Category Archives: customer service

the sisterhood of the traveling rug

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This could be considered a cautionary tale. To pay attention when you’re bidding on things in an out-of-state auction. More specifically pay attention as to how you will get the item home.

Just after the New Year I was checking out an online auction down in Charleston, South Carolina. There was this old red-ish rug in an old house on an old floor that was like my dream rug of what I had been searching for to decorate with in my dining room.

I am not a giant fan of wall-to-wall carpet. I like hardwood floors and area rugs. And my favorite area rugs are old Persian and oriental rugs, most of which (like most people) I cannot afford. So like many other things when it comes to decorating you have to get creative. You check out auctions, you check out house sales, you go barn picking.

So when I saw this rug I knew if I could get it at a reasonable price, I would finally have what I wanted. I am not one of those people who was fortunate enough to inherit old rugs like this from family members as hand-me-downs. And it’s hard to find a decent sized oriental or Persian or Afghan rug that isn’t brutally expensive even if it is in rough shape.

Of course a lot of that has to do with the fact that certain kinds of rugs aren’t being made as much in their originating countries as they once were and when relationships with countries change with the US it means things aren’t being imported much either. Another factor are consignment stores and dealers jacking prices for their profit margins. Mind you, we live in a free market society and if that’s what they want to charge that is their right. However, it is my right as a thrifty soul to shop a better bargain.

There were other rugs in this auction in particular and this would’ve been considered a lesser quality rug, although for me it was what I wanted. So I set an absentee bid (and it was low) and walked away from the auction site. Much to my surprise no one really bid on it except for one other person. And they seemed to lose interest in it and in the end to my surprise I got it and got it for a song. I got it for like a true garage sale price which seriously shocked me.

I have won rugs in auctions before. If you are working with an honest to God budget or just don’t have a lot of money it is sometimes your only option. The key is to know the auctioneer, and in this case it was a Caring Transitions franchise.

After I won the rug I waited to see when they would invoice me for shipping. I contacted the auctioneer and this was a learning curve for both of us.

This is a room size rug pretty much – a smaller room but then again I have a small house. As I noted previously, I have won rugs in auctions before and I’ve had them shipped to me FedEx. They come insured, you have to sign for them – you have to be home to take receipt and it’s generally speaking pretty easy.

This time it wasn’t so easy. Some auction houses have their own personnel who pack and ship items if they agree to pack and ship. Other auction houses and auctioneers have a third party pack and ship items. In this case it was finding a third-party to pack and ship who didn’t want to gouge me for many times over what I actually paid for the rug.

One company told the auctioneer around $425 and that wasn’t necessarily including all the fees and what not that they charge. Another company told the auctioneer well over $500. Neither the auctioneer or myself expected this at all. I did not know what to do so I reached out to a friend of mine that lives in the area of the auctioneer. She agreed with me that the price was crazy.

This is where it becomes the sisterhood of the traveling rug.

My friend offered to get the rug and take it to FedEx and have them pack and ship it. Because that’s what I have done in the past and it was quite reasonable in price.

My friend went to the warehouse where it was being stored and nobody was there to greet her. So in the end, the auctioneer kindly had the rug I purchased delivered to her home and she took it to FedEx. FedEx charged me (with significant insurance for safety purposes) a little over $95. Not $400 not $500.

The rug arrived this morning and I signed for it. Now I have an appointment with my rug cleaner who will come and pick it up and take it out to be cleaned and have a mat cut for it. I am able to afford to do that because I didn’t just settle for what these packing and shipping companies said should be the charge.

So that is my cautionary tale. And I will tell you that when I spoke with the FedEx man this morning he said he had delivered something else locally a while back – a musical instrument – and the man who receive the package was charged over $500 to ship it by a third party pack and ship company.

So when it comes to these subcontractors I guess it’s caveat emptor or buyer beware… and do your homework.

And yes I know some people are going to read this post and think I am crazy hunting down an old rug. So many people will say “why not just buy a new one?” That part is easy. I love vintage. I like the character of old and vintage items. I just don’t like the price tag sometimes which is why you shop around.

Many thanks to my friend who helped me get my rug to me. She is and always has been aces.

your health is NOT worth penn medicine radnor

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Steve Smith can also be reached at Steven.Smith2@uphs.upenn.edu

When you complain about the parking and the unsafe parking lot this is the little strip of paper they hand you at Penn Medicine Radnor. (This is of course after the security guard shrugs their shoulders at you.)

