Tag Archive for 'gifts'

Geeklawyer had the recent misfortune to deal with a stupid company selling ladies fripperies and naughty accessories. He was doing this to get an Xmas present for a glamorous meeja laydee friend: the Guardian Journalist, sex goddess & TV pundit Kate Bevan. The transaction failed because of credit card problems, and a hilarious Brian Rix style farce ensued. Each side blamed the other and an increasingly unchuffed Geeklawyer was stuck in the middle.

It may be that being teetotal for the past three months has made GL a little grumpy because in contrast to his normally kind benign and generous disposition when dealing with fuckwits he was a tad sarcastic. For your amusement the email exchange is echoed below.

From: GL

To: FairyGothMother

Subject: Re: Order

Hi

This is the second rejection. I have spoken to Visa who say the payment for £20 was *approved* at 16.23 today. Someone is screwing up I dont know who. I am also concerned in the light of the screw up that you also took £20 on the first occasion you said it was rejected. Can you ensure that a duplicate payment wasn’t taken?

Furthermore It isnt helped by you giving a contact number of the shop whose stock reply is “Computer says ‘no’ ” or a surly and disinterested “sorry you must use email to deal with this.”

Rest assured next time a lady asks for a present from FairyGothMother they’ll be dumped.

Please sort this out.

—————–

Dear [GL],

We have done nothing wrong here, and we are getting these vitriolic comments from you via email and over the phone which are unacceptable.

Firstly, your card declined, and you can check that with your card company. Therefore we could not take monies, as your card company declined. WE DID NOT!

Second time , WE DECLINED, as YOUR card company did not verify the address you gave us as the card holders. We have taken no funds from your account, and this can be checked again with your card company. I have explained in my previous email how credit card address verification works. We again, have no say in this, it is the banks/card companies processes, not ours.

We have not been at fault at any stage of this order to date. If you wish to cancel, it is your prerogative to do so, but please don’t blame us for problems and issues with your credit/debit card!

FairyGothMother / Lulu and Lush

Web:  www.fairygothmother.co.uk

—————–

Dear Mr X

Perhaps you will allow me to put you straight?

Irrespective of any problems you have with credit card providers, by getting on your high horse too quickly you have fallen off the other side from a great height.

I was politeness itself on the phone to your till-monkey, particularly given that it was I who was the victim of an incompetently managed transaction. When I asked your jobsworth employee for ‘someone to speak to about this problem’ it was in the knowledge that most competent e-commerce companies, even the credit card companies, pretend to be interested enough to provide [customer service]. Like you they aren’t really interested of course, but they are clued up enough to understand customer satisfaction even if the don’t care about it. So, when I asked for customer service person to speak to I was slightly surprised to get the ‘computer says no’ response. I did say “Are you sure? Is there no-one?”, and with hindsight this was a shockingly impolite thing to do I’ll agree. I can understand your outrage at this customer insolence.

I may or may not blame you or the credit card for incompetence in address verification or merchant policies in response; what I do blame you for is having inept snotty staff on the phone and a complaints handling policy of [merely sending] a whiney hypersensitive email to a critical email.

If you object to the use of the informal and casual language “screw up” in an email then, Dear Reverend Doctor Sensitive, I do apologise and I wish you joy living in the 19th Century, since I’ll guess the 20th & 21st will be a shock. Give my love to Charlotte Bronte and Queen Victoria.

For the avoidance of any doubt, yes, I have cancelled my order.

Grrr.