On 9/26/07, Jeffrey Kaplan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I've had nothing but good service from TreoCentral and wouldn't > hesitate to recommend them. I find the selection at MyTreo.net to be > lacking.
Well, here's my story. I gave TreoCentral plenty of opportunity to do the right thing, but since they have essentially ignored me now for nearly a month, I think it's safe to say that there's nothing I can say _to_ them that will change the outcome. I may post a longer version on GearBits, but here's a quick summary: About three months ago, I ordered a battery/cradle kit consisting of a new stock Palm Treo 700p battery, a cradle charger, and a slipcase. When I got the kit, I hooked up the cradle, popped in the battery in the charger to fill 'er up. But then I left town for a week and then it sat on my desk for another two weeks before I realized I hadn't even tried the battery (the cradle worked fine). After about a few days of using the new battery, it seemed like it didn't have the same capacity as my older battery -- it would be at 40% at the end of a day whereas my original battery would usually be at 60-65%. I thought maybe the battery needed some breaking in to reach full capacity, and used it for another week. By the end of that week, I realized the battery just did not work very well. I then closely examined the battery and realized it said "PalmOne" on it -- that tipped me off that the battery was fairly old (Palm hadn't used that name in well over a year) and probably not even capable of taking a full charge anymore. At that point, I emailed TreoCentral and asked if they could replace this battery with one that was actually "new" (per the advertisement). They wrote me back and said that since I was out of the 30-day return period (it had been 35 days), they would exchange the battery if I paid for shipping both directions. Well, this is a $20 battery and shipping would have cost at least $12. I wrote them back and politely explained that I thought that wasn't fair and hadn't contacted them within the 30 days because I was trying to make sure that the battery was NOT defective before contacting them (I didn't even know about the 30-day policy) and offered to pay for shipping to get the defective battery back to them but that they should send me the new battery on their dime; I really did try to compromise. They said, "sorry...that's our policy." I then explained that strictly adhering to their arbitrary "policy" of 30 days was a bad decision because while they would save $6 in shipping, I would never, ever buy anything from them again (and I buy Treo stuff pretty regularly...both my wife and I use them) and to let me know if they would reconsider the option of splitting the shipping costs. They never responded. Now I realize that not every company is chock full of people who score high on the "customer service orientation" scale (I research customer service as my profession, so I've seen lots of examples, good and bad), but facing such a simple decision and making the wrong choice just doesn't give me a lot of confidence in the company. And I'm not even talking about doing the "right" thing...I'm talking about doing the _smart_ thing, which would have been to eat $6 in order to solidify a relationship with a customer who spends an average of $50 a year. Taking care of repeat customers is just good business...ask any experienced bartender!
