DDD 20% Off Sale? (1 Viewer)

[Doug Pyle]

It sucks living in western time zones.

Near beaches.

Sure is humid.

People asking how to get the visa to visit.

Stores closing too early. What to do?

(I do try my best at being a wiseass, but nobody seems to notice. The HTF crowd is so respectful and well behaved, which is why I like it here.)

- Congratulations John. Sounds like you made a familiar argument, and came out all right in the end. (Despite how it may sound, I am fully sympathetic. Been in your shoes, and agree with you 100%)

 

[Random Hero]

Well, my order from Thursday morning finally shipped.

"And the rest... is up to God."

 

[Patrick_S]

John, good to read everything worked out.

Obviously I was always in your corner on this one.

It's nice that once again, in the end, DDD's excellent customer service came through.

 

[RyanAn]

I am glad that you were able to get your order in! Everyone, copy and paste what he said and see if it works.

For anyone wondering if my orders were shipped:

1. Already being touched upon - The precious
2. Everything is either in process or backordered for the 28th...
3. in process.

At least my card won't be charged,

Ryan

 

[Will_B]

You think you have it weird. I'm visiting the Central Mountain Time Zone, and for some reason Conan doesn't come on after Leno. Leno says "stay tuned for Conan!" but he's not there. Can I sue someone?

 

[JohnRice]

You must be watching the Denver NBC station. For some bizarre reason, they have been showing Cheers after Leno for years.

 

[RyanAn]

I am pretty sure Conan has been banned in certain areas. A few years back he used to talk about how some markets hated him and banned him. They had the drawings of "little kids" showing why they hated him... Not sure if it was a work or not, but it sounds like it.

For the record

Summer for Ryan:

Leno at 10:30
Lame Friends block for like an hour
Conan at 12:30

Everytime else:

Leno at 11:30
Conan at 12:30

 

[Joel Vardy]

OK...this sale is quite exciting for those of us that have been fueling our hobby through the internet going back to the early days of '97/'98. This sale brings down some relatively pricey box sets to a reasonable (and possibly affordable new levels). I jumped into this in two stages with a $200 order on release Tuesday and one more time on the last day to try to get in some more 'marginal' fare. Stage one went without a hitch and I actually have received it already (apart from the Hitchcock set that has already shipped and should be arriving next week) but stage 2 has gotten caught up in the volume spike (probably highest on the 19th) that apparently has created a mountain of shipping backlog that they are still trying to climb out of. No word all week and I'll be surprised to get my shipping notice much before the end of next week. No big deal since there is nothing that I can't do without, even if it doesn't arrive till sometime in mid to late December. If this gets caught in the holiday rush and either gets lost or doesn't arrive till January I'll be OK though a bit irritated (especially if it gets lost and needs to be reshipped).

Lessons learned for me and DDD. I think this will be done differently next year. I'll be quite surprised to see more than one of these sales per year and with multiple coupon codes it invites people to make hasty purchases and squeeze in what they can at the very last minute (what a consumer culture we have become). If they come up with a single code or 2 or 3 this situation will force more planning and rational buying.

Since I've been using DDD as my primary non-B&M source I've suffered the shortcomings of their web-site. I wish some of their profits would be invested in a tracking system that starts to approximate the 'gold standard' approach used by Amazon. In fact any improvement would be welcome and probably would help keep them in business.

Joel

 

[Dave Mack]

Ok, my tale...

I did the DDD sale for the first time ever this year and have had problems. 2-3 days after I placed me order, (Well within the sale) I received an email stating that my order was cancelled but not telling the reason why. I had just decided to buy another batch of dvds at this time too, so I called customer service and they told me that they couldn't confirm my mailing address for my Credit card, (which was actually a debit card) I explained that I had recently moved across country and my banking and mailing address had now changed. The rep understood, everything seemed fine and I told her that I wanted to add to the order and I had the coupon code. She said, "No problem" and I read every catlog number for the items off the site one at a time, (took 20 minutes!) and even gave her a second 20% code. When she did the total, (and I was simultaneously doing it on the site with the discount code to make sure that our totals matched, she was off, by ALOT) I explained the code thing again, asked if I had to do it on the web, she said "No. I can do it." And after several attempts she matched the figure I had from the website which was accurate for the 20% off. No pre-orders, everything seemed fine. She had a bit of trouble understanding me, (she was heavily accented BTW) so our communication took awhile but all seemed right and I doublechecked that I had received the 20% off for ALL the items ordered. She confirmed, I got my new confirmation number and all seemed ok.
Well, now many day later I received this email that some of my order had shipped...

