Last updated: Monday, 28 March 2005 14:08 -0500
One day CONSUMERMAN determined to upgrade to a world-phone in order to keep up with his travels, and he decided to switch to a Nokia 8890. (See 'CONSUMERMAN and the Nokia 8890.')
Unfortunately, living as he does in a region with an infrastructure that is struggling to catch up with current technology (namely, the Deep South of the United States), none of the regional cell carriers were prepared to sell the 8890. (CONSUMERMAN could rant here about the forced-purchase in-bed-togetherness of the carriers and the hardware manufacturers, but he will refrain.) Most of the carriers would only be willing to sell a new telephone as part of a new service in any event, so that would not be a solution anyway.
A quick Web search revealed that AffordablePhones.Com claimed to sell the Nokia 8890 sans service agreement, and at a reasonable price, so CONSUMERMAN determined to give them a try.
The ordering process was straightforward, but the post-sale information was a little lacking -- and delivery was definitely not a happy-making experience.
CONSUMERMAN placed his order on a Friday, nine days before an international trip, and requested second-day shipping; he received an email message the following Monday about a problem with his credit card not being found. The email message was sent from one person but signed by a different one, which started little bells ringing in the back of CONSUMERMAN's mind -- but not very loudly at this point.
CONSUMERMAN called the number provided, and the telephone was answered by someone claiming they were 'Phone Warehouse.' This person confirmed that yes, indeed, they were [also] DBA 'Affordable Phones,' so CONSUMERMAN continued and spoke to the originator of the email message. The exact problem with the original credit card was unclear; all the information was correct, but their lookup was returning 'not found.' So CONSUMERMAN provided a different credit card number, and found that order fulfillment might take a couple of days because they had just shipped the last unit (which presumably would have been CONSUMERMAN's if it were not for the credit card lookup problem).
Repeated telephone calls resulted in progressively worse predictions of delivery date, allegedly due to unexplained delays on the part of the distributor and other procurement problems. CONSUMERMAN upgraded to next-day shipping during this time of uncertainty, but when the unit still had not come in to Affordable Phones by the Friday before CONSUMERMAN was due to go abroad, he gave instructions to return to 2nd-day shipping.
It was actually twelve (12) days before CONSUMERMAN received email notification that the order had shipped; he was in Ireland at the time, and the fulfillment had definitely missed its target deadline.
CONSUMERMAN was quite irritated that his 'second-day' order took a fortnight to arrive. The procurement and fulfillment issues of the merchant are not his concern; if they knew there were problems obtaining the product, they should have noted it up front rather than leading the customer into misset expectations.
Checking with the credit company also revealed that Affordable Phones had dunned CONSUMERMAN's account as soon as the order was placed, rather than upon fulfillment. This did not make CONSUMERMAN particularly happy, either, and he warned the credit company (before eventual receipt of the unit) that there might be a dispute looming.
Armed with the additional information that 'Affordable Phones' is really a nom de merchant of 'Phone Warehouse,' CONSUMERMAN did a little more research on them and found that the Houston chapter of the Better Business Bureau has a ding against them. If CONSUMERMAN had known about this before ordering, he would have bought elsewhere. It is possible that the use of the 'Affordable Phones' name without clear association with 'Phone Warehouse' is an attempt to duck any bad press associated with the latter name.
Although CONSUMERMAN eventually received the unit he ordered, the entire experience smacked of dealing with a merchant who just did not have its act together. That BBB report and the bill-upon-order practice are troubling, as well. As a result, CONSUMERMAN neither recommends nor advises against this vendor, but personally has no plans to deal with them again.
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