Customer service means a lot!

On Saturday dh and I spent a lot of the day out and about.  It was really nice not having to work on the house for a change.  Yes I did have to get it "viewing ready," and yes dh had to blow out the driveway, thanks to the oil truck coming and chewing up the snow with it's weight, but after that we were free to do what we wanted.

We went into town to a place called Brisco Appliances to check out their appliances.  We ended up buying all the new appliances for the new house from there, Frigidaire Professional in smudge proof stainless steel for the kitchen and Maytag washer and dryer in white for the laundry room.  Why?  Well first of all their prices may not be the cheapest out there, but they are VERY competitive and we got top of the line for a fairly decent price.  The customer service is excellent and if we run into a problem I know they will be more than happy to help out. 

They are the only store the builder will let into your house before your closing date to deliver and install your appliances for you.  Yes I know isn't that neat?  He was also going to pop over to the sales office with all our specs on the appliances for the girl who will be sorting out all the details of the house on Thursday.  You wouldn't get that kind of service in a big box store?  Also we were allowed to pay our deposit over two months; as between me and you, if anyone else asks us for money I am going to scream!!

We then spent a full two hours in Lowes checking out bits and pieces that we may or may not need in the new house.  It's been such a long time since we have had to buy window coverings as we don't need them in this house, that I had forgotten what was out there.  We met a great woman who went through all sorts of ideas in the window coverings section,  I will definitely go back there to buy some window coverings from them.  She was so knowledgeable and really took the time to show us what would or wouldn't work.  Again it's the customer service that won us over. 

 I was looking through the light fixtures and saw this light and fell in love with it.  It will be perfect over the dining room table.

 You can read more about it here.  The reviews are mixed but it looks stunning, and as I am married to an electrician, he will be able to figure the whole thing out.  Once again we talked to one of the guys in the department and he was super friendly.  We were in the Barrie, Ontario store and have to say we have found everyone very, very helpful in that store.

We also looked at some tiles for the back splash in the kitchen, as we are not getting the builder to do that, we will do that ourselves.  We found a couple that may be possibilities.

This one is really nice in "real life."

This one, it's the top one that interested us:

We bought the back splash tiles in our present kitchen from Lowes as well.  Pleased to say we walked out of Lowes not having spent a penny..........we didn't use the bathroom/toilets either....LOL  Spending a penny is a British term for having to go pee!

A couple of follow ups to posts/stories...

Back in January I went to see the surgeon about my hand.  I posted about it here.  Her advise back then was to take it easy with my hand and baby it.  At the time I said that was easier said than done, but I have tried the best I can and a couple of months down the road I can say it isn't as sore, but it will never be right.

It's going to be a case of having to live with it.  Sanding and painting the baseboards last week made it sore.  It's going to be tested to the limit over the next couple of weeks as I am working so all the typing will aggravate it no doubt.  I don't splint it every night now, and only splint it now when it's really bothering me.

I have a lump on the bottom of my middle finger next to the palm on my right hand, it is a Ganglion Cyst.  I am going to go and get that drained next month as every time I grip something it rubs against the lump and it hurts like crazy.  Other than that I won't be having anything else done with my hand (s) and will just have to live with them.

Remember this post about the trouble I was having with a magazine subscription?  Well I finally got it all sorted out.  It involved me having to call back another couple of times, despite the "Organ Grinder" (aka the supervisor) promising me she would definitely call me back by the Monday at the latest!!!  She gave me my refund, after they charged me again for the subscription and added an extra four months onto our year subscription.  I still think that their customer service stinks but at least its all over with now.

I posted here about buying dh the mini crock-pot that he could take to work.  He took it yesterday with a can of chunky soup in it and he said it worked great.  It takes around an hour and a half to warm through.  The only problem dh has is that he is working between two buildings which are in different streets so he can't plug it in until he knows for sure which building he will be in at lunch time.  I made a pot of vegetable soup yesterday, so put that in his crock pot today.

