Thursday, May 25, 2006

Snark works

Since all has been quiet on the home front this week, I decided to take care of a few nagging issues that were bound to plague me sooner or later, considering how much online shopping I do. About a month before Liam's birthday, I ordered him this shirt: Except, of course, that it said "I am one". And I ordered it in beanstalk, a fresh shade of green that I thought would look great on him. I ordered it and paid for it in March - and here I am, three months later, still shirt-less. Numerous emails to the company were first acknowledged with friendly "We'll look into it and get back to you" replies, and then ignored altogether. Let's face it, the clock is ticking; he only has ten months left to wear that shirt now, not twelve. Finally I filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau in New Hampshire. Two days later... instant refund. Beware of Clever Kingdom!... their clothes are cute... they just don't materialize.

My other moment of snarkiness this week came in dealing with Bloomex. I ordered flowers from them last week. Here is what the flowers were supposed to look like:

And here is the vase, which I had to buy separately from the flowers. I upgraded from the standard vase to get a hand blown art glass vase (so they called it) - which cost $12.99:Here are the flowers that were sent. They're not exact, but they're close (ugly asparagus fern aside), and I can live with that. But check out the vase:

I mean, is this not the same ugly thing you see at the dollar store all the time? Is this thing worth $12.99? I think not. After a couple of emails to the company that were (what else?) ignored, I said I was going to contact my credit card company to contest the charges. Bingo - within an hour, a refund was granted.

Moral of the story: snark works...

4 comments:

megan said...

Perhaps the flowers would have looked better in the beer bottle?

Too bad about the shirt because how cute would they have looked in a 4, 6, 36 and 38 version?

Aimee said...

I too am fighting clever kingdom--I hope I finally see results like you. If you want to make your own shirt like that one, go to www.dharmatrading.com--you can get all the supplies for it there. Best of luck!

Richard said...

A year and 8 months later, I sadly must report having problems with Bloomex as well.

I wish I had checked up on them beforehand, but didn't. They have been booted out of the BBB (I didn't know companies could be booted out): On July 18, 2007 this company's membership in the BBB was revoked by the BBB's Board of Directors due to failure to eliminate the underlying cause of complaints on file with the BBB and unresolved complaint(s).

In my case, it was a funeral arrangement for a 10 year old boy. The flowers arrived 2-1/2 hours late (I paid for delivery before 17:00). They came without any card or identification so the funeral home had no idea which deceased it was for.

I am asking for a refund, but so far the company is insisting they are in the right. sigh.

Bloomex is definitely not getting repeat business from me.

Anonymous said...

Bloomex is a fraud. They did not deliver the flowers I ordered, ignored my emails and were rude on the phone. They won't get repeat business from me for sure.