The Amazon return process is very simple. First, you request a return authorization from your Amazon.com account by clicking on the appropriate button on your Order History Page. Then you print out a return label and a shipping address, and send the package back. Amazon handles it from there.

Once they get the package, they inspect the item for damage or whatever and then disposition it. My credit card (the method of payment I used) was credited for the full original amount of the item plus the original shipping costs. Yeah, I was out a few bucks sending the package back, but because the item cost so much to begin with, I didn’t mind that.

Anyway, I’m very impressed by Amazon’s easy return process — but even more impressed that this was the first time I ever had to use it!

Well, to MU’s credit, they handled the situation very promptly once I notified them of my displeasure. I spoke to a manager yesterday morning and told her exactly what happened. To my surprise, she immediately sided with me and agreed that someone should have told me about the higher shipping costs. She then promised to take care of everything — which she did. By the end of the business day, my card was credited for the entire disputed amount.

BTW, I should have specified in my original post that I wasn’t exactly “overcharged” for shipping. MU charged me the full amount that UPS charged them. They weren’t trying to con me or anything. What I meant by overcharged was that I was billed far more than I originally agreed to pay and that nobody asked my permission before doing so.

Anyway, I am thoroughly pleased with MU’s customer service. I was genuinely surprised that the manager didn’t put up the least bit of resistance, as companies usually try to use every excuse in the book rather than refund money. In this case, the person listened to me, agreed with me, promised to fix it, and then did fix it very quickly.

Thumbs up for Missouri’s customer service!

When you buy something from a store, you just walk in, select the merchandise, pay for it, and leave.

When it’s online, however, you constantly have to monitor a bunch of different things, making the transaction take several days or even weeks. First, you have to place the order and wait for shipping confirmation. Then you have to follow up to make sure the order goes out in a timely fashion. After that, you have to wait a few days to make sure the order arrives, is in good condition, and contains the right products/colors/sizes/quantities. Then you have to check your credit card statement to make sure you were charged the proper amount. Whew! That’s quite a lot!

I’m bringing this up because I’m now in the middle of a headache transaction thanks to the University of Missouri bookstore. When I placed my order, I was quoted one shipping price, but when the order actually shipped, I was charged 3 times the original shipping price! I was ordering heavy textbooks, not just a tiny heart pendant necklace or a t-shirt, so I was prepared to pay more for shipping. But the thing that drives me nuts about this transaction was that MU didn’t even notify me of the higher charges prior to shipping, nor did they give me a chance to cancel!

That is outrageous. If they had notified me, I would have been able to shop around, maybe buy the books from Amazon, B&N, or another discount textbook seller at a lower rate. And who knows, maybe MU actually offers the best rate and I would have had to purchase from there anyway. But the point is that they didn’t even give me the opportunity to agree to the extra charges or take my business elsewhere.

You better believe I will be disputing the extra $40 charged to my credit card. I tried calling the MU bookstore today, but the customer service manager wasn’t there. If they don’t help me, I will go through my credit card company. I should NOT automatically be held liable for whatever the hell the store decides to charge for shipping. I never checked a box or agreed to any terms that said charge me anything you feel like for shipping costs.

RIDICULOUS!

But there’s still that 1 percent out there that either don’t answer my emails at all or that take their sweet time about it. Desert Essence, makers of personal care products such as shampoo, skin creams, and mouthwash is one of these companies with absolutely atrocious customer service practices.

Waaay back on January 27 of this year, I emailed their customer care department (the address of which was prominently displayed on the site: CustomerCare@DesertEssence.com) with a simple question.

Hello,

I am new to the Desert Essence website. I have a question about your Jojoba Oil. I see that one product is “100% pure certified organic”, while another is simply “100% pure”. Can you tell me about the differences between these two items?

Thank you,

[Name]

I waited approximately two weeks, but when I didn’t receive a reply, I just went ahead and ordered one of the items anyway, since I didn’t think the difference would be all that critical.

