Play.com shipping problem

Sad Professor

Last year I stopped ordering from Play.com after several items seemingly went missing in the post. The interesting thing is that each time I never received an email indicating the items had been dispatched like I usually would, although my online order status and Play's (lousy) customer service insisted they had been posted. I later discovered that in fact they hadn't and were still sitting in the warehouse.

So my understanding became: no dispatch email = not sent, regardless of what the online order status says.

I recently started reordering from Play again, the first two items arrived fine and I got a shipping email for both of them. The last item which I ordered almost 3 weeks ago still hasn't arrived. According to the order status it was sent 2 weeks ago but once again I got no shipping email. I'm now so confident that it hasn't really been shipped that I've already reordered it elsewhere.

Play's customer service is among the worst I've ever dealt with so contacting them isn't really an option until the 21 days are up.

I'm just curious if anyone else has ever had this problem with them.

daymobrew

Not me - always quite good. Items get dispatched much quicker than from cd-wow (who like to do nothing for a week for some reason).
Last Christmas I had an issue where an order seemed to disappear - customer service refunded me my money and I got the DVD elsewhere. When the DVD eventually arrived they were quite helpful with my options (keep and pay or send it back).

folkface

No never had a problem with play.com.

Mind you, cdwow.ie can be a nightmare to use.
I end up waiting about 2 weeks for items to get shipped. So it takes about 3 weeks in total for delivery. I think they have to order them in themselves from singapore and then send them out again. Sometimes i get an email saying your items have been sent, sometimes i don't. But the item still arrives.

I have had problems with cdwow.ie when items never arrived at all. But when i contacted them they have no problem in sending "another" item in the post.
Great customer service and they also let you pay by lazer

Paulw

I've never had an issue with play.com nor cdwow. Only once did I have a problem that cdwow sent me the wrong CD, but they corrected it when I informed them.

eggplantman

my friend always orders from play.com and he has had no problem

I've only ever had one problem with Play, a lost package. They replaced it immediately without fuss. Usually 4 day delivery time with them.

Gryzor

never a problem with play.com...only problems with customs :mad:

cgarvey

Have ordered 67 items in total to a variety of addreses (including obscure remote ones!). Of those there were 2 non-normal transactions. They cancelled a too-cheap-to-be-true special offer DVD without ever explaining/notifying me, and they shipped a replacement DVD that didn't turn up after 2 weeks (now that was over 2 years ago, so they may have a 21-day policy since then).

tvnutz

How much was the item? If it is about 40euro or more it might have gotten held up in customs. I bought a dvd boxset and it hadn't arrived after a month so I e-mailed play and they said they would send me out another one. Next day I get a letter from customs asking for money for the package to be released.

Other than that I have never had a problem with play.com and I have used them a lot over the years.

notahappycamper

I stopped using CDWOW because they have become shíte recently and started using Play. Items have always arrived 3 working days after the dispatch email was sent. However, since the end of July there has been industrial action taken by staff in the Royal Mail which may disrupt post coming out of the UK and delay deliveries into Ireland.

hot fuss

I've ordered lots of stuff from them without any problems. The one time something didn't arrive, I e-mailed and they immediately sent me another. Then the first one arrived, so I had two!

No problems at all with them though..

Cabaal

Never had any items go missing, I've had one's been delayed and I've ordered stuff that was in stock and then delayed and then I was tyold it wasn't in stock

Longest I';ve had to wait for an item after it shipped was 7 working days

koneko

Postal strike probably, I got a package from the UK that took 8 (yes!) weeks to get here, postmark indicated it was sent when the seller claimed, but the postal strike screwed things up no doubt.
And there's always the change of a postie with sticky fingers, particularly if several packages go missing.

I haven't had a single issue with Play.com in all the years I've been ordering from them, no missing packages and no screw ups.

Duckjob

Sad Professor wrote:

Play's customer service is among the worst I've ever dealt with so contacting them isn't really an option until the 21 days are up.

I'm just curious if anyone else has ever had this problem with them.

Funny - I would hold Play.com up as a shining example to other companies of how to 'do' customer service.

General consensus would also seem to be very favorable toward them.

Sad Professor

I should clarify that I generally find Play very good and I will continue to order from them, their prices are excellent and shipping is very fast too. Like I said in my OP I don't believe that this order has gone missing in the post, I suspect it was never shipped at all. I find it too big a coincidence that not receiving a dispatch email always coincides with the order never arriving. The last time I had this problem one of their agents admitted that there had been a computer error and indeed the order had never been shipped.

Regarding their customer service I've found them great for replacing items and giving refunds etc and I'm sure I'll have no problems getting my money back for this order. However, they've no email support anymore which I consider a must for any online store.

And yeah I've stopped ordering from cdwow as well, I used to get everything from them but they've really gone to the dogs lately. I still get the odd r1 dvd from them but I may start using DVD Pacific for that now. Prices are really good even with shipping. Using the cheapest method my last order took 8 days to arrive which is pretty good from America.