As Promised, I Got Louder

You may have read about my frustration with Walmart. I tried to be patient with them for about a week longer. Or perhaps by then I was so pissed off with them I wanted even more excuse to be pissed off with them. Does it matter? They still had about $50 of my money while I had nothing to show for it, over two weeks in.

After another week, I went to the local store's customer service counter. I figured I better hit them before the X-mas returns season kicks in. I don't really enjoy hiking in from the far corner of their parking lot, or even having to find parking in somebody else's parking lot across the street. It's a truly nasty time to try to get their attention. So I went a bit after supper. The crowds were just a bit above normal. Better yet, I was next in line to talk to an actual human, an English speaking, helpful, human.

They couldn't help me. At least, not directly. However, they called over whoever on the floor was the big-wig-of-the-day for their department. Over the phone system I plainly heard him complain, "Do you really need me to come way up front to the counter?"

Yes.

We did. Their rules, after all. The guy calling him didn't have the authority to help. Today, only he did.

He was only 5 minutes away from the customer service counter. I hadn't realized the store was large enough for it to take a reasonably healthy young man to take that long traversing it. I do freely admit he may possibly have been doing something in a dark recess that involved other preparations before he could emerge into the public eye again. Maybe wash his hands too. I didn't choose to ask however. I was busy gathering all the details in my head in order again, trying to be sure I had dates right, order prices correct or reasonably so, and knew which delivery was which, or rather, how many cases failed to arrive each time they were ordered.

Young Mr. Bigwig looked me up in a special computer which handles internet orders. He couldn't find either of my orders. Now had he been a jerk, he might have challenged my truthfulness and sent me packing. Instead he wrote down an 800 number for me to call to straighten it out after I got home. (I've kept that number, by the way.) His department still couldn't have given me either refund anyway, so I guess his special authority was for passing along the magic 800 number. The folks on the other end of the phone call could give the refund,  provided we could actually understand each other. These were not calls to anywhere in the good ol'  Yoo Ess of A. So it takes my ear a minute or two to catch up to what is getting said.

First there was Charles. (Righhhht, sure, "Charles".) OK, call yourself whatever you want to if you can help.

Thanks to coaching from young Mr. BigWig for the day, I knew to have looked up my orders and get the bazillion-digit order numbers - both of them of course - before I started my call. "Charles" quickly located them, listened to me tell him which pieces of each order had not arrived, and was talking about sending a refund to my credit card, when my phone died. Yep, out of juice. Forgot to charge the dang thing. It takes about ten minutes after it dies and I start charging again for it to be able to connect a call.

Hmm, must be something to eat around here, eh? Yogurt looks good. Took the right amount of time as well. The phone worked again so long as it stayed plugged in, so I called back.

This time I got Emanuel.

I apologized for seeming to hang up on Charles, but explained what happened. He claimed he understood. Not necessarily doubting him, just thinking at the time he's well trained to try to establish rapport with likely 99 angry customers daily. Back to business then. I knew what order numbers to give him, hoped Charles hadn't gotten far enough into fixing my problem that it'd look like I was trying to double-dip my refunds, and proceeded with getting my money back ASAP. Apparently Charles had done nothing that actually stuck in their system. We just hadn't gotten that far. So Emanuel took over, explaining the refunds, and that usually each went through in a week's time. But since I'd already been out of pocket for significantly longer than that, he was going to push them through. In this case, "ASAP"  turned out to meaning 4 days. They showed up as credits on my card before I went to bed last night.

I still would rather have gotten Steve's Brisk Ice Tea instead, though. Apparently that's not an option. Considering what I went through to try to get  seven 24-packs of cans delivered, getting only two plus a ton of excuses, perhaps that's a wise choice on their part.

Steve is already shopping elsewhere for more of his favorite drink. It doesn't come to us for free like it would on a Walmart order over $35. But we do actually get it when we leave the house.