To bring my home recording studio into the 21st century, I required an E-MU 1010 PCI-express card to replace the PCI version I currently have. The best price, by far, was on Amazon.com. Excited to get such a great deal, I made the purchase - the expected delivery being August 10.
With great anticipation, I opened my mail box on the 10th to find... No E-MU 1010 PCIe card. It happens - perhaps there was a little trouble in transit. To verify my benefit-of-doubt theory, I tracked the item... Only to find that the card had not even been picked up (or dropped off) to the shipper.
I contacted Amazon to try to figure out what the delay was, in shipping the item. Four customer service reps gave me the same story - that the item had, indeed, been shipped and should arrive shortly. Seeing that the shipper did not have record of even receiving the item, however, this did not sit well with me.
The fifth customer service rep finally found what had happened - the item was lost somewhere between going to shipping and being dropped off at the shipper. Uh oh.
A little miffed, but understanding that this does happen, I told them to simply refund my order amount and I will replace the order - but with 1-day shipping at no extra charge. The representative agreed. So far, so good.
Today, my refund was posted, so I went forward with the re-order (with customer service rep #6 at the ready, to refund the shipping amount). The order was placed with what seemed to be the greatest of ease. That is, until I noticed the expected delivery date. Even with 1-day shipping, the expected delivery date was in 2 weeks.
This discovery prompted me to open a chat session with customer service representative #7 to see why I would have to wait 2 weeks for 1-day shipping. His answer was that it was because of lack of inventory. This did not make sense, as the website said they had an inventory of 3 remaining. Since this was NOT the case, after all, I had to have order #2 canceled and place order #3 with a different store.
To give Amazon credit, they did refund the $10 difference in price between the two stores and the 1-day shipping charge. My purpose for writing this is to warn - when placing an order with Amazon - especially an order for mission critical items - be VERY cautious. It may not hurt to have a customer service rep online with you, just to verify that what you are ordering not only is, indeed, in stock, but will find its way to the shipper...
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