So there you are.  Otherwise I am hibernating due to the cold weather and nothing exciting is happening around here, which is the way I like it!!!

How about you anything exciting happening in your neck of the woods?

Oh, I was talking to my mother yesterday and they cut their grass for the first time!!!!  At this point I would love to see anything that resembled bloody grass, as everything is covered in the white stuff here!!!

Organ Grinder, Monkey and pennies

You will have no doubt heard of this saying before:

Speak to the organ grinder not the monkey

Which translates to "Talk to the boss not the subordinate."

Well for the past couple of weeks I have been speaking to a couple of "monkey's" and yesterday I had finally had enough and decided to speak to the "Organ Grinder."  Want to know why?  Settle down with a cup of tea/coffee and I'll re-tell this sorry tale!!

Back in September of 2012 I get a flyer in the mail for a buy one get one free for a major magazine.  Now as I already subscribe to this magazine anyway, figured I would take advantage of this deal and give the free one to dd as part of her Christmas gift.  I mail it back to the magazine along with my credit card details.

Meanwhile, my credit card was compromised so the credit card company issued me with a new credit card.  I get a letter in the mail in October from the magazine letting me know they were unable to process my order as the credit card wouldn't go through.  So I mail the letter back as requested with my updated info.

At Christmas I mention to dd about the magazine and she says she hasn't received it yet?  I tell her I will follow up and to cut a long story short forgot about it until January 24th, 2013.  

I call customer service to find out what's going on, and the guy tells me they couldn't put the payment through because of my credit card.  So I tell him yes I know but I sent in new payment details and that the magazine had charged my credit card at the end of October.  So he told me to fax a copy of my credit card statement along with a cover letter telling them what's what.  I asked whom to address it too and he said Customer Service.

I waited a week and no one called me, so I called back in and spoke to a lady who told me that there was no sign of my fax and I should have addressed it to someone as no one would look at it???  So I got dh to re-fax it to this lady and called back to make sure they had received it. Lo and behold the guy who answered the phone was the guy I had talked to initially.  I made him go and pick up the fax and he said he would look into it.

I decided to call him again yesterday to see what was going on as I hadn't heard from him.  So I call him and get him on the phone and he has no idea who I am and so I have to go through the story AGAIN???  He looks up my account and tells me that my payment went through on January 31st and everything was fine?  I say what payment and make him hold on until I go online and look at my credit card account and sure enough they have charged me again?

I of course asked him why and he had no idea?  He asked me to re-fax the original paperwork along with a copy of what had been charged at the end of January so he could look into it.  I hung up the phone and then fiddled on trying to print out the transaction detail and rewriting another cover sheet for the fax.

After lunch I was doing my ironing and stewing over the conversation I had, had with this guy when all of a sudden it came to me.  If they are claiming that they didn't receive payment in October as my credit card wouldn't go through and I had told them I had a new credit card, how on earth were they able to charge my new credit card on January 31st unless they had my new number???  Also why did I have too provide more information when I had already done it twice before?

So that is when I decided enough of the monkey's now onto the Organ Grinder.  Now it took me two phone calls but I finally got to talk to the Organ Grinder who also thought it was mighty strange about my credit card and also thought there was no need for me to re fax everything through for the third time.

She told me she would get back to me by Monday of next week at the latest.........stay tuned for what happens next.

Now for the pennies.  Production of the penny ceased in May 2012 and the Royal Canadian Mint ceased the distribution of them as of February 4, 2013. However, like all discontinued currency in the Canadian monetary system, the coin remains legal tender. Once distribution of the coin ceased, though, vendors no longer were expected to return pennies as change for cash purchases, and were encouraged to round purchases to the nearest nickel. Non-cash transactions are still denominated to the penny. 

I was out and about on Wednesday morning and it seems that each store/location has their own way of dealing with this, which makes the whole thing very confusing if you ask me.  For the Canadians out there are you having trouble figuring out what each store does?