Ever since I became an oncology patient 7 1/2 years ago I seem to have a lot of doctors appointments. Today I was supposed to see my oncologist and I almost turned around and went home the parking lot was that bad.

Today was the day I saw a man on a walker almost get hit by a car at a medical facility. And the driver of said vehicle as they sped by had the nerve to glare at the poor man on the walker.

I had two appointments this week at Penn Radnor. Thank the good Lord I don’t have to go back before the new year. I understand they are moving into a new facility, and I don’t want to jump on the anti-Penn in Radnor bandwagon but I’m sorely tempted at this point.

When I got there this morning if an ambulance had to come in and get someone they would not have been able to navigate through the parking lot because there was barely any space to get through. People were parked on shoulders, people were parked on the grass, people were parked in fire lanes, people were parked on curves. And this isn’t just passenger vehicles there were a couple of trucks too.

And I know it’s not any safer for the staff and medical professionals than it is for the patients. Penn Medicine has a lot of money. They need to throw some towards a parking solution. Telling patients who are upset when they walk in the door what does anyone expect them to do about it is not a solution. And I had not one but two security guards shrug their shoulders at me this week. This morning the security guard barely acknowledged me and handed me a little slip of paper with the name and phone number of the chief operating officer. He of course did not answer his phone.

Today was the day where I once again called Radnor Township about this parking lot. It’s private property, but when they block fire lanes and things like that it becomes a health safety and welfare issue in my opinion.

Now somewhat say how can they predict how many people are going to be in the parking lot each day. Simple all the people that have appointments represent a vehicle. So they can track that in their computer system. That of course does not take into consideration patients coming in on an urgent basis or possibly without an appointment.

When you enter their property in Radnor you are entering a state of chaos. Every single day. And if the parking wasn’t bad enough the people who can’t wait and have to go drive unsafely around people waiting for a parking space cause additional hazards.

I am beginning to think that my life is not worth Penn Medicine at Radnor because if it was Penn Medicine would do something about their parking lot.

ho,ho, ho the liars of lasership

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lasership sucks 3

Imagine if Santa worked for LaserShip and said “Well…I actually work for LaserShip, so I really don’t have to deliver packages…maybe I will just dump the sack here and mark the packages “lost in transit” or “delivered””

 

Yesterday I wrote a post titled ’tis the season for undelivered packages with lasership.

Apparently my pet food from Chewy as of this afternoon was marked magically delivered as of December 2nd, 2018…when I was home all day…and LaserShip said it WOULD NOT be delivered that day.

Here is a screen shot I saved and was on my previous post yesterday (In red is my notation):

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Here is a screen shot from the LaserShip website late this afternoon (In red is my notation):

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So I have to ask: where exactly did they leave this package? It wasn’t at MY front door. It also wasn’t left at any neighbors’ front doors.  And this is a package that has had a different story told about it every time I have called over the past few days.

First there was the old weather exception.  Kind of like Septa’s slippery rail season announcements, only sketchier.  We have had no blizzards, hurricanes, monsoons, or weather acts of God between Montgomerville, PA and Chester County PA.

Then there was the excuse of the “guy left it on the truck” but never bothered to deliver.

Then there was the excuse of they were SO busy but it will be delivered FIRST THING Monday morning.  It wasn’t.

Then there was the LaserShip comment of it was “somewhere in the warehouse” and would be delivered today.  It wasn’t.

But when I got REALLY pissed off is when they LIED to Chewy.com today and said “oh we delivered that Sunday” And it was the SAME woman at LaserShip in Montgomerville, PA that I spoke to who had a different story as to my package location at least three times within one conversation. And then there was the whole backdating their system to say the package was delivered two days after it wasn’t delivered.

ceo of lasership

Oh their CEO? His name is Blake Averill.

I left him a voicemail message today down in old Virginnie at LaserShip HQ.  The business is NOT Better Business Bureau accredited, incidentally. ( I called  (703) 761-9030)

I left him a voicemail message.  I also left him a LinkedIn message.  Here is what I said (essentially):

LaserShip should be OUT of business. (yes you should read this).

