FYE.com Has Horrible Customer Service

Now remember, I hadn’t regularly watched NBA games since I was in grade school and at the time I was a huge Chicago Bulls fan. Of course, I was probably a Bulls fan because when I was in grade school, Michael Jordan was destroying his competition. These days, I didn’t really feel a connection to that team so I turned to the Nets. The first thing I learned about the Nets was that they’re probably leaving New Jersey. Great. I’m not rooting for a team that is leaving the state. And what does that leave me with? Either the New York Knicks or the Philadelphia 76’ers. No thanks. I thought to myself that maybe I could find a team to root for if I had more time around the NBA and started looking into which basketball video games were popular. Not that I have time to play video games, but I thought it was a decent idea.

I did a little bit of research and it turns out that this NBA 2k11 game is supposed to be the best thing to ever grace a video game console since anything ever in the world. Or something like that… anyway, I pre-ordered the game for Nintendo Wii way back on August 31, 2010. Seems like a long time ago, right? Well, that’s the background that you need to know for my story. Oh, and you should know that the game was released for the Wii at some point last week and thus I should have had it in my hot little hands at this point.

As you might imagine, I didn’t get the game delivered to me. So, I sent the following message to FYE.com:

I’m sending this message to inquire about my order #XXXXXX. The online system shows it still listed as a pre-order and “in process.” Could you let me know when I should expect this game to be delivered to my home?

FYE.com sent me the following response which, I have to admit, reads like it was written by a robot. Take a look at this:

We appreciate your recent order.

Unfortunately, the item ordered is currently out of stock. We have placed this item on back order and expect it to become available for shipment within 30 days.

We will ship the item when it becomes available.

If you wish to cancel your order, please see the cancelation instructions below.

We sincerely apologize for the delay in processing this request.

And yes, they did provide extensive cancellation instructions below this note. Well, I thought that this didn’t sound right. How could a video game that I ordered months ago not be in stock when I was a pre-order? In my mind I started thinking, “Ugh. This is going to be one of those customer service experiences that you read about on Consumerist.com and, frankly, I’m really not in the mood for this type of crap. I’m going to cancel this thing and move on with my life.” With that in mind, I wrote the following message to the folks at FYE.com:

Thank you for the update. I just have an additional question. Since I pre-ordered this item back in August, how could it possibly be out of stock for a pre-order? Isn’t that the purpose of a pre-order – to have the item in stock so that the person that placed the pre-order doesn’t have to wait for an additional 30 days?

I’m going to cancel my order, but this is pretty ridiculous in terms of serving a pre-ordering customer. Unreal.

Look, I have no reason to bow down or cow-tow to a company that clearly doesn’t give a shit about me as a customer (just wait until you read the tirade I’m getting ready to unleash on Honda in the next few days). I normally wouldn’t write that last sentence and the “Unreal” comment, but FYE.com really had it coming to them with their robotic response and completely unacceptable additional 30 day delay. To their credit, I guess, they responded within 24 hours with this message:

Thank you for contacting the fye.com Customer Assistance Center

Please log into your account online or contact us at 800-818-1941, option 7, to submit a cancellation request.

That was it. Nothing else. No direct answer to any of my questions or an explanation of what was going on. By the time I received this absolute joke of a customer service response, I had already canceled my order. But this was pretty damn insulting and it led me to share my experiences with you fine folks. The lesson that I learned here is three-fold. First, FYE.com’s customer service absolutely sucks. They either have you talking to robots or people who act like robots. Listen up, FYE.com: when a customer asks a question – no matter how rude you think that question may be – you respond to that question. Second, FYE.com clearly doesn’t care about my business and thus, I’m not giving it to them. I happen to have a small credit over at GameStop and I’ll be going to their website to spend my money now. And third, FYE.com sucks when compared to the folks in their brick and mortar store.

What a shame. I wanted to like shopping at FYE.com but, instead, found it to be an annoying, aggravating experience. For shame, FYE.com. For shame.

Then when I got into high school I was so occupied with playing football and wrestling that I really didn’t have the time to watch much basketball. As a result, I wound up not watching any NBA games for a number of years – even though college and graduate school. In 2006, when I was finished going to school full-time, I took fleeting glances at the NBA to see if it could hold my interest and I was completely unimpressed. Aside from the fact that everyone is absolutely gaga for Lebron James (which is extremely annoying), I believe that the most disenfranchising aspect of the NBA is the utter lack of maturity among some of the players.

You only need to look at the ridiculous case of the Wizards players flipping guns around in the locker room for the perfect example of what I’m talking about. Here’s some stupidity from the linked article:

The New York Post has reported that Arenas and Crittenton drew guns on each other. When asked about that Saturday, Arenas said: “I can’t speak on that. But if you know me, you’ve been here, I’ve never did anything [involving] violence. Anything I do is funny — well, it’s funny to me.”

