A friend of mine who had a birthday yesterday mentioned a gift certificate she received for her birthday. This instantly brought to mind a disaster that I experienced when purchasing a gift certificate from this very same company. I asked my friend if she received the online version of the gift certificate and if so, did she have any problems with the process. She confirmed that she did receive the online GC and that she has purchased and received several gifts in this format and has never had a problem. She assured me that if I had any problem with this company that I should take it up with customer service because their support is top-notch.
Yeah…………..about that…………………..in my experience………….not so much.
I have the sort of job that often finds me doing personal errands for my boss. Earlier this year, I purchased an online gift certificate from a well known online company (who was dubbed Glamazon.com by my favorite comedian, Mike Birbiglia) as a gift from my employer to her 12 year cousin.
***I’ve linked the story here but since many of you won’t click to read, allow me to summarize: MB had a bad experience with a television purchase which was only resolved to his satisfaction when it was revealed that he had a blog which is read by “millions”. The company made a one-time exception to their policy as long as he didn’t mention their name in his blog………….hence……Glamazon.com. It’s really a funny story if you have time to read it.***
So, as I was saying. I purchased the gift certificate for the cousin. A week or so later, I received an email from the cousin’s mother saying that there was a problem with the GC. I called Glamazon.com and was told that the GC was already redeemed. However because it wasn’t issued to me, she could not tell me what was purchased with the gift certificate or where the item was shipped. I was told the cousin would have to call to get that information. The cousin is a 12 year old girl who was easily overwhelmed by the situation but she gave it the old middle school try anyway. She was told that because the GC was purchased by someone else(me), Glamazon.com could not give her any information about what was purchased with a GC that was issued to her and emailed to her email address. I could go on and on about how many calls were made to Glamazon.com to resolve this matter but in the end I had to get the cousin’s Glamazon.com account name and password and with both her account info and mine, I was finally told that while they couldn’t tell me what was purchased, they could tell me that it was shipped to ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ in Maine.
No, that wasn’t really the name but there were so many letters that I lost count and I would challenge any one of you to pronounce it. Because I’m thorough, I made sure that the cousin didn’t know this ABCDEF……(his nickname).
Once again, I called Glamazon.com to inform them that the cousin did not know the person to whom the item was shipped and clearly the GC # had been stolen. I was told that would have to be handled by another department and I would hear from them within 48 hours.
A week came and went without a word from “the special department”. Several calls were made to Glamazon.com in an effort to resolve this disaster called a hundred dollar gift certificate. In the end, I turned to Bank of America, who was the issuer of the credit card used to purchase the GC. The amount was immediately credited to our account pending investigation into the case. A month later, I was informed that BOA agreed that fraud had been committed and the case was closed.
The moral to the story, folks, is go ahead and get that GC online if you dare but if I were you, I would choose to have the card actually sent snail mail instead of an e-certificate. Jane assures me that she has never had a problem but if that were to happen to me again, I could not be held responsible for my actions in a court of law. Justifiable rampage, I’m sure.
Hugs,
Smart Mouth Broad