I have had several LaserShip tall tales. I have had employees say my package was left on a truck and never delivered, it is in the warehouse, Donald Trump has it, and so on. A litany of lies to myself and Chewy.com  which started with “weather exceptions” (there are none and have been none since I ordered from Chewy on 11/27/18) and today like magic your corporate jerks updated my tracking (by back dating) to say you delivered to my front door on Sunday December 2. NO THEY DID NOT. I home ALL day Sunday. I am sick of the lies. You should not be in business and I am having a LOT of fun saying that on social media. I am pissed.

You run a sketchy ship of liars at best.

deetsYes I know, not my most mature offering but I am done.  They are worse than Amazon Logistics and I did not think that was possible. They should not be in business. They have so many complaints they are right up there with bogus Breast Cancer charities.

Chewy.com has been staying in contact and they are sending me another pet food order on them. It should be on LaserShip.  What I do not understand is why businesses keep using LaserShip? When does the cost of doing business because of them get to be too much?

They have QUITE the Wikipedia page. My favorite is this:

 In March 2017, a customer caught a delivery man tossing a package containing a router on tape, damaging the contents, and reported the incident to Lasership. After the complaint, the delivery man then returned to the customer’s residence four times, prompting the customer to call the police.[15] The customer, identified as Robert Blake, spoke with the Vice President of LaserShip, who noted that the employee had been with the company for 10 years.[16] Reacting to this incident, New Haven-based attorney Tara Knight stated: “That really raises eyebrows. There could be an innocent explanation, but it’s kind of creepy and there could be a nefarious explanation as well.”

I also like the whole RICO case in 2014 involving LaserShip vs. The City of New York. Yes for real. Click on the hyperlink for the press release from the City of New York. A real case you can read about HERE.

Here are but TWO complaints on the Better Business Bureau website about them (there are hundreds of complaints there as well):

lasership review

 

Again I ask: HOW ARE THESE PEOPLE STILL IN BUSINESS?  They are it seems, BIG FAT LIARS.  If they just owned up to whatever the mishap is that caused my package to evaporate and never get delivered, I might be more understanding. But they are compounding lies upon lies and continuing to get caught so they are less than zero on the respect scale.

I still do not have my pet food. Who steals pet food?

I will have to reevaluate doing business with businesses that do business with LaserShip going forward and so should everyone else out there.

Dearest Santa, please send LaserShip reindeer poop for Christmas.

#LaserShipSucks pass it on.

’tis the season for undelivered packages with lasership

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From LaserShip’s Twitter Page. Oh the irony.

I did not think it was possible for there to be worse delivery services than Amazon Logistics ( I wrote about finding an entire big bag of dumped Amazon packages in September.) but there is worse.  They are called LaserShip or affectionately known as LazyShip and LaserSh*t.

Before I get any further, enjoy this video someone did on LaserShip who delivers for all sorts of people including Sephora, Chewy, and Amazon:

Here is what New York Magazine said about them in 2017:

SEPT. 27, 2017
LaserShip, Amazon’s New Shipping Partner, Might Be the Most Hated Company on the Internet
By Dan Nosowitz New York Magazine

There are certain industries that inspire outsize amounts of rage when they screw up. Airlines are one. TV providers are another. But angry comment for angry comment, there may be no more rage-inducing business than package delivery. If you want to garner widespread customer fury, just deliver a package late or damaged and wait for the storm to roll in. LaserShip — an Uber-like service that delivers packages for Amazon, Walmart, and Sephora, among others — might just be the most hated company on the internet. Some comments, helpfully gathered by the criticism website LaserShit.com…LaserShip — and the ocean of dissatisfied customers it leaves in its wake — is an inevitable result of stratospheric growth. Reliable shipping companies like FedEx, UPS, and the USPS aren’t able to deliver all of the same-day, next-day, and two-day packages ….That’s led to parasitic companies popping up to take advantage of Amazon’s need for cheap, fast package delivery. The poster child might just be LaserShip.

Twitter and many message boards, including posts on Amazon’s own forums, are full of complaints about LaserShip. Packages aren’t delivered. Packages are delivered late ….Packages are marked as delivered and not delivered. Packages are delivered to the wrong address. Packages are often just completely lost. (The message for that one is, “LaserShip is unable to confirm control of your package at this time.”) Sometimes, an error will show up on the tracking page: “Parcel damaged and will be discarded.” Customers who attempt to contact LaserShip report being totally unable to solve their problems; they are better off contacting ….whichever company they originally purchased their item from.

