Beyond the soap-pail....

This is a long, ridiculous tale. There is a flip side to it. Insights hopefully gained about myself and relationships, past and current. But I'm not sharing those, at least for now.

***

Early November, 2018.
I need some more Fido Fresh. That means I gotta place an order with the soap ladies. Do I even wanna do that? But it's the only place I can get Fido Fresh. I wonder if their customer service is any better? I wonder if they are still up and running since Hurricane Florence?

I check their website. It appears open for orders.

Just because the website appears like it's still taking orders, doesn't mean it's active. Better check Facebook.

I check their Facebook business page.

Okay. They are posting, so they must be up and running.


November 9, 2018
I'll place my order now to give it time in case they screw up again. I'll use Discover and not my Paypal balance. That way, if there's a problem it's easier to dispute. And I have until December 15 before my Discover payment is due. I'll order lots of Fido Fresh because if they screw up this time, I'm never ordering again. That will give me time to find an alternative for the Fido Fresh. I'll order some Christmas gifts too. November 9th will give plenty of time to get here by Christmas.

• November 9th. I place my order. Nine bottles of Fido Fresh plus some Christmas gifts. Total: $206.66 which includes tax.

I receive an automated receipt via email. It states that if they can't ship my order within 48 hours they'll contact me. And that when they ship it, they'll send me a tracking number. Neither of those statements are true; at least not for my last two orders in November, 2017, and June, 2018. I'd ordered one or two times prior to 2017 with no problems.

I immediately email the soap lady (with whom I'd had brief communication in July about my June order). I ask her to include the Bug Off soap that I never received from my June order, if they have it in stock. If they don't have it, just donate that money to a hurricane fund. It's only around $7.

I receive no response to my email.

I give the order until November 26th.

• November 26th. No order and no communication from the soap ladies. I call and leave a voice mail inquiring the status of the order. No response.

God. Here we go again. Same shit as the previous two orders. And no one has ever answered the phone when I've called. Always just goes to voicemail. And then no one calls back. At least I ordered early this time and used Discover.

• November 30th. I email inquiring status. No response.
• December 4th. Email again. This time I give a deadline: December 8th. I inform them that if I don't hear back or receive the order by then, I'll contact Discover to issue a dispute and that I'll probably not place any future orders. No response.
• December 5th. Leave another voicemail. Give them the December 8th deadline.
• December 8th. My deadline date. Finally, I hear from them for the first time since I placed my order on 11/09! An email sent at 7:27 AM. Soap lady apologizes for the delays. Says she and other soap lady are working and going to school and running the business. Says, "We do have your order ready to ship out this morning, including the Bug Off Soap. I will send you a tracking number as soon as I have one." She doesn't apologize for the non-communication.

Well that's fine and dandy. No excuse for the poor service. They shouldn't be running a business. Or should at least change their website: "Two to five week delivery time. Slow response to phone calls and emails." I've run a small business, and that with a serious, long-term illness. I know how hard it is. But I would never treat customers like this. I wonder if they do many mail orders? Or are they mainly doing shows? But they posted on Facebook at the end of November promoting their website. Am I the only one that has these problems with them?

Calm down Carol. You don't know what else is going in their lives. Just get this order. It's not worth belaboring over. You probably won't order in the future anyway.

• December 8th.I respond simply with, "Apology accepted. That's a lot on your plate. I look forward to getting the order."
• December 9th. 12:40 PM. Email asking if they were able to ship it 12/08 and inquiring the tracking number. No response.
• December 10th. 7:58 PM. Email again inquiring tracking number and what day they shipped it.
• December 11th. 8:17 AM: Receive an email response. "I have your tracking number. [the number]" No response to my question of when they shipped it.
• December 11th. 10:47 AM: Email again because tracking states that USPS is still waiting for the package so that USPS can ship it. Ask what day it was shipped and when I can expect it.
• December 11th. 7:32 PM: Email again, a copy and paste of the email I'd sent earlier in the day asking what day it was shipped and when I can expect it.
• December 12th. 8:52 AM: Soap lady responds that it was shipped on 12/11 and that I should receive it on 12/15. That if the USPS site doesn't update soon, she'll go to USPS and investigate.

So she didn't ship it 12/08. Hmmm...

• December 13th. 6:50 AM: Email again because USPS site still shows that USPS doesn't have the package. I let soap lady know that if it isn't in route or received by the time I have to pay my Discover, I'll probably dispute the charge. No response.

Did she really not ship it yet?! Is it possible the box got lost at the facility? What the hell?

• December 14th. I check the tracking status on the USPS site. It states USPS received the package for shipment in Wilmington from the vendor on 12/13 at 6:31PM, not 12/11 as I was told. First they told me 12/08. Then 12/11. The reality is 12/13. Tracking states the package is due for delivery on 12/17.

At this point I am, understandably beyond irritated. I'm trying to curb my pissery.

I know I told them if the package isn't "in route" I'd call Discover. But now, even if it's in route and if I don't get it by 12/15 when my Discover is due...I'll have to dispute the charge. Who knows if the order will be correct after all this?

