Warning - Don't buy from ABC Distributing

I wished someone had posted their experience with this company as it may
have saved my sister, my niece, and me from all the wasted time.
Therefore, I am recording my experience here so that others could learn
from my experience.


A Story of Unrelenting Horror in terms of Terrible Customer Service -
Poor Internal Processes!


I have two major complaints about ABC Distributing's customer service
process. Because of my experience, I will never order from them again.
It isn't worth the migraine.

ONE: When I placed my first order through their website
(http://www.ABCdistributing.com), I was never notified that there was a
problem with my phone/address that prevented the account from being
created. If I had been notified, I would have tried to find out why they
thought my totally correct address was a problem and hopefully resolved
it the same day rather than starting that process six weeks later when we
thought that the item was overdue for delivery.

TWO: Each time I called customer service, they would make some small
change to the account and I would have to wait 72 hours to see whether or
not that resolved the issue with the other department so that the order
would go through. It never did, and I had to keep calling back every 3-4
days for several weeks straight. By the time the address issue was
resolved, it was too late as the item was now out-of-stock and not likely
to be carried again until next Christmas if at all.

Here are the trials and tribulations I endured during this process:

I placed my first order from ABC Distributing in late December, 2004 for
a 5 foot photo screen. I was excited to finally find this item, as I
could not find it anywhere in Minneapolis.

Since this company ships the items with an invoice before receiving
payment, I am fully sympathetic to their need to verify address
information to minimize on-line fraud. I am a small business owner, and
many of my clients use our eStore system to operate their on-line stores.
Having said that, since every now and then a legitimate order may be
stopped inadvertently, it is standard business practice to NOTIFY the
customer when canceling an order.

My primary business address is in Texas. The item I was ordering was for
my sister's home office in Minnesota. When I placed the order, there
wasn't a separate billing and shipping address, so I entered my business
name and cell phone number (from Texas) and my sister's Minnesota address
(where the item was to be shipped.) I would be paying for the order, and
if they had any questions, they should contact me rather than my sister,
hence the cell phone number.

I received an immediate confirmation email letting me know that my
account would be set up and I would be receiving a welcome letter in the
mail. I assumed that everything was fine and promptly forgot about it.
We never received the welcome letter.

Six weeks later, we started wondering just how long it would be before
the item was delivered... I called up their long-distance customer
service number 305-944-6971, since there was no way to contact them via
email or their website. (There is an on-line customer service section,
but it requires an account number, which we had never been given, and
once logged in it allowed you to do some basic things EXCEPT sending any
sort of feedback or communications.) Yes, I waited on hold for 10
minutes, but that's not really so bad compared to a lot of places out
there, and it isn't my complaint.

When I finally spoke to their representative, she informed me that there
was a problem with my address/phone number; the account had never been
created and the order never actually placed. I told her that I had
listed my cell phone number and she said that must have been the problem.
I gave a land-line number for my sister's home office, which then would
match the physical address that I was shipping the product to, and she
updated the account. I told her that it would have been nice to be
notified about this problem back in December when I placed the order,
because I would have immediately dealt with the issue then rather than
waiting 6 weeks to discover their was a problem.

At this point, I was informed that it would take 48 hours for the account
to be reopened, and 72 hours for the order to be processed, and 10 days
or so for the product to be delivered. I was frustrated over not being
notified six weeks prior about the address problem, but relieved that the
item hadn't been lost in the mail and would finally be shipped.

I called up the following Monday just to be sure that everything had gone
through OK. No dice. They said there was still a problem with the
address/phone number, and the order was still on hold. It's a good thing
that I called, because they STILL didn't notify me by phone, by email or
by snail-mail that there was a problem. If I hadn't called then, I may
have ended up waiting another two weeks still in the dark.

I tried to ascertain just what it was about the address/phone number that
wasn't working for them, but they couldn't tell me and I had to guess
what it was that they were verifying. I explained that I was shipping to
a residence and not my main office. They asked who's residence it was,
and changed the "attention name" on the order from mine to that of my
sister. Now, the phone number, address, and name all belonged to the
same person. It would take another 72 hours for the order to be
processed.

