I am one very annoyed customer, and have a dual purpose here.

One is to discuss the "Sale ends" that is put on sale items at the store here, another is to express my dismay - let me put that more strongly - disgust - with Renderosity's attitude toward customer service.

At the end of July, I had a question about a sale that said "Sale ends July 31, 2010". Rather than make assumptions, I sent an email on the 29th to ASK exactly what that meant.   Did it mean (as it APPEARS) that it ends on July 31st at the end of the day Renderosity time?  Or was there a possibility that it meant that it ended on the day BEFORE (July 30) at the end of the day?

The response from Renderosity was, and I quote:

"If it states the sale ends 7/31/10, it ends at 11:59pm CST on 07/31/10. "

I sent an email saying thanks, got a reply saying I was welcome.

It happened that in that sale, I DID buy the items on the 30th because I had decided what I wanted and was going to be away a lot on the 31st.

The next time I was buying things with a "sale ends" time was yesterday.

Rebelmommy (Amy) had a bunch of things on sale this past week, and they all said on the item page "Sale ends Sept 1, 2010".

Last night, still unsure about whether I wanted a few items in Amy's store, I put the ones I WAS sure about in my cart and went back to find that email. After re-reading it, of COURSE I knew that all was fine, I had till the end of the day Sept 1st to check out.

4 hours after Midnight Renderosity time, I happened to go look at one of those items I wasn't sure about and saw that it no longer said it was on sale. Shocked, I took a screenshot of my cart, which showed the items at sale prices, and opened a new window, brought up my cart, and found that all the prices were back to normal.

I immediately wrote to the representative at Rendo who had written to me the previous month (I will be nice and not mention that person's name) , explained the situation, and said I hoped they would put the items back on sale (of course, I thought it was an error that they'd been taken off in the first place) and got an email back this morning that they were very sorry, and apologized, but they had made a typo in that email last month, and they meant to type 7/30/2010 rather than 7/31/2010.

That's it. That's all I got.

I wrote again, re-explaining and saying that I certainly can understand that anyone can make a mistake, but they should honor the prices at LEAST of what I had put in my cart (which I'd sent a screen shot of to this representative) because I based my decision on what I was told BY them.

I got another email saying that no, they can not honor it, because it was a vendor-scheduled sale, not a Rendo one, and would take a lot of money away from the vendor. That everyone makes mistakes and if the person had told me incorrectly because they didn't know that would be one thing, but a typo is accidental. The person followed that up with saying that the items were on sale a week and a half (implying that I should have bought them earlier - real cute, blame the customer), and apologizing again.

I sent Amy a pm and others also wrote to her at another forum - because I was not the only one who read "Sale ends Sept 1st" to mean at the end of that day!!!.  As a result of OUR contact with her and HER excellent customer service attitude, she put the items back on sale till tomorrow at  11:45 pm. I have thanked her at that forum and in pm for doing this.  I will not forget it.

Unfortunately, nor will I forget the attitude of Renderosity.  TWO THUMBS down to Renderosity for poor customer service. This has put a VERY bad taste in my mouth.  I am a business owner.  If I (or an employee of mine) told someone something incorrectly (doesn't matter if it was an accident or an "on purpose", I would honor it.  No questions asked.  Customer service is THE most important thing.

So, a few things about the "sale ends" thing.

I got an email from the representative saying that the vendor has put their things back on sale until 11:45 pm on Sept 2nd (tomorrow).  I just looked at the pages and they say, amazingly:

Sale Ends:9/2/10

WAIT A MINUTE!!  According to what I was told this morning, this means the sale ends TONIGHT, not TOMORROW night. 

But no, THIS time when it says Sale ends 9/2/2010 it actually means at the end of the DAY on 9/2/2010  

RENDEROSITY, you need to be CLEAR about when sale dates end.  I KNOW I am not the only one angry and confused by this complete inconsistency - it now feels like "well, if we say it ends 9/2/2010 we MAY end the sale at the end of the day on 9/1 and may do it on 9/2"

Try something like this on EVERY SALE ITEM'S PAGE-

Sale ends: 9/2/2010, 11:59pm Central Daylight Time

or in the case of this extended sale:

Sale ends: 9/2/2010, 11:45pm Central Daylight Time

No guessing, no "when is it REALLY?"

I have to wonder how many people who don't know about this whole thing and JUST see the sale items for the first time will put them in their cart and plan to check them out at 11:50 pm CDT, finding the sale ended at some strange arbitrary hour 5 minutes earlier.

It is completely ridiculous to state a day when a sale ends and not make it clear WHEN on that day it ends!

Please make this clear on your pages.

MEANWHILE - can we get an OFFICIAL WORD - which is it????

If the page says "SALE ENDS SEPT 1, 2010"  EXACTLY what time of what day does the sale end??

 - Alisa

 

Cheers,
Alisa

RETIRED HiveWire 3D QAV Director