Imagine my utter astonishment to receive an email reply on MAY 1 of this year — more than 3 months after my initial inquiry:

Thank you for your question. Both oils are “pure” and cold pressed. However one is certified organic.

Healthy Regards,
Country Life Nutritionist

Wow, did they really need three whole months to come up with that response? That’s like, what, one sentence per month? Or maybe there was some other problem. Do they simply get so overwhelmed with emails that there’s a 3-month backlog??

Personally, I think this is inexcusable. It doesn’t take much to reply to an email inquiry from a customer, no matter how big or how small your company is, and no matter how many emails you receive.

I won’t go so far as to say that I won’t buy Desert Essence products again. I will, because their jojoba oil works for me. But I will try to buy it from third-party retailers rather than directly from the company itself.

Three months… unbelievable!

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Anyway, this time I decided to make a purchase. I wanted the song “Dice” by Finley Quaye & William Orbit. This song was featured on The O.C., a show that turned me on to a lot of other music as well, including stuff from the Pogues, Ryan Adams, Syd Matters, and Phantom Planet. I didn’t want to buy a whole CD, so I figured this would be a good time to make my iTunes test run.

The shopping process was extremely easy. It took less than 30 seconds to enter my search query and come up with the exact song I wanted. I then clicked another button to make my purchase, entered my credit card and address info, and had the song in my iTunes library shortly thereafter. It was a breeze from beginning to end!

I noticed that iTunes also accepts PayPal, and there’s no minimum purchase amount required (though now that I think about it, my credit card company probably has a minimum purchase requirement….). So you could spend $.99 for one song or $99 for a hundred songs. Because of this, I could easily see myself spending a ton of money on iTunes if I were in the right mood, so I better watch out for that!

Overall, I concur with what most music lovers have been saying for years now: iTunes rocks!

Well, now I’m bracing myself for another bad experience similar to what happened with JomaShop. I recently placed a $100 order at a site called AmericaRX.com, which is a place I’d never used before. Like a total idiot, I didn’t follow my own rules about investigating a website before ordering to see what other customers have to say about the place. If I had, I would have seen a TON of negative ratings about AmericaRX.com, ranging from extremely slow shipping to missing items in the order to packages never being delivered at all.

Anyway, I placed my order this past Sunday (April 20). I received an email first thing Monday morning saying that my order was “ready to ship” and that I’d get another email with a tracking number after it actually did ship.

I waited until 5pm ET today, and still didn’t get a shipping notice — an occurrence eerily similar to what happened with JomaShop.com. I had a bad feeling about things because there’s no way it takes 2 business days to go from Ready to Ship to Shipped, so that’s when I started to check out reviews of AmericaRX.com. Sure enough, their Yahoo! merchant rating is just 2 stars out of 5, and featured many horror stories from harried, dissatisfied customers.

So I immediately called the AmericaRX.com customer service line, waited on hold for five minutes before getting transferred to a CSR named “Maggie” (but who was clearly not a native English speaker), and then told her that I wanted to cancel my order because it hasn’t been shipped yet. She went through the motions of punching in my order number, etc. and then said, “I can’t cancel the order because it shipped out today.”

Excuse me? Then why didn’t I get a confirmation email with a tracking number? Mumbled response about how those all go out at the same time at the end of the day. I then said that I’d like my shipping confirmation email ASAP, and she agreed to find out the tracking number and send me an email right away.

Well, it’s been 15 minutes since I hung up the phone, and I still haven’t received the requested email yet.

Is my panic premature? Sure, I guess so. I haven’t really given AmericaRX.com a chance to perform. But reading through their feedback really spooked me, you know? I hope things work out right, that I get the items I ordered and not a bottle of Orovo or something totally random like that, but I have my doubts. This could end up being a disaster!

At least I feel a little better after posting this and getting it all out there. I’ll be sure to post a follow-up to let you know how everything plays out!