Valkyre's Weblog

Finally! All the Christmas Gifts Have Arrived!

I posted back on Christmas Eve that I was still waiting on some gifts. I had sent in two, snail mail, catalog orders to two different companies and hadn't received the items. Nor had they cashed the checks. One of the companies was What On Earth and the other was Catalog Favorites. I sent an e-mail to What On Earth asking if they had any record of my order. I got a "robot" response, stating that I would get a response from a customer service representative in 24 hours. I never did.... I decided to give them the benefit of the doubt. I figured that it was probably just too close to Christmas and I shouldn't expect to get a response on Christmas Eve. However, after Christmas, I still didn't get any response. I also tried sending an e-mail to Catalog Favorites, after Christmas, and didn't get anything from them. Not even an "auto" e-mail. I tried sending another e-mail to What On Earth. Again, the promise of a 24 hour response, and again, nothing. At that point, I figured that both orders, and checks must be lost in postal neverland. I redid the order for What On Earth and put it on my credit card. This was on January 5th, 2004. On January 6th, I finally received an e-mail response from their customer service rep' who apologized for taking so long to get back to me. They never received my catalog order, but she did see that I had re-ordered everything and put it on my credit card. And, I'm not sure which e-mail she was responding to. The one on December 23rd? Or the one I sent on December 29th?

Now, this is where it gets fun, yet again. The main item, the one thing I wanted the most from What On Earth, was a Dragon Rug. This was going to be the "main Christmas gift" for our youngest daughter, Teresa. They had every item, in stock, that I re-ordered, except the Dragon Rug. When I filled out the order form, it said that it was on backorder, and their supplier would ship some out on January 7th. I re-did the order on January 5th. So, I figured I would only have to wait a couple of days. However, when I got an e-mail verification of the order, it said that "due to the popularity of the Dragon Rug, etc., it is back-ordered until February. Shit! I got the other items, okay. But, every time I checked on my order status, the Dragon Rug was always on "active backorder". I was hoping for a more definite date. So again, I write customer service. And again, I get the robot e-mail telling me I will get a response in 24 hours. And again, I didn't. However, I did receive a card in the mail telling me that the Dragon Rug will be shipped on February 22nd. If I didn't want to wait that long, I was to send the card back and they would cancel the order. If I wanted to wait, I didn't need to do anything. I still wanted the rug, so I didn't send the card back. The next day, I finally got a response via e-mail from customer service stating almost the exact same thing that the card I got via snail mail. They wanted me to verify whether or not I still want the Dragon Rug. Yes!!! Yes!!! Yes!!! While all this is happening, I decided to re-order the items I was planning on buying from Catalog Favorites. The main item, was to be Mike's Christmas gift. It was a triangular display that holds a folded coffin flag. His dad was a Detroit Police Officer. He died while still on active duty. Mike had the neatly folded flag that was draped on his father's coffin. I didn't like the fact that it was tucked away hidden. I liked the idea of the display. It had a brass plate that went with it. I asked to have his father's name, his date of birth and date of death put on it. I was going to re-order from Catalog Favorites, online and put it on my credit card. However, I was leafing through yet another catalog, Harriet Carter, and I saw another flag display case that was even better. I even had my choice of type of wood. I picked oak. That came, about 2 1/2 weeks after Christmas, but Mike still loved it. Anyway, finally, the Dragon Rug came yesterday. That was the last item I was waiting for. It is really gorgeous and was worth the wait. Teresa just loves medieval Dragons.