Buy.com Gripes

Error Message

August 5, 2004. I went to sign in to the buy.com web site to check on the status of an order. From the home page, I clicked on the "My Account" link at the top of the page. This was the resulting error message. 

Any reference to the English language be purely co-incidental. The URL of the error page was:
           https://secure.buy.com/busy.htm?500;http://secure.buy.com/corp/support/login.asp 

The problem persisted for much longer than a few seconds. 

 

An Order Where EVERYTHING Went Wrong

August 4, 2004. I ordered an item on July 27, 2004. On August 4, 2004 the status was "Sent to warehouse" which, in English, means it is not in stock. Rather than be queued up waiting for an item that may or may come in, I tried to cancel the order. Tried. The web site said it would try to cancel the order and I should check back tomorrow. 

August 5, 2004. The order status now is "Cancellation Requested". An entire day and they don't yet know if the order can or can not be cancelled. Below is the web site description of this status.

       "A request has been made to cancel this item. Sometimes items enter the shipping process before we can cancel them.
        We'll eMail you within 2 to 3 business days to let you know if we can honor your request."

 It takes buy.com two to three business days before they know if they can cancel an order.  When pencils and paper were used in the days before computers, orders could be cancelled faster. 

August 6, 2004. The order status is still "Sent to warehouse" on the initial screen and still "Cancellation Requested" on the second order detail screen. 

The item that I ordered, has gone down in price from $42 to $39 in the meantime. Buy.com is still taking orders for it, despite the fact that they don't have any in stock. In fact, it is featured on their home page. They say that it "usually ships in 1 to 2 days". Translated, this means they don't have it. 

August 7, 2004. They shipped the order yesterday, despite my requesting it be cancelled two days ago. The status is now "Complete". I complained to them. When you try to communicate with Buy.com you are not assigned a unique number to keep track of the communication. 

The email message from Buy.com informing me that the order shipped said: "We built Buy.com with one thing in mind - enabling you and all our customers to buy products better - that means offering you top brands, superstore selection, low prices, and outstanding service." This is pretty bad service. 

Their billing history for the order says I was not billed. Weeks later, when my credit card bill arrived, the charge was dated August 9th. 

After I tried to contact Buy.com by typing in a message on their web site, I got this email message in reply from "support@customerservice.buy.com". This is the exact body of the message. You can't make this stuff up. 

Please include the following line in all replies.
Tracking number: TT20040807_0000005471 
mail_Connection-0 connected to: 127.0.0.1:2662 : handler=
Com.WebLine.brooklyn.flatbush.GetTemplateConnectionHandler :
Database Exception java.lang.ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException:
0 >= 00 >= 0

Java fans note the fact that the language forces you code an error handling routine, unlike other languages. Too bad it doesn't force you to do something intelligent when dealing with the error. Emailing it to a customer is not the most optimal way to go. 

August 9, 2004. Considering my last attempt to contact buy.com was answered with a Java error message, I tried again today. I typed a long list of my gripes with my order into a web page in the customer service section of buy.com. After submitting the text, this was the reply:

You just can't make this stuff up. 
The URL of this page was  https://secure.buy.com/corp/support/email/thanks.asp?success=0&what=anytimehelp 
This happened at about 1:00 PM Eastern Time. 

At 7:30PM Eastern time, the same thing happened - they still can not accept email. 

This page in the Help section of their web site says: "If you have tried to email us in the past but you're not receiving a response from us, it's possible our email replies are being blocked by your browser settings or by ...". It is impossible for any web browser settings to block email. 

Needless to say, there is no phone number on their web site to speak to a person. At this point, this was not a surprise. 

See what bizrate.com has to say about buy.com. They get a good rating, which tells you more about bizrate.com than it does about buy.com. Bizrate makes it very difficult to find the ratings on a company when visiting their web site. Hiding something? There are other unhappy customers posting their own gripes about buy.com. 

August 17, 2004. I mailed back the item, dropping it off at a UPS store using a UPS label generated by buy.com. 

