A Thank You! Note Thursday

I’m going to steal a page from This Daddy here for a minute and do my very first:

Thank You!

Note Thursday

As I mentioned before, last Friday was E’s birthday. My mother had purchased a really cool gift for him that she had spotted and KNEW he’d love. It was this watch, a Real Tech Spy Net watch. It has a lie detector, camera, records video and photos, a voice recorder, yada yada, and then you plug it in to your computer and get spy missions from their website. Just right up a nine year old boy alley.

Only, it wouldn’t charge. We opened the whole thing up on Sunday when our family got together to celebrate our birthdays, and I plugged it in, and it would SAY it was charging, but as soon as I unplugged it, nothing.

Now, first, understand that my mom has had it, in hiding for him, for almost a year. My thought was that the battery was probably shot, so off I went to the battery place.

The guy there couldn’t help me. Told me he wasn’t even sure what kind of battery pack it was (he didn’t want to void any warranties by taking it TOO far apart, which I appreciated!) so he recommended I contact the manufacturer and ask for battery specs and he’d see what one cost. He did mention it looked similar to what was in an iPhone, so his best guess was around $30. (Ouch!)

Home I went, and off to the manufacturer’s website, where I exchanged a series of emails with one of their customer service people. I described the problem, they gave me a few suggestions, we tried some stuff. Still not charging. Unfortunately, after all that, he left off with letting me know that it was outside of their warranty period, and that I could ship it to them and they’d SEE if they could fix it, but if they couldn’t, they’d just have to send it back.

Honestly, that was pretty much what I expected. After all, it is a kids toy, and she had purchased it literally last October. She had already had it almost a year, and the fact that we had just gotten around to opening the box didn’t mean much.

Enter: The Seller.

On a leap of faith, I emailed the place where it was purchased. They asked me to give them a call, so I did. I spoke to a very nice lady named Sharon and explained the situation. She was hesitant too, no real hope that we could return or exchange it. But she was willing to give it a shot, so she plugged the information into the system.

And she gasped. Just a little, but definitely out loud.

“We can let you return it!”

So cool! I can send back the broken toy, and we are ordering a replacement for him tonight, so E is going to get the cool Spy Watch. So for all that I want to say

Thank You!

to the fabulous people at QVC! Thank you for not making my mom eat the money she spent on this watch just because she’s a planner and KNEW my son would love it, so ordered it way ahead of time. Thanks to Sharon for giving it a shot, and even thank you to the battery guy and the customer service guy at the company who were at least willing to try to help me fix it since we all assumed I wouldn’t be able to return it. 

I love a good customer service story, and I have to tell you, I’ve NEVER had a bad experience with QVC. Don’t let that home shopping channel concept scare you – give ‘em a shot!