My experience started innocently enough. I needed pet food.  So I placed a Chewy.com order. On November 27.  Two day free delivery or free rush delivery (however they phrase it) and here we are on December 3rd…still waiting. (The website “pissed consumer” has over 1000 complaints about LaserShip.)

This is what my order looks like:

lazyship

When the order did not arrive by Friday, November 30, I started contacting Chewy.  First LaserShip told them there was a weather exception between Montgomeryville, PA and Chester County, PA. I debunked that myth for the lie that it was.

Then of course there is LaserShip on Twitter telling me to just email them. Ummm yeah, been doing THAT for a few days and NOT ONCE have I even received an acknowledgement that I contacted them. I even checked my spam folder.

Then I was supposed to get the delivery yesterday. After a phone call to LaserShip’s corporate offices in Vienna, Virginia (703 761-9030) and they subsequently transferred me to Montgomeryville, PA they changed their story yet again.  Supposedly my package was on a truck yesterday and the guy just never bothered to deliver.  And then the package wasn’t on the truck today and they did not know where it was and by the end of the conversation the story changed yet again.  My package was “somewhere” in the warehouse and would get delivered tomorrow, December 4th.

I do not believe them. I had to go out and buy other pet food.  I also let the pet food manufacturer know what was going on. You see, I only went back to Chewy to support them.

LaserShip doesn’t give a damn about me or my package and I know that.  I called them because sometimes you just have to. (You can also call LaserShip on 800-527-3764 or  804 -414-2590).

As consumers we are being  increasingly driven to online shopping every day, and what we lose is good customer service and companies that actually take pride in what they do. And these predatory shipping companies are also not paying employees well enough so they do not want to take pride in their work.  I have been told that by several sources when it comes to the drivers of Amazon Logistics out of the King of Prussia PA hub which services us around here, and well LaserShip is the same subcontracting business model, correct?

Problems with LaserShip are all over social media. It’s kind of crazy. They are really THAT bad.

Anyway, I just wish the companies we patronized didn’t use these cut rate shipping “solutions”. They just create more problems.

 

like visiting an old friend: going back to baldwin’s book barn

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Do you ever wake up in the middle of the night, have a passing thought, go back to sleep?  Well, my weird passing thought in the wee small hours overnight was I had not been to Baldwin’s Book Barn on Lenape Road in literally about 20 years!

I am and always have been a bibliophile. A bookworm. A book hoarder. I love my books.  They have moved with me thoughout my life. Even books from my childhood. Books from my parents. Cookbooks. History books. Gardening books. Fiction by Laura Ingalls Wilder to Daphne DuMaurier to Elizabeth Goudge to Marguerite de Angeli to Dickens to Robert Frost and the list goes on.  I married another bibliophile.  We love out books and they are all over the house in various bookshelves.

Growing up I loved the book store at Bryn Mawr College known as The Owl.  The college disbanded the beloved Owl years ago to make way for progress. There is still The Title Page in Bryn Mawr (which was started originally by ladies who were at The Owl), and that is amazing, but for those of us in Chetser County, and book nuts in general, there is nothing like Baldwin’s Book Barn. Nothing.

And yes, when I popped awake in the middle of the night last night, my mind was on a big stone barn full of books…Baldwin’s Book Barn. What’s not to love? A giant Chester County stone barn built in 1822 filled to the rafters with books? Used books, out of print books, rare books, fun books, paperback books, bags of specially priced books….it’s book Nirvana…and it’s Chester County tradition.

As per their website:

William and Lilla Baldwin established their used book and collectible business in 1934 in nearby Wilmington, DE. In 1946 they moved to “The Barn”. The old milking house was converted into a residence for the Baldwin Family and the stone barn became the bookshop and for some years, a country store museum. We are located deep in the heart of the enchanting and historical Brandywine Valley. Baldwin’s Book Barn is one of America’s truly distinctive bookstores. Step inside and you are transported to another time and place. Today, our store is stuffed to the rafters with a treasure trove of 300,000 used and rare books, manuscripts, maps as well as fine paintings, prints, estate antiques, and other valued collectibles.

Store Hours: 10AM – 6PM Every Day
Except Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Day
Baldwin’s Book Barn
865 Lenape Road, West Chester, PA 19382
Phone: 610-696-0816        E-mail: info@bookbarn.com

So when I woke up woke up this morning and my husband asked what else I would like to do today, I said “let’s go to Baldwin’s Book Barn.”  So to the Book Barn we went. And it was like visiting a fondly remembered old friend.

