Did I Provide You With Excellent Customer Service?

I wish Circuit City asked questions like that at the end of their calls, because then I could answer NO! Sometimes, spending money involves too much drama.

Here's the deal: as you may recall, Kathy won us a fabulous TV in December. Woo-hoo! Well, we wanted to buy a service contract. (Our experience has shown that for large TVs, they pay off in the end.) I had written down the original Circuit City order number for the TV, so, at the end of December, I called to buy a contract.

It turned out to be a lot harder than I thought. Circuit City appears to have outsourced sales to maybe the Philippines or Costa Rica or someplace. I had to go slow when I explained things. The reps sounded very confused as I told them that while Bob Smith (not his real name) bought the TV, it was a prize that he was arranging delivery on and we are the ones who now own it. So, we want the contract in our names as Bob is out of the picture.

The guy who took the order quoted me a price of $X for the contract. I repeated my name, gave him my credit card info, and he said they'd send me the info via email. That concerned me as they could easily screw up my email address. He said that if I didn't get the email or see the charge within two days to call back.

Of course, I received nothing and nothing was charged to my Amex card. So, I called back and they transferred me, this time, to the warranty department. They appear to be in the U.S. The person I spoke with said that they have no service contract order on record, so she arranged one for me. She quoted a price of $X - $50. Wow, it got cheaper! I agreed to the offer and gave her my credit card info.

This time, the charge appeared on the card and I was sent all the materials. Yay!

Fast forward to this week. We get our Amex statement and there are two charges for Circuit City: $X and $X-$50. Of course. They took well over a week to record the first order - and, by the way, they never sent me any contract materials.

Frustrated, I called Circuit City customer service. They transferred me around three times. It took them forever to find the orders. When they did, an HOUR into the call, they told me that they could cancel the more expensive contract. However, since more than 30 days had passed, they'd have to send me a check written out to Bob Smith.

What?! I told them, Bob Smith doesn't own the TV, nor does he live here! I paid for the service contract - it should be under my name! The rep told me that she was sorry, but it was put under Bob's name and they couldn't refund the money in my name. This was true even though they knew that I was the one who paid for it.

However, they had a solution. They could refund the less expensive service contract (which, by the way, was for the same number of years) in my name, instead. See, no problem! Uh...excuse me?

I asked the rep, "Why would I want to pay $50 more for the service contract because you screwed up?" She said, "I'm sorry, ma'am, that's all we can do. The first contract was part of the original order and the second was after-market. We can't change the names."

AAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!

I cannot believe that Circuit City would not refund money based on what really sounds like a limitation of their computer system, combined with a sales guy who didn't listen to what I said in the first place. But there ya go - they wouldn't budge.

As soon as I was off the phone with CC, I called Amex and disputed the charge. Their rep was very nice to me and I have hope that they can resolve this. At least Amex has a clue.

Mon dieu! Idiots have overrun the land.

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