Steep and Cheap - Beware

I placed my third order with SAC recently for a women's Zoic jersey. Previous two orders went fine, no problems. When I ordered this I used my normal shipping address -- my PO box -- just like before. Only this time, they sent it UPS. Now, most shipping departments could be reasonably expected to know that UPS does not ship to PO boxes, but someone made a mistake.

So....after not receiving the item for nine days after ordering, I checked the UPS tracking. There is a long entry from UPS about the address containing numerous errors and that they are attempting to correct it. The next entry indicates that they corrected the address, and the one after that, that the item was delivered. Only problem was, it was delivered to a town I don't live in! A town, I, coincidentally or not, lived in six and a half years ago. So, UPS made the second mistake.

I have emailed SAC three times now. First on Saturday, then on Sunday, then last night. I provided my order number and details of what happened. I was courteous but asked that my credit card be reimbursed since the item was shipped UPS with a PO box and was delivered to the wrong address. I have not heard one word from them. So, the third mistake has been made. I think 48 hours (business days only) is very reasonable for a reply from customer service.

My next recourse is to dispute the charge when my credit card bill arrives. I printed out the UPS tracking details and will explain exactly what happened. Hopefully MBNA's investigation will bear out my side, since I did nothing wrong. I shop on-line for about 90% of my purchases, and normally, if a business does not ship to PO boxes, they state this when I fill in my shipping address - and most web forms won't even allow a PO box entry if it's not allowed. And besides, they have shipped to my PO box in the past!

So, be careful. Yes, SAC has good deals, and yes, if they get it right, all is well. But if they get it wrong....customer service may leave you in the lurch. I personally will not be ordering from them ever again. :mad:

If they do come through, I'll make sure to update this thread.

Emily

I've been ordering from backcountry.com (which runs SAC) for years and have never had a problem with their customer service. My suggestion would be to call their customer service ((800)409-4502) directly.

After not getting my 150.00 worth of skorts they said they were "looking into it" with fed ex and I've never heard from them since. Let's just say the Terry catalog now goes in the recycle!
Apparently fed ex says they delivered it, but I was home and it NEVER CAME! :mad:
I guess my beef should really be with fed ex, but since Terry told me they would take care of it, I left it to them to resolve...:cool:
All I know is I now shop TE exclusively for my stuff!! :)
Susan and the gang are THE BEST!!!

You can dispute the charge with your credit card now. You just need to call the number on the back of the card. You don't have to wait for the statement.

I'd be raising cain!

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Originally Posted by vinyl

I've been ordering from backcountry.com (which runs SAC) for years and have never had a problem with their customer service. My suggestion would be to call their customer service ((800)409-4502) directly.

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Thanks vinyl - when I have a chance to get all the information together yet again, I think I'll do that. Certainly worth a try, altho they may tell me I have to deal with SAC directly. I think it says something about SAC that they do not include any contact phone number on their customer service site - only an email form, that apparently goes right into /dev/null.

:mad:

Emily

You guys could also file a claim with UPS or FedEx. A company with good customer service would do it for you, but it's not outside the realm of possibility to do it for yourself.

Ugh. What is it with bicycle related mail order? (Other than TE, of course, never had any problems here.) My husband tried twice to have a set of track wheels shipped, and the company kept shipping them to a blank address, and after the second try they stopped responding to e-mail.

I did finally get my problem with GearLink resolved -- they shipped my stem to the wrong address but were only going to refund my shipping charges, not the price of the stem. Yesterday they told me that they could not refund me until I sent back the stem, and I flipped out and sent them an e-mail with MANY CAPITAL LETTERS and they refunded me this afternoon.

Usually I try not to get mad with companies, but sometimes it does help.

Certainly nobody beats TE for delivery and general customer service. But that's interesting about the problem with Terry, because I've also gotten great service from them. In fact, I've actually had someone from Terry call me, to resolve a delivery problem, without any prior knowledge of the problem on my part. Then again, that was about a year ago--lately I shop as much as possible at TE for cycling gear.

Actually, SAC does say that UPS won't deliver to PO boxes. Right at the top of the shipping form that you fill out.

It's not in bold or anything, but it's pretty obvious... I hope, though, that you can get the charges reversed so you're not paying for something you never recieved!

K.

There is a post on the steep and cheap forum today saying that the SAC email function had been down and that they were unaware fo the problem until today. Supposedly all emails are being rerouted and addressed.

Hope that you hear from them, Emily.

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Originally Posted by Kimmyt

Actually, SAC does say that UPS won't deliver to PO boxes. Right at the top of the shipping form that you fill out.

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Yes, I realize that. However, my previous two SAC orders were delivered to my post office box, US postal service mail. Normally, if a site allows a PO box in their shipping address form, they ship US mail if you enter one; otherwise, they may ship UPS. So, it wasn't that I missed that note on the form, it was that I didn't want my order shipped UPS.

(Sorry if I sound ticked at you - I'm not. I'm just trying to explain why I entered a PO box. If a site doesn't allow PO boxes at all, of course I will not enter mine, but this site didn't disallow it and in fact used to ship to PO boxes. They probably still do - I think someone just got careless.)

Perhaps my emails will get an answer now. Leave it to me to have a problem with a company when they have an email problem!!! Sigh.... :confused:

Emily

So, SAC never answered my three emails/inquiries. No matter what ends up happening here, I will stand firm in my resolve never to order from them again. Terrible customer service: bzzzzt, goodbye! :mad:

But, I did call backcountry.com's customer service today at last and (very politely) spoke to a decent guy, Matt. Although he didn't apologize for what had happened, he immediately took action by putting in a tracer in on my package to UPS. At home tonight I got a call from a very friendly UPS rep in Salt Lake City. She apologized several times for the mix-up and was able to confirm that my package did indeed go to my 6.5 year ago address in Cary, NC. She was also able, at my request, to put my new address into their system so there would no longer be an association between my PO box and my old address (how that association ever was made, I don't know, but I suppose we got our PO box shortly before moving).

