I’ve ordered from Geeks.com for years — usually with good results, but my last order from Geeks.com may be my last order from the company, period.
I ordered several items, including a cheapie Polaroid digital camera. I didn’t expect a lot from this item, it’s not a high-dollar camera — but I did expect that it would actually be in the box, which it wasn’t.
OK, no big deal — I’ve had to do a few returns/exchanges with Geeks.com and they’ve usually been OK to deal with. However, I called on Monday and was told “call back later, our systems are down.”
So, I called back later — and, guess what? Their systems were still down.
So I called back on Tuesday. Systems, still down.
Called back today, and (surprise!) systems, still down. This time, I pushed and was passed on to a customer service “manager” who told me that I needed to talk to inventory, and he transferred me — to another CSR who informed me (rudely) that (like I didn’t know this already) their systems were down and there was nothing that they can do, and also refused to transfer my call to a manager but said she’d take my number and ask them to call me back.
Not quite satisfied with that, I looked up the number for inventory and called that directly. The lady I spoke with was very helpful, but also told me that because the systems are down, there’s nothing they can do and they could just take my name and number and that’s it.
However, she also noted that they’ve been accepting orders that they can’t ship due to the system problems since Monday — and that the customers have already been charged for! There’s no notice whatsoever on the Geeks.com Web site, which means that people have been placing orders — including orders with expedited shipping — that aren’t being processed.
This totally erodes my faith in the company. I understand that companies can have system problems, but three freaking days?! That’s unacceptable. Allowing customers to place orders without any notice that they won’t be processed in a timely fashion is also unacceptable. (Geeks.com has been, as far as I can tell, pretty good in the past about notifying customers of delays in processing orders due to holidays or whatnot. I’ve seen several notices on the site over the years that warn customers that orders will be delayed due to holidays or whatever.)
I’ve spent more time than it’s worth chasing this order down already. I really don’t know that I will do business with Geeks.com again given the way that this has been handled, and the fact that I have a serious lack of faith in any ecommerce company that can’t get its order processing system restored in less than three days (and counting).
Thursday Update: Naturally, I didn’t get a call Wednesday afternoon or evening from anyone at Geeks.com. Called this afternoon (morning, their time) and (surprise!) the systems are still down. At this point, I have to wonder what the heck Geeks.com is using for its backend. Four days of downtime? That’s bleeping insane. At this point I can’t see ordering from the company again. Damn shame — I’ve bought a lot of stuff off of Geeks.com for reasonable prices, but I can’t see ordering from them again when I have no idea whether 1) I’ll actually get what I ordered, and 2) I’d be able to return an item without spending a week following up with the company in order to reach them when their systems are actually working.
I also consider it deceptive that the company has no notice on its Web site about the system outage, so people are happily placing orders through the Web site expecting that they’ll actually be processed in something like a reasonable time frame.
