Fishpond.com.au - a review.

Now I'm not usually in the habit of reviewing things on this blog, but developments with these lot have inspired me to put pen to paper, or at least fingertip to keyboard.

Before I go into the delicious creamy filling of the review, I need to give you a little bit of background. My wonderful other half Cheinara and I made a wager a few weeks ago that I couldn't get out of bed at 4am every morning for three days straight. Apparently she must think I sleep too much, but I think the fact that I woke up at 10am this morning is a blessing, and not some kind of disfiguring curse. Anyway, I won the bet thanks to years to shiftwork experience and I was to be rewarded with the PS3 title of the moment, Uncharted 2.

'Yay!' I exclaimed over the internet. 'I get to explode things and dangle from ledges!'.

It looked a little something like this.

I do a lot of bargain hunting over at a site called Ecogamer which scours the net for cheap games for Aussies. As luck just so had it, I found out that a little site called Fishpond.com.au had it the cheapest thanks to a promotion code. The game was ordered with gift wrapping and a card included on the 8th October - Just in time for the release on the 15th.

I immediately received an email from their Customer Service Robot thanking me for the order.

Uncharted 2 Among Thieves is not yet published. Your pre-order has been recorded.

This title is due for publication on 15 October, 2009. Your copy has been reserved and we will ship it to you as soon as possible after the release date.
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New status: Shipped

Huh? That's odd. I mean I know that Customer Service Robot #132 isn't exactly the most knowledgeable hunk of sentient steel around, but they've managed to ship something before it arrives in their warehouse? That's pretty god damned amazing. On the 15th October (Happy Uncharted Day!) I get another email stating the obvious. It was shipped and on its way. Again. That was good to know, but there was no delivery date. After a few minutes of fighting their website, I get info that the expect delivery address was between the 21st and the 23rd of October. WHAT? That can't be right. Surely it's a Worst Case Scenario here. It's coming from Alexandria! That's like two hours drive away at the most.

The 23rd rolls around, and there is no parcel in my mailbox. Tasty is getting agitated. Time to ask some questions. Once again I have a battle of wills with Fishpond's website (Their 'Contact Us' page has not actual contact details which kind of defeats the purpose) I find a way to get in touch with them. I won't stick the whole email here because it's longer than World War II, but I'll let you know that as pissed as I was, the tone of the email was polite, with a side of constructive criticism bigger than Disneyland. Some excerpts:

'The product has failed to arrive in the delivery window. At first when I saw the delivery estimation I was taken aback, but after speaking to several of your past customers have found that these are quite optimistic. One colleague in Sydney said, and I quote, 'it took them a month to send me a book. a MONTH.' Another in the US responded to my frustrations by saying 'I'll buy it locally here and send it by putting it in a bottle and throwing it in the ocean...might get there quicker.''

'For an apparently Australian online store, with prices in Australian dollars, I have found your delivery times in Australia to be by far the worst I have ever dealt with.'

'Although your quoted average response time to queries is 24 hours, I look forward to receiving your reply in my inbox sometime mid-November.'

Lo and behold, I get a reply within 24 hours. At least their customer service section listens, right?

We apologise for the delay:

* Uncharted 2 Among Thieves
We anticipate delivery Australian Post mail, between 21/10/09 and 26/10/09. Please let us know if it has not arrived by 2nd November and we either order a replacement or cancel the title and refund you.

Huh. Did they even read my relentless onslaught of tactful ranting? By this time it was the 23rd of October. Seems that Fishpond exist in some kind of time-distorting alternate reality where everything is sent and received in the past. My reply this time was something they couldn't easily glaze over:

So between two days ago and Tuesday? Where exactly was it shipped from?

Their reply?

Australia Post does generally take at least 3- 5 days for delivery, and of course from time to time, delays do happen. We sincerely apologise for that.

Jimmy

How the hell does that answer my question? Sounds like Jimmy is doin' some good old fashioned question dodging. I get pissed off at a lot of things, but when people start pretending I didn't ask them a question, I start getting a little riled.

Yes, I noticed that when I initially ordered the product. However, my question wasn't answered.

Long story short, the truth came out. Fishpond.com.au, Australia's largest bookstore, is not actually based in Australia at all. They're in New Zealand. Whoops! They must have forgotten to mention that.

So the package finally arrived, 11 days after local release IN NEW ZEALAND:

Wow, those kiwis have an Alexandria, New South Wales too!

The game arrive in a dodgy looking brown paper envelope, usually reserved for liquor and pornography. The usually delightful ziptab opening thing disintegrated when I pulled it, leaving me clawing at the exterior like a starving hyena. The game was lovingly wrapped in Default coloured paper (Fishpond don't actually explain what colour Default is, so today I learned it's silver) and the hand written card from Cheinara?

That's an extremely low resolution printout on an Avery label, stuck to a card. No corners cut here! Cheinara once sent me a slab of beer from an online store in Perth that had better gift wrapping. It even had a hand written card. For BEER. I didn't even know you COULD gift wrap beer before that. Who gift wraps beer? People in Perth do! Sup, Perth?

The back of the card. For New Zealand's Biggest Australian Bookstore, their proof reading sucks.

So in short, I give Fishpond a resounding F- for the entire experience. The entire ordeal was the worst online shopping experience mankind has ever encountered outside Ebay, and their staff not only dodge questions, but have apparently perfected time travel technology to the point where everything happens in the past. Damn you, Fishpond. Damn you for forcing me to do this.

Anyways, time to play some Uncharted 2. Hopefully Fishpond didn't send me the portugese version.