".....Shipping Method: 5 - 10 BUSINESS DAY DELIVERY
Estimated Arrival date: 12/02/05 - 12/07/05

Quantity Item # Description Price
-------- ------------ ---------------------------------------- ----------
1 ABD013215 DVD : EVIL DEAD 2-BOOK OF THE DEAD 2 $ 19.19
1 UNI025279 DVD : QUEEN & PAUL RODGERS-RETURN OF THE $ 12.47
1 WBD033534 DVD : RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD 2 $ 7.20
1 ABD013286 DVD : ROSEANNE-1ST SEASON $ 23.97
1 LGE018537 DVD : DEVIL'S REJECTS, THE (UR/WS) $ 16.01
1 PRD006887 DVD : STAR TREK-FIRST CONTACT (2D/SE) $ 13.56
1 ELE004326 DVD : RE-ANIMATOR (ME) $ 11.97
1 WBD022019 WOLFEN $ 5.99
1 PRD005233 DVD : FRIDAY THE 13TH PARTS 1-8 (5D) $ 49.69


Merchandise Total: $ 160.05
Tax: $ .00
Shipping & Processing: $ .00
Discount: - $ 13.16
Total for Shipped Items: $ 146.89

Credit Card Type: M..."

Now it doesn't require a calculator to see that on an initial total of $160.05, that 20% off would be $32.10 so my final total should have been around $128.00 not $146.89

So I figured, "Great, the discount wasn't applied to the newer items I added on the phone." I emailed them with this info. and I received an interesting response,

"...Our records indicate that the 3 items you have ordered have a number with the prefix WBD.
We regret to inform you that items with this prefix is not applicable for 20% discount.
We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause..."

Ok, hold the phone. I assume that means any Warner Bros. DVD which sounds bogus as there was nothing on the website indicating this (anyone who ordered "The Wizard of Oz" feel free to chime in!) and also when I first applied the code, Everything was discounted on my order. Even if I omit the 20% discount on the 2 items in the "just mailed" part of my order on the 2 WB items, wbd033534, "Return of The living dead" which was $7.20
and wbd022019 "Wolfen" which was $5.99 the total was still incorrect. My discount at this part of the order would have been approximately $29.40 and not $13.16.

So I emailed them back saying that if this wasn't corrected I would be cancelling the rest of my order, (which was another $240 approximately) and would be passing this information on.

Is it me? Am I missing something or is this just crappy and/or dishonest customer service?

All opinions welcome, guys!


d

Happy Thanksgiving!

 

[Malcolm R]

I know my email about the sale said there were some selections that were not going to be part of the discount, and they would be marked with a star-symbol on the website. But I don't know if these were the WBD titles or not.

And that's why I hate to do any business by phone. There's no record of anything. The person on the other end can agree to everything you say, then do the exact opposite once you hang up because there's no record to back you up. I try to do everything either via website where you can print screens and receipts, or by snail mail where you can keep paper copies.

I have ordered multiple times from DDD in the past two years and have not had any problems, so I don't think they're actively trying to rip people off. But I also think these sales generate a lot more business than they can really handle so there end up being glitches at times.

 

[Dave Mack]

Hi Malcolm,

Yeah I just reread this thread and ALOT of people ordered "The Wizard of Oz" with the discount successfully applied. Seems there would be a big hubbub if this were suddenly dis-discounted. There explanation of "not applicable on WBD prefix titles", (of which "Wizard" is one) strikes me as bogus. And even then the discount should have been more.

grrr......

Never using DDD again.

 

[Todd Stout]

I am guessing that they were really overwhelmed by the sale this time around. I placed an order for three items last Saturday afternoon (CSI S1, and S2, and Three's Company S5). I got curious about my order last night and saw that one of the three items was now showing backordered so I figured that's what was holding up my order. I got an email this morning telling me that two of the three items finally shipped today and the third item should shup around 11/29 or so.

No big deal... at these prices I don't care if it takes a month to get my DVDs. I've been ordering from Deep Discount DVD for the past few years now (both with and without the sales) and notice that with free shipping it takes anywhere from 1 to 3 weeks. I've never had any complaints about them and recommend them to my friends all the time still.

 

[Mitch Stevens]

Dave, I could be wrong but I believe that 1 PRD005233 DVD : FRIDAY THE 13TH PARTS 1-8 (5D) $ 49.69 was the one that was not discounted in your order. The prices you posted already have had the discount applied to them, correct? Well, I seem to recall that the Friday The 13th boxed-set was $49.69 before the discount and if these prices reflect the discount already, then they probably didn't give you the 20% discount on this item. I don't know about any of the others, since those were not titles that I had looked for during the sale, but I did look for the Friday the 13th boxed-set because I too, wanted to buy it.

