Boycott TigerDirect.com!!

OK, so here’s the rest of the story.

I decided that waiting around in uncertainty regarding my recent $128 attempt at getting a good PC wasn’t fun, so I called TigerDirect this afternoon to discuss my order and find out my tracking ID.

The guy I got on the phone was somewhat argumentative, and explained to me that the price was due to an error caused by their inventory system. I told him that didn’t matter much to me, my order was placed for that amount and it was their responsibility to honor it. He disagreed, citing that they couldn’t take a $1700 loss to fill all of the orders that took place during that time. I attempted to escalate to a supervisor, but they were in a meeting and couldn’t be bothered and could I call back in a half hour.

I did so. After waiting on hold for a few minutes, I got to talk to a supervisor. He explained to me that their fascist order acceptance policy states that they can at any time refuse or cancel an order due to typo or pricing error. This tenant he clung to for the remainder of our conversation. He reaffirmed my correct action in attempting to order this system, and after the order processed alerting friends, family, etc to do the same. None of this mattered that now I got to look stupid for recommending something that ended up cancelled due to their ineptitude.

At one point he recommended that if I saw a price so “greviously in error” I should’ve CALLED THEM TO PRICE CHECK IT. WTF? Since when is it my job to do a price check on their e-Commerce WEBSITE? He told me that he could tell that I knew what I was ordering and the price was in error so I shouldn’t have had an expectation of them delivering it. He asked me if the price was $0, would I have expected them to deliver it. I told him that as long as the order processed and I got an order confirmation then yes, I did. Their Quality Assurance practices are not my concern. I just want good stuff cheap.

Basically, he didn’t back down from his “we have the right to cancel this, your concerns do not matter” stance. The best I could even get him to offer me was a nebulous unspecified discount off of the system I wanted, but I told him I didn’t want to pay 2K for a machine, I wanted to spend only $200 or so. I asked if the dollar amount of discount he could provide off that system could be given in a gift card so I could get something that wouldn’t require me spending an arm and a leg. He said no, but I could pick out something from their store and he would give me some discount off of that price.

Pretty much their profit margin was more important than my repeat business, so thats where we left it. I did ask him directly for an email confirmation that the order was cancelled so my friends and family would know that their stuff was cancelled too. That came about 45 minutes after I got off the phone, but they LIED. They said it was a stocking issue and they didn’t have the parts to complete the orders… interesting… for those people that want to pay $2000 they seem to be able to find the parts OK.

The end picture from this whole experience is this: TigerDirect cares more about profit margin than business integrity and customer satisfaction. For these reasons, I will never purchase anything else from them or recommend them to any of my circle of friends.

It may not end up being a significant dig to their wallets (where they would feel it), but at least I feel better not supporting unscrupulous businesses.