Complaint Review: Wirefly

Wirefly is a cellular telephone and service website. The attraction is their seemingly fantastic prices. HOWEVER...

When I was attempting to check out with my order Friday, I noticed that the service plan I had selected was NOT the one that ended up in my shopping cart. What did end up there was the highest priced service plan they offer.  So I emptied my cart and started over. At checkout, once again the highest priced service plan was in my shopping cart. I noticed a link that allowed me to modify the plan from the shopping cart, so I fixed it and moved along.  I would chalk this up to a simple programming error, but when the mistake puts the highest price option on your plate, I begin to get a little suspicious.  I had a coupon code for a free bluetooth headset, which I entered, and the item appeared in my shopping cart as a $0 item throughout checkout. However, it was missing in the confirmation e-mail, and then missing when I went online to check my order. Of course, this is AFTER my order went through and my account charged.

I received an e-mail Friday night, from Wirefly, stating they needed me to call in to provide some additional information. So, I called.
I waited 30 minutes for someone to answer the phone. The connection was so bad I was certain the guy was on Mars, standing on a mountain, trying to hit the nearest cell tower on Earth. The hold music sounded fine, so I know it wasn't my end.

After nearly impossible communication with him cutting in and out, he put me on hold for 5 minutes, returned, apologized for making me hold, and then, when the resolution was in sight, we were disconnected!

By that point I was fairly hot under the collar, so I decided not to call back until Saturday.

Saturday morning I called. I sat on hold for exactly 1 hour before hanging up.

The recording said something about transferring my call, over and over again. It came on every couple of minutes, so I'm sort of surprised I don't have it memorized... but when you're mad, memory is affected, and I was mad.

I waited until early evening to try again. I called, and waited. While I was waiting I decided to check the link I was sent in e-mail for checking on my order. It said nothing about what the problem was, but there were two interesting things.

The first was the customer support hours. I was THRILLED to see that they don't start until 12pm on Saturday. I guess that's why it took an hour to transfer my call. I called at 9am. If only I'd waited those two additional hours beyond the one I did, I probably would have been first in line. It was nice of them to not have a recording stating they were closed and what their hours are.

The second thing I noticed was a customer support chat option, the first I'd seen anywhere on the site. I clicked it, waited, saw line after line telling me the next available agent would help me... until it got to the line about having network problems, it disconnected me.

So, I tried it again. After about 15 mintues someone finally responded and I got the problem cleared up (pending carrier approval of change... that could come back to bite me).

Why they couldn't, right from the start, just call ME to clear up the problem is beyond me. Perhaps calling customers would just cost too much. Apparently they don't have one of those UNLIMITED CALLING service plans like the one they tried to foist on me.  After doing a little research, and seeing that Wirefly isn't very popular due to poor customer support and questionable business practices, I decided to cancel my order. But, they have no customer support on Sunday. Two days after Black Friday, they have no customer support for an entire day???

I tried calling, and it referred me to the website without ever mentioning customer support was closed for the day. I checked the website, tried canceling my order, and was told I'd have to call... catch-22.  So, never in a million years would I expect this to work... I sent e-mail asking to cancel my order. Within a reasonable abount of time I received a reply stating they would cancel the order and refund my money within 24 hours.

The clock is ticking...