 

[JohnRice]

The normal price for Friday the 13th definitely is $49.69 so it would seem it was not included in the sale, but there is really no way to see if it was indicated that way at the time. My guess is it was, but I'm sure that is DDD's fault. Of course, it's a lot more fun to shoot first and blame later. I suppose they are also irresponsible to check for the billing address of credit cards used in an effort to avoid fraud. The whole "WBD titles aren't incuded in the sale" claim was clearly not correct, but let's face it, DDD is far from alone in CS people trying to find an easy answer. So, in the end, they seem to have made one incorrect claim, but the majority of the problems were due to issues arising from their (completely common) anti-fraud efforts and a customer not paying attention.

What did I say, way back before this sale began? From my own personal experience, I have purchased from DDD periodically since they opened, both during sales and not, and have never had an actual problem beyond them typically taking a few days to ship.

 

[Dave Mack]

Hey guys!

All the prices quoted in the email I received were the original DDD prices pre:discount. I checked. When I originally put them in the "cart" on the website after entering the code, ALL of them displayed a 20% discount. The Friday the 13th set went down to like $39.99 or so... so all I can assume is that only my original "cancelled" order had the 20% applied and all the later items didn't have it applied. Hopefully a simple mistake. I just didn't like this bogus "WB" discs are not eligible. Anyone get "The Wizard of Oz" with the discount successfully applied want to help and verify?

:frowning: d

 

[JohnRice]

Well, then I guess they singled me out to send emails with the post discount prices, because I placed 3 orders over the course of the sale and every email I have received, including order confirmations AND shipping confirmations, have indicated the price after discount.

Besides.....


a quick check of the site shows these prices...

EVIL DEAD 2-BOOK OF THE DEAD 2 - ABD013215D - $23.99
QUEEN & PAUL RODGERS-RETURN OF THE - UNI025279D - $15.59
RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD 2 - WBD033534D - $9.00

...and the other items show that they didn't apply the 20% discount. So, it is obvious they have screwed up on some of the items, but they DID give the 20% off on others, including at least one WBD title.

All I can say is, I find it interesting that I never seem to have these annoying, ongoing problems which never get resolved. Maybe it's because when I do have a problem with an online retailer, I don't treat the CS people badly, but instead be polite but persistent. Dave, you must be able to recognize yours was also an unusual situation due to your recently moving to the opposite end of the country. Not that you asked, but my suggestion would be to politely get to a supervisor and simply spell out what are clearly mistakes. It is easy to show that WBD titles are included in the sale, because they gave you the discount on one.

I have found that in virtually EVERY case, email CS is an excuse to do nothing. Of course, I personally have not had this problem with DDD because I've never had a problem with DDD. It has been with basically every other situation where I had to deal with problems through CS emails. It's definitely not exclusive to them. It's the world we live in these days.

 

[Steve...O]

Dave, the 20% discount was applied to my Wizard of Oz order. I'm sorry to hear of your troubles.

I wonder if they've moved their call center function overseas. The last two times I called (both during this sale) I got individuals who obviously did not speak English as a 1st language. Communicating was a challenge especially if you asked a question not on their script. When I called a year or so ago on another matter, the person was very easy to speak with and could answer my questions quicky and completely.

Having said that, I've had generally very good service from DDD over the years as long asphone interventions weren't required. It sounds like you got a CSR with inadequate training or who just didn't know what they were doing.

Steve

 

[MattHR]

Dave,
My OZ was ordered, shipped, received and billed at the correct discount from my first (of 4) orders:

1 WBD067705 DVD: WIZARD OF OZ (3D/COLLECTORS EDITIO $27.87


The only problems I've ever had with DDD have been with one of my orders from this past sale. One box-set arrived with MAJOR damage to its case, and another had a huge slice through its spine from a box cutter. The shipping carton was intact, so the damage had to have happened prior to shipping. Both were quickly exchanged.

 

[RyanAn]

I am sorry to hear of your woes Dave, and I hope the problem will have a remedy soon. I did order the 3-Disc Wizard of Oz set, my first thought was that you ordered a different version than everyone else, like the original release of it, but it seems like that is not the case at all, but I am not sure.

-

Just found out that about have of my second of three orders have shipped, leaving 3 on backorder and my entire third order still on the backburner. I am kind of flabbergasted as to why it has taken so long, considering that I ordered early, but I am not complaining since my card is still good to go. Has anyone else not had their order shipped yet?

Ryan

 

[Patrick Sun]

Yay! I got 2 big boxes from DDD today. I received my Ultimate Matrix set and the Buffy Uber box set.

The Ultimate Matrix set was boxed up from some place called Cinram Returns in Tennessee, with nice foam protection, DDD just put the box in another box and shipped it to me.