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March 25th, 2000

Customer Service? CD Universe has none.

Want to hear yet another story of incompetent customer service?

A few weeks back I placed two orders with CD Universe. The first was a pre-order DVD that was due out in April. I used a $10 off $14.99 coupon. The second, a day later, was for two DVDs: one due out at the end of March and the other in-stock. I used a $10 off $20 coupon and instructed them to hold the in-stock DVD for 14 days until they could ship both items together (to cut back on shipping costs).

A few days later I check back on my order status. The first order had been “cancelled by customer” six minutes after I had placed it. I received no notification of the cancellation and only then realized that buried deep in their site was a policy stating that pre-orders could be made no further than 30 days in advance. But then, a mere six days after the second order, the in-stock DVD shipped, meaning I was going to have to pay extra shipping charges.

I sent an e-mail with specifics on both orders asking for resolution to the problems. During the next week, as I waited for a response, I tried their “live help” chat room several times during business hours and never was there anyone in there to help. I also tried a phone call to customer service, where I was disconnected after five minutes of silence.

After a week, I resent the letter to customer service and to the “manager” e-mail address, telling them of the total lack of response and that I expected a response right away. In the mean time, the next day I called customer service again to see what the heck was up. This time, I finally got through, but as soon as the representative (who, no joke, was named “Precious”) asked my name, her computer crashed. She asked if she could call me back and got a description of my problem. She said that I would be able to get the difference in shipping refunded, but that she would call me to confirm that she had done it.

Three days later: still no call back and no response to either e-mail.

Also, I can no longer use the coupon that I used on the first order and a number of other coupons I had tried using became invalid when their site wouldn’t complete my order.

So, add CD Universe to the list of online retailers that are on my s-list. -ram

Posted in Consumer Commentary

Lydia October 1, 2009, 4:09 pm

I am very sorry to hear that you did not receive the correct customer service at the time of your purchase. I can definitely assure you that we have improved our customer service and are defintely here to help with any problems or questions you may have. You can reach us at 1-800-231-7937 or you can email us at customerservice@CDUniverse.com.

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