I had a veeeery disappointing experience ordering our anniversary present via target.com last week. Placement of the four-piece wicker “conversation set” for our front porch was simple enough, but it rapidly descended into a flurry of form emails informing me of problems with my credit card and requesting I “update” the info — which I did and I was given the e-version of a thumbs up sign only to be told again the next day that there were problems with my credit card and requests to update the plastic. Again.
Gah. So I placed my first call to their customer service and provided them with a different card, which was all good until a day later I got another email that there were problems with that credit card and another request to update it. I was told to ignore that by the customer service rep. So I did.
Then on Monday, I got notice from Target that the card had been declined — this despite having gone through the multiple online and voicemail layers of fraud protection with the card’s bank, verifying that I had indeed authorized the charge. The last straw was one final unspecific email telling me there was a “problem” with my order and now there was a chance it wouldn’t arrive until June 25.
Honestly, having placed the order June 10, I hadn’t expected the furniture to arrive any early than June 19 — three days after our 4th anniversary — but now June 25!? Oh hell no. So I placed my second call to their customer service to cancel the debacle outright and — par for the course — I was told it was too late to cancel… even though it hadn’t shipped yet. The best they could do was put in a request to cancel and hope it got there in time. If it didn’t my only recourse was to refuse delivery and go through that bother of getting the charge reversed off my credit card.
Of course, the order cancelation didn’t hit and the product shipped so I girded myself for possibly having to take the day off work potentially 10 days down the road to stand before the delivery truck and say “Take back that hell from whence it came!”
Only some how, some way, a miracle happened. The package — all 200 pounds of it — was delivered yesterday and left on the side of the house:
I’m not sure if Target cracked the whip and pushed the delivery company to get it here ASAP, but I’m pretty sure designating it as “OK to leave without signature” was a tactic to make it impossible to refuse and that much more of a burden to return. Tricky.
But all’s well that ends well. Like Sisyphus this morning I rolled the big ass box into the backyard, where most likely this weekend one of my projects will be assembling it.
Happy Anniversary, Bay-Bee!