circuit sh*tty

I'm on hold, again. I had to telephone Circuit City to try and get a copy of an old online purchase receipt. Of course, there's an option to do this via their website, but it doesn't work. You click on the "reprint receipt" button and it throws back an error at you. I used their "email us" link about a week ago, and never received a response. So, I had to call them for it. Now I get to wait 7-10 business days to receive a copy in the mail. Or, possibly receive a copy quicker by fax. Either way, they won't give an ETA over the phone.

Why am I asking for a copy of a receipt? Because I have a crappy Olympus SP-320 digital camera that has been giving me all kinds of memory card problems. It started off by occasionally trying to force me to reformat the card when I had pictures on it. Then at some point, it rendered a 1Gb XD card useless. Regardless of what I do, or what kind of card reader I put it in, the card no longer works. So, I'm trying to send it back in to Olympus and of course they need a copy of the receipt. Apparently, it is not enough that I registered the product when I bought it about a year ago. (Why bother registering at all?) Normally, we keep all of our receipts, but somehow this one has disappeared.

My experience with the Circuit City customer service specialist was typical. Monotone , talking a bit too fast, perhaps on an IP phone with a slight touch of an Indian accent, fumbling for the word "receipt" for about five seconds; Placing me on hold to verify my "request" a couple of times. Apologizing that the website didn't work for me, and informing me that they are aware of the problem. (So fix it! Why would a huge chain like Circuit City allow a function like this to go broken for over a week? Aahhh...because it is a post-sale function.)

A good friend of mine used to work at Circuit City. I had to hide my electronics purchases from him, because he would have preferred that I go through him. I never had the heart to tell him that I felt like Circuit City's service was sub-par when compared to stores like Best Buy. My friend may have been the exception, but he didn't work there forever, so even if I had purchased more items from him, I wouldn't be dealing with him if I had any post-sale problems, like warranty or repair work.

So now I have my request submitted, and I have a call reference number (as if that is going to help). Let's just hope that I can get the copy of my receipt and send in the faulty camera before the one year warranty runs out.