Prius Chat.com store issue

Here is a true time line of events that happen.

On 07/17/09 I posted a comment on your site asking if I could have the items sent directly to the dealer.

NO RESPONSE 1

On 7/20/09 I placed the order and my credit was billed that day

07/20/2009 PRIUSCHAT SHOP 8032333995 SC $870.97

With the order I included the following comment.

“Please contact me if all these items will not ship at the same time. If there is one or two items holding up the order please contact me. I need the remote start soon. The dealer is going to install it before I get my Prius. The floor mats show Black but the cargo mat does not show a color. I assume its black. Please provide way to much detail on your site so customers do not have to assume or ask questions.”

On 07/21/09 I posted a comment asking why my order still shows processing.

NO RESPONSE 2

On 07/22/09 I posted a third comment asking why my order still shows processing.

No RESPONSE 3

Later in the day on 7/22/09 I sent the following email to the admin at Prius chat
________________________________________
From: Havanas, Sean
Sent: Wednesday, July 22, 2009 4:38 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: PriusChat Store Vendor

I have sent 3 emails to Toyota Prius Accessory Shop using their web site interface. I never get a response. I placed an order for $870.00 and the status has been showing processing for 2 days. Can you help me get in contact with someone that will respond?

Regards,

Sean Havanas

After sending the email I received the following email back.

-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] [mailto[email protected]] On Behalf Of PriusChat.com
Sent: Wednesday, July 22, 2009 5:53 PM
To: Sean Havanas
Subject: Order Update

PriusChat Toyota Prius Accessory Store
------------------------------------------------------
Order Number: 10445
Detailed Invoice: Login : PriusChat Shop
Date Ordered: Tuesday 21 July, 2009

The comments for your order are

Thanks for your recent PriusChat Shop order! Your order has been sent to the supplier for production and shipping. Please allow 5-10 business days for delivery. Tracking will be provided as it becomes available. All items except the moldings will be shipped by the same supplier via UPS. You are correct that the cargo mat only comes in black. We are adjusting the product page to reflect black as the only color option. Thanks again!

Your order has been updated to the following status.

New status: Updated

The email claims to allow 5-10 business days for delivery.

Had I known it could take up to 12 days from the day I ordered product until I received I would have found a different place to order it.

I assumed when you told me 5-10 days it was from the day you acknowledged you received my order and it was not processing.

If it takes 10 business days after you acknowledge the order. I could take longer then 2 weeks from the time someone places an order until it is received.

 

I wish I could say the same. I still do not have a tracking number from an order that was placed on Monday (5 days ago). My credit was billed $870 on Monday.

I wish they would try to make this right. I have a brand new Prius waiting at the dealer for the remote start to arrive at my house so I can ship it to the dealer. I had to order the car 3 hours from house because Prius's are so hard to get. Part of the deal I worked out with the dealer was to have it installed before I picked up the car. My goal was to have the remote start sent to the dealer direct, but I could not get a response from the Prius Chat Store last Friday when I asked if that was an option.

I am so frustrated.

 

Most of my transactions have been smooth. However my strut tower brace didn't go as well. Supposedly ordered it in Feb along with some other stuff but never developed. I was eventually notified it wasn't ordered & ordered/re-ordered in April. Emails & details scarce & scanty, but I was billed for it & still no brace. Hoping things get smoothed out.

 

Most if not all of my transaction have been smooth as well although email response is sometimes limited. I do not believe that any of the BT products are still available at the PriusChat shop due to Brian's tragic passing and his company no longer being in business, see the link below:

http://priuschat.com/forums/gen-ii-...schat-has-lost-dear-friend-brian-bt-tech.html

I have inquired if PriusChat will begin carrying the Tom's brace's as performance parts but have not heard back on that subject yet.

Happy driving,
Chris

 

Danny I received my tracking number today and went to post on this site that everything was resolved and move on.

Then I read the comment you posted defending your actions. You are not posting the truth. I will break it down.

I was never promised a tracking number. I sent this email demanding a tracking number for all the trouble I have gone through.

-----Original Message-----
From: Havanas, Sean
Sent: Thursday, July 23, 2009 8:05 PM
To: Nichole Cooper
Subject: RE: Order Update

Nichole,

You are talking in circles. Any thing that ships via UPS gets a number before it leaves the building. Call your supply and give me a UPS tracking number so I can get a real story of where the product is and when it will arrive. UPS shows the estimated date of arrival on every tracking #.

I am not the only person that would request this based on the lack of communication I have received this week. I strongly feel that if I did not contact the admin on Prius Chat I would still be waiting for a response. You have to understood my predicament.

Sean

Go to the top of this page and read what I posted. I sent three messages using your website and did not receive a response to any of them. I searched priuschat for any email I could find and came up with the admin@priuschat address. Within 1 hour of sending an email to that email address I got my very first response regarding my order. I had to use that email as a last effort to get someone to respond.

Not once did you communicate with me that it would take as little as 4 business days to receive my order. Read your email at the top of this page. It clearly states “Please allow 5-10 business days for delivery.â€

Here are some suggestions for your company in the future.

I would have posted something like this. “We apologize about the recent issues. Customer service is our number one goal. Do to unforeseen circumstance your order had a delay. We provided your tracking number and hope we can work with you again.â€
Not false information defending your actions.

I also suggest if your moving, you should post on your site that orders placed today might have a slight delay do to a move. You should also post that orders placed before 5pm take 2 days to process and approximately 5 days for shipments to the USA and 10 days outside the USA. If you over communicate you can stop a lot of issues like this.

I am still waiting for a tracking number for the last part of my order.

 

Yikes, I guess we're see the perils of running a small business on web site when you aren't in control of one's inventory. One is dependent on one's suppliers to make things happen and when one link falls though, it can cause many problems that annoy buyers. On the other hand, I've learned over the years that email is not a good place to resolve order problems as it's easy to create misunderstandings.

