Blast you Shoebacca.com!

A little while back, there was a Groupon for Shoebacca.com, which was awesome because that is where I purchased my current pair of running shoes, the Adidas Adizero Tempo.  This deal was $25 for $50 worth of merchandise.  SWEET!  So I bought two (I bought one and my wife bought one) of the Groupons, and tucked them away for later use.  Like I posted a few blogs ago, I was in the market for some new shoes, and because of these Groupons I had, I was definitely going to be using Shoebacca.com.  Unfortunately, they didn't have my size in the Tempo's any more!

This led me to do some searching for a new set of kicks.  After all of my researching, I landed on the Saucony Progrid Kinvara.  I did some price searching online, and actually found a website that sold the Kinvara for $69.95, compared to Shoebacca's $89.99.  Well, Shoebacca has a 110% price-match guarantee.  Now, I know I'm not that bright, but I read through the price-match requirements and I was pretty sure when I made my purchase that my orders would qualify for the price-match guarantee.  They were the exact same shoe, size, color, width and style on both websites, and the other website had 3+ pairs available at the time that I made the purchase.  I thought for sure I was going to be getting a smoking deal on my new shoes.  Not only was I going to save $25 from my Groupon, but Shoebacca was going to price match, and refund me an extra 10%!

This is the point where I got upset, which doesn't happen very often at all.  I made my order with Shoebacca about a week ago, and submitted my price comparison form about thirty seconds after completing my order.  I received an email from Shoebacca today (about a week later) saying my price comparison had been denied, because there were no shoes currently available on the other website.  I called Shoebacca and was immediately greeted with stupidity.  Maybe that's a harsh word, but these people are screwing me out of about $40!

The first person I talked to just kept repeating that there were no shoes available, so they can't do the price match.  I kept arguing that when I made the order, there were shoes available.  Finally, after realizing that this "customer service" person was getting me nowhere, I asked to speak to the person who sent me the email.  Again, I was initially speaking to a brick wall.  The only option I was given was to return my shoes, or find another website to compare with.  She said, "I can see about having the price-match guarantee extended to give you time to find another website."  Are you freakin' kidding me!  I replied with, "Well you already waited a week to do my comparison.  Why don't you just wait another two weeks until this other website has the shoes in stock again?"  Better yet, since the other website says exactly when they are going to have the shoes back in stock, just give me the stinkin' refund!  I was about to give up and tell them that I'd never do business with them again, when I looked on the other website and saw that they did have my shoe available, a half-size up.  So I said, "Can we just agree that I'll exchange my shoes as soon as they get here for the next size up and you will redo the price-match?"  This employee said that this was acceptable to them.  So, as soon as my shoes arrive, which is hopefully tomorrow so I can do this return crap before the website sells out again, I have to put them right back in the mail and send off an email to have the price-match redone.  What a freakin waste of time!

I'm sure some of you are thinking that I'm making a pretty big deal out of nothing.  Well, $40 is a lot of money!  Especially when gas keeps going up.  I kept asking the "customer service" person what else I could have done to get the price match, and they just replied, "Unfortunately, it just depends on when we do the comparison.  We really don't turn down comparisons very much at all."  Well, why is it that the only comparison I submit is the one that gets rejected?  If you would have done the stupid comparison when I submitted it, we wouldn't even be having this conversation!  Even stupider, when I made the order by phone, I specifically asked what would happen if the shoes sold out before they did the price-match, and the person I made the order with said it was no problem!  Of course when I said that in today's phone conversation, they just said sorry, that person was wrong.  What a load of garbage!

I could probably go on about this forever, so I need to cut myself off.  Even if this works out, and Shoebacca gives me the price-match, I probably won't shop with them again.  I just don't appreciate being screwed over and having to argue my way through an online order for shoes!  I understand the economy is bad, but there's no need to screw over customers who followed your guidelines Shoebacca.