Bad Experience With Newegg

[bainsidhe]

Based on what you posted, Peds, it looks to me like they've filed a claim with UPS on your behalf and are waiting for that to be resolved before determining what they'll do for you.

I agree with this. The 7-10 days to investigate a claim sounds like a quote from UPS. I'm supposing the policy is to wait for UPS to determine if the package is "truly" lost and if replacement is needed. UPS may have lost the package, or they may find it and deliver it in a few days. It could also be that UPS experienced some other delay that isn't noted on their website. It's happened.

The main failure I see here is that they didn't understand the urgency of the request. That and of course not opening the claim the first time. Personally, I wouldn't stop working with this company so long as they followed-through with the credit as promised. There seems to be a communication problem, but it's one they are trying to overcome.

[RealUnimportant]

I think a lot of what's making this seem worse than usual is the urgent requirement for the items. A lot of places I've dealt with will require some time (7-10 is average) to "prove" something's lost, and while I'm usually not in a rush for something I can see that if you are, this is going to be a far more acute problem.

If you've done everything you've been asked to do & this hasn't been properly recorded then this is going to be adding extra delays and that's just not acceptable; someone's dropping the ball. As such, I think you're handling this as best you can under the circumstances. If you no longer trust them, take the refund as soon as it's authorised & go to someone else you do trust.

[PepperElf]

Pedersen: If they wish to talk to me, they have my information. Right now, I'm just being abusive, and I need to stop that. Unless there is more you need to say, I'm going to close this window.

This says it all for me. You were getting upset, but you recognized when it was getting close to being counter-productive and admitted it. Not only to us, but to the CSR.

That takes courage and humility. And it's what separates you from the stories we read on the main page here.

*submits request to have you cloned*

[MaggieTheCat]

I know you said you want to be able to trust Newegg again, Pedersen, but I thought I'd chime in with my own story about them.

Several years ago, I ordered some memory from them. At the time, I was living with my parents and had my own Post Office box. When I placed the order, I entered both my PO Box number and my physical address in the address fields (one on address line 1 and the other on address line 2.) I had done this with many, many other companies before, including Newegg themselves, and never had a problem with it. If they were going to ship USPS, they had my PO Box to send it to, and if it was coming UPS/Fedex, they had my physical address. Note that I also included my phone number, a required piece of information on their order form.

I finalized the order and received an automated confirmation email that my order had been received and I should expect it in XX number of days. Well, that many days went by and I didn't receive my order, so I checked the tracking info on their website. My order had been cancelled the day after I had placed it. The heck?

So I contacted their customer support to find out what was going on. I was informed that they could not ship to PO Boxes and that they had tried to contact me via email to obtain a different address, and when I had not responded, they canceled the order.

What.

I didn't remember getting any email from them, so I went digging through my inbox. I eventually found the email in question, and the reason I missed it originally was because the "Sender" field was occupied by a woman's name (something like "Tonya P Richards") and the "Subject" field was "so# 12345678" Nowhere in either field was there anything suggesting the email was from Newegg, or any company at all, and I had skimmed over it as spam when I first received it.

I was rather livid. I sent them a polite but firmly worded email explaining why I had missed their email and how do they expect their customers to recognize emails from their company if they don't even properly identify themselves in the Sender/Subject lines? And why do they ask for a phone number if they aren't going to use it? (wouldn't you think they'd try calling me after sending the one lone email that didn't get responded to?) And, most infuriating, I HAD included a physical address on the order, which was clear in the confirmation email they sent me!

I never received any response. No apology, no offer to replace the order, nothing. I wasn't expecting it for free or anything, and I never asked for or indicated that, but an apology for the mix-up would have been nice. They didn't even acknowledge that they had gotten my complaint (and yes, I did keep a close eye on my email for a week or two after that to make sure I didn't miss it.)

Anyway, I don't order from them anymore and haven't since that incident, but my husband does and he swears by them. They're the only place he gets memory from.

[Andara Bledin]

This is a huge reply, so there's a TL;DR at the bottom.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you should go read up on "FOB Origin".

Sorry. Not true. FTC has specific rules on "mail order" consumer purchases, and those rules state that regardless of payment type or shipment type, the retailer is required to get the product to the delivery address.

Years and years of eBay will pound this detail into your head.

FOB Origin is only operative when dealing with situations such as wholesale, where the seller in question offers terms to customers. My company does both (and I'm in accounting and the CFO's assitant) so I have a lot of experience in this particular realm.

However, that being said, while the item is still lost in USP's bowels (which can be anywhere from a week [typical] to a month [rare]), it's not likely that any retailer will make any effort to replace product without payment to be returned when the original item turns up legitimately lost (very rare).

My company had one of these issues just two weeks ago. An item shipped via UPS was supposed to show up in a week, and at no point did UPS ever scan the package. They did that with three that were sent out that day (we usually ship about 30-40 daily, plus a half dozen FedEx and 2-3 dozen USPS) and by the end of the second week, all of those packages had been delivered.

While it entirely sucks to be on the receiving end of UPS not scanning a package, it's worth noting that they give preferential treatment to everything that isn't a Ground delivery. If you need to have something by a certain date, don't trust ground. Just don't. That will be the one time in a million that they run out of time to fully scan the ground packages (that seems to be what happens sometimes).

That said, if you do end up in this situation, and you do have time to wait, give it a week or two. As I mentioned before, it's exceedingly rare for them to actually lose a package. It might get caught up in their system and it's whereabouts be unknown, but they have an incredibly good record at getting things sorted out, eventually.

I don't think I'm being unreasonable, I really don't.