Also, I'll assume the problem has been resolved as no new postings regarding the problem have been posted.

Steve

 

No it has not been resolved. I have one outstanding item that I paid for 7 days ago and have received zero updates on the status.

You are correct, running a small business is difficult. When you run it like this it is sure to fail.

I am waiting on side moldings. Here are some things I would do if I owned the store on Prius Chat.

1.) I would not bill people’s credit cards until I shipped the moldings.
2.) If there was an extra time involved to ship the moldings because they are custom made I would post that on the site with the product so people knew what to expect.
3.) If there was a delay in shipping the product I would send the customer an email apologizing for the delay with a time frame when they will ship.

I have received zero input on the moldings. Everything I posted above was me speculating what the problem might be. It’s been one week. I was going to give them a few days to see if they ever send me any updates. Maybe posting here might help.

 

It’s been a day since my last post. Posting here does not help. I have not heard anything.

 

I agree that a company shouldn't charge a credit card before they ship. But as I understand how the web site works here, is they don't actually have any inventory. They send the payment to the company and they depend on the company to ship. Until they ship, I doubt the folks here have any info regarding an order. This of course, is far from perfect and it's fraught with problems if anything goes wrong and need to be resolved.

I wish you luck and patience. The folks here have in the past had a good record with orders so....

Steve

 

I received the item late yesterday. I never received tracking info.

The majority of internet sales companies do not stock items. They are fulfillment warehouses. The big difference is other companies get the tracking number from the fulfillment house when the item ships and most items ship the day of the order. This makes it transparent to the end user.

Prius Chat bills your card the second you place and order. They sit on your order for 2 days before they do anything with it. They never respond to emails and they will not give you a tracking number unless you really beg for it.

My order is complete and I learned my lesson. Based on my experience I predict will not be the last to have issues.

 

Judgeless (ironic username, btw),

Let me start off by saying I am in no way affiliated with this company you had a problem with, in fact, I'm still looking for the right Prius to purchase. Because there are several accessories I want to purchase for my Prius once I get it, I was curious about this thread and decided to read through it.

I'm not sure I understand the problem here. You posted "They never respond to emails and they will not give you a tracking number unless you really beg for it", yet you posted here copies of the emails you received from them?? Also, you stated in an earlier post that "I was never promised a tracking number" and then expected one on your final portion of the order?

You got all of your order within a week of ordering it. Does that seem unreasonable to you? I'm about the most impatient person on Earth when waiting for an order, and I think that's reasonable.

I'm not defending anyone's actions, it just seems to me you were a bit impatient with the arrival of your order. If the dealer wasn't going to have your car until August 1st, would any of this have even been an issue?

Just my 2c. You can toss it in the trash for all I care, but give a small business a fair shake. Doesn't this guy run the very board you posted your rant on???

Adam.

 

Here is a quick summary.

On Friday 7/17 I sent an email request on the site asking if I could have part sent directly to the dealer.

No response.

On Monday 7/20 I placed the order with comments asking if it was going to ship complete.

No response.

On Tuesday 7/21 I sent an email request on the site asking the status of my order.

No response

On Wednesday 7/22 I sent an email request on the site asking the status of my order.

No response.

After 4 attempts to contact them over 6 days I was very upset. I sent an email to the admin of this web site and received a response in 1 hour. This was the first email I received from them.

After 4 attempts I finally got my first email that I could respond to. They do not respond to emails unless they are forced to.

I expect a tracking number on 100% of the internet based web sites I deal with. That is has been common practice for many years. I just pointed out the fact they never give a tracking number unless you demand it.

Skrekbrother if you are used to jumping through this many hoops when you place an order on the internet that’s fine. I never have to put this much effort in orders placed on other sites. That is my two cents.

 

For over a decade, we've bought & sold online. There are folks that have sold 10's of thousand of items on line. These folk will invariably get a few customers that deem their selves folks that have higher expectations. The online merchant views this minority like this:



Anyone in retail will tell you what it's like to try to keep even 99.6% of their customers happy ... it's nearly impossible. Fact is everyone is different .. with their degree of expectations.

 

This is where we differ. When I attempt to contact a company and they don't respond to an inquiry before an order, I'm certainly not going to expect much from them after an order. So knowing ahead of time that the company was not into timely responses, you still placed an order?

 

Hill I agree 100% that there are a small percentage of people that ask for unreasonable service and they have to be ignored.

I did not create this thread. It was created by others before I placed my order. This thread was created because people were not getting responses when trying to contact anyone at Prius Chat. I would not classify some that complains because a company never responds to any of their requests a crybaby.

I am ok with your label. Here is my view.

Working with companies that take your order and sends a conformation, do not bill your card until it ships, respond to emails, and provide tracking numbers in a timely matter.



Placing an order and getting billed the second you order. Not getting a conformation. After 4 attempts to email the company and never getting a response over 6 days. Dealing with a company that does not believe in giving tracking numbers. Working with a company that defends its bad actions instead of apologizing for them.



I strongly disagree that most people would not complain if they got the same service that I did. Some might not keep posting in a thread like this. I am only responding to others that think this level of service is acceptable.

 

Shreksbrother I agree 100%. I made a huge mistake here. When I sent the message to Prius Chat and did not get a response I should have found a new place to order the product. I learned from my actions and maybe others can learn as well.

To all. If you going to place and order on Prius Chat send them a message before you place your order. Ask a simple question like estimated time of arrival. If you do not get a response do not order from Prius Chat.

 

I think 7 days is pretty good. Unless you pay extra to have it shipped over night or two day, and 8-10 buisness day transaction is normal.
I certainly agree that an email response would have been good.