All of us have been told in one form or another “get with the program”. It might have happened at work or in some aspect of our personal lives, but all of us have been advised at some point to conform and stop being difficult.
Sometimes, it even comes from within.
I have described my dislike of twenty-first century cable TV many times. The ever-spiralling cost of watching blocks of decades-old programming while being repeatedly subjected to the water torture of five-minute commercial breaks had burrowed beneath my skin and was beginning to itch. Badly.
But I kept it. As I saw it, streaming was a chain with many more links and hence, more-prone to breakdown, malfunction and so on. And in the end, was it really any cheaper?
An October price-hike from my cable provider pushed me over the edge. Spotty reliability, shrinking Internet bandwidth and the fact that it had become my largest non-housing-related monthly expense drove me to dump them.
(My most-damning indictment of AT&T is that their's was the only business phone number I knew by heart. I'll leave it to your supple imaginations to puzzle-out why.)
So. There I stood, perched on the precipice of twenty-first century television technology! I was going to stream! Watch Netflix! Have access to all of the fascinating and groundbreaking programming I'd been hearing about, appearing nightly on my TV!
Hoo Boy!
If I have a failing, it's that I allow myself to be carried away by stuff. Despite my robust cynicism, I—at times—believe the hype. And my first foray into this brave new world was no exception.
On the advice of a relative far-more conversant in TV tech than I, I ventured online and bought a Roku device. All was well until it arrived. The initial set-up was simple, as promised. The problem started when I attempted to connect it with my WiFi.
Even despite forty minutes on the phone with a certified Roku tech and another foray under the viral hood of my Internet to confirm the password, nothing. The Roku device steadfastly refused to play nice.
The tech concluded it had to be defective and urged me to initiate an exchange.
In 2021 this is not generally a difficult thing to do. Unless one is working with Roku. Since they claim their customer service telephone number had been deactivated because of COVID, I was left to navigate their cumbersome e-mail system.
Even with the confirmation of one of their own, the exchange took three business days to approve. If that weren't enough, Roku was asking me to foot the bill for the return.
I was not made glad.
I informed them I no longer wanted to exchange the device but return it outright. Shockingly, this was okayed in just twenty-four hours.
I dropped it off at the local post office in a USPS Priority mailer. On the same day the post office confirmed its delivery in San Jose, California, I received another Roku device in the mail.
First, let me acknowledge that consumer expectations are much higher in 2021 than they were in, say, 1991. Computerization has shortened processing and delivery timelines as well as consumer's patience.
As a (mostly) sympathetic consumer, I will also acknowledge that not all customers are responsible. We twenty-first Americans have learned well from the business and political classes and are quite adept at gaming the system—even if it's at a level far below that of the aforementioned populations.
While the wonders of online shopping are touted far and wide, there's a dark side: the rate of return for items purchased online is four times what it is for items purchase in-store, proving conclusively that nothing beats having a potential purchase in hand.
And those returns impact profitability. Someone, somewhere is paying for it. (My guess is that company's mid-to-lower-level employees. No surprise there.)
I am not a capricious shopper. I buy only after examining and re-examining every facet of the item I'm considering—especially clothing. I don't wantonly order three different sizes in four different colors thinking I'll just return whatever doesn't fit or that I don't like.
But I am in a minority. So if companies were to raise the threshold on returns I would—to a point—understand.
But this was different. I had a defective unit confirmed by one of the manufacturer's own technicians. I wasn't returning the device because it didn't match the drapes. Why was I paying to return it?
With the receipt of a unit I hadn't wanted or requested, I was now quite angry. I fired-off a heated e-mail to Roku expressing my displeasure. I graciously offered them two choices: either pay the postage for the second device's return or let me have it free of charge.
That was over a week ago. Their sole communication in that time had been an e-mail telling me they hadn't received the original unit.
Yep.
Their re-enactment of Dumb and Dumber was nerve-wracking. The glacial pace of their processing a no-brainer of a return jaw-dropping. I'll put this as clinically as I can, but it was clear to me I was having sexual intercourse with a vagina made of sandpaper.
I mean, this was not going well. I called my credit card company. And as I was on the phone detailing this transaction to them an e-mail appeared from Roku.
They had confirmed the device's return and were now initiating the refund process.
Problem solved, right?
Two days later (which happened to be the three-week anniversary of this calamity), I received another e-mail from Roku. This one asked when I was going to respond and advised me that if I failed to do so within three days the file would be closed and marked 'resolved'.
If you ask how bad something can get you will inevitably find out.
Since when does a two-sentence e-mail that consists of a greeting and an announcement that they have begun their refund process need to be responded to? What's more, the company that had been dragging its feet for three-weeks was giving me deadlines? Seriously?
I complied and re-stated the obvious and added that, yes, I was still interested in a refund and that nothing had changed. (Sometimes my sense of humor can be remarkably subtle.) That was over a week ago.
On a call to my credit card company, I was informed that in our business-friendly country, businesses have up to ten days to issue a refund. Why? It's probable that corporate lawyers are oilier and sneakier and better manipulators than government lawyers.
With today being day number-ten, I sprang from my bed and opened my credit card account to scan for the long-promised refund.
Nothing.
I dialed the phone. “Hello, credit card company? I'd like to dispute a charge.”
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