I remember when they were "DVDExpress.com", they had great customer service. Then they tried to branch out to other revenue streams as well, and simply became "express.com", and things were still ok, but not as good.
Now, they're www.dvd.com, and I won't bother linking to them because I really and truly explicitly do not want you to go there. I wish I'd done some research on "the latest name change" before I placed an order with them. I figured it'd just been a matter of "wow, someone let dvd.com go, we should grab that domain because it's a nice market position"... instead it was "a last dying gasp by a company desperate for cash, and not averse to charging for product never shipped" (at least, that's what the discussion in alt.video.dvd seems to yield... they'll SAY they shipped it, but until you get the Attorney General or a lawyer involved, it never actually seems to reach you... go figure.. tracking numbers? Nooo, sorry, they ship - when they do ship - cheapest possible method.
Their order-tracking system is a joke (it shows a disc they DID send me as "backordered", although it still being backordered in their computer didn't seem to stop them from shipping it to me, or billing me for it). They show two DVD's as shipped, but they never seem to have gotten here. And they show one shipped that got here just fine (Lord Of The Rings... gotta figure they believed if they screwed people over on that, they'd get their nuts busted for it hard)
So I e-mailed them... boy did I ever e-mail them. No response.
I called them .. you have to work to call them, they don't have the number on their site anyway. Only via e-mail that they can safely ignore do you get to communicate with them. Ask for customer service, get transferred to a voicemail box which says basically "leave us a message and we'll try to get back to you before Ragnarok". I call back, ask to speak to a real live human being since I can't trust that customer service will actually call me back, since they can't be bothered to hit ctrl-R and reply to my e-mails. She transfers me to Brian Carlson (at extension 363). I leave a message, with my order number, and all sorts of good info about what I'd like done with my order.
No callback. Had I really expected otherwise....?
So I called back today. Finally got the operator. Asked, again, to speak to a real live person. Her response, literally, word for word:
That's right folks. So, she transfers me to Brian's voice-mail. Again. I punch 0 to get back to her. Ask for Brian's boss, since Brian isn't being too diligent about answering his voicemail. She transfers me to... Brian. I punch 0 and get back again. This time I keep getting the "The DVD.COM operator is busy, please leave a message". But it's a dumb voicemail system and I keep hitting 0 to transfer to the operator until she finally answers. Repeat previous request for Brian's boss. Get transferred to the general "customer service voicemail dropbox". Punch 0. Punch 0 until operator deigns to take my call.
That was twenty minutes ago. Ring 4 times, punch "0", I'm getting quite good at this. If only it was an 800#. Their web interface is so broken that I can't even cancel the remaining portions of my order (and nor could I speak to a customer-service representative to get that problem solved).
Somehow I see this problem as being "best resolved with the application of 12-gauge LART's at short range", or (failing the legality of such a solution) simply telling my credit card company to shove any charges from DVD.COM back up their collectives arses.
Oh, receptionist answered. Doesn't seem to know who Brian Carlson's boss is. HER boss is on vacation. She doesn't know her boss's boss's name, nor does she know the president of the company's name so she can transfer me to them. She says Brian's in his office now, returning calls. I ask her if he's been gone since yesterday morning, she says no. I say then why didn't he return my call yesterday? No real answer, nor did I expect one. She transfers me to him. Voicemail. Punch 0. Tell her that the next call for Brian will be the California Attorney General if I don't get transferred to a Real Live Brian[tm] on this call. I'm on hold now.... again.
Just let your CC company deal with their bullshit while you head over to Amazon.com. :-)
the only non-canned autoreply I ever got from them after a phantom disc shipped to me was when I send them just over 8400 emails, by accident. Their systems admin is a real person and wrote back. He obviously did not fix my order. My CC bank was friendly and quickly reversed all charges.