Sunday, November 08 2009
By "Agent 86" (
The Cigar Spy)
Around two months ago I set up an account with Thompson Cigars. They had a deal that intrigued me and I was even willing to sign up for their club. Everything went fine, the
cigars arrived, and all seemed complete. Boy, was I wrong...
...Soon I found them trying to charge my card for $150 dollars. I called and spoke with their rep and found out the were trying to send my club membership regular shipment. Unfortunately I had already changed this monthly shipment to the Cigar Tour. I was then informed that the cigar tour couldn’t be used for my regular shipment, even though just the day before I was told the exact opposite. After two weeks fighting this I finally canceled everything with Thompson and just wanted them to go away.
I found another online special, this one from Famous Cigars, it was perfect for a birthday gift for my father. I couldn’t resist ordering. Half dreading what was about to happen, I made the order. Then, nothing, I got a verification of purchase, then a verification of shipment. No harassment, no demands that I join any club, nothing. A perfect order.
After this I started to become brave. I won a $20 gift certificate form Thompson and decided to try online ordering, hoping that it wouldn’t result in another disaster. I did things just like I did with Famous, placed a simple order. First red flag popped up immediately. It took me three tries to get the website to take the $20 from my certificate off my total. It accepted my certificate as soon as I put it in, but didn’t deduct it, so I was forced to put in the certificate twice more before it finally deducted it from my total. Order placed, card charged, story done. Except, it wasn’t. Every weekday since the order I have been getting calls from Thompson. Three to five times a day. It doesn’t stop. I’m almost ready to change my number.
So there you have it. My experiences with two very different companies. I don’t know if this makes a difference to my readers, but I know how I’ll be doing my ordering from now on.
Agent 86 out waiting by his mailbox for the Thompson order. Apparently shipments from hell take longer.
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Reposted by persmission of the author at thecigarspy.com.
