Financial Freedumb and Brownie

I recently redeemed my ThankYou points.  Unfortunately, one of the problems of living in a state that is not directly connected to the continental US, is that we have funky shipping rules.  It sucks.  Anyway, I couldn’t place my order via the ThankYou website because of my shipping address, so I had to call.

Calling was fairly painless, no long wait, and I got in touch with a person after just pressing a few buttons, excluding my member number.  I place my order.  She says, “Sorry Freedumb, the Amazon Gift Certificates require additional approval from my management because they are not ‘cards’.”  Interesting.  What difference does it make?  I’d assume a paper certificate would be lighter than a card anyway.

She comes back a few minutes later, “Freedumb, I received approval, so we’ll be sending your order out right away.”

Cool!

So I confirmed, “Four $50 Amazon.com gift certificates right?”

“Yes, sir.  I have your address as __________, and we will be sending out 4 $50 Amazon.com gift certificates.”

“Thank you!”

{I hang up}  Right on!  That was painless.  A few days later, I receive my envelope, and I think to myself, “Hmmm, sure feels like ‘cards’ in here.”

I open up the envelope and sure enough…4 CompUSA $50 gift cards.  We’ll that sucks!  I read the receipt that says to call within 48 hours to report discrepancies, and next to it, it says no returns on gift cards or certificates.  Great.

So I immediately call, and this lady named Jennifer answers the phone.  After confirming the usual info, “Yes, Freedumb, how can I help you?”

“Hi, I ordered four Amazon.com gift certificates, but I got four CompUSA gift cards.”

“Well sir did you order online?”  I already knew where she was going with this, it’s my fault.

“No, I ordered over the phone because I live in Hawaii, and the website doesn’t accept orders to ship to Hawaii.”

“Okay, let me check…”

{a few minutes pass…}

“Sir you ordered four $50 CompUSA gift cards.”

“No, I didn’t.  I ordered 4 Amazon.com gift certificates.  The rep I spoke to earlier even had to get ‘additional approval’ and everything.”

“Well sir, the computer says you ordered 4 CompUSA gift cards.”

“No, I didn’t!”

{this repeats about 4 times}

Finally she says, “Freedumb, let me check with my manager…”

{a few minutes pass…}

“Sir, my manager says to return the cards to us…Our address is ________.”

So I sat there for a few seconds wondering, is she going to tell me any more specifics?  Nope she didn’t.  So I asked her, “Do I just send the cards back?  Do I get any tracking numbers?  Do I need to include my order number?”

“Yes.  No.  Yea.”

At this point I’m thinking, have they even done this before?  So I ask, “Okay well did you notate my account?  Can I have your manager’s name and last initial?”

“Yes, I’ve notated your account.”  Could be a bunch of bull as far as I’m aware…continuing…”My manager’s name is Michael.”

Me, “What about his last initial?”

“Sorry sir, I can’t give you that.”

I’m thinking okay, so Jennifer and Michael…not really the most unique names.  A short pause.  “Okay………..”

“I can tell you that we are in Orlando, and that we are the only Michael and Jennifer here.”

“Ahh, okay…I’ll get that sent back to you guys right away.”

“Thank you for calling ThankYou network.”

{click}

So I’m left wondering, couldn’t the 2nd call have been a lot more painless?  I mean, IDIDNOTORDERCOMPUSAGIFTCARDS.  They sure as heck better not lose or claim not to have received my gift cards because I will go ape crazy on them.  I’m already down $0.74 for postage, two 37 cent stamps, to send them back the cards.  Pennies you think?  Well, consider that’s $74.00 of purchases on my Citi card, it’s hard earned pennies!

If I post back in a couple weeks amping about Citi, you’ll know why.