century’ is the standard, par for the course MO for your clinic. Everyone out there talks about how you- the aggressive sales mistress- suddenly contacts them with a great deal involving some mysterious and utterly convenient ‘visiting doctor,’ and suddenly your high prices plummet.
To say the least, this freaks me out. You freak me out, to be honest, and I find myself wanting to take my business elsewhere to reputable institutions like Stanford and UCSF, real hospitals that do not have President’s Day sales and the like…
For your own education, I would like to point out that when it comes to real medical procedures, people don’t want a discount or sale, and they certainly don’t want to deal with slick sales people like yourself. If the prices are wildly variable, it makes the public wonder what else fluctuates at your strange office.
If I were you, I would look into changing my tactics. The present feeling of your ‘closing the deal’ certainly doesn’t work for me, and from what I’ve read, doesn’t work for many. I’m sure Dr. Faktorovich is wonderful, but this veneer of excellence gets stripped away once people get dealt to you. Attempting to work for her, you end up working against her.
Sincerely,
Stephanie
PS – don’t be surprised to find a blog describing my experience added to the general conversation out there…