Camping Survival: trials and tribulations
News, Guns, Economics ·Friday February 15, 2013 @ 20:54 EST (link)
Honey writes:
I ordered the Glock t-shirt for David's birthday on January 23, 2013 and received it on January 30, 2013. I gave it to David for his birthday (on that day) and he looked at it and realized that the Glock logo on the shirt was not correct: parts of the G symbol are rounded instead of square. I called campingsurvival.com (the place that I bought it online) and talked to JoAnn on January 31, 2013. I informed her that I bought the shirt as a gift and that my husband was not happy with it and it I needed to return it. She told me that she had to get in touch with the supplier and that she would get back to me in a day or two. She told me that she had to e-mail them, so that I would know that I may not hear from her until the next day (which was Friday). I gave her until Tuesday, February 4 before I e-mailed Andy (got his contact number via the website). I informed Andy of the situation and his reply was to call the Camping Survival phone number again, and talk to them and that they should be able to handle this return. On February 6th at 12:30 I spoke with Jovi and here are the notes from that conversation:
They need an RMA #, so they are going to contact the supplier, Jovi will talk with JoAnn tomorrow, and if JoAnn isn't in, then Jovi will take care of it.
She should get in touch with me via e-mail in a couple of days!
I never heard back from her or JoAnn, so I decided to call them yet again. On February 11, 2013 I called campingsurvival.com again and spoke with Jovi; she asked me if I had heard back from JoAnn and when I said no, she asked me to hold a minute. She came back and said that JoAnn was on the phone at the moment, but that she would talk to her when she was finished. Jovi also told me that if JoAnn hadn't heard anything from the supplier that she would personally call them and get back to me today. I finally received an e-mail from her stating that the supplier does not do returns, but that they would do an exchange. So I called Jovi back and finally told her the reason that I was returning the shirt. I explained to her that it shouldn't matter why I wanted to return it, but that since it did matter, I told her that the Glock logo on the T-shirt is not correct and that it was not as advertized (the picture on the web site had the correct logo) and if they would not take the return that I would have to charge it back on my credit card. She asked me to hold again and came back a couple of minutes later telling me that "You never told us that was why you wanted to return the shirt" and I explained that it shouldn't matter (and their web site return page didn't say anything about a reason), but since they wanted to know I did explain the problem. She informed me that they would accept the return and she asked me if I had to correct address; I repeated the address from the invoice that was sent to me via e-mail and she said that was the correct address. She told me that they would determine if the T-shirt was as advertized or not and that if it was I would be reimbursed for everything but the original shipping costs and that if the T-shirt was determined to be as advertized that I would be responsible for the 5% fee for the return.
I informed Jovi that I would be sending the shirt back and asked what information I should include (I told her that I do not have a printer and that I was going to include a note and asked what to put on it). She told me that I should tell why I'm sending the shirt back and put the packing slip number on the note. She said no other information was needed because she was putting the notes down in her computer on the invoice. I told Jovi that I was going to be putting a tracking number on this package so that I would know when they received it. I asked if I would be e-mailed about the decision once the shirt was received back at their store and she told me that yes I would receive an e-mail telling me what the decision is about whether the shirt is as advertized or not!
20130215: I received an e-mail from Tim at campingsurvival.com stating that the T-shirt was as advertized and that they were crediting my card the price of the shirt minus 5%.
I wrote Tim back informing him that the shirt was not as advertized because the shirt logo on the website was different from what was actually on the shirt. I also mentioned that it is not a correct Glock logo. I informed him that I would be doing a full charge-back on my credit card (American Express, which allowed for charge backs for items not as advertised or companies not living up to their return policies).
At 4:31pm I received an e-mail from Assistant Manager, Adam Judware telling me that he is working with their supplier to find out why the images are different. He also said that he would credit me the rest of the amount on my credit card (he said that Tim had already credited me $14.20 and that he, Adam would tell whomever I spoke to on the phone to credit the rest $7.58). Adam asked me to call back to campingsurvival.com to give them my credit card number again, so that the rest of the amount left could be credited to my card. He apologized for the inconvenience and told me that if there was anything else I needed to talk to him about that he would be happy to help me.
I spoke with Jovi on the phone around 4:50pm; she apologized as well and also told me that they were working on getting the image difference corrected. She took my credit card number and told me that she was glad that they were able to resolve the issue and that she hoped I was happy with the outcome (she said all of this in a nice way).
The postage to send the shirt back to campingsurvival.com first class with a tracking number was $3.99; but everything else was eventually refunded.
David adds:
While it did eventually work out, it took them far too long and gave Honey so much of a runaround that I don't think I'd shop there again—besides the cost of the return with tracking, which we felt was necessary after all the trouble we'd already had, a lot of Honey's time was wasted.
Books finished: Reamde, Unleashing the Ideavirus.
