Complaint Review: GreatBuyUSA

November 25th, 2002-My husband, who always wanted an ATARI system, saw an ad on TV for the PowerJoy. It's a a video game system that comes with 200+ video games, and you can plug it into your TV. It comes with ATARI games, and my husband was so excited about it.

I got on the phone right away to order one. We ordered the system, with an adapter for our TV. I gave them my credit card and other personal info, and they promised delivery within 2-6 weeks. (It's COD, so you don't have to pay until you receive the product.)

My husband is so sweet, and was so excited to get his game system. Well, two weeks passed, then 4 weeks, then 8 weeks, then 10. No game system, but for some reason we were suddenly receiving STACKS and STACKS of junk mail-from vacuum companies, junk product companies, etc. We still had received no word from GREATBUYUSA, so I went to the website to try and email their customer service department. After nearly a week, nobody responded, so I looked up the phone number.

When I called the consumer phone number, I gave the rep our information, and asked if she knew what was going on. "I don't know, sorry. Well, hold on. It looks like it was on back order. It was popular, and we ran out." I asked, "When will more come in?" "I don't know, sorry," she said once again. I was mad. I asked, "So when were you guys planning on contacting us about the PowerJoy being put on back order?" Again, she didn't know. I told her that her company was pretty rude by not keeping their customers informed. We hung up.

So we waited and waited, and finally got a small piece of paper stating that PowerJoy was put on back order. Thanks, GreatBuy. It only took you 11 weeks. The little paper also promised that we'd soon receive our order. Still, we continued receiving inexplicable amounts of junk mail. I couldn't figure out who put us on a mailing list, but I noticed that all the stuff was address to "Lorrie", when my name is spelled, "Lori".

Mid-February, 2003-No PowerJoy yet, just gobs and gobs of silly product catalogs and vacuum ads. One day, I could barely pull the mail out of our box, it was so stuffed. I was fed up, and decided to find out who was selling our information. I actually called the vacuum company who sent us ad after ad, and they were clueless as to who had put us on their mailing list. I looked at the spelling of the name the mail was addressed to. It said, "To Lorrie -----."

I looked at all my bills, and the name wasn't spelled that way on any of them. Then I came across the little piece of paper that GreatBuy had sent me, promising us our PowerJoy. Guess how the name was spelled?!?!? LORRIE!!!!

I called GreatBuyUSA again, and a very nice lady answered. She had no idea that her company had given out our information to that many companies. I don't know if that company informs their employees of their policies!! I told her to please put our names on the "opt out" list. She said she would, but the companies that already had our names would keep our names on their lists. She said my opting out would just prevent GreatBuyUSA from selling our info to any other companies!!!

She also informed me that they never got any other PowerJoy systems in, and that our order would be automatically be cancelled if we didn't receive the product by the end of February. She was nice and sympathetic, so I didn't take my anger out on her.

March 4, 2003-We never got the PowerJoy. My husband was disappointed, but good-natured about it all. I've figured out how companies like GreatBuyUSA make their money....they take a person's information, sell it, and don't deliver the goods. They don't lose anything, they actually make their money. This is just wrong, and I feel victimized. We still get the junk mail, too!!!!!!!!!

Lori
Auburn, WA, Washington
U.S.A.