iPods
Even multi-million dollar ordering system software has its bugs.
Tina bought me an iPod for Christmas. For all of you thinking right now: "Christmas? That's, like, a month and a half away!" I say: nonsense. It's 38 days away. And shame on you for judging. At any rate, it's a funny story, this iPod ordering, so listen up and quit chiming in with your distracting thought bubbles.
We (yes we, now, be quiet, I'm trying to tell a story) ordered the gadget from Amazon.com Saturday November 8th. We signed up for the Amazon.com Platinum Credit Card so that we could get an additional $30 off the purchase price and were instantly accepted. We subsequently received an email a few hours later stating that the card that we had just been issued had been declined. I thought this was pretty funny considering Amazon.com had just sent us an email not too long before applauding our excellent choice in creditors and encouraging us to spend, spend, spend (particularly at Amazon.com).
I contacted customer support, who let me know that this card is actually backed by Bank One, and that there are occasional technological glitches in The System (read: we're not sure what the hell's going on) and that if we waited it would probably sort itself out.
We waited, and received a duplicate "there is a problem with your order" email a few hours later. We went back and discovered that the card had been declined again. This time I manually retried the card, and then again in another two hours when it was declined again. (For those of you counting, that's 4 attempts total. Remember that number; it's fairly important later on.)
Finally I called Bank One's 1-800 number and was pleased to be speaking with a human being in less than 30 seconds. After verifying my identity I was told that there was a security hold on my new account. Tina suggested that it probably didn't look good that someone named "Smith" had applied for and received a new credit card and within 2 hours placed a fairly sizable order on it. We agreed that there was probably a good chunk of computer code dedicated to flagging "Smith" accounts as potential fraud hazards and cursed the conspiracy together. Luckily the man from Bank One was very helpful and had the security hold removed from our account within seconds and made sure the order went through. After that we patiently sat back and awaited the goodies.
Six days later (Friday, November 14th for the calendar-challenged) while I was at work Tina called me and asked how many iPods we had ordered. I thought this an odd question. "We only ordered one. Plus a FireWire card and a car-charger. Why?"
"Because there are seven boxes here," she said.
"Seven?" I said, a note of incredulity in my voice.
"Seven," she reiterated, matter-of-factly.
"Hmm."
I did a quick count in my head, and figured that all of the accessories that are supposed to come with the 20 GB model iPod must have been shipped separately, as odd as that seemed.
When I got home, I opened the boxes to discover that we had been shipped three iPods, three FireWire cards, and one car charger. We laughed. Amazon.com happily reported that our order was still on its way and that we had, surely enough, only purchased a single iPod. The fourth iPod and FireWire card arrived today.
It's strangely satisfying to know that even multi-million dollar ordering system software has its bugs. We've contacted the fine folks at Amazon.com and thanked them for their generosity, but sadly related that we couldn't accept this $1000 gift. They've apologized profusely and are sending the appropriate return shipping labels, prepaid.
So the wayward iPods will be returning home soon. On a side note, the one I did open and have been using for the past three days is absolutely incredible. I am beginning to consider a "switch" of sorts, based solely on the experience of this beautifully designed Apple product. The decision will probably need six months or so to brew, but the seed has been planted.
Apple knows good design. That's for damn sure.