I got a call today from Abe’s of Maine that was quite disappointing. But let me start with a little background info…
At 1:30am on Tuesday morning (4/10/2007) I ordered a new $3,379 Canon XH A1 Prosumer Camcorder from Abes for two reasons.
- First, I’ve purchased from them in the past (about 2.5 years ago) and things went OK, although the extremely high end Sony Receiver I bought from them ended up having problems and needing service I felt I couldn’t hold that against Abe’s.
- Secondly they were offering the Camcorder for about $100 less than Amazon or NewEgg.
Now, the problem started today around 6:30pm CST when I’m shopping at a retail store and I get a call on my cell phone from a “customer service” (732-225-1777) representative from Abe’s “…just wanting to verify my shipping address”. He asks me if I’ve ever purchased from them before and when I say yes, he is surprised and “can’t find me in their system”. After he “verifies my address” he begins pressuring me to purchase all sorts of add ons. And remember, this is a three and a half THOUSAND dollar purchase.
First he tells me the camcorder only comes with a 90 day warranty, so I should buy a $200 extended warranty. When I say “no thanks” he says that because I’m a “repeat customer” he can give me a 25% discount and sell it to me for only $150. At this point I inform him that Canon clearly stated that the unit comes with 1 year parts and labor and that Abe’s claims that their products include the full manufacturer’s warranty, and that my credit card doubles it.
So then he tells me “technically” that’s true, but the “boards” in the camera are only warranted for 90 days. (What?!?)
After refusing a third time, he then proceeds to try to sell me an extra battery, telling me that the camera only comes with a 30 minute “demo” battery from Canon, when I know damn well it comes with a BP-950G that reportedly lasts for 4+ hours.
After multiple refusals, he moves on down the line trying to sell me a soft case, a hard case, a tripod, a 72mm lens filter, and tapes. I might be forgetting something, but for sure he offered – actually pushed – all of those things. I kept telling him repeatedly that I didn’t need anything else.
After saying no about 30 times, he asks me “so, you’re OK with not getting the camcorder for a few weeks then?” I say, “What?” and he proceeds to tell me that if I don’t pay for upgraded shipping he intends to ship the camera via the normal United States Postal Service, and it will take at least two weeks.
We should keep in mind that they sat on this order for 2 whole days by the time I got this call, which means that had I ordered it from NewEgg it would have been arriving the next business day (tomorrow) because of their free 3 day shipping, and Amazon would have actually delivered it today.
At this point I just want off the phone with this bitter little man. I don’t trust him, I think he’s lying to me, he is not being at all respectful or slightly grateful that I’ve given them thousands of dollars, and more importantly now I feel I have no reason to trust Abe’s of Main. After all, their web page says:
Condition: All products include every manufacturer supplied accessory and USA Warranty unless stated otherwise.
Well, this guy on the phone is “stating otherwise”, and if I allow them to ship this sub-standard product to me, then open it, they’ll claim I can’t return it because it isn’t “factory fresh”.
In addition to all of that, there is a $250 rebate on this camcorder which is only valid if it comes from an authorized reseller. I have to assume that if they are going to sell the product with a 30 minute “demo” battery and only 90 days of warranty that they are not indeed authorized and that will cost me an extra $250.
So when I get home I try to call Abe’s back to cancel the order, which I know damn well hasn’t shipped yet and I get the following message when I try to reach customer service:
So, this guy calls from customer service to rake me over the coals after 7pm their time, but when I call customer service is closed at 6pm, thereby making it impossible to call back and cancel the order. I then try to use their online “Track Order” page to find out any information possible, but it literally yields nothing. All it does is pull up a copy of the receipt with no shipping status – or even area for it – anywhere visible. Nice racket they have going there.
By this point I have lost 100% of my confidence in their ability to deliver a $3,500 order as promised, so my intention is to ensure they cancel the order and do not ship it. I sent them an e-mail to cancel the order, then I called my credit card company to share the story with them and was told that the charge hasn’t even yet come through!
Wow! How is that possible? It was an e-commerce order placed online and it’s been 48 hours without the charge coming through?
Tomorrow I’ll call them as a follow up to the e-mail cancellation, and then my next move will be to order the camcorder from either NewEgg or Amazon. Most likely I’ll do Amazon and try out the free two day shipping via the Amazon Prime offer. I’ll provide updates to this story in the comments as things progress.
