EggXpert

Hello everyone,

There is an official announcement regarding the recent PayPal promo issue. Please use this thread to discuss your questions or concerns.

Thank you,

- EggXpert Team

Is this where official solutions will be posted?

You still think there are going to be official solutions? NewEgg will keep ducking this until it goes away.

Why a new thread, too much attention paid to the other one?  Are we ever going to hear any resolution? Will it be this year? lol  Will there ever be any satisfaction?

CheapAsianGamerGuy:

Is this where official solutions will be posted?

I'd imagine, for everyone's sake, that it would be posted in the Update thread. It's locked and lets people subscribe to it without having their inbox spammed with... opinions. 

 

I just wanted to add my cudos to Shopper for his response on the other thread.  Again, I don't necessarily agree with everything that was said, it was all said in a concise and logical manner.   

http://www.eggxpert.com/forums/permalink/211822/219015/ShowThread.aspx#219015

I think the idea of a gift certificate or discount code for future purchase at Newegg would be nice.  Keep in mind, this would save Newegg some money because not everyone would use their codes.   

It is agreed that a lot of people used their Paypal accounts to pay for their purchases because of the promotion when they wouldn't normally do so.  Personally, I withdrew money from one account to put it in to the account I use for Paypal just to make this purchase. 

As stated, customers should not have been expected to know that the promotion ended considering that Paypal still advertised it and the original HTML newsletter stated that the promotion was good through 11/28.  The only people that knew are those that are subscribed to and read the boards before making their purchase and/or by word of mouth.

We can all pretty much nix the idea of refusing packages as I would venture that most all purchases from 11/26 have been shipped and received already.  Those that were able to refuse their shipments have already done so.  How much money, so far, has Newegg lost to people cancelling their orders from 11/26 - 11/28, refusing their shipments and/or not making further purchases with Newegg. How much revenue is Newegg going to lose when the poor souls who have no idea what is going on (and even those that do), don't get their reimbursements at the end of January if there is no fair resolution to this matter by that time?

Now, if we could hear from Newegg I would know if I have another $50 to spend on Christmas presents or not and yes, $50 IS a lot of money to me.

 

Marketing VP, Bernard Luthi addresses PayPal Issue

December 4, 2007

Seasons Greetings EggXperts,

As part of our continuing efforts to bring our customers the best selection of products, deals and promotions, Newegg partnered with PayPal to bring our valued customers a "20% off, up TO $50" limited time special promotional offer. This promotion was scheduled to run from Monday, November 26th through Wednesday, November 28th, or until the allocated promotional funding expired.

The popularity of this promotion surpassed everyone's expectations with over almost 16,000 orders successfully qualifying in the first few hours of the launch. The overwhelming popularity of the promotion quickly depleted all allocated funds, and once the funds were expired, we immediately removed the associated marketing materials. Unfortunately, some of our valued customers were in the process of making purchases and still under the impression that the promotion was in effect, and may have been inconvenienced or not received an expected benefit.

Newegg prides itself on always providing the highest level of customer service. Customer satisfaction is our primary mission. As a result, Newegg will review all purchases made utilizing PayPal between 2:30-5:30 P.M. on Monday, November 26th and apply the “20% off, up to $50” to each customer placing an order using PayPal during that time period.

Please know and understand that we have carefully reviewed the direct and online feedback from our customers regarding this activity. We will take all necessary steps to ensure the highest level of customer satisfaction as we plan our next PayPal promotion.

We thank you for your business, apologize for any misunderstanding arising from this promotion and look forward to bringing you more exciting deals in the future.

Warmest Wishes,
Bernard Luthi
Vice President, Merchandising, Newegg.com

Thank you for this information Newegg. My order did fall in this time frame and am glad to know that you will take of us. I also know that this will not make everyone happy.

I think my situation is a little different from most others.  I was going to order an item before 10 am CST that showed in stock on a category search page but when I put it in my cart it showed as out of stock.  I was a little surprised since I had been checking stock on this item for awhile waiting for a no shipping deal and it had been in stock each time.  Since that was the only item I needed I did not place an order for anything else.

Later in the day when I read about the promo ending early I went back and checked the item again.  This time I was very surprised to find out that now I could add the item to my cart.  I did not order it because it appeared it would now not qualify for the promo.

I checked stock again recently and it is now not even listed as an available item.  I tried to get Newegg customer service to give me an explanation on how the stock can change like that but all they offered was that they have no control over it and that stock is listed in real time.  Maybe there is a logical explanation, but until I get one I feel like Newegg has committed fraud by advertising that something is available but not allowing me to purchase it during the promo.

Did anybody else have a similar experience and if so is it being addressed here?

I am concerned that they advertised a set of dates, feel this should not have happened as it was not fair to those customeres who didn't rush to buy early that day, thinking they had time to do other things before then like sleep and go to work, etc.  Obviously there is no resolution to that for this promo but I hope in the future any promos will be far more clear about the window of opportunity.

