I bought all of my Christmas gifts on December 9th. One still hasn't arrived yet. Yep, it's December 29th.
I'd ordered a CD set of Charlie Parker's complete recordings on Verve. This was going to be a gift from my brothers and I to our father, as it's a $150 set. I looked on Amazon, and there was a seller through Amazon's marketplace thingy offering it new and factory sealed for $108. They had a 99% positive feedback, so I ordered it from them.
Ten days later, the package arrived. However, it had a CD set of folk songs in it, as well as the receipt for the order of someone in California. I immediately emailed the company, and this is all I got:
Thank you for the email. We will provide you with a prepaid return label, so that you may send back the mis-shipped order.
Great. Because I really give a crap on whether you get your stuff back or not. I emailed a reply asked when I'd get my CD set, and...I haven't heard from them since. The company is based out of chain of stores in New England, so I figured they were extreme dumbasses and had everyone take off for Christmas, but by December 27th, I hadn't heard anything from them, and I hadn't even received the prepaid return label they'd promised.
My mom tracked down a phone number for the company. I got a busy signal every time I tried calling. I tried to fill out their customer service form on their website. There's a bug in it that won't let me submit my complaint. So I sent them another email to their "customer service" address rather than their "orders" address, threatening to cancel the purchase on my credit card if I didn't hear anything.
Well, I didn't hear anything. I called my credit card company this morning, and started the process for a charge dispute. Hopefully that'll get the company off their assess and mail me my dad's gift. If anything, I buy it somewhere else and I have a $74 set of folk songs. Looking at the website where I first found this, I notice that their price for the Charlie Parker set has gone up to $115 and their positive feedback has dropped to 98%. Let's see if I can make it lower.
Saturday, December 29, 2007
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Season's Greetings
I love the holiday season, I really do. I love the lights and songs and yes, even the schmaltzy sentimentality. The only thing I don't like about it is agonizing over what to give as gifts. This year I think I set a personal best by managing to start and finish the entirety of my holiday shopping in one day - December 9th, to be exact.
Most of the shopping was done that night on Amazon, but the trip actually started the night before. I'd gone into Manhattan with my dad to go to Central Park, and the annual gathering that goes with the anniversary of the death of John Lennon. This was my fourth time going since 2000, and it might be the hundreds of people and even more candles, but I've never felt really cold there, despite the December weather.
I stayed over at my dad and stepmom's apartment that night, and in the morning went to Union Square, which has holiday gift vendors set up. On my way there, I passed hundreds of people marching down 3rd avenue yelling to free Tibet, and on 14th street I passed a gift store, which is where I ended up buying most of my gifts.
Anyway, I still spent almost two hours wandering through the vendors' booths, and here was my favorite item from my favorite booth.
Yes, that is a Christmas ornament. Look at the shape of it again if you didn't catch it the first time. That would be a magen David. I should have bought it. It's the perfect ornament for me, someone who celebrates both Chanukah and Christmas.
This coming week is the most stressful of the year, what with four performances and two night rehearsals. Coordinating all the kids this week is something that I like to refer to as the giant Tetris game, and that's just the start of everything that needs to be pulled off. But then I get to relax, get presents, and gorge myself on food. It's a nice trade-off.
Most of the shopping was done that night on Amazon, but the trip actually started the night before. I'd gone into Manhattan with my dad to go to Central Park, and the annual gathering that goes with the anniversary of the death of John Lennon. This was my fourth time going since 2000, and it might be the hundreds of people and even more candles, but I've never felt really cold there, despite the December weather.
I stayed over at my dad and stepmom's apartment that night, and in the morning went to Union Square, which has holiday gift vendors set up. On my way there, I passed hundreds of people marching down 3rd avenue yelling to free Tibet, and on 14th street I passed a gift store, which is where I ended up buying most of my gifts.
Anyway, I still spent almost two hours wandering through the vendors' booths, and here was my favorite item from my favorite booth.
Here's what it says, in case you can't read it: "Lookin' good for Jesus. Virtuous vanilla spf 18 lip balm. Be worthy, be noticed. Get tight with Christ!"
In case you're worried about the nature of the booth's merchandise, what I ended up buying there were a box of bandages that looked like strips of bacon.
This last photo is actually not from Union Square, but my local CVS.
Yes, that is a Christmas ornament. Look at the shape of it again if you didn't catch it the first time. That would be a magen David. I should have bought it. It's the perfect ornament for me, someone who celebrates both Chanukah and Christmas.
This coming week is the most stressful of the year, what with four performances and two night rehearsals. Coordinating all the kids this week is something that I like to refer to as the giant Tetris game, and that's just the start of everything that needs to be pulled off. But then I get to relax, get presents, and gorge myself on food. It's a nice trade-off.
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