I didn't have a blog when the following occurred, but if I had you would have learned about this incident immediately. Instead, a belated account:
My mom is interested in Snuggie ownership. I don't understand why, but that's all right, because one does not have to understand the desire for something in order to give that something as a gift, especially if one is shopping for Mother's Day.
I'm not a huge Internet shopper but I've bought enough online goods to know the drill: You put items in your cart, review your order + shipping costs, confirm a total, and you're set. Somewhere along the way you provide payment information, but I've learned you can input credit card numbers with no consequence as long as you don't confirm your purchase.
Unless you're on the Snuggie website. If you're on the Snuggie website, "having a look around" is synonymous with "purchasing Snuggies whether you like it or not."
I probably wouldn't have found this out if their website had any modicum of usability or customization options. As it was, I had no choice but to click, click my way to a checkout window, never getting to specify what exactly it was I was agreeing to buy. I was not given the option to decline the buy-one-get-one-free "special offer," and so even though I was only (potentially) interested in purchasing a single Snuggie, I had no way of selecting just one. Nor could I opt out of receiving two free book lights. That might not have been so bad, if I had any use for book lights or if the second sleeved blanket was actually going to be free. But it wouldn't be—I would be charged extra shipping and handling.
That glitch alone was enough to make me start brainstorming for alternative gift options, but since I was curious to see the final cost, I continued letting the automated website force me through it's inflexible sequence of pages. For an extra $5 I agreed to upgrade my (theoretical) Snuggie to something with pockets and fabric thicker than cheesecloth. I did not have the option of applying these impressive features to just one Snuggie. The second, unwelcome item would also be of deluxe quality and added expense. Nor was I able to select more than one color option...my "free" Snuggie would apparently have to be identical to the one I (supposedly) wanted to buy.
At that point I had $30 worth of sleeved blankets in my cart, despite my single-Snuggie intentions. The next screen asked for payment info, but no total cost was listed, and no confirmation button was shown. Since I was still curious to find out the final cost—and since I was still hoping to ditch the second product—I played along. I gave them a credit card number. And this is what I saw next:
Thank you for your order! It is being processed and will be shipped promptly!
The amount my credit card had been charged without my consent was $49.63. Thoroughly convinced by then that I did NOT want a Snuggie, I immediately contacted Customer Service. A kind young man answered the phone and did not sound surprised when I explained my situation. He told me that my credit card would not actually be charged until the order shipped, but I would have to call back to cancel the order. Nice Guy explained that the computer system only updated order info twice a day, at 8:30 a.m. and at 5 p.m. Since it was about 11 a.m., my best bet was to call again just after 5. He emphatically suggested I not wait until the morning—in his experience, most orders shipped by then and it would be too late to cancel.
I don't think either one of us believed an Internet-based operation in the twenty-first century was incapable of immediately processing orders, but it was obvious a system was firmly in place and there was nothing he could do to change it, other than pass along the details he knew.
When I called at 5:10 p.m., a gruff voice informed me that my order information had not yet entered the system. When I cited Nice Guy's tip about the 5 p.m. update, Gruff Guy didn't seem to know what I was talking about. He told me to call in the morning. I asked if it would be better for me to call back later that evening—the call center was open until 10—but he said there was no point in doing so.
At 9:15 a.m. the next morning I explained my situation for the third time to the third person, and the first sentence out of his mouth after I gave him my order number was, "Oh, no, honey, that's on the truck."
I think it is pretty shady to thank someone for an order they never confirmed, but it is even shadier to pretend you don't know about that order until it is too late for the customer to cancel it. Fortunately for me, Mr. Third Time's the Charm agreed. He told me Gruff Guy should have never told me to wait till morning. He told me what he could do and what he could not do.
He could not keep the unwanted Snuggies from heading toward my home. He could not keep the charge for them off my credit card. But he could, and did, immediately remove the $15.90 shipping charges. And he assured me that if I refused to accept the package when it arrived, the blanket fees would eventually be removed from my credit card.
Because I never opened the box that showed up some two weeks later (too late for Mother's Day, by the way, even if I'd had a change of heart and decided to keep the things), I'll never know exactly what I escaped involuntarily owning. But I know what I didn't escape: a long, painful process that left me—and my unblanketed arms—cold.