Thank you, NewEgg, for your response.

It addresses my situation and the preferred resolution I had posted in the other thread. I am satisfied and gratified that NewEgg chose to pick up the ball when it was dropped. 

How about me? I placed an order (42190381) at 1:38:09 PST on the 26th because of the promotion. The next day, after seeing the fracas on the net, I e-mailed the Egg asking about my order because it was still at step one. Got an e-mail back on the 28th from Sue Li telling me to call so one of the Egg's CSRs could "take good care of me".  I called Newegg and was told that there was no problem with the order. I should just allow another 24 to 48 hrs because that was the normal time to process and order. She wasn't swayed by my protestations of "No way Jose is that normal" and finally advised me to call PayPal. I did that immediately and was told by a PayPal CSR that everything was OK, they were just a little swamped by the response to the promotion. The next day, the 29th, I came home from work to find an e-mail from NewEgg saying ** VOIDED DUE TO NOT ABLE TO SECURE FUNDS **. The really neat thing about it is, I still have a transaction at PayPal that is "Pending". I called them that same day and was told I could still get the 20% if I placed another order. ROFL. My question to somebody is why were NewEgg CSR's told to stonewall? That's never the best course of action since you eventually have to deal with the situation anyway. Had I been told by the Egg that my order was about to be canceled, I would have raised heck with the fine folks at PayPal. Now I have a bad taste in my mouth for both of you when it could have just been PayPal.

The people reading these posts are smart enough to recognize useless rant and rave suggestions. They are also smart enough to know when a Newegg employee is being just a bit over zealous in their response. Hopefully both sides calm down about things.

I purchase A LOT of products from Newegg. There hasn't been anything that their Customer Service hasn't been able to handle. Being one of the quieter voices following the thread, I'm definitely behind Shopper's response to things thus far. Without the disclaimers and proper information displayed ahead of time, it caused a great deal of problems for everyone. Changing and adding information to the web page later on regarding the limited number wasn't a smart move either. This doesn't fix the problem, but draws up very serious legality questions.

It is my humble opinion that without the proper information, Newegg should either honor every order until the expiring date OR offer something comparable. There should also be an official apology specifically for not having all of the correct information displayed and offer full credit to anyone who received their products that wants to return them in lieu of the improperly disclosed limitations. This way, honor and good standing are retained. Sure, it may be a lot of hassle, but it's part of doing business and Newegg can more than handle it. If Paypal was at all at fault, naturally, any intelligent business owner would step up and take part of the blame as well. If they don't, then it would reveal their own caliber of business.

Either way, there are far more unheard voices carefully watching how this ends or begins. I guess I have more faith that Newegg will set the standard.
 

 Hmmm?

Yay, the fix has been finalized and it looks like newegg is paying greatly for it.

Way to take one for the customers newegg.  I never lost hope 

Hope every one gets their money quick and easy. 

As the official announcement states, that promotion was scheduled to end on the 28th or when alloted promotional funds were "expired".  This is great, except that apparently a sum total of 1.3 persons at NewEgg knew about this.  Unfortunately, the 1.3 persons did not cover the entire marketing departments, web advertising departments, customer representative departments, merchandising departments and sales management teams.  Cool.

The official announcement also states that NewEgg immediately removed the associated marketing materials once the alloted funds "expired".  This is great, except that it doesn't reflect the experience of tens of thousands of customers who continued to see the marketing materials on NE's website long after said removal.  You can find their detailed posts by the dozens on these forums and at scores of other web sites as well.  Cool.  But hey -- NewEgg immediately removed it, right?

Oh yeah - speaking of forums.  So a new thread has been created in an entirely different sub-section of eggxpert forums in an attempt to get everyone on the same thread.  Apparently, the thread with 440 posts and 38,000 views didn't qualify.  Just too many silly various threads out there, ya know.

It is appropriate of NE to apply the promotion as advertised to folks who used PP between 2:30 PM and 5:30 PM on the 26th.  (NOTE:  In all instances of this official fix, it should be clearly noted that the intent here is Pacific Standard Time, or you'll have to go through the whole question again of what time zone, etc, yada yada.  But then again, since there are dozens of posts regarding that question of time zones, and since (according to official announcement) NewEgg 'carefully reviewed the online feedback' on this issue, they probably read all of those "time zone" posts and  INTENTIONALLY left off the tag of PST, right?  Oh boy, another "timing" issue ...)

I am disappointed in the way NE has handled this whole thing.  They are doing the right thing by extending the promotion to the 5:30 pm PST application.  However, for the Merchandising V.P. to come out with language as above in an official announcement, severely impacts My Personal View As Consumer And Customer.  From conception to implementation to "solution" to official public releases of information, the whole thing leaves me aghast and shaking my head.  I do wonder whether my high school squad of Student Council Members could have better handled the Merchandising and planning of this whole promotion deal.