August 22, 2004. They have not yet received the item back. The status remained "RMA issued".  A reader of this site warned I may be in for more trouble here. I emailed buy.com to ask whether it has been received and they responded to my email quickly. However, that's it for quick, everything else involving me getting my money back will be very slow. Buy.com said: 

We are currently waiting to receive your product with RMA #911284. Please note that we allow the carrier 7 to 10 business days to deliver the product back to us. Once it has arrived at our warehouse, please allow up to 10 business days for an RMA to be processed. At the time an RMA was issued you had the option of a replacement order or a credit for the return. If a replacement order was requested, it will be generated once the warehouse has processed the RMA. If a credit was requested, it will be applied to your account in 5-7 business days after your RMA has been processed.

To sum up the above, it will be over five weeks from the day you return an order until you get your money back. Orders they process quickly. Cancellations, not so quick. Returns, quite slow. 

August 25, 2004. Went to check on the status of my returned order. Instead I got this error when logging in to my buy.com account 

Microsoft OLE DB Provider for ODBC Drivers error '80040e31'
[Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver]Timeout expired
/buy_include/support/i_ordertracking.asp, line 35

When I could log on, the order was still in RMA Issued status. 

August 28, 2004. Eleven days and they still have not acknowledged receiving the order back. It remains in "RMA Issued" status. 
August 30, 2004. Thirteen days and they still have not acknowledged receiving the order back. It remains in "RMA Issued" status. 11 AM ET. 

They sent me an email message today that began: 

Welcome to Buy.com.
Thank you for your recent purchase at Buy.com! We're always glad to add a new customer to the Buy.com family. We've been working hard to make sure your experience is simple, straightforward, and convenient. At Buy.com, you'll always find low prices on top-brand names. We are committed to making your experience as rewarding as possible.
For a limited time only, take 5% off your entire order, or take $10 off any purchase of $75 or more! . . . 

I am not a new customer. The order described here was my ninth. 

September 3, 2004. The order status is now "shipped". Turns out this is a good thing. A credit was issued on September 1, 2004. Fifteen days after mailing it back. 
 

Customer Service Email Bug

August 17, 2004. A reader of this page (thanks Scott) found the reason for the bug in their email. He tried to tell them about it but got a knee-jerk useless reply that probably went nowhere (the problem persists). 

There is an HTML coding error on the buy.com email help page. The HTML for the drop-down list box that is the Subject includes: 

<option value="Webmaster">Website Comments
<option value="Wireless">Wireless Support
<option valueOther>Other

Obviously, the "Other" option is missing an equal sign. Scott claims that IE tolerates this but Firefox does not. I tested it again today and sure enough, after entering an email with a subject of "Other" from Firefox 0.92 I got an error: "We are currently upgrading our eMail system and are temporarily unable to accept your eMail." Still. Using another subject, worked just fine. 
 

Phone Number

FYI: Phone numbers for buy.com:  949-389-2000 (thanks Pegi) and toll-free 877-780-2464 (thanks Rick). An anonymous poster on my blog said the toll-free number is answered in New Dehli India by people with strong accents. I have not verified this.

Update: Another anonymous poster confirmed the above toll-free number and that it is answered in New Delhi. This person (Carrie) like me, had used buy.com happily for years before having recent problems. April 12, 2005. 

Update: Another anonymous poster said: "even if you call the non-toll free number, once you are transferred to customer support you get their agents in India. Every time I have called after the American operator answers I get shuffled off to India". September 1, 2005. 

Update: Another anonymous poster said the 877-780-2464 number is a waste of time and at the 949-389-2000 you have to insist that you not be transferred to India.

Update: Another anonymous poster said that calling the 389-2000 and asking for Doug Pearce worked. I can't verify this. October 4, 2005. 

Update: An anonymous poster said the corporate office phone number is 877-880-1030. I can't verify this. August 4, 2006.

Update: May 22, 2007. An anonymous blog poster verified that you can contact Doug Pearce (Director of customer service) at 949-389-2000 and leave a voicemail message. I have not tried to verify this. The same person said their address is:
Buy.com
85 Enterprise
Suite 100
Aliso Viejo, CA 92656

FYI: An anonymous blog poster said "the correct number for customer service that actually took me to a live person in the US -- it is
      800-800-0800
Just follow the phone prompts." I have not tried to verify this. October 30, 2007.
Update: May 20, 2008. A number of people commenting here have verified that this phone number works.

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