why ebuyer.com will lose customers
i wanted to buy a wireless usb access point, and ebuyer.com have it for a pretty good price, almost £5 less than the always reliable dabs.com.
i found the product, added it to my basket and went to the checkout. after filling out a registration form that requires a landline for your daytime telephone number (which is stupid, since i don't have a daytime landline) it told me i couldn't register. someone had already registered at my address (probably my brother) and they don't let two people register at the same address. i'm already pretty annoyed, since i've had to fill out a lot of stuff to get this far.
in the case of two registrations at the same address, it tells you to send an email to csupport@ebuyer.com. i sent a fairly irate email asking if they wanted my custom or whether i should go somewhere else. a few minutes later, i get an automated reply, telling me they no longer allow customers to contact them by email, but instead you have to use a system they call "enotes". the automated mail provides a link to the "enotes" system. i'm now even more annoyed, since it was the site that had told me to use that email address. i found the email i'd already sent and added a complaint about the site not containing timely information. so far, not a good user experience and i'm thinking the extra £5 is probably worth the ease of ordering from dabs.
so i visit the enotes system, to be told that you need to be registered to use it. so basically, i can't register because their system stops me, and i can't do anything about it because their system requires me to register to contact them. they have a customer phone line that opens from 9am tomorrow morning, but that's 13 hours away. i'm going to use dabs.com from now on.
anyone else have any bad customer support stories from Internet stores? or perhaps good customer support stories? then post them as a reply to this message.