Mostly, you go into a shop, or you enter an online store’s website, and you get looked after. Things go pretty smoothly. Occasionally, however, we have those kinds of experiences that make your blood boil, and have you really wonder about people, and you vow never, never to shop there again. Like my recent experience with Hancock’s of Paducah. Some of the members of our Guild got together an order for Hancock’s, happy to take them up on their offer of only-once-per-customer free shipping, if you enter the right code when checking out. That’s pretty good, isn’t it? And we just happened to have that code from the back of one of their mags, and it fell upon me to be the one this time round to place the order. No problem. So, once I’d collated everyone’s items and gone through Hancock’s not-so-easy-to-navigate website, I entered my credit card details, made sure I had the coupon code entered too, hit the “order” button, and waited for that “thank you for placing your order” message to appear on my screen. And I waited. And waited some more. Nada. Rien. Nothing.

I wasn’t sure what to do, and I didn’t want to hit the button again in case it registered my order twice. You know? So I decided I’d make the international call and see if I could speak to someone about it. I got through to a guy who told me that they were in the process of updating their website, and I should try back in a couple of hours. And no, he checked, he couldn’t see any record of my order having come through, so the coast was clear, I didn’t have to worry about a duplicate order being placed, and, after two hours, I went ahead and recreated my order.This time, after hitting the “buy now” button, a message came on my screen, something to the effect that a confirmation email would arrive some time in the next 24 hours. WHAT??????!!!!!!!!

I already felt uneasy. What kind of a crazy thing is that? In this day and age? Give me a break! Anyway, since it was now late, I went to bed. In the morning, guess what I found in my inbox? Yep, that’s right. Can you see the sarcastic seething-through-my-teeth smile on my face? Yes, not one, but two order confirmations. I jumped straight on the phone to Hancock’s and this time, a lady with a kind of reassuring voice told me not to worry, she’d cancel one of them, whichever I wanted, and not to worry, just because it looks like we’ve been charged each time for shipping, she’d make sure it was all refunded. I was to expect a few strange refunds etc going through my account, but it was all good, she’d fix things up for me. I hung up with a moderate amount of peace of mind, and waited for the mail man.

A couple of weeks later, Moshe came home from the post office with a large bag for me. You should have seen it – a big hessian bag, kinda reminded me of a santa sack, the way he schlepped it over his (good) shoulder. I excitedly opened it up, and set about sorting through and separating out the fabrics into piles that corresponded with what the girls had ordered. Six different coloured highlighters and a couple of hours later, I emerged from the stash, and pretty much had it down flat. Four of the fabrics didn’t get shipped – out of stock. Bummer! Why do shops do that? Why do they put items in their shop that you can put into your cart that are actually not in their inventory? You never know if you’re going to get what you ordered, which, if you’re ordering a particular range of fabric for a special project, this can be really frustrating. You then have to hope you can still find the fabric elsewhere, such a drag. Anyway. Here’s where the drama begins continues.

Moshe, who is the mastermind behind our financial miracles, prints out the series of charges and refunds and charges again, and again, that Hancock’s has put through our bank. NONE of which make any sense whatsoever, nor come close to balancing out to what we should have been charged. I decide another phone call is warranted, but I want to wait till the activity dies down. What activity? Well, the couple of extra parcels that dribble through the post, including one that has the order number of the order that should have been cancelled! Now I’m getting worried, and confused, and yes, a little angry. I prepared Moshe for the worst. I really don’t have any idea what will come in the mail, nor what I’ll end up paying for ultimately. Luckily, the other girls’ orders seemed to be all correct, and they’d paid me correctly for what they ordered (although I won’t actually know really until I sort through all the charges with Hancock’s), so that seems to be all good. Except for Adele. Her order was short a couple of pieces that were listed as “out of stock” or “back ordered”. So it seems it was just me. Just my order that looks to have gone haywire. And all I can do for now is just wait. I was going to call last week, but on Friday morning, another little charge of $5 went through our account. So now, I’m waiting to see what if anything turns up in the mail. And then… I’m calling. And it’s going to be a “Lucy, you got some splainin to do!” kinda call.

The upshot of all this? I’ll never, never, NEVER order from Hancock’s again. They can keep their free shipping. It isn’t worth it. Even if, after speaking to them, it all works out in the end, that’ll still not make up for all the messiness, the angst, the hours of trying to figure it out, and it certainly won’t change my mind.

Have you had this kind of experience? What happened? What did you do?