In June, my annual bonus cheque was issued. And as our TV is 10 years old and doesn’t like showing images that are 100% white around the edges, it was time to look at upgrading the video system in the living room.

So on Saturday, after watching the fun but not Star Trek movie Star Trek, we wandered into Future Shop to look at the TVs. After keeping people waiting a while, we settled on a stupidly large Samsung TV, a Yamaha home theatre in a box and an LG DVD player that upsizes to 1080p. Haggled a lot, Paid for it and asked for delivery on Tuesday. “Jamaal” will deliver it, no problem. I take home the DVD player and cables because they’re light.

Monday we unpack the living room to make space for the TV. The living room stuff had come back from storage after a in-law paid for floor refinishing and so we had to put all the books on shelves and clean out some of the kipple that was packed.

Tuesday comes. Anticipation mounts. The phone rings. “He can’t make it until 8 or maybe 9” says some guy who doesn’t work for Future Shop. Shit. “After 8 is fine, after 9 is not,” says I. We set back up the old TV and unpack the new DVD player.

9:15 arrives… I call Future Shop and ask where the hell he is. They are unaware he’s running late. He’s an independent guy who doesn’t work for them… They’ll call me back, they say. 10 Minutes later, the sales man who sold me the stuff calls and offers apologies and platitudes, no solutions. The delivery guy is “stuck near the airport”, they say. Stuck in a stripper, I think. I cancel the order and tell him that I’ll buy it somewhere else. I call the store and let them know. They tell me I can go to any store and get my refund.

The delivery guy calls, and says it will be about 10:30. I say no it’s not, I’ve cancelled the order and hang up.

At 10pm, we go to bed, disappointed that Future Shop can’t get it’s act together. But it’s only a TV.

At 10:45, Jamaal, the deliver guy, show up and starts whining about how sorry he is, how the manager says he can’t keep it on the truck overnight, that he never got the cancellation because his phone battery was low. I wish him good night and close the door. I now have an upset monstre who has to try to fall back to sleep with a baby kicking her in painful places due to upset.

Thursday comes; I go to the Queensway & Kipling Store on my way home from work with the cables and new DVD player in hand. They start out nice and helpful but as soon as they find out the TV was being delivered from store stock and not the warehouse, they refuse to refund my money. They are not willing to do anything to help, just keep telling me that the downtown store was wrong and they can’t help. I take it right up to store management and they’re only response is it’s not their responsibility. I tell them what they can do with the stuff and that I’ll deal with MasterCard. I leave, without anything in hand – forgetting my receipt as the manager had it.

I go home, call MasterCard and they’re incredibly apologetic and unhelpful. They tell me to go get my receipt and go to the downtown store.

I drive back to Queensway and Kipling, get my receipt from some fairly surprised people, and drive to Yonge and Dundas both in rush hour traffic. This improves my mood to the point of potential homicide of the first person who is less than helpful. I walk into the store ready to tear someone’s head off.

Suddenly, there is a lot of people very interested in helping me. The returns clerk gets the salesman, offers me 100 then 150 then 200 back, the sales man gets the sales manager, the sales manager gets the store manager. They squirm nicely. I tell them that if they an get it to my house within one hour without using Jamaal, Ill take it. They start calling cab companies to find a cab large enough. It’s raining so there’s a 4 hour wait.
The DVD player I bought isn’t in stock but there’s a Sony one in stock for the same price, so they swap it. They bring out the boxes, I realize that they will, with a little bit of effort, fit in my car, they reverse the deliver charge (requiring store manager sign off because we’ve moved below profitable). All along the salesman is thanking me as he didn’t want to be “in the negatives starting his shift”. Daily sales quotas must suck.

With some effort, it fits in my car. I drive home a little cramped and bring in the boxes. Not pissed off but still resolute in one thing.

Future Shop will never see another dollar of mine.

Posted by loftwyr on Tuesday, July 14th, 2009 at 10:41 am.