5/5

posted Jul-02-2010

I have not ordered much in the past from UWantSavings.com, but on my recent order, I was so impressed by their customer service that I had to add them to my Good Deals list on my website.

They offered 100 Sharpie-brand markers for $29.99 with free shipping. Not just regular Sharpie markers, but a wide variety - regular, fine, broad, highlighters, Professional-series markers, and so forth; these usually sell for about 50¢-$5 each, depending on the variety, and this has no shipping or sales tax. Further, since they offered a free Restaurant.com $50 gift certificate with a purchase of $50 or more, I got two sets. Yes, 200 markers might last me a while, but I know that Sharpie-brand markers will hold up until I need them.

The day of delivery, I got an email with a bold banner instructing me to "check the porch - your order has been delivered!"

I found the box by the door, and I, being a conscientious shopper, counted them. There were 194. I emailed, hoping somebody might send an email apology and drop a half-dozen pens in an envelope in the mail.

That's not what they did. I got an email THE SAME DAY confirming a return and credit for the entire cost. Not just one set, but both. And not a RMA, but an updated receipt specifying that they had already been returned. (Granted, I have not seen a credit clear my account yet.)

And today, three days later, I received a box by UPS with 100 more markers. No receipt, statement, bill, anything - just 100 markers. That's customer service in action.

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1/5

posted Sep-03-2008

Stootsi generally offers reasonable prices on their products. My first item was a DVD burner with Blu-ray and HD-DVD reading abilities, new, by LG, and for only $131 delivered. It was received quickly and in excellent condition.

My next experience was similar. I ordered cable sets that were low-priced and with flat-rate shipping for multiple units. The items were received quickly and in excellent condition.

However, their service has been sliding dramatically.

In their recent "smorgasbord", they sold a number of mystery boxes with different ratings and prices. The highest of these, the "Platinum Box" for $50 came with a satisfaction guarantee. The contents of the box, however, were highly dissatisfying, both to myself and to many others. Unfortunately, the guarantee did not cover the $15 (typical) for return shipping, causing the guarantee to be worth little for those unwilling to settle for a refund of $35 on a $55 (after shipping each way) purchase.

Also, I ordered five of the "Bronze Box"es at $5 each (plus $5 shipping total). I received one of them, and asked Customer Service about the others, since I had no tracking information but the order showed as "shipped" in my online account. I was told that they had canceled them, since there was supposed to be a limit of one per person. My credit card was (later) refunded of the $20. This caused the one item I received to cost a total of $10, rather than the expected total $6 per box, and I was not given any information until I specifically asked.

Worse, they also sold a selection of "random PC game"s for 25¢ each, plus shipping. I ordered 400 of them, as they said they had thousands of unique titles and guaranteed that buyers would get no duplicates. I received 40 games (well, 40 items; some are expansion packs to games that were not included, and some are Macintosh games despite the "PC" description in the listing), and the remainder were canceled. What makes this really bad for them is that they stated in the online discussion that they had the games in hand but could not ship them in a timely manner, thus making this an explicit breech of contract. Instead of giving customers the option of either canceling or keeping the orders (albeit delayed), they just canceled them. And without so much as notifying anyone individually, without updating account information, and without refunding shipping costs (they offered a $5 coupon for the inconvenience, valid until 1/1/2009). They say that they will offer the remaining games later, but there is no promise that repeat customers will not get additional copies of the games they got the first time around and there is also no promise that the re-offering will be before the coupons expire.

Even now, my account does not reflect any of the orders as canceled. All five bronze boxes and all 400 games are still listed on the orders, and the orders have statuses of "shipped" with entered-but-voided shipping information.

I will be slow to order again from Stootsi, other than to use my coupons (which I paid for with my unrefunded shipping costs).

Update: Stootsi recently offered games for a penny, "One Random PC Game for a Penny + Penny Shipping", indicated in the description to help make up for the earlier fiasco. Well, I ordered a set at $25, which I believed to be for 2500 games, as they has stated before that they had thousands of different games. The price then changed to 1¢ (with a limit of 1 per order), and I placed another 7 orders (at 2¢ each, 1¢ for the item and 1¢ shipping.) All eight orders were charged to my credit card. Three days later, all but one of the orders was refunded. Without any explanation, email, or note on my account. In fact, my account shows every one of the orders as "shipped". I only found this, a week later, by going to my credit card company's website, since Stootsi has as of this point not told me anything. Oh, and the comments page for the item has been taken off the site, so I can't check for any official statement or make any comments there.

Follow-up: Stootsi responded by email: "The random PC game deal we offer has an order limit of 1 per customer, thus your duplicate orders were refunded." In that case, they should not have accepted the additional orders. It is not good business practice to accept orders and later cancel them, particularly it is in their power to fill them. And particularly when the order limit was not indicated on the website.

This review was modified by MPollard on October 27 2008 09:58:21 AM

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5/5

posted Aug-25-2008

8/1/2008: 36 tubes of "super glue", free plus shipping ($6). No, they weren't brand-name tubes; apparently the name is old enough to be used as a generic term. But 17¢/tube for what even a dollar store would charge a dollar (shocker...), or even more at regular stores, that's a steal! Just like their slogan says, "Remember, at Thing Fling it's not a deal ------- It's a steal!!" Within a few days of my order, I received a bag full of twelve three-tube packs of glue. Yes, 36 tubes might be over-kill, but I got those 36 tubes for the price of 6 tubes at a dollar store, less if you add sales tax.

8/4/2008: An "Unmystery Mystery Box". The Mystery items weren't worth much to me (several pairs of ear buds, etc.), but the Unmystery items (mostly a set of Altec Lansing 2.1 speakers) were nice, so the other was just bonus anyway. The speakers run $30, and they give me my first subwoofer. I have nice Kenwood speakers on my stereo, but no subwoofer...

8/11: CD/DVD repair kits, free plus shipping. They don't grind down like some do, but rather fill in scratches and polish over them. That gives disks a nice shine (which improves readability) while not leaving grind marks. And you can't beat the price, normally $2/set, but for me only $1.33/set, since I had bought an item already that day. They charge $6 for the first item, but $4 for the second, for a $10 s/h maximum per day.

8/11/2008: Cool Downz, case of 24. Considering these run $10 each, 24 at 97¢ each is a great deal. Cool Downz are evaporative cooler neck (or wherever you want cool) wraps. They use gel beads to stay cool and damp (but not dripping wet) long after a wet cloth would have dried out. Great for outside jobs or picnics, or for headaches/fevers.

This review was modified by MPollard on August 25 2008 11:50:47 AM

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