Oh, nothing. Just customer service FAIL #2.
I really do prefer to use my blog for semi-educated opinions and responses to the bullshit that gets flying around. So why another longish complaint about customer service? Sure, there’s an element of “buyer beware”, but I’ve found with most companies it’s down to an incompetent individual more often than a corporate problem that affects me personally. Still, this story, as they say, is a real humdinger. So, let us move on with another episode of Customer Service FAIL….
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My wife and I agreed that the purchase of a new pay-as-you-go cell phone, as she was making a 4 hour drive up north with our children in order to spend time with her family. Not having backup on the 400-series highways in Ontario isn’t a grand plan, so we spent a week of evenings researching the best options, and had our hearts set on a phone from Virgin Mobile for $49.99.
The day before their departure, we set off to Best Buy to obtain the phone. Turns out Best Buy was all out of that particular phone, so we walked out, got back in the car, and headed to Future Shop to see what they had, and similarly the phone we had decided on was out of stock.
In restrospect, I should have known what was about to happen. It is Future Shop.
We began to browse through phones, and decided to up the ante and spend $79.99. The phones in this price range had more of what we needed in the box. We were disappointed to discover that Virgin Mobile only offered $5 of airtime with these phones, so we started looking at other options. Making sure that the package would meet our needs, we decided to pick a Telus phone. Pretty much identical features to the Virgin phone, but with a whopping $50 activation credit. That should get Vickie and the boys up north, back home and a couple weeks of breaktime chat.
We bought the phone and brought it back home. At this point, Vickie had to rush to work, so I was left with the task of registering the phone and activating it online. What happened was quite the surprise; the web site stated that the telephone was active under another person’s account. I called Telus to confirm this, and they said this was correct, but (not that it was the agent’s fault) couldn’t offer an explanation except to advise me to take the phone back to Future Shop and exchange it.
As my wife worked until after store hours, I called my father to drive my non-driver’s-licence-obtaining ass back to Future Shop, as we needed to conclude this that day. Interestingly enough, they had no more phones identical to ours. Crunch time, and I now have to make a fast decision.
This is where it gets interesting, folks.
The sales guy’s first option to me was to sell me a $129.00 pay as you go phone from Telus with $30.00 off. Now, for those playing the home game, this would still have required me to pay an extra $30 or so. You call this a deal? A note to all sales people reading this–dealing with a customer complaint is NOT a very good time to upsell them by $30, especially when the customer is aware you work for commission.
Alright, now we’re at the negotiation table, and tensions are running high. I counteroffered with a plan that I felt was very, very feasible. The Virgin Mobile phone, which was identical in price and would have done the job nicely at $79.99, would do, plus throw in a $25 airtime card for my hassle. The response was “I’m sorry, sir, but we can’t just give away airtime cards.” (Remember this for later.)
Our day care does not take overly kindly to parents picking their kids up after closing time of 5:30PM, and this was getting dangerously close to the wire. ”Does the other London store have any of this phone?” Clearly this concept hadn’t crossed the minds of any of the three people who had dipped their fingers into this case. I convinced them to call the other store, where yes, they had 2 phones in stock.
I barely got to the daycare in time, and I wasn’t able to take the kids in the car with me, so it was my father who drove all the way to the London North Future Shop (which is in a new development way the hell northwest in London), exchanged the phone, and brought it home to me.
Telus’s activation was a snap this time, and we have a working phone.
Still, it bothered my wife and I that Telus must have been sending out refurbished phones. They must have. Sealed package, phone on someone’s account as an active phone….we remembered that the phone even had a small charge with it. So, two weeks after the sale (my wife doesn’t have tons of time on her current shift), she decided to call Telus and gently try to get to the bottom of this.
Their response was interesting: Telus does NOT send out refurbished phones to be sold on store shelves. They’re all brand new phones. One point the Telus rep did make was that Future Shop apparently will take defective devices back, make a minor repair if that’s all that’s necessary, but then REPACKAGE AND RESTOCK THE ITEM. They repeated that Telus does not sell customers refurbished phones unless it’s a replacement under warranty.
Smoke begins to pour out of my ears at this point. So, we had to drive across the city twice over trying to fix a screw up that in reality was caused by a shady business practice of Future Shop’s? I don’t know how this works in other countries, but in Canada, if a product is refurbished, it must be clear to the customer that it is a refurbished product.
At this point, we had already decided to pay a visit to the store manager at London South, which as I write this, will be happening later today. However, one final great insult-to-injury happened when we laughingly looked through Future Shop’s flyer for this week.
Recall that $25 dollar Virgin airtime card the sales guy said he “couldn’t give away”? Right in the advert, they’re offering $100 airtime cards with the purchase of any Virgin mobile pay as you go phone.
I’ll update this blog after I have what I intend to make a very interesting meeting with the store’s general manager.
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