I learned my lesson, and checked in several days later to confirm. By
this time, we had an on-line account that I could log in to and check the
order status. It still showed "there is a problem with your address" and
that the order was on hold. There was a way to change the address, but
that wouldn't help me as the address was CORRECT. There was no way to
indicate this from the website, and no contact us form or email address.
So, I made the long distance phone call and explained my situation again
from the beginning.

This time I spoke with Cody and he asked me to fax in documentation
showing that my business was registered at that Minnesota address. I
explained that my primary business address is in Texas and that I was
shipping this to my sister's home office in Minnesota, so that wouldn't
help. Cody told me I'd have to start over, create a new account on the
website, and place the order again. I told him that I actually need the
existing order shipped, and I'd prefer it if he could make the changes
himself so that everything was proper on the order and it would go
through. (I was thinking that it was a shot-in-the-dark for me to guess
what might be "wrong" this time, and if they fixed it there was a greater
likelihood of it being accepted than if I started over. Plus, I wanted
the history of the order process maintained so that if I had to keep
calling they would know just how old this problem was.)

Cody said that he understood, and he made the appropriate changes and was
transferring my account directly to a department that could override the
bad address flag and ship the order. I'd have to wait 72 hours before I
could check and see if it worked.

If you've started to see the pattern here, when you call customer
service, you don't actually speak to the department that handles the
address validation, and there is no way to know if the changes are going
to be enough until 72 hours have passed. Another department handles
that, and you cannot speak with them directly because customer service
does not know the extension for that department. (I suspect that this
step is outsourced to a different company.)

(Although I didn't know this then, by this time, the original item was no
longer in stock. Fortunately, it is still available in another color...)

What do you know, 72 hours later the account is still on hold. We
actually receive the first communication notice from ABC - an email
message stating that due to a bad address, our order has been cancelled
and will be deleted soon. What?! Next call, I spoke with Andrea.
First, as I went through the history from the beginning once more, Andrea
kept getting confused and thinking I wanted to change the address. "No,
the address is correct and has always been correct." Once we got past
that concept, Andrea said that all she could do was forward it to the
"List Service" department for their approval. She changed the business
name from my business to my sister's name. (Don't ask me why.) I
offered to pre-pay for the item if that would speed things up, but they
wouldn't allow me to do that. They had their protocols and would not
deviate from them.

Another 72 or so hours later... Finally, when I logged in there is no
warning about a bad address. Yeah! I foolishly assumed that this meant
my order would finally be shipped. A few days later, I logged in to
check and see that the order was still listed as cancelled. It's the
weekend, so now I must wait until Monday to be able to speak to anyone.

Since I really can't get this item anywhere else, I've been
extraordinarily patient, but this will be my last attempt before giving
up utterly and completely. As such, I immediately ask to speak with a
supervisor when the rep comes on the phone. She takes my account number
and the nature of the problem and puts me on hold. After a wait, the
same woman comes back on the phone to address my issue. (NOT a
supervisor.) We go through it all again, and she says that this time the
problem is that they didn't un-cancel the order when I called last time,
so when they finally authorized the address they didn't have an active
order to process. She tries to un-cancel the order now and discovers
that the item is sold out. The version in black had been available last
week when my address was finally authorized, but has sold out in the last
few days. I'm screwed.

I asked if they were planning on restocking the item - "No." I asked if
they could tell me the supplier's information so that I could find out
for myself if it was sold anywhere else - "Against our policy to disclose
such information." I asked, by the way, ARE you a supervisor? "No."
Then I STILL would like to talk to your supervisor.

The supervisor was very polite and sympathetic. I explained the problems
I had experienced and how they could change their business processes to
ease the resolution of similar problems in the future. She was nice, but
they did not plan to make any changes in their customer service process.
She would have happily shipped the product if they had it in stock, but
otherwise there was nothing she could do.

Summary: poor customer service cycles; poor internal communication
between various departments; non-existent communication by ABC when there
is a problem - we didn't find out the account was on hold for over six
weeks; then what should have been handled in one session took six phone
calls spaced out a minimum of 72 hours apart. No single person could
resolve anything over the phone but merely make a tweak and forward it to
another department for approval/rejection days later.

Sorry folks, regrettably my frustrating experience did not make it any
easier for the next guy. Unless of course, having read this review you
decide to order from another company.

Best of luck.

-JD