In an uncontrolled fit of Christmas mirth, I just tried to buy a gift for somebody at BUY.COM and was DENIED. I couldn’t get my “eAccount” (stop with the eEverythings already!) to work for some reason, as the system wouldn’t log me in. It marked both my password and email address as incorrect. Strange.
Admittedly, I tend to lose passwords, and so I went to the “Forgot Your Password?” screen which is supposed to give me a hint. This feature couldn’t locate my email address, though.
Then I decided to just damn the torpedoes and create a new “eAccount”. After spending some time painstakingly re-entering my shipping, billing, and other information (including my email address) the system informed me that it already had an account with that email address and couldn’t overwrite it.
So.. <*GASP*> I called their Customer Service number. I fumbled my way to a vaguely appropriate choice in the labyrinth of IVR and sat on hold for a few minutes. I briefly informed the kind rep who answered of my problem. She was quick to point out that I “can’t order anything.”
I responded: “Uh, now? Or forever?”
“No, the customer database server isn’t working,” she comforted me, “it’ll maybe be back in an hour or two.”
Apparently it had already been down for an hour. This was at 8:45pm. Peak buying time. I wasted half an hour. Guess I’ll go to Fry’s. Bah Humbug.
-Ian.