NewEgg Fail

I’d like to relay a story of what not to do. Perhaps with some humor along the way. We’ve had trouble with newegg.com‘s website for quite some time at our company. The most recent time I was unable to order, I decided to let newegg know that I was spending my money over at amazon. So I wrote them a quick note via the their web service interface. Here’s the note I wrote:

I love giving money to newegg, but today I can’t. Seems that some combination of newegg’s shopping cart code and our corporate firewall prevent me from updating my cart. I can totally delete my cookies and start over, adding one item at a time to the cart. But today I wanted to order two of the same item, so I went to amazon. I’ll pay a little more, but at least then I can order them together.

I’ve tried the hosts file trick mentioned in your faq. I’ve tried under Chrome, Firefox, and IE8. I’ve tried it in a house, I’ve tried it with a mouse. I’ve tried it on a different day, I’ve tried it in a different way. I’ve tried it from a different box, I’ve even tried it while juggling socks.

Any ‘Update Cart’ operations timeout. After attempting to perform one I have to clear my cookies and start over.

Level of technical experience: I help build the Internet.

http://secure.newegg.com/test.aspx

E3SSL05 (172.16.21.145)

http://www.newegg.com/test.aspx

E3Web001

After the standard “we did get your email, the internet really still works” email message, I got a wonderful reply from one Lillian Hu (her real name, I’m sure) as follows:

Dear Will,

Thank you for contacting Newegg.

I truly apologize for the unfavorable situation. Please kindly note that we are not technically certified; therefore we can not provide more information or suggestions about this problems. We do apologize if this causes you any inconvenience. Possibly this is a problem at the end of the item stock and we do not have available quantity for purchase. Again, I sincerely apologize for any inconvenience.

If you have any further questions or concerns, please visit our FAQs page. If you still need assistance, please feel free to email me directly and I will be happy to assist you.

Thank you,

Lillian Hu

So tell me dear readers – how does that relate to what I wrote? Even a little bit?

So I wrote back, trying to pass this up the ladder to someone with a little more technical training.

Somehow I think my humorous and loving note was lost on you. I gave my money to amazon.com instead.

Lillian replied at one in the morning:

Dear Will,

Thank you for contacting Newegg.

I do apologize for any inconvenience. This situation is not normal. I would like to further assist this issue on your behalf. Please reply to this email with the screen shot of the problem you met with purchase, I will send report for you.

If you have any further questions or concerns, please visit our FAQs page. If you still need assistance, please feel free to email me directly and I will be happy to assist you.

Thank you,

Lillian Hu

Fantastic. I was hoping she would send report for me. Here’s my screenshot. Enjoy.

We’ll see if they manage to do something useful for me.