See update at bottom!
12 boxes. 12 sheets of bubble wrap. 12 packing slips. 12 separate deliveries to my front door. All for the want of a pair of red and black shoes. Someone at Finish Line has a wicked sense of humor. Either that or they need to fire whoever wrote the code for the shipping part of their website. I’m kinda hoping it’s the former.
Let me back up. About two weeks ago I saw that Finish Line was having a super clearance online sale plus I had a coupon. I’ve long wanted to a pair of red and black athletic shoes to match all my, yes, red and black outfits (feel free to judge, I’m not proud) and so when I saw a gorgeous pair of shoes in just the right colors on clearance, I pounced. But if I spent ten more dollars I’d get free shipping so I did what any good bargainista would do and went to the accessories section. They had – prepare to be astounded – athletic socks on clearance for $1/pair. Who can’t always use more socks?! Plus they were super cute neon and zebra prints and whatnot. I added 12 pairs to my cart, checked out and went to bed to dream of red and black shoes.
A few days later, a package arrived at my front door. My shoes were here! I ripped open the box to find this:
Yes, they sent me exactly one pair of socks in a box big enough to hold three pairs of shoes. I rolled my eyes, chucked the box and waited. The next day, by the magic of brown-shirted sprites, a new box appeared. Yay, shoes! But no. Again it was one pair of socks. The following day two identical boxes arrived by Fed-Ex and a third via the US postal service. ALL SOCKS. In individual packages. My husband looked incredulous when I swore to him that all I’d bought were socks and by my accounting I still had seven pairs coming my way. It’s like the twelve days of Christmas! If Santa’s elves smoke pot!
Fast forward a week and a half and I’ve finally got all my socks, except one pair of neon pink cheetah print, but still no shoes. So today I checked my order online. They’d cancelled my order for the shoes. CANCELLED. Without so much as an e-mail to let me know. Heck I would have even appreciated a large package filled with nothing but bubble wrap and a note. The entire reason I’d made the purchase has vanished into the ether and in the meantime I’m slowly drowning in a pile of boxes.
And I’m pretty sure my UPS man now thinks I’m a drug mule.
Thank you Finish Line.
You see that huge bottom box there? ONE PAIR OF SOCKS INSIDE. Also, these jeans are supposed to be artfully distressed but now that I see them in this photo it kinda just looks like I peed my pants a little. Double fail.
Make me feel better – any of you have a bad internet ordering story? At what point do I need to start tipping the UPS guy?
UPDATE 9/15/2011 4 p.m.: Finish Line saw my post (yay, power of the Internet!) and called me to say they’re sorry about the hassle and also that they found my shoes and are shipping them to me and are not charging me for them! Their rep even called back a second time to be sure that I knew my shoes and the last remaining pair of socks will be coming in separate boxes because they’re from different distributors. I knew they had a good sense of humor! (They did not have a solution however to my pre-peed-in pants so I guess I’m on my own there.) Seriously though – I’m blown away by their customer service. So fast, totally polite, and amazing! Companies take note: this is how it’s done! Thanks Finish Line:)
I’d just call and raise a stink until they gave you the shoes for free! They need to tell you if they cancel your order (read the fine print to make sure there’s no “we reserve the right to cancel at any time blah blah blah” but they owe you notice for common decency – even if it’s just an email). Plus CHECK YOUR CREDIT CARD/BANK STATEMENT to make sure they didn’t charge you for the shoes anyway. Ask to speak to a manager, review that, and tell them that you don’t want their horrible, cheaply made socks and only ordered them as they were basically free and you’re so concerned over their obviously shitty customer service that you want to return the socks and not give them your business (Foot locker ships too!). They probably could have paid for the damn shoes with all the money they wasted on shipping.
I tried to order a band tshirt years ago. First the company sent a shirt for a different band, then I returned it and they shipped the same shirt again. Then a cd by that band. Then the wrong size. We went through several rounds of that. I got so fed up I called the company, got a manager, and (without yelling, but firmly) told him what exactly I thought of the ridiculous, months-long process at that point. I ended up with multiple cds, tshirts and other goodies by the band I actually liked for free. (Still never shopped there, because it wasn’t worth the hassle – but free stuff is fun!)
That’s kind of hilarious!!!! I’d call too and ask them what’s up? Hopefully it’s just a mistake that can be easily fixed.
I just had the most hilarious vision.
Elf 1: *tokes* So… dude… we should, like, spread the love.
Elf 2: *tokes* WITH SOCKS
Now that is a t-shirt slogan right there (but no drug ref’s) and I’d buy one for a good cause! ‘Spread the love….with socks!’
I’d buy that shirt, too! Just not from Finish Line.
I have gotten stuff from Amazon packed like that (two pairs of socks in a big box). So bizarre. You would think the shipping would kill them!
