u/tempusislie

TLDR: Ordered something just below free shipping limit. They refused to cancel or add anything to order. Cancelled and bought it again for less money.

Clarification: Due to backlash on me about paying the initial shipping cost, they issued a refund also on that. That is the unlogical part of this policy. I wouldn't care about all this if they didn't but why lose money when you can simply accept to cancel my order? Also about the environment thingy, these kind of individual acts may teach companies to fix their policies resulting to prevent more waste of energy, time and money. So I wouldn't mind.

This happened a while ago with an online retailer.

I ordered something for $96. Free shipping kicked in at $100 and shipping was like $12.

And yeah, this part was 100% my fault. It was written right there on the site, I just didn't notice until basically the second after I placed the order.

So I opened support chat and asked if they could add something cheap to the order. Didn't really care what. A cable, batteries, whatever. I just thought spending another 5 bucks made more sense than paying 12 for shipping.

They said they couldn't modify an order once it was placed.

Fair enough.

I asked if they could cancel it and I'd just place it again.

Nope. Apparently it was already processing.

Then I asked if they could remove the shipping charge somehow.

Also no.

The guy wasn't rude or anything btw. He was actually pretty nice, just kept saying the system wouldn't let him do any of it.

Then he told me I could return the order when it arrived and place a new one.

So I asked:

"Returns are free, right?"

Yep.

"And if I reorder over $100, shipping is free?"

Yep.

I actually thought I was misunderstanding him, so I asked again.

"So you're going to ship this to me, pay for me to ship it back, then ship the same thing to me again... because you can't add a $5 item to the order?"

Pretty much.

He said that was the only option he could offer.

So... okay.

Package showed up a few days later. I didn't even open the actual item. Put the return label on it and sent it back.

Then I ordered the exact same thing again and added a $6 pack of USB cables.

Free shipping.

In the end I got the same thing I wanted in the first place, plus cables, and still paid less than I would've if I'd just kept the original order.

Meanwhile they paid to ship the first package to me, paid for the return, processed the return, and then shipped the second one.

I know this probably makes me sound a bit petty, maybe even selfish, especially because the original screw-up was mine.

And honestly, if they'd just said "sorry, you missed the threshold, nothing we can do," I probably would've just eaten the $12.

But they specifically told me the solution was to return it and reorder.

So I did.

Not really mad at the support guy either. He was just following whatever system they gave him.

I guess I was too.