The Hairy Details

Now I'm very certain that all consumers out there want to know what happened with the TV set and if we all lived happily ever after.

So there's yes and there's maybe.

Although I was told that the set would be delivered last Friday and re-delivered on the Monday afterwards, I arrived at the house on Saturday to find the TV set, in its giant box, propped up in my otherwise empty house. This means someone's been sleeping in my bed. It possibly also means that UPS just dropped off the set and left it standing there. Blue moon, you left me standing alone on the porch.

Anyway, today was installation day. So my son Aaron and I had to un-pack the set and assemble it before the cable guy would touch it. And that's when we discovered that one end of the box was bashed in, one end of the foam was shattered and yup, the corner of the otherwise perfect frame to my TV is missing some bits of plastic or is that resin? We found the bits and tomorrow I will find some glue. Plastics, Benjamin.

I am certain I could call amazon.com or J&R or UPS or someone out there and return the set for an undamaged one...but how long would that take? And being the imperfect sort anyway, I am at peace with a less than perfect TV.

But so much for this kind of shopping. I will never buy a major appliance online again. But then, I've jsut bought a washer and dryer combo off of Craigslist, so if you never hear from me again...you know what happened.

Amazon is A Jungle Out There

Who cares if I was BORN TO SHOP or not...when it comes to getting some basics delivered here before I move to Paso or sent straight to my new house in Paso Robles, I have learned a lot about ordering from Amazon.

I won't whine, but here's what you need to do so it doesn't happen to you: When you get a message like 'buy this in the next 4 hours for delivery on such and such a date' they are sorta kidding. When you go for it, they ask for your zip code and then inform that delivery is not available then in that particular zip code. Since this is all done digitally, you have to hunt around for a half hour to find a phone number to speak to a real person. Whatever a real person is.

I reached a very nice gentlemen in, uh, Mumbai maybe.

Does someone have to sign for it when it comes?
I don't know.
If no one is home, will they leave it or come back later?
I don't know.

We are talking about a very large TV set here, it's not like you can leave it in the mail box.

Seems that Amazon is just the middleman and takes a cut of the action, but provides no information to shoppers or customer service whatsoever. Their promises may be charming, but unrealistic.

I've just had to pay an extra $96.99 in expeditated delivery fees to get within a delivery range that even works for me. But here's the good news -- my TV set is coming from J&R in NYC, a firm I not only trust, but one with excellent customer services skills.

They wrote me back immediately on email to help me through the delivery info, but they gave me Amazon's direct phone number, which is virtually impossible to get online, even from Amazon. Voila: 800-201-7575.

They stated my shipping date was 14 May and the expediated mail was second day delivery, so I would get the package on the 17th-- this worth the extra $100 to me.

Uh oh, THEN they wrote back (we are BFF by now) and the TV set has been shipped -- so now I'm back in the duck soup, trying to straighten this out. And it's all because
a) a large TV set wont fit into anyone's car, so I can't pick it up;
b) Amazon told me I could have delivery on a certain date but fibbed on that, but I arranged cable installation based on their faulty promise;
and c) I couldnt live without TV for any longer than three or four days, especially now that we approach the final episodes of most serial television.

Soooooo I called J&R (800/426-6027) and spoke to Frederico who explained that indeed, the TV will be delivered on Friday to Paso Robles by UPS. If no one is there to sign for the TV, UPS will make a second stab at delivery on Monday!

At last, information we can all use.