TigerDirect.com

Full review
On Nov 27 I ordered my husband’s Christmas present: a notebook computer in stock at TigerDirect. The notebook did not arrive in time for Christmas, it arrived the 26th.

Short version of review: I placed an order for an in-stock item on Nov 27 and immediately received shipment notice. An extraordinary amount of conflicting information and confusion followed: my order was in stock/shipped OR lost in warehouse/out of stock OR delivered without ever being accepted by UPS for shipment OR lost by UPS. Then I was upsold a more expensive/less capable system THEN original system was magically back in stock. After I complained, the original system was available and scheduled for a rushed pre-Christmas delivery, AGAIN lost in the warehouse THEN held until the last possible minute for a possible Christmas delivery AND ultimately delivered too late for my husband’s Christmas present. Among all explanations/excuses received from TigerDirect, Elizabeth Hernandez of Customer Support provided the most inane words to explain away a month of frustration: “Sorry for the delay, but we had no control over Holiday schedules.” For anyone interested in the ways TigerDirect can possibly screw up your order, read on, because they hit me with everything they had.

First, they got me with those darn pink boxes. My mother is bedridden in home in the final stages of cancer. I am restricted to home caring for her, and my shopping this year is all online. The TigerDirect cancer campaign got my attention.

I was optimistic placing the order on Nov 27 gave me plenty of time. I was pleased to receive an email Nov 28 stating my order had shipped.

I had not received my system by Dec 5 so I checked the online order status. UPS had received electronic billing information only, not the physical package. I emailed Tiger Direct asking for updated status.

I got no email answer, so I initiated an online chat with Tiger Direct asking for status. I was told they would track the shipment and, if it could not be found, ship another system.

True to the chat promise, on Dec 7, I received an email status from Tiger Direct telling me my system was scheduled for reshipment. There was plenty of time to receive the computer before Christmas.

Checking the online status on the 7th, 8th, and 9th, status did not indicate that reshipment took place. On Dec 9, I sent another email (online chat was not available) asking for status. On Dec 10, I received an email response that stated, "Thank you for your recent order. Our records indicate your order was completely shipped approximately 10 days ago. At this point, you should have received every item of your order." Aargh!

I sent an email through the website that I DID NOT have the item, and a few hours later I received a return email that stated, "unfortunately it seems like it might of been lost in transit. I see that an investigation with UPS was already started in order to get this corrected."

I then asked by email if I would get the item by Christmas, as it was a present for my husband. I received the response, "the next follow up is scheduled for 12/20/07. I deeply apologize but it does not look like it will arrive before hand."

This message bothered me. On Dec 11, I initiated a chat asking why it would be over a week to follow up. The answer: There is a problem. The item has been lost. I should call the 1-800 number for help.

I immediately called and an agent explained the system I ordered was not available. She offered to up-sell another system: a slower notebook with fewer features and a smaller hard drive for $80 more than my original purchase price. “Take it or leave it; I’ll wait while you decide.”

The first system was a good deal, the second offer was just fair, but I took it since my Christmas options were few. It seemed like bait-and-switch to buy a system that was in stock, and then be pushed to a more expensive machine after they “lost” it. I wrote a Bizrate review expressing my dissatisfaction.

If you read Bizrate reviews of TigerDirect, you’ll recognize the canned customer service response from Elizabeth Hernandez: “We pride ourselves on providing service that is second to none in the industry and would like the opportunity to improve our service. Let me know how I can fully satisfy your shopping experience. Again please accept my apologies and assurance that I will make this right when you contact me. elizabeth.hernandez@tigerdirect.com”

For those of you who wonder what Elizabeth Hernandez of Tiger Direct means in these reviews when she says, "Let me know how I can fully satisfy your shopping experience," here is my experience:

I sent Ms. Hernandez an email telling her that, in my opinion, if an online store "loses" your prepaid item prior to or during shipment, the store should provide "full satisfaction" by replacing the lost item with an equivalent or better system at no additional charge. The source of my dissatisfaction is being up-sold a less capable system for a price increase of $80. Since she had stated, "I will make this right when you contact me," I told her I would be interested in what she could do.

