I was considering purchasing some things on woot.com, but my order didn't amount to a whole lot, so the $5 for all you can ship seemed not worth it. While I was shopping, a small box appeared saying, in woot's annoyingly perky lingo, that I could have "free shipping until midnight." Note, the site is a "beta" version.
Woot has this circular thing with Paypal where you log in to Paypal then it takes you back to woot. When you click Buy, you are charged. There is nothing telling you how MUCH you are charged until after you have paid. This is not standard practice. When I saw the free shipping offer, I decided to order. So, I ordered a $7 mug and some other things. On woot they have thi complicated system where there are different stores and your order from one gets wiped out if you want to order from another even though it is all on the same site. So you end up ordering each thing separately. I learned at the end that I was charged $5 shipping on an $8 mug. The shipping also covered the other things I ordered but was still not worth it. I only ordered because of the free shipping. I immediately wrote an email to customer service—it was late at night, too late to call. I did not receive any confirmation email right away, it took a good 10 hours (same every time I contacted them or answered an email). The customer service person told me I must have been confused and that the $5 shipping fee was normal. I said I am aware of that, but it offered free shipping. They asked if I would like to cancel and I said yes. (I assume that means my whole order would be cancelled not just the mug). 12 hours later I got a confirmation email that someone would get back to me. When they finally did, they told me it was too late to cancel.in the meantime I also got email that one item in the order has shipped. I replied that the last person told me I could cancel. I have not heard back. I know $5 is not a lot of money but I feel I was lied to. If I had only ordered the mug, I'd be paying almost 100% shipping. I would not have ordered anything if not for the free shipping. I'm unclear if this is a glitch or a scam. Customer service was beyond unhelpful.
Woot is owned by Amazon, it is a large corporation and should do something about the site making dishonest offers. The amount you are paying should be clear before you have paid. I have never been charged simply by clicking BUY. There is always another email after that with the amount. The woot interface was pathetic, the shopping experience terrible and confusing with it dumping out the existing items when you wanted to buy more, the Paypal circularity unacceptable.
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