The next step is for UPS to contact the folks who live in our old house now to attempt to retrieve my jersey and redeliver it to my current address. The thing I wonder is, why didn't they contact UPS already to report a misdelivery? They've had the package since 9/27, over a week. I would certainly have done that if I'd received a package with someone else's name that I had not ordered!

So, we shall see if it turns up, and if not, what the next step is. Hopefully it will all work out. Perhaps I'll see that jersey yet (but whether it will fit me or not is another matter entirely!)

Emily

Emily, what ever happened with this?

I am having similar problems with Steep and Cheap all of a sudden. I bought my mother's birthday gift from Backcountry.com last week, and had it shipped directly to her in Arizona. No problem. I've made three orders (one each from SAC, Backcountry.com, and the outlet) since then, and two of them have been shipped to her when they were supposed to be shipped to me. I have no idea where they are getting this, because when I put in that shipping address and was asked if I wanted it saved, I chose the "no" option. And I keep changing it back, and Steep and Cheap/Backcountry keeps defaulting to my mom's address.

The Smartwool Saratoga zipneck sweater got set twice ... once to each of us. And they charged me both times. (My mom and I are the same size so I told her to keep it, as a thank you for going out of her way to send me my other order that went there by mistake.)

I just noticed that they also changed my billing address -- it is now my name, my street address, but my mother's city, state, and zip. How are those charges even going through, since they don't match what is on my credit card? I have grave doubts about the security of their site at this point.

And customer service was 100 percent unhelpful. They told me that I had chosen to ship these items to that address and it wasn't their fault and not their problem. They did not believe me when I told them that their website's address function is really screwed up.

Ugh. My husband and I are both in such dire need of winter clothes that I have not been able to resist the really good deals on some things, but I think I need to take my business elsewhere. This is ridiculous.

(Although my mother is making out like a bandit!)

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Originally Posted by xeney

Emily, what ever happened with this?

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Well, it didn't end the way I'd hoped it would, but I got *most* of my money back. UPS was able to retrieve my misaddressed package from my old address, but instead of sending it to my current physical address as promised, they returned it to SAC. I then emailed SAC twice more and asked them to please resend it to my correct address (either my PO box via USPS or my physical address via UPS). Never a response. At this point, five emails to SAC (which doesn't seem to have any customer service phone number - big red flag) had dropped into the bit bucket.

About a week later, I get one of SAC's automated emails saying that my return has been credited, so they treated the package as a return, even though I never opened it and it was misdelivered and returned to them by UPS. Naturally, they did not refund shipping, which I feared. I emailed them again about this, twice, and again I got no response, so I am just going to eat the $6 something shipping charge and NEVER, EVER order from them again! It's a small price to pay to put this behind me, even though I don't think I should have had to pay a penny.

I should add that I have ordered once from backcountry.com recently, and that went fine, and the one guy at backcountry whom I spoke with about my SAC problem when I called was semi-helpful. But given your problems with backcountry, I'll probably cross them off my list as well. I have great luck with REI, LL Bean, Outdoor Divas, Team E, and others, so there's no need to spend money at businesses that don't value customer relations. I'm really sorry about all the problems you've had and their unwillingness to make them right. Grrrrr! A bargain is no bargain if you end up losing sleep (or money, in the long run) over it!

Good luck -- I hope you get a refund from them. Sounds like their database (as well as their customer service) is seriously screwed up. :mad:

Emily

Hey Emily-

Did you address it with your credit card company? They might well get the $6 back for you (and it usually doesn't require too much effort on your part). Just a thought - I'd go after it on principle - not for the $6.

CA

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Originally Posted by CA_in_NC

Did you address it with your credit card company? They might well get the $6 back for you (and it usually doesn't require too much effort on your part). Just a thought - I'd go after it on principle - not for the $6.

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Hi CA,

No, I didn't. I did think about it, but it just wasn't worth my time to make copies of everything and write yet another letter to the CC company to get back $6. Yes, it's the principle of the thing, but I had spent wayyyyyy too much time dealing with this already and was just OVER it.

I figured the best thing I could do here to feel vindicated is to post my story and hope that it stops one or two gals here from buying from SAC. I know most here love them, but it's pretty much a gamble purchasing from them. If all goes well, then okay (I still have a great pair of Smartwool tights I got from them), but if anything goes wrong, don't count on ANY customer service to speak of.

Emily

You may want to reconsider disputing the charge with your credit card. It's so easy and trust me the credit card company isn't going to require anything other than, "Wasn't delivered and wasn't fully refunded." You can do this online in less than a minute. You don't need to write a detailed letter and give copies of everything. No way should you be penalized for shipping when all you wanted was your item.

I've only ever had to dispute one charge, and it was quick and painless. (And I won.)

I'm not sure, but I think merchants who get reports/complaints made about them to the credit card company can risk consequences with said credit card company when there are repeated problems (like paying higher fees or, if it's really bad, getting their accounts suspended). So it might be helpful to complain. But I understand Emily's point.

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Originally Posted by Grog

I'm not sure, but I think merchants who get reports/complaints made about them to the credit card company can risk consequences with said credit card company when there are repeated problems (like paying higher fees or, if it's really bad, getting their accounts suspended). So it might be helpful to complain. But I understand Emily's point.

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They do. And I think you should challenge the charge too, otherwise SAC will remain unresponsive to customer complaints.

--SJ