Lousy Customer Service from eCost . . .

I've bought from eCost a number of times, but after the problems with the latest purchase, I think I'll give them a miss next time . . .

We bought a recertified Samsung SyncMaster monitor, received it in five business days and all seemed fine. We opened up the box and noticed the power cord was missing. Not a big thing, but we thought it'd be as easy to just call eCost and ask them to send us one. That's when the problems started.

The report from Maurice, who actually had to deal with this:

Phone call 1:Got the support number to call them and after some automated talk managed to speak to an agent. He seemed pleasant gave him my order number, explained the problem and he said I have easy solution call Samsung and they will definitely send you the missing power cable.

Call 2: Called Samsung spoke to a pleasant lady gave them the product number and serial number. She looked it up and said I'm sorry but since this is a refurbished model she couldn’t send me a cable but was very sorry. She also gave me a link to where I could buy one online if needed. She also told me that ecost should not have given me the number.

Call 3. So called ecost back, explained what Samsung had said and asked why when they knew it was a refurb why did they get me to call Samsung? No answer put on hold for 10 minutes, operator came back. Ok we can send you the cable but we need a case number from Samsung in order to send it to you. Asked why wasn’t told this before. Didn’t get an answer.

Call 4 : Called Samsung, Very helpful again gave me a case number in 1 minute.

Call 5: Called ecost back had to go through whole process of looking up my order, explaining for the 3rd time what had happened and explained I now had case number they requested. Put on hold for 10 minutes. Came back and said as it was refurb we don’t guarantee everything will be in the box. Oh really well what if the monitor is not in there would that be ok? Begin to lose it and ask to speak to manager. Won’t transfer me. I then asked why they would make me call them 3 times and calls samsung twice when they were never going to send me the cable as this was as the girl said her policy. They said they would open a report and look into the issue. 4 days later no email no contact

Eventually eCost said they'd send the cable, although that was two days ago and we still haven't received the email they said they would send to confirm the shipment of the cable . . .

Yes, I know it was just a power cable, and if I happened to know where to pick one up locally, it'd have been easier to pay the $5 or whatever than to even make the call. What is crazy is the lousy customer support. Oh well. I probably spend about $1k-$2k a year on bits and pieces at eCost. Now I guess it'll go to TigerDirect or someone else.