You’ve never “did anything violence?” Really? Are you sure that you’ve never “done anything violent?” Okay, I’m not the grammar police, but what about the content? Is it funny to flip a gun around in the locker room? Seems to me that’s about as funny as hosting dog fights…

At some point when I was in college I heard the NBA referred to as “Ghetto Ball.” I didn’t believe this adjective until I began to see this type of stuff: players jumping in the crowds to fight fans, uncontrollable marijuana use among players, children calling themselves “King” in high school because they’re a big fish in a small pond, players pulling guns on one another, etc. I don’t have time for this type of immaturity.

The other problem that I have with watching the NBA is that I’m not that into the Chicago Bulls any more. I’d rather root for the home team. However, the home team in New Jersey is the Nets and, well, they suck. On top of them sucking, this is a team that is trying its damnedest to get into Brooklyn in the Atlantic Yards development. While I think it would be cool to have a Brooklyn-based NBA team, if it means losing the New Jersey franchise, then that’s not good for our state, is it?

Anyway, until the NBA cleans its act up, I’ll stick to watching Monmouth University’s Hawks. Sure, it’s a different level of competition, but at least I know the kids don’t have guns flying around nor are they looking to get into a fist fight with the fans!

The final score of the MU vs. FIU game

In my view, the Hawk players of the game were #10 Will Campbell, #25 Travis Taylor, and #5 Whitney Coleman. Taylor, in particular, was dominant for most of the night. The FIU team played aggressively with a few minutes left on the clock and I’m sure that their aggressive play with help them in future games. However, the Hawks managed to not just to win, but to win by 29 points and nearly broke the 100 point barrier in their first game of the season! It really was a great win for the basketball team and, as an alumnus of the university, it was great to see such strong (and vocal) student support. That’s the type of experience that many of my fellow alumni and I never had the opportunity to get while we were undergraduates, but I like that the current generation of students have this great facility and a great team to cheer on!

And on that point, there are a bunch of Monmouth University alumni from the late 1990’s/early 2000’s that have some degree of bitterness towards the university for a variety of reasons. As someone who was always aggravated that the college completely botched my graduation back in the spring of 2003, I have to admit that I was very impressed with the production tonight. It all went off perfectly and the entire show made me slightly proud to be from Monmouth. And for those of you that know me, you know that this statement means something else coming from my mouth! For those of you who are friends with me on Facebook, you can check out over 50 pictures from the game.

I can’t wait for the big game against Seton Hall this Sunday afternoon – if you’re in the Monmouth area you should check it out!

Mainstream Coverage of the Monmouth victory over FIU: Miami Herald | The New York Times | Asbury Park Press (PDF Download)

It was completely unimpressive.

Oh, and watching the Slam Dunk contest tonight reminded me of one of the reasons why I hate watching the NBA these days. The commentators are horrendous! I don’t know who was doing the play by play, but when Robinson came out in his green Knicks uniform with the green socks and the green shoes, the commentators lost all self-control and constantly made references to Lex Luthor and kryptonite. Why? Because Howard’s nickname is Superman. Get it? The other guy wore green and was competing against the guy nicknamed Superman. Get it? Green? Kryptonite? Makes Superman not super?

I was mildly amused at the references for the first thirty seconds, but after a few minutes of the mindless babbling it easily became the most annoying thing that I heard all week. Seriously – shut up. We get it. We’re not stupid.

Anyway, I don’t watch the NBA any more and I haven’t in years. But I have to admit that I was impressed by Dwight Howard’s performance tonight. Good job!

Because it was so damn funny, I had to listen to the first show twice. Mr. Sulu (George Takei) is by far the best addition to the show. And as they said on their third or fourth show, unleashing Artie on uncensored radio heightens his part of the show to no end.

Robin has taken an increased role in the show, commenting more than I’ve heard her do in the last few years. The entire staff and all of the on-air talent just sound so much happier and better than they have in years – it’s a nice change for his show. And maybe it’s just me, but the political talk on his show has been drastically reduced – and for obvious reasons.

I think that Howard is going to lead Sirius radio to new heightens (and he already has done that, but he can only go higher). Think about this SIRIUS Satellite Radio company…Howard Stern, the NBA, Martha Stewart, Eminem, the NFL, Cousin Brucie, Bubba the Love Sponge, and hundreds of stations of commercial-free music. How great of a diverse line-up is that?!?

SIRIUS Satellite Radio is going to give XM a run for their money. The last numbers that I saw had XM with something like 6 million subscribers and Sirius with around 3.3 million. Those numbers are incredible for Sirius, considering that 1 year ago at this time, they only had 600,000. Amazing.

So I’m going to research this satellite radio a bit and I might actually take the plunge and get it. Hey, my birthday is coming up – that might be a hot present, right?