In response to my email, I got a one-sentence response. It said, "I am sorry to hear that, since the new order has already shipped let me offer you 30.00 refund back your account as compensation for the inconvenience?" The answer was curt and the $30 was unrelated to the $80 difference in system prices. I responded, "I paid $80 extra for a less capable machine, and you are graciously offering $30 to 'fully satisfy my shopping experience'".

I declined her $30 offer. Ms. Hernandez emailed the following, "my #1 priority is to satisfied [sic] every single dissatisfied customer and I don't send automatic responses, 2nd you are sending the 1st system back to us and will receive a full refund for. I am sorry to hear that you are not satisfied but my offer still stands for the 30.00."

I responded that she was mistaken that I was sending the 1st system back because I never got it. She acted like I should be grateful they did not intend to steal my money. Note that on Nov 29, I was charged for the 1st system that never shipped. On Dec 12, Tiger Direct charged me again for the replacement system. They have not yet refunded my first payment (as of Dec 29).

I told this in my Bizrate response to the TigerDirect, and on Dec 17, Ms. Hernandez contacted me and explained that she had been busy, but now that she read my order history, she understood why I was dissatisfied and why I did not think $30 was fair compensation for a $80+ inconvenience. She offered to return the more expensive system and send the system I originally ordered, and she offered to send the correct system by 2-day shipment, allowing plenty of time to receive it my Christmas.

I accepted her offer since I really wanted to give my husband the notebook I originally ordered. It was vastly superior to the one they had substituted. [The substituted notebook had a dead battery that would not hold a charge even after fully recharging 3 times, but that is a subject for another review.]

Ms. Hernandez even wondered aloud why they had made the substitution at all since she showed plenty of stock in my original system. It made me wonder why I was going through this grief.

True to her word, she sent the return authorization for the substitution system and placed the order for the system I wanted. I could see the order status on the web site within a matter of minutes. Since this was Dec 17, and I was promised 2-day shipping, I started to have hope once again.

Over the next 2 days, I packed up the return system and shipped it back while eagerly watching my new order status on the web site. I was concerned when I saw the status of “in process” for a couple of days. Ms. Hernandez had promised 2-day shipping and 100% satisfaction. Surely she would not let my order languish in the warehouse until it was too late for a Christmas delivery.

On Dec 21 I received an email from TigerDirect informing me that my order had shipped on Dec 20. It went on to tell me that the approximate transit time would be 2 business days. I figured this was cutting it close because 2 business days would place the order on my doorstep on Dec 24. I also hoped TigerDirect had more experience with the vagaries of holiday shipping that I did, so I tried to have faith.

However, when I looked at the tracking information on the UPS site, I could see that they had only received the billing information on Dec 20, not the physical package. Here we were again, exactly where I was on Nov 28, and it was starting to look really bad.

It turns out that, although it could have been shipped on Dec 17, UPS did not receive the package from TigerDirect until late in the day of Friday, Dec 21. For a package traveling from Illinois to California during Christmas, this seemed too close to call.

Sure enough, the package arrived too late for Christmas. My husband had nothing under the tree; the package was finally delivered on Dec 26th.

I sent an email to TigerDirect’s customer support guru, Elizabeth Hernandez, telling her that, despite her best efforts, “TigerDirect was not able to deliver by Christmas.” Her response summed it up for me, and was perhaps the ultimate understated eulogy for an ill-fated TigerDirect.com order placed a month ago: “Sorry for the delay, but we had no control over Holiday schedules.”

My initial review of TigerDirect stands unchallenged: You will be satisfied if they handle your order properly. I believe most buyers will be satisfied, but Ms. Hernandez should lower her expectations when it is clearly impossible for an operation as complex as Tiger Direct to fully satisfy every dissatisfied customer. IF YOU FALL THROUGH THE CRACKS, YOU ARE IN FOR A LOT OF GRIEF.

This review is here because, for some unknown reason, Bizrate removed my review of TigerDirect.com!