I sign up for USPS Informed Delivery Service which means I'll get an email, a daily digest, of what mail I'm receiving each day and what packages are in route. Envelopes are scanned, so pictures come through of them. No scanned pictures of packages. But the daily digest emails provide tracking numbers for any packages. I have until December 15th at 5:00 PM to pay my Discover card.

• December 15th. Early morning. USPS tracking has updated stating that the package will arrive on 12/15, instead of 12/17 as previously stated.
• December 15th. 7:30ish AM. Package arrives. One box only containing only the nine bottles of Fido Fresh and two Soap on the Run. The order is missing nine other items that I had ordered as Christmas gifts.

I shake my head. Unbelievable.

• December 15th. I contact Discover disputing the part of the order that is missing and outlining what has happened with this order, and my two previous orders. This is the third time I've had issues. I specifically ask for a refund of the missing products, that I do not want the products now. Total refund due, $83.48. I do not contact the soap ladies because of their pattern of non-responses. Discover says that's fine, that they will be notifying the vendor.

This is crazy. Soap ladies oughtta pay me for all my work and aggravation in baby sitting this order.

• December 17th. Wee morning hours. I receive two emails from Paypal. One, that Paypal received a dispute from my Discover. And two, that I now have to go through a two-step process to use my Paypal account.

Damn it. Though I get it, for security reasons. Still I'm the one now paying a 'penalty.' This whole thing is ludicrous. Over soap!

• December 17th. Early AM. I hunt for 15 minutes on the Paypal site to figure out how to email them. Then I discover I can only use so many characters. So I painstakingly revise my timeline of problems I've had with this vendor so it fits within the character limit and still makes some sense. Even though I don't have to respond to Paypal, I feel I should let them know what happened, especially if they have received other complaints. I do not outline the problems from the previous 2 orders but do mention them.
• December 17th. 6:27 AM. I receive an email from the soap lady. "I see that you disputed part of your order with PayPal. What happened? You should have received 2 boxes, one with the Fido Fresh and another with everything else. Did you not get them both? Or were you not happy with some of it? I know I have struggled getting your order to you, but I will resend anything you didn't receive or that wasn't correct today if you let me know."

She didn't send two boxes. There'd be two tracking numbers! Did she send the other box to a wrong address? Is she just lying all the time? Repeated errors due to fatigue or some sort of cognitive dysfunction? What the hell? How are they still in business?

I calm myself to compose an email.

• December 17th. 8:53 AM. I email a response. Second paragraph, third and fourth sentences state, "Do not send the other items. Please issue the requested refund." I then directly spell out my complaints about their service, giving a measured response but at the same time hopefully conveying my dissatisfaction. I include a timeline of the problems with this order and two other timelines with the problems from the two previous orders. I inform her I'll not be ordering in the future. No response.
• December 18th. I receive the damn daily digest from USPS. It states I have a package on the way from Wilmington that was shipped on 12/17 at 5:31 PM. Should arrive on December 20th.

WTF!?! You're kidding me!! My god! I can't believe this! Does she do this because she gets her jollies out of pissing others off? WTF!?!

I'm livid. I go back and reread my email that I sent on 12/17. It's clear as can be. "Do not send the other items. Please issue the requested refund."

Carol, calm down. It's only $83. And maybe the package isn't from the soap ladies. Maybe it's that book from the UK that was shipped on December 14th. Maybe it came into port at Wilmington.

I compose an email. It's obvious I'm livid, if that package is from them. I revise the email multiple times. I do not send it. I try not to think about this whole scenario. But that's impossible.

If that package is from them..... Geez. Grrrrrrr.

• December 20th 6:15 PM. I arrive home. Awaiting me is the package from Wilmington. The return address contains no name. The previous shipment contained their business name. And this label is handwritten. The previous label was computer generated. I pull out the box from the previous shipment to compare return addresses. Same address. I do not open the package.

I'm livid times four.

• December 20th. 6:35 PM. I call the soap ladies and leave a voicemail expressing, in no uncertain terms, my lividity. I let them know I'm refusing the shipment. That I can't believe their total disregard to my instructions in my email to not ship the items, to issue the refund instead. That now I have to take the damn package to the post office, with my walker because I'm disabled, in the rain, at Christmastime! That the decent thing to do would be to refund me the whole $206 for all my aggravation. That I've already bought other Christmas gifts to replace the items. Plus, I wouldn't give their products as gifts to anyone because their name and website are on the products and this is the worst customer service I've ever experienced. I remind them of when I placed this order and that no one responded and that I was given two different dates when the order was shipped and both were wrong. I end it, "Bye!"

This is almost unbelievable, except that it seems like their standard mode of operation. This whole thing has been exhausting. Over soap! And now a measly $83! There's too much toxicity associated with this box. I just want it out of here, and I want nothing to do with these ladies ever again.

But...I'll still use the Fido Fresh until I run out. Not sure what I'll do with the few soap bars I've got in stock from previous orders.

• December 20th. 7:20 PM. I call Discover and talk to a rep updating what has happened. The rep walks me through how to upload documents on the dispute on the Discover website. I put together documents and upload them. I finish up around 9:00 PM.

I unsubscribe from USPS Informed Delivery daily digest. I really don't like knowing what's coming in my mail.