Quality, My Ass!

Since you all seemed to enjoy the cable guy’s ass-print on the roof of my Tiburon story (humor me), I’ll give ya one more. I’m still stewing about this, by the way, and I have vowed that I will never buy another product from (through) this company again … unless for some reason I need a job and they hire me.

A couple of years ago, I heard about this really cool microwave/conventional oven. Basically, in addition to being a microwave oven and (more or less) a rather large toaster oven, this seemingly incredible über-oven was also a bread-maker, cake-maker, and rotisserie – all for around $250. Now, our kitchen is on the smallish side, so anytime a company makes an “all-in-one” product, I’m listening with both ears. By the way, this product was featured on one of those home-shopping stations. I won’t give you the name, but the company promises Quality, Value, and Convenience.

I decided to go online and place the order for this oven, and am put on a waiting list – no big deal. They won’t charge my credit card until the oven is delivered (this was a few days after Halloween, 2004). I am told that I could be on the waiting list for up to 3 months – again, I’m not concerned – a product this good I can wait for. I routinely checked the website to see the status, and right around Christmas time, the website says that the product has been shipped, and I can expect it sometime after January 1. I am jumping out of my skin at this point – I can’t wait to have this thing in my house, even though I probably will never make bread nor cake – just telling friends that I could, if I wanted to, would be awesome.

So, January 1 comes and goes. Then, the 5th comes and goes, and then finally on January 10, I call the place. The customer service rep says that this is common, and I should wait until January 17 – if the Intellichef is not at my doorstep on that day, I should call back. Well, January 17 comes, and still no oven. I call the place again, and the customer service rep says that she will reimburse me my money … I’m not satisfied, because I want the Swiss-army-oven, dammit! The lady says she could put me on the waiting list again. Steam was beginning to come out of my ears – I said that if I am put on the waiting list again, at the very least, I should be put at the top of it, because I had been on the list before. No dice. So, I was put on the list again … at the bottom.

So, three months go by, and I am still on the waiting list. I contact the customer service rep, and she says that it is a popular item and that I could be on for a little while. Then, 6 months go by, and still nothing. I begin to think that this company probably thinks that I screwed them out of the last microwave and I’m trying to get a second one for free. I call the customer service rep again, and ask her if I should just move on with my life – and she says “No, you’ll definitely get it.” 9 months go by, and still no microwave. Again, I call the customer service rep and ask her if I should just expect that I’m never going to get this microwave. Once again, the lady told me to be patient. It’s been about 12 months – I think I’ve demonstrated how patient I can be. Ghandi would be jealous ….probably not.

About a week after this, I got an e-mail from the company saying that they would not be able to fulfill my order. I was livid. I wrote them a real nasty letter saying stuff like “I thought you stood for Quality, Value, and Convenience – I received none of these.” I thought the company would at least acknowledge this, and offer me some kind of coupon for %20 off – but alas, I never heard from them again. Jerks.