Ahhh the smell of books greets you still even with the door just cracked!!!  And the door still creaked the same was going in. Still the same smell of woodstove fires. And still the same floor to ceiling books! I will note they still have a terrific Wyeth section and Chester County section.

We went from bottom to top, top to bottom. I bought a couple of cookbooks. It is nice that some things remain the same in this life.

I will note as an aside as I overheard this, that they could use firewood for their woodstove cut to 14″ or 15″ lengths if you can GIVE them any.  There are enough woodstove folks in Chester County and so many people with firewood, how about paying it forward a little?

Here are some photos I took.  I will note with amusement that I never knew Paris Hilton wrote a book. I had a lovely time and won’t wait 20 years to go back. Go buy a book!

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all hail tecovas: boots you will live in

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I rarely do a retail rave. But I have discovered this boot manufacturer out of Austin, Texas called Tecova.

I love boots but I don’t wear high boots as in just below my knee, I like shorter boots and booties. I also don’t do much of a boot heel. I will note Tecova makes all heights of boots. They are beautiful western boots, not overdone in the least. Simple, handmade, classic for men and women and they also make a couple of weekended duffel bags and beautiful leather belts.

They popped up on Instagram and I clicked through to their website. I have been looking for boots that actually fit my feet properly. And as anyone knows who tries to buy boots, it can be a problem.

I chose a classic simple black bootie called “The Penny”. I ordered a half size up from my normal shoe size, because every time I buy boots I have to go a little bigger much like with heels.

These boots fit like they were hand made for me. They fit like boots that should be easily many times over what I paid for them. (I will admit one of the enticements to me was the boot that I wanted was on sale.)

These boots fit perfectly in the heel which is a problem I always have with any shoe because I have a narrow heel. When I was younger my feet were a true narrow width, and now they are more of a regular width , but my heels are still quite narrow.

The boots are buttery soft leather and they are made in Leon, Mexico and sold through this company in Austin,Texas. They have beautiful leather soles and a chestnut brown heel. I could wear these out with jeans, or dress them up truthfully. They are that attractive a boot.

I tend to choose western boots over others because ever since my knee surgery and a couple of bad ankle sprains, heels are not my friend so I have to be careful on the shoes and boots I choose. But I’m not ready for orthopedic shoes just yet. I’m half- Italian so I remember the orthopedic lace up oxfords on little old Italian ladies when I was growing up!

As per their website, company founder Paul and his partners I assume we’re tired of the exorbitant prices for leather western/cowboy boots. And also a lot of them are so extreme in design that they don’t have broad appeal. I am sure they also ran into fit issues, which is always a problem with me with boots, until now.

Another thing about this company is they only sell direct to the consumer. These aren’t a boot you are going to find in every mall or boot store across the country.

Anyway, as always I have not been compensated for my opinion. I bought a pair of boots and they are just amazing. And again they are classic and beautiful and buttery soft fine leather.

If you are looking for boots, try Tecovas.

oh amazon, are you missing a bunch of deliveries??

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9/24/18 UPDATE: Friday night came and went and although I called Amazon Logistics , the retrieval driver never showed up for all the packages. So on Saturday my husband and I decided to get all the packages we could possibly get to their intended owners and correct addresses. People came to pick them up, a few we dropped off.

In between all of this I made more phone calls to Amazon Logistics. They requested of this Amazon delivery hub in King of Prussia three times to come pick up these packages over the weekend and no one ever showed up. And I will note someone asked me why I just didn’t give these to a UPS driver or a USPS person, and the reason is simple: these packages that are going specifically via Amazon’s own drivers are not allowed to be given to the post office or another carrier.

By the end of the weekend all but two packages found their way home. Then today I found out something I had ordered for our son for his birthday at college was just never delivered by… Wait for it… A dedicated Amazon Logistics driver in another state! So while I had them on the phone about that package and getting it re-delivered we also went over my weekend experience as an Amazon delivery hub. This logistics person who was in Ohio also has now put in a request for Amazon to send a retrieval driver to pick up the remaining two packages from me.

I have to also note that ironically a lot of people gave me a hard time for doing this, like why was I bothering? I was bothering because it’s a good thing to pay it forward, and as someone who has had Amazon packages go missing, I also know how frustrating that is.

The nicest part of this whole experience has been meeting more neighbors. We’re a little spread out here, so unless you have kids in school with their kids or go to their church you don’t necessarily meet a lot of your neighbors.