Ok. So this morning I called Abe’s and after holding for a few minutes I finally reached a woman who helped cancel the order. Although today is the third day after the order, it had not yet even been charged to my credit card, and she told me it wouldn’t be.
The lady I spoke to was professional and courteous by New York standards, and I shared with her the reason I was canceling the order. She assured me that the camcorder would indeed ship exactly as packaged by Canon and apologized for the other rep’s tactics.
She told me she would inform that person’s supervisor (she knew exactly who it was) and have him listen to the recording of our call (I’d kill to get a copy of that for the blog). She further invited me not to judge the company by the actions of just one person.
I was actually prepared for a fight, so was pleasantly surprised that canceling was so easy. I give Abe’s credit on that point.
I still have concerns about their philosophical approach towards customers however, because the fact that they actually do record calls, and yet this guy was so comfortable with his lies means they are either encouraging high pressure tactics or complicit in monitoring them.
In other words, they are more concerned with grabbing a client’s money than insuring people get exactly the product that suits their needs.
I hope The Man is still cool with Amazon.com. I’ve never had a problem with them – the few returns I’ve had to make have been pretty much painless.
And then there’s this cool site I use to shop Amazon products: http://www.jangle.net
The Man can sort items by price, popularity, user ratings, discounts, and more. There’s even a neat way to view sample customer reviews.
I have bought 2 things in the past from Abes, and had EXACTLY the same experience as the poster above. The latest time was on a sony n1 camera, they hard sold me an extra battery telling me lies about its charge time and the battery that would come with the camera. When I got the camera I saw that they had told me fibs and the battery that came with the camera was much better than the one he said I would get. However, like the orig story, they rolled over very fast. I called them up, spoke to a woman, and they rolled. Gave me the battery for a much cheaper price and a free case, all because they did not want me to send the battery back. Looks like they just use bad cop (guys) good cops (girls). You just have to be careful with them, they do have good prices, but you have to stand firm and threaten to cancel the order if they pull this stuff on you. and they will try it EVERY time!
Being nickel-and-dimed on a $3,500 purchase is almost humorous. It’s almost like getting the 3rd degree when buying a new, $20,000 car to also spend $35 for the spare ashtray. Amazing. At least you didn’t knuckle under and accept your shabby treatment…I know too many people who would’ve done just that.
ouch, but how’s the camera?
Oh, I forgot to give an update…
First of all, I ordered the camcorder from Amazon.com and received it the next day! The one I got had a minor little glitch so Amazon actually shipped me a replacement and I shipped the original back.
The camcorder itsself kicks ass! I’m still practicing a little with it and then I’m going to post some videos and a review. Suffice it to say that it is far, far, far better than anything you can purchase at Best Buy.
John
if you can please let me know WHO your salesmen was, i will have corrective action taken. i belive these complaints are all from the same salesman, but i never get a name with the complaints, only complaints that ruin our image..
thank you
SM
SM,
I appreciate your interest in tracking down the culprit, but when I called and spoke with the customer service rep to cancel the order she told me she was aware of who it was and was going to inform his supervisor. So, if that didn’t happen it would be disappointing. If you do a search in your system for my name I’m sure I’ll be the only one in there so you can look up the order in question and get whatever details you keep on file.
On another note, having run call centers in the past I would recommend that you could solve this issue by either ensuring that your system tracks customer touch points in a notes field along with each order, or by doing random call monitoring.
In a case where you suspect a particular individual you can obviously monitor their calls and take care of that issue in about one day.
John
Understood. we do have that technology in place, but i am more concerned in the customer (in this case, you) chaging the bitter taste that a bad salesman has unfortunately imparted on you. Thank you for your time. I hope your future online sales experiences are better.
SM
No offense, but I doubt you really care about the customer, you’re just concerned of the bad image this post is giving you when someone googles “abes of main”(without the ‘e’, it ranks 5 or 6, and with experience, i can tell that most people search it that way)…
Instead of giving an honest apology, you are preaching that you will take actions, actions that should have already been taken long time ago because you already have all the information needed…
In short, when you really care about the customer, you should say that appropriate actions have been taken and please accept “enter your offer here(less than 3 digits is an insult)” gift certificate on our behalf as a thank you for helping us find the bad apple which is ruining it for the rest of us.
This is how, in my opinion, you change the bitter taste that a bad salesman carves on the customer. Don’t you agree?