 

For those of us in the 2:30-5:30, what is required of us to receive the 20%?  Will the amount automatically be adjusted back through paypal?  Do we need to contact customer service?

 

Thanks 

I've made a poll on this issue, as well as an area to leave feedback to newegg... consider it suggestion box.

WARNING:

ALL POSTS IN THAT THREAD SHOULD BE ADDRESSED TO NEWEGG. ANY COMMENTS ABOUT OTHER POSTERS IN THAT THREAD WILL BE MODD'ED. IT IS NOT A DEBATE THREAD. 

The poll:

http://www.eggxpert.com/forums/thread/219784.aspx 

Just received the email concerning the promotion and the resolution, while it might satisfy some customers does not address those of us who purchased via paypal (which I would never do unless convinced with a deal like this). I thought they might honor all purchases made that day, but they still insist on only honoring a portion of the days sales.

I was a loyal customer, I will now go back to shopping for the best price and buy elsewhere. 

 Sorry but you have lost a customer!

Oops! I think it is a very good space here ! I'd better come here now and then !

I'm not quite sure what the purpose of a poll is. Seems like a waste of time to me. In regards to the official solution, what a joke. It seems NE is just addressing a small portion of the problem, not all of it. If as claimed, the promotion was taken down, how did people order using Paypal, expecting the rebate? Might be nice to get an answer to that. As stated earlier, why not offer free shipping back, and no restock fee for things purchased, thinking they were going to get their Paypal rebate? Again no official response to that. I guess the response is what it is, even if it doesn't address alot of their customers complaints.

It seems NE has an awful big communication gap within their company, along with an integrity issue. The VP of marketing doesn't even know when the promotions came down off the site. They give alot of lip service about how they "listen" to the customer, but we waited and "listened" for a week for a response. Then when we finally get one, it addresses just a part of the problem. For a company who has always promoted their desire to satisfy their customers, you have fallen far short in my view.

 

Can NE please start using time zones? I assume that is 2:30 to 5:30 PST.

The marketing material was not immediate removed, so I don't know what Bernard is talking about. One of his lackeys misinformed him. Nonetheless, their solution covers at least a portion of that period (though absolutely not the whole period).

A 3 hours window was the least they could do. So "thumbs in the middle" for scraping by, and "thumbs down" for waiting a full week to announce a no-brainer solution. Dragging it on for over a week was just as ridiculous as the cascade of errors and confusion that happened that day in the first place. I mean, honestly.

A leader leads. This will remain a black eye on NE's record, especially with this minimalist solution that still excludes people from resolution.

I would have at least honored all 11/26 PP orders. A 3 hour window? Just silly.

For the future:

- Clearly indicate on all promos and mailers if sales are for listed items or for all items. NewEgg CSRs were all over the place on this.

- Set clear offer limitations that will not be nebulous, confusing, contradictory, or honored "by chance". If something isn't available anymore, don't let the order get submitted and explain why. Period.

- If there is another problem in the future, keep the extra chefs out of the kitchen (we know they were there...) and produce a solution quickly.

How about "It dragged for a week" because people kept fighting (and ultimately losing) to get customers a better deal?

Please don't mistake my reply here as an excuse or a defense, but would you really have preferred that the internal debate not occured *at all* in favor of a faster solution? 

Newegg is still an organization comprised of people with different opinions on how this should have been handled. Some of them really felt the solution was not "fair enough" and went to bat for the customers. It's clear who "won" in the end, but honestly, would you rather have had it where the ppl who felt more needed to be done for customers NOT spoken up? 

The solution we got was the fast one. This one didn't require 8 days of thought. :-)

It wouldn't make any customers feel better to know the Leadership chose to be as cheap as possible rather than stand up for customers. That would reaffirm my point.

NewEgg: Kudos to those of you that stood up for customers. You handle our service needs with as much grace as possible. It's unfortunate your employers don't think as highly of us as you do. This "Do as we say, not as we do" solution is a poor Leadership example that they have set for you and us.

The only question I have is this. Sure they took a week to decide what they were going to do. You would think they would at least get their facts straight before issuing a official response. Such as when the promotion came down. What was stated in the official response was flat out untrue. Secondly, to say they are listening to all the complaints about their PP promotion, and then not address many of them at all.is not the best way to do business. Why not just type up an official response detailing why they couldn't do certain things, instead of leaving everyone in the dark about why they couldn't do more.

I believe I'm not the only one unhappy with NE's answers, or lack of answers to this whole promotion. My wife ordered some things during that promo, and we don't qualify for the rebate, so I am not at all happy. I have waited to see what the answers were going to be. They didn't satisfy me. So I will take my complaints to the BBB, and file a complaint with the AG detailing what I believe to be deceptive business practices. From my viewpoint, that is the only alternative I am left with. As I absoluely refuse to pay to ship the items back, or pay a restocking fee.