pottery barn says: "you are dead to me!"

suddenly, i’m caught in my own version of a consumerist soap opera.

i called pottery barn a few weeks ago to order a mirror for our bathroom, because the one that came with our house is bufugly. if i have any rules for my new house, #3 is NO WICKER. even seemingly-innocuous wicker painted white to match all the other moldings. alas, the one in the catalogue seemed pretty nice, plus it has a shelf which is good for hmc to plop things on.

i call back last week to check on the order and see when it was shipping, only to be told that they can’t find the order. uh, what? “oh, it happens all the time.” so, willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, i order it again with the person on the phone, and i figure that i’ll check in later to make sure that nothing went awry this time.

yesterday i call back. here’s my conversation:
me: “hi, i’m calling to check the status of my order # xxxxxxxx”
her: “hm. i’m not finding it. what’s your name and your zip code?”
me: “me, blah blah blah”
her: “huh. i can’t find it in our system.”
me: “are you kidding?”

there was some bullshit runaround where they claimed my credit card had denied the transactions, which i verified with the credit card to be absolutely untrue.

finally, i got another supervisor on the phone who gave me the actual problem. it turns out that the old owner of our house had pissed off pottery barn so much that they BLACKLISTED THEM. FOREVER. meaning that pottery barn would NEVER SHIP ANYTHING TO OUR ADDRESS EVER AGAIN. what the hell do you need to do to get blacklisted by pottery barn? order stuff, decide that you don’t like it, and then shit on it before you send it back? claim that the sectional couch is facing the other way than in the picture? argue that the dresser you ordered is not colored espresso but mahogany?

but seriously, what the fuck does that have to do with me? they don’t live here anymore. i live here now. if they need evidence, they can look at the crap that i ordered from them from my old house. that i kept. and did not shit on. and if you didn’t want me to order, why did you send me two catalogs with “welcome to your new house and here’s 10% off so buy some stuff from us” coupons in them?

she said she was going to see if she could do something about it, but she didn’t sound hopeful. as it is right now, if i want anything from pottery barn, i need to have it shipped somewhere else. riiiiight, like i’m going to go out of my way to buy from them if they don’t want my business. it’s not like they’re the only ones out there selling overpriced crap.

Posted at August 6, 2007 4:45 PM | TrackBack