📮📮📮📮📮📮📮🏷🏷🏷🏷🏷🏷🏷🏷📬📬📬📬📬📬📬📬📬📬📬📬📦📦📦📦

I came home this afternoon to this giant gray bag is sitting in the middle of my street. We parked the car and walked over and this is what it is – a giant heavy bag of other people’s Amazon packages!

I just spent 20 minutes on the phone with Amazon Logistics and they are sending someone to pick it up. However, I don’t understand how someone could drive away leaving an entire bag sitting in the middle of the street?

I guess I understand now how Amazon packages go missing. I have heard of people stumbling across things like this but never believed it.

hey sears! this is what a working refrigerator looks like…thanks to gerhard’s in malvern….

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Thanks to Gerhard’s Appliances in Malvern we have a working refrigerator at last! Aesop says the moral of this story is #ShopLocal

The other day I wrote about why no one should purchase a paper clip from Sears.  As I write this their giant white, nonfunctioning, unlovely Kenmore paperweight is still sitting in the house waiting for freaking Sears to come and get it.

This all started August 31 when my husband and I ordered a new refrigerator from Sears because the old one while less than 10 years old  was dying (Samsung in case you are wondering and the parts and repairs IF you can get the parts are VERY expensive.)

On  Friday, September 14th Sears delivered the refrigerator.  Now mind you, you have to pay extra to get it into the kitchen and they unbox it, but the do not hook it up.

Within FIVE minutes of the delivery truck leaving we discovered GAME OVER. We were the proud owners of a broken yet brand new refrigerator with scratches on the front and elsewhere.  Now the scratches I could have lived with and covered up with appliance paint, but a broken brand new refrigerator? No, couldn’t live with that at all.

For the past week we have been making call after call to Sears.  Two days ago I got super irritated by the volume of ridiculous calls to the Phillipines and called the remnants of the corporate offices in Hoffman Estates, Illinois. As luck would have it I got the same man who was snarly with me on the phone last week, the one time I was able to get someone in the United States on the phone.

And yes I recorded the call. Why? Because unless you experience the vortex of hell known as Sears “customer service” you do not understand.

Yesterday (coincidentally?), after sending my little AV project around to Sears and Consumer Reports and media outlets like magic a person from the U.S. who worked for Sears called my husband.  Did we want a new refrigerator? NO Did we want the giant white Kenmore paperweight repaired? Oh come on! Are we being punked? We were already told in no uncertain terms by the Phillipines that wouldn’t happen so NO just come and pick it up. And REFUND OUR MONEY.

Well apparently, they are sending people to pick it up. I won’t hold my breath as to the speed.  But what has been SUPER ANNOYING is they took our money in under five minutes via an electronic sales transaction on their website, yet they sit ON our money and have full use of it while we have custody of their sucky broken GIANT white Kenmore paperweight.

I will further note that I had to get Lite Movers of Wayne, PA (can I rave about them for a nanosecond? They are AWESOME and we highly recommend them!) whom we had to pay to remove the dying Samsung to the curb since Sears also no longer removes dead/dying appliances to come back last Friday to move the GIANT BROKEN WHITE PAPERWEIGHT out of the kitchen!

Yeah O.K. Sears, you aren’t inconvenient, time-wasting, frustrating, or money wasting AT ALL are you?

Doesn’t seem like a fair trade does it? Doesn’t seem like Sears did anything other than waste our money, cause us to spend MORE money and gave us the lovely gift of appliance shopping PTSD did they?

I have to ask can I charge Sears rent for the space in my home the GIANT WHITE UNWORKING KENMORE PAPERWEIGHT is taking up as tomorrow is ONE WEEK since they dumped it on us? (But I digress)

Meanwhile, we needed a refrigerator.  Last Friday afternoon my husband ordered another refrigerator from AJ Madison whom I had never heard of. By Saturday morning he had an email saying oopsies they would not be able to deliver until some time in OCTOBER.

(Did I mention this has been going on since around August 31st? Actually before if you count the attempted repairs on the dying Samsung which after a couple of hundred dollars and the inability to find parts was stopped.)

I will admit I had the full housewifey meltdown at this point.  Yes, yes I did.

So we called up Gerhard’s in Malvern and Angela took tremendous care of us in about ten minutes. Ten minutes.  Delivery included.  Beat everyone else’s price AND they do installation and remove dead appliances.

