This letter is concerning a recent order placed with one of your websites. It will address the order, the problems that occurred, the lack of customer service, the effects on my family and of course the planned course of actions I will be taking. The foremost important aspect of this letter is that action must be and will be taken. The dramatic effect it has had on me, my wife and my children, at this point, is unforgiveable. I have purchased products online for many many years. This is the first time I have ever been treated in such a manner that would provoke this type of response.
How did this problem occur? Believe it or not it was my mistake. I actually placed an order with your company. Or should I say through carparts.com. Normally, I do extensive research about websites before I place orders with them. This situation did not warrant the time needed to do this research. You see both the wife and I both work and we only have one vehicle. So time was of the essence. I found the part on Google Shopping and ordered it. We were in desperate need for this part as our lively hood was based on getting this truck fixed. I should have just bought the part locally. I did order it online because that is where I purchase most of my auto parts. Of course, had I done my research, I would have never placed an order with your company.
The second problem began with your order processing system. I had specifically requested overnight shipping. A service that would cost me approximately $30 additionally. Which I had no problem paying based on the situation. When I went to process the payment, your system took off the overnight shipping. Now we had a problem. We could not afford to wait on this part to come it by ground shipping. So as I started to panic, I just figured I would call customer service. Which is the next step I took. Keep in mind that I did not wait very longer to call. Is was within 15 minutes. Let me say that again, WITHIN 15 MINUTES.
The call to customer service was a disaster. I was told that if the order was cancelled that you people could not guarantee that the order had not already shipped. Come on folks, no company ships an item within 15 minutes after receiving the order. But customer service explained that it may be duplicated and thus I would get two parts instead of one. This would could not afford. I did not want to cancel the order, I just wanted to add the overnight shipping to it. Of course your customer service department refused to do that. I was told that it would take 2-4 days to get to me. So, I hoped for the best. When I first check the status of the order I was pleased to see that is was going to ship by UPS ground. As I have a lot of faith in UPS. When I check the order the next day I find that it did not even ship. So you had the order for TWO days. So why could the shipping not be changed? Then when you finally shipped it, you did not use UPS ground you used Fedex Smartpost. The absolute worst shipping method. This would explain why it took a WEEK to get here. By the way, customer service did check that this part could have been shipped overnight.
Like I said before, I knew nothing about carparts.com when I place the order. Something that has since changed. When doing my research I found hundreds of negative reviews and very few reviews that would have prompted me to buy from this website, had I done the research. This is not news to you people as you are well aware of the negative feedback of this website. One of the surprising things that was missing from these negative feedbacks was the connection to your company. So, I decided to dig even further, past the reviews. And of course low and behold, the connection was made. First, the fulfillment warehouse was actually JC Whitney. A company up until this point I had great respect for. What surprised me after learning about JC Whitney owning carparts.com, was after your acquisition you separated U.S. Auto Parts from carparts.com. It is not listed with all your other website on your investor's page. I wonder why? We all know the answer so you do not need to provide one. But, just to make sure you are connected I checked by debit card. And there it was, YOUR name as the payment processor.
Carparts.com could serve your company in two different aspects. Offer low cost, cheap parts and poor customer service. This could either be a way of selling sub-standard parts or it could help to drive traffic to your other sites with MUCH higher prices. Either way it is not a very honest way to operate. And based on the reviews and the lack of connection, it is not something that most people are aware of. Something that I am seriously considering changing. You see, I might be able to get some kind of satisfaction from having the same effect on your financial status as you have had on mine. By the number of people this letter is being sent to, should indicate to you that I have done my research. I know how to create such an impact and am more than willing to follow through. In today's information age, social networking can have dramatic impact on a companies growth or losses. The great thing is that through our social networks we hit a very, very large audience.
This fuel pump going out could not have happened at a worse time. And taking over a week to get the replacement part caused extreme hardship on me and my family. Although my daughter is 17 years old and has put the blame on your company, my 14 year old son is still very confused. You see we have cancelled Christmas this year. No Christmas lights, which by the way we usually win the neighborhood award each year. No Christmas tree and no presents. All thanks to carparts.com. All because of my poor decision to order from your company. But then again we are just an order number. For if you truly cared about your customers you would not have let this happened. You would have made sure that I could have paid for this part to be shipped overnight.
Now, how do I become a household name for all YOUR employees? How do I set the goals here? Just have an impact that just in ratio to the impact you have had on us? Or do I set the goal to see if through the power of the internet I can close the doors? I am, however, trying to keep emotion out of it. If I let emotions control my course of actions, I may not get the desired results. But, at this time of year based on the results of your companies actions, it is hard not to get emotional.