At any rate, yeah, if you don’t want the socks, tell them you want a prepaid return shipping label. For 12 boxes 😉
They probably just hired a bunch of folks who used to be packers for movers. Raise your hand if you’ve ever had your trash packed and shipped out of state in warm weather! And I ditto the check-your-card advice. Keep us updated!
They’re just doing their part to keep the Postal Service in business.
I’ve been pretty lucky in this area! One item that is risky is shoes! I had a pair of I’s from a company and they went to the II version so I figured it was a safe bet, but no, they decided to change the toe off thingy and they were shortened by 1’/4 inch. I called the company offices and they sent me a different model, gratis 🙂 Mon used to talk about the squeaky wheel , lol!
Definitely contact the company AND the Better Business Bureau/Consumer Affairs. I recently contacted BBB about a purchase I made and the manager of that company CALLED ME, to tell me that not only was I getting a refund, but that I could go ahead and keep the product! (Unfortunately I’d already returned it. Otherwise I would have tried to sell it. Is that evil?)
Hey, at least you have plenty of boxes to make forts with in the living room, right?
I hate the measurements page. I ordered a rain coat and rain pants and according to their measurements, I would be snug in an XL. In stores I never wear XL, usually M, sometimes L but I trusted their measurements an ordered the XL.
It arrived and it was HUGE. MASSIVE. And I had no time to return it because I needed the gear.
Ugh.
I placed a large order for church craft supplies. Instead of sending them in one or two boxes, we got multiple boxes over the course of 3 weeks. The UPS man knows my name and says hi now (at least he’s nice). The kicker is the paint I needed arrived after I had the lesson planned so I had to buy paint anyway.
That certainly deserves a phone call or a letter to someone at the company! What a waste of resources AND money! They probably don’t realize how much they are wasting.
Also, I once ordered a pair of shoes directly from Brooks and they canceled my order AFTER they charged my credit card. I emailed them and they said it would be 5-7 business days before they refunded me my money. Sketchy.
We had a motorcycle helmet delivered to a wheelie bin(giant trash can),not ours though, it was the one belonging to the house 500 yards up the street. If he hadn’t had a card saying ‘left in a safe place,black dustbin’,he wouldn’t have found it and then he had to discover which neighbour it was really left for. Luckily we know a few of the people in our road or it would have been lost forever.
Do you have the rule that you can change your mind about an order within a certain length of time if it is an online purchase? we have that in the uk
I know this must be extremely frustrating, but I can’t stop laughing at the thought of all those huge boxes for little pairs of socks. They aren’t even something that needs lots of bubble wrap or protection!
I think my favorite part is that you ordered the socks so that you could get free shipping. And then they paid way more on shipping than they would have to just send you the pair of shoes you actually wanted.
I hope you’ll put a call into their company about the shoes and it will all get straightened out!
Wow. That’s even worse than the lab suppliles I order all the time at work. Often for a tiny item we get a HUGE box full of paper and the tiny thing in the middle, as most companies have only 2 size boxes to ship. I have actually accidentally thrown out what I ordered with the packing material once, thinking I was sent an empty box (which has also happened, ahem). I’m wondering if you had a ticked off warehouse guy who was having a bit of fun in his day…
Not surprised about the cancelled order with no contact…happens to me al lt e time.
I swear the shipping gods don’t always think things through before they act lol.
Hey, it pays to be famous on the internet! 😉
I have ordered from a company that had different distribution centers & I kept getting boxes. Drove me crazy! 😉
I’m glad everything seems to be straightening out – but I wouldn’t fully trust it until the shoes are yours!
And at my house, boxes are the best toys ever!
I’ve had similar things happen with amazon, but never twelve boxes with twelve pairs of socks! at least they didn’t make it 24 shipments of one sock each … 🙂
LOL, I love how this ended. If your kids are like mine, I bet they LOVED playing with all the boxes and thought it was the coolest thing ever when they kept sending you more.
My kids try to steal the boxes from Costco 🙂
Those must be some amazing shoes to have put up with all of the craziness. At least they managed to find your shoes and get them to you in the end!
Hooray for happy endings. Er… 😉
That’s the one thing I hate about online shopping – all the packaging. Particularly as I do a lot of online shopping. I try to recycle the boxes but now have several carrier bags full of polystyrene peanuts from different deliveries over the years, as I don’t want to chuck them, but have little use for them until the next time I move.
I had a similar shipping problem as yourself earlier in the year. I had to get new printer cartridges, and my printer’s the type that needs one cartridge for each colour. So I ordered 5 cartridges from this one online shop and several days later had 5 separate packages turn up at my home. Not a sign of an organised store!
LOL I just giggled and snorted my way through this whole post, then read it out loud to my husband in its entirety. HILARIOUS. Of course, the distribution portion of my company also sends orders out piece by piece. I am PRETTY sure we’d never send out such small items in such giant boxes though. 😛 haha. I am still giggling intermittently.
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