Not really. Being upset at Newegg's rep dropping the ball on your complaint is absolutely valid, and I'd be upset, too.

But I will re-iterate that if you're operating on a time limit, you can't rely on basic ground service. Five days is the stated average delivery time. When you factor in how often they deliver at one and two days, then you have to realize that sometimes there must be some truly terrible delays to push the average back to five.

I agree with this. The 7-10 days to investigate a claim sounds like a quote from UPS.

This is absolutely a quote from UPS; had this happen only two weeks ago, so it's pretty fresh in my mind, still. They won't really even look into it until it's been a couple of weeks. Because most of the time, the package is delivered and the issue resolved without them having to do a thing.

And why do they ask for a phone number if they aren't going to use it?

Totally outside of everything, but the phone number is for the shipper, not them. Their volume is likely such that they don't really have time to call every exception order. Which is why they send out emails; they're more efficient.

It doesn't excuse the fact that whoever dealt with your order (probably the woman whose name was on the email) couldn't manage to see that you had a physical address in addition to the PO Box; that should have been the first thing she did, not send you a form email.

........

TL;DR

First: Don't trust UPS Ground if you have to have something by a specific date; shell out for any of the guaranteed services. 5 days is an average, and a month for delivery isn't that unusual. Also, the 7-10 days for an unscanned ground package is standard for UPS. The place I work for had one of these two weeks ago; it showed up on the customer's doorstep on day 8. They almost never actually lose a package (can't remember any in the last 3 years, and we average 30-40 a day, so more than 20,000 shipments with 0 lost for us).

Second: FTC rules state that a mail order shipper is responsible for getting the product to the address the customer supplies (as long as it's valid). FOB Origin is only valid in situations that are almost never retail-related. The place I work for does both.

Third: It is not unreasonable to be upset at the response from Newegg. The fact that the first person promised something they couldn't deliver and then didn't even note the problem on the account is not cool at all. Honestly, other than that, it's just a situation that sucks for everybody and the best solution really is to just wait it out.

^-.-^

[Flying Grype]

In this case, I think it would be good for business for the company to simply send out a replacement immediately, using a quicker than normal method of shipping (overnite, or at least two-day shipping).

Agreed. If Pedersen can see that the package is lost, surely Newegg can also contact UPS just as quickly and find out that the package is lost. Then they should send a replacement ASAP and go follow up with UPS on their own time. And decide whether to keep using UPS. Sometimes if I see that someone is shipping UPS I'll change my mind about ordering the thing, personally.

You know what pisses me off about this story? The canned uber-polite waste-of-typing-space phrases. The "I understand your concern" and the "Please kindly note" and all that shit. It doesn't work if it's canned. I'd really, really rather have a support rep speak with me casually and tersely than to put up with this kind of dribble.

[Andara Bledin]

Except that the problem is that the package isn't actually lost; it's just not scanned.

Plus, that drivel will keep the majority of complainants from going ballistic. It doesn't matter that it's canned - most people want the insincere drivel, not honest straight talk.

^-.-^

[Pedersen]

I need to clarify a few things here, since I obviously did not do so in my original post.

Depending on which screen I went to, and which UPS rep I spoke with, the answer was different as to where the package was.

According to one site (UPS), my package had been scanned as having arrived at the local processing depot, and was out for delivery.

According to another site (Newegg, accessing some API from UPS), my package had been scanned at a different depot, but was still out for delivery.

According the CSR at the UPS call center, they couldn't tell for sure where it was, so they had the local depot call me back. The person at the local depot could only say "Not here. I know what you're seeing on the site, but we never received it." That was on day 2 of UPS 3 day ground shipping..

On day 3, everything was still in the same state, and the UPS CSR I spoke with advised me to open a claim with Newegg, since the package was probably lost.

I was very much appropriate in thinking that the package was lost. I ordered from a different company, and got the memory. A week later, the original order came in. Yes, I sent it back. If I could have used it, I might have been willing to keep it (and still have paid for it, I'm not a thief), but as it was? The order was useless, and I didn't cause the problems here, so I had no compunctions about sending it back.

[JMux]

Hi, longtime lurker here, but I have to chime in on this one. I think you have every right to be upset, and you are receiving very poor customer service. You didn't order product to receive it in 2-3 weeks, and though UPS is the one who lost the package, Newegg is failing to do their part to make it right.

As I mentioned before, it's exceedingly rare for them to actually lose a package. It might get caught up in their system and it's whereabouts be unknown, but they have an incredibly good record at getting things sorted out, eventually.

I have to disagree with this. I formerly worked in a the call center for a promotional marketing business, and then moved onto accounting/inventory/shipping, and know from personal experience, that UPS frequently loses packages. We shipped hundreds per day via UPS Ground (500+ during the holiday season) , and it happened more than we cared for. Our policy was to immediately replace it if it appeared to be lost due to the failure of the package to progress. We would either receive a refund from UPS or very rarely the package would be returned to us in a few weeks. I can't think of a single time that that we had to wait more than a couple days for UPS to respond that they would pay the claim, but I think 7-10 days is their normal spiel. Not that it changed the service level that we provided to our customers.

First: Don't trust UPS Ground if you have to have something by a specific date; shell out for any of the guaranteed services. 5 days is an average, and a month for delivery isn't that unusual. Also, the 7-10 days for an unscanned ground package is standard for UPS. The place I work for had one of these two weeks ago; it showed up on the customer's doorstep on day 8. They almost never actually lose a package (can't remember any in the last 3 years, and we average 30-40 a day, so more than 20,000 shipments with 0 lost for us).

UPS Ground is guaranteed in 1 to 6 business days depending on the location so a month for delivery is extremely out of scope.