Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Extended warranty, or extended trial?
Wow, it's been nearly a month since I last posted about my experiences trying to get my exercise bike fixed under Dick's Sporting Goods' "No Sweat Warranty". I guess it's sort of fitting that I have a pretty crazy story to tell today.When I updated that past post, I said "if I'm lucky, I'll be up and running within a week." I'm not lucky. After a little over a week passed, I followed up with the guy who apparently contracts with the people behind the No Sweat—Phoenix Service Group (more on them and their site later)—for an update. He didn't really remember me, but once I re-briefed him, he said I should check up with Phoenix, and he would do the same.
Cue the comedy of errors.
First call, in mid-January, I get a woman who starts to pass me back off to Up and Running—their contractor-apparent. I interrupt and explain to her that he sent me to them because he didn't have the parts he needed. She does a little legwork and finds out there's no parts order; he never submitted it. But I was there when he called you; he did it right from my basement, I explained. She tells me sure, but he has paperwork to file, and he didn't. But she'll call him and get that squared away, though he never answers his phone. Well, yeah, he doesn't answer his main line often, I surmised, since he's on the road a lot. Luckily, I have his cell number right here! So she says she'll call him up. I leave it to that and wait about two weeks.
Now it's the end of January and I'm still not seeing a part, so I call Phoenix up again. Same girl, sounds like. Yep, he called, yep, they know I need a new console for the bike... but there's some trouble with the parts department (which really should have raised a red flag for me right away, but chalk it up to my indefatigable faith in humanity that I just assumed they were busy). But yep, it's in the system, gonna be ordered soon. Okay, then. I make a mental note to check back in a week.
The week has arrived. Bright and early yesterday I call back Phoenix and get a new guy. He looks me up, mentions that the gal I talked to before isn't with them anymore (hmm...) and walks over to the parts department to check. Oops, they're not in yet; it's probably about 6 a.m. on the West Coast there. He promises to get an answer and call me back that day.
Today arrives and I didn't have a call, so I cunningly waited several hours to make sure this mysterious "parts department" was actually in the office and called back. I hung up on the hold music at the 20-minute mark the first time around because the voice had stopped telling me my call was important—we all need that reassurance, y'know?—and tried again. Half hour later, dude from yesterday answers. Yep, he remembers me, no, nobody from the parts department gave him an answer, he's sorry, etc. Console's not ordered, and he really can't tell me when it will be. He pretty much heads off all my prepared tales of woe about not being able to exercise in the winter, etc.; clearly he's heard these stories a lot. I sigh, mentally preparing myself to review my options once I get off the phone, and then as I'm ready to go, just casually ask... "what happened to your website?"
You see, when I called earlier this week, I didn't have my notes with me with the phone number handy, so I quickly Googled "dick's no sweat warranty". After noting to my amusement that my last blog post is right there among the first results, I followed the link to find what you see today—instead of a fully produced site with an e-mail form and info about the service, there's two lines: "No Sweat Warranty" and "Please call 800-524-0144 for service". Thinking there was just a hosting problem—definitely not unheard of—I was curious.
What I heard though convinced me that something is seriously amiss in No-Sweat-land. As it turns out, Dick's dumped Phoenix as of January 31st. (When I was poking around Dick's main site looking for someone to contact earlier today, I saw that they offer NEW Corporation's warranty now, at least for online purchases.) I don't know what is to become of Phoenix, but I am reasonably confident now that console is never going to get ordered.
So, what's next? Well, I started to call Dick's corporate to have a little chat with them, but as their phone system read off some hold times ("4 minutes." "4 minutes." "4 minutes." "8 minutes.") and I had places to be and things to do, I left a message for now. But I'll be pursuing them next opportunity I get, to see what they're going to do to make this situation right. If they've dumped Phoenix, they surely already realize, as I do, that there's little chance I'm actually going to get served by the warranty I hold now. I hope they've got enough sense to make it right, and make it right with a minimum of fuss on my end here.
We shall see.
The saga continues...
Labels: life
posted by zigg 8:11 PM
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