Month of reviews

You read that right. I did not mean month-in-review, I meant month of reviews. It has been a month of both good and bad customer service experiences for me. I’m seriously glad this month is over.

Of course, I can probably avoid all this by just not buying stuff. But, hey. I’m just doing my patriotic duty to help stimulate the economy.

Car Wash

The car was was probably the biggest headache. See, what happened was…I had taken my car in for a car wash on a Friday, cutting it a little bit close because I know how Friday traffic can be. As I waited anxiously for my car to be wiped down and cleaned on the inside…I watched the guy cleaning the inside wipe my rear-mirror right off the windshield. Yep. He knocked it right off, with a little glass, too. I watched him fiddle with it, and try to jerry-rig it, finally tucking it into the ceiling mat. As he tried to hand my keys back to me, I asked him if the mirror would stay. First, he acted like he didn’t know what I was talking about, then called a supervisor over. The supervisor looked at it, said he could fix it, if I could come in Saturday morning. I said, OK, I can do that.

Saturday morning, I get up extra early to go to the car wash, then to an AAJA-LA meeting. The supervisor said he could fix it in 10 minutes, but when he looked at it again Saturday morning, he said he realized it would take more than 10 minutes, and could I come back Sunday (Super Bowl Sunday) so he could spend more time on it? I said I couldn’t make Sunday, but I could come back Monday.

I came back Monday morning, my patience wearing thin. I read a book while he worked on reattaching my mirror to my windshield. Finally, he finished, and he admonished me to not touch it for several hours. So I drove away, glad to be done with it. Later in the afternoon, Trinity and I drove to Woodland Hills to go to dinner, but as I was driving, I adjusted my mirror, thinking the glue must be dry. Yeah, the whole thing just came off in my hand. I was livid. I did a Google 411, looking for the car wash in Agoura Hills, and proceeded to give the clerk a piece of my mind, demanding to talk to the car wash supervisor. I later found out I was yelling at a clerk at the wrong station. Anyway, I had to abandon our plans to go to dinner in Woodland Hills to go back to the car wash and get this finally straightened out.

The car wash manager came out and looked at my mirror and said that they would just have to replace my windshield. (This is now my second replacement, for the record.) They offered to either pay the glass place directly or just reimburse me….and I immediately asked them to just pay the glass place. I ended up going to the glass place early on a Friday to get it installed, but was still about two hours late for work. Sigh.

Glass guy replaces my windshield

Verdict: Its now safe to assume I will never get my car washed at a car wash again.

Popeyes

Just the weekend after the car wash debacle, Trin and I went to Popeyes. We usually order a family meal, plus some popcorn shrimp for him and catfish for me. The catfish I got that day? Several pieces were still raw on the inside. Sigh.

Verdict: Not good, but its the only Popeye’s in the Conejo Valley, dammit.

Eyeglass Repair Shop

The hinge on Trinity’s eyeglasses broke, so we had to look into getting them fixed or replacing them. Replacement was going to be a pickle, seeing as how his glasses are something like $400. So we ended up going to an eyeglass repair shop in Thousand Oaks. The repairman was also the owner of the shop, and he fixed the glasses as we waited — 20 minutes tops. He also replaced the arms, free of charge, sticking to his original quote of $40. That’s service.

Verdict: Awesome. The brick-and-mortar shop is known as Gabe’s Frame Laboratory, but online, its glassrepair.com.

Apple

Obviously, we bought a new MacBook Pro. I bought it with my CBS Employee discount by calling an 800 number and asking the guy at the other end for an invoice I could send to our credit union, and checking to see if a check or a credit card number would be best as payment (duh). I had called him on a Thursday, then we submitted the order on a Friday. Unfortunately, the computer came all the way from China and made its way through Alaska and Indianapolis. I needed the laptop on Saturday, and it was scheduled to be delivered Thursday. It was actually delivered on Wednesday.

Verdict: Awesome. As always.

Cell phone accessory sites

So Trinity bought an iPhone, and I bought a Samsung Eternity. But even after buying the Eternity, I was still waffling over whether I should have bought an iPhone…but the longer I used it, the more I liked it, except for the lack of speed dial. Ah well. So, after a week of using the phone, I finally decided this will be my phone for the next two years. That meant I had to go and buy some accessories for the phone, like the data cord, the 8G expanded memory and a silicon skin.

For the skin, I ended up buying it from OnlyATTEternity.com. I bought it Saturday night, for a pretty good $9.99, although I believe the total, including tax and shipping, ended up being closer to $15. I ordered it last Saturday night, Feb. 21, and as of Saturday, a week later, it still hasn’t arrived. Oh, and I didn’t even get a confirmation email after submitting the order. I only found out they sent it when I sent them an email, asking them if they got the order.

I had a better experience with the memory and data cord. I found the best price via CellPhoneShop.net. I am not clear how they can price their memory so low, but I acted quick when I saw they had it for $18.99. Amazon, on the other hand, has it for $35.99. My order at CellPhoneShop, which included the $9.99 data cord, ended up being $31.65, after entering a coupon code. I ordered this also on Saturday night, and got it in the mail by Friday.

Verdict: Mixed. I like both sites, and their prices, but OnlyATTEternity.com is slow on the take.

RadTech

Of course, having bought a new laptop, I need to buy a new laptop bag — being the miser I am, I would use the old one I have, but its really not big enough. So, I went on to RadTech’s site and Trin and I spotted a backpack we both like. So we bought. It cost $69.95, and I forget how much they tacked on for shipping, but a quick Google search yielded a 20% coupon code. I ended up paying $65. W00t! It’s now winging its way to us. Its scheduled to be delivered Tuesday, but I think it may arrive Monday.

I have always admired RadTech’s stuff, so I’m totally excited to finally have bought something from them. Woohoo!

Verdict: I’ll let you know.

EZTradein.com

I am still waiting on EZTradein.com. I suspect I may have to break out a blog post just for them, so stay tuned.