Yes that set my housewifey heart all a flutter, I kid you not.

And today? They showed up when they were supposed to, their delivery guys were wonderful. They installed it, help me set it up, removed all the packaging and the dead Samsung and like Lite Movers, didn’t scratch a wall or mark a floor.

The moral of this story is Sears still sucks and  SHOP LOCAL.

Oh and this time we went Frigidaire.

If you live in Chester County, you can find Gerhard’s at 116 Lancaster Avenue, Malvern, PA and their phone number is (610) 644-6666.

attention to detail is key IF you are choosing a realtor

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I love the junk that people pay to have delivered to your mailbox. Today’s offering is above.

I make no secret of my disdain, dislike, pick your own adjective of “Realtors” who do this.

When I get these flyers, I call to be removed from the mailing lists.  And in this case, the guy is trying to impress me with Delaware County real estate and locations where I wouldn’t want to live.  All  miles away and a different county. It’s kind of an apples to oranges situation.

And attention to detail with a realtor is also SO important. Poor Don Don Dowd doesn’t know to take the time to proof read his flyer?

moronHow do I know? Because the phone number on the hundreds or possibly thousands of mailers delivered has the wrong office phone number printed! I was crying laughing at the just deserts of that when I called to have our address removed…when you dial 484-496-4000 you get a wrong number recording.

So  I looked them up on Facebook and called the correct number which is 484-498-4000.  And all I got was a 12 year old answering the phone who said she worked for an answering service so she could not help me.   Really? Fabulous, right?

So Don Dowd, this blog post is for you.  If your answering service can’t help anyone, let alone offer to take a message and you can’t pay attention to proof-reading your irritating tree-killing mass mailing / solicitation flyer, why would anyone want you as a realtor in the first place?

To all of my fabulous realtor friends in Chester County and elsewhere, it is my pleasure to refer along all of you. You are real, work hard, pay attention to the smallest detail…and best of all you don’t waste your money on these tacky flyers.

Now time for the circular file for Donny’s flyer….

 

local business RAVE: design build maintain llc

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I have a lot of shade gardens in the back, and I just can’t do all the mulching and all of the work by myself anymore.  The past few years I have had a couple of surgeries and am recovering still from a nasty sprained ankle after a fall on vacation this summer, so I have needed some help.

We had also pretty much run out of wood chips from spring tree work and all of the recent rain has washed away a lot of mulch. A lot of people like mulch, I prefer hardwood wood chips.  I also love cedar wood chips.

So we hired Design Build Maintain, LLC to bring in the wood chips and spread them. This is the first time in years I have had to buy any, and what they bought me this morning was clean, uniformly sized as far as chips, and as weird as it sounds, smells great.

They did an awesome job, they have terrific crews who are very neat and gentle on your plantings. And they are also incredibly reasonable for as hard as they work and the work they do.

They came in here with 10 yards of woodchips this morning and I have a couple yards left but they spread the rest. What they didn’t use was neatly put onto my existing wood chip pile. They completely cleaned up and weeded before they spread the chips as well.  They were a little luxury I gave my garden, and I am so happy with the result.

They do full-service landscaping and lawns and hardscaping as well.

Just thought I would tell everyone because they did THAT good of a job.  Everyone who knows me will tell you I am very picky when it comes to service providers, so if I tell all of you locally about something and I rave, they are simply that good.

I also mention that I have had fits and starts with a couple of other small local landscapers and I was not happy with them at all.  As a matter of fact, the last company I hired to do wood chips (and all they had to do was spread them as we had the chips ready and waiting) disappeared part way through the job and never came back. So I have been really skeptical of landscaping companies.  With the exception of tree work which I can’t and don’t do (I happily use Treemendous Tree Care if you are interested), I do not ask anyone to do anything that I haven’t done myself.

This review of Design Build Maintain LLC is one of a VERY happy customer.  I was not compensated for my opinion in any way. And they also get props for me having conniptions over all of the rain delays.  Mother Nature has not been cooperating the past few weeks, and the weather caused rescheduling.  I am not a large customer, just a small one, and I got the same kid glove treatment as someone with a sizable estate. I really appreciate that.

Design Build Maintain is based more in the Main Line section of Chester County, but you can call them to see if they can come to you.  I find them via their Facebook page and they respond quickly.  Their phone is (484) 319-5890.