Pixmania suck. They truly do. Considering my kit lens was kicked down some stairs, I needed to buy a replacement. Nothing fancy, as I will get the more expensive stuff elsewhere, just a nice 17-50mm lens for workmanlike photography.
I nosied around, and found the lens I wanted, and cheapest (not by much, just by a bit) at sucky Pixmania. (Did I mention they suck?) Never having used them before, I decided to give it a whirl, as the lens was in stock. Yay. Or so I thought.
A hideously long registration, with far, far too many required fields. My radar was ping-ing at this point. Even so, I realise that not every site realises they don’t need all these details at registration point. Into the basket go my items, and I head to checkout. But what is this? The total is twenty quid more than I was previously told? Eh?
Closer investigation reveals they had added two things to my basket. A membership card, and some sort of extended guarantee thing. Added without my knowledge. Never asked me, just did it. Which made my teeth grind more. Easy, I shall remove them. No, not easy. A disaster. Whereas my basket-added item had +/- icons beside it to, obviously, remove the item or add more, there wasn’t the same beside the sneakily, unwanted-ly added items. A bit of hoo-hah, and link following, and it can be done. But the two money-costing scamaramas from sucky pixmania had different methods of removal from the basket. Hair was being pulled out at this point.
Right, up until this point, you may think I was just being obtuse. I submitted my order, got an email confirming it, so I forget about it and await delivery. If this all went smooth, I might forgive some earlier pain.
But no. Today, at work, I get an email saying they can’t send my order until they get a copy of my passport, or a utility bill, or a DNA sample from my first-born. I mean, seriously, what? Better still, the email said do not reply to this email, and halfway down said reply to this email with a jpg (or similar) of you passport. No. Dear God, no. What on earth is all that about? In this day and age. To protect me from net fraud, apparently. And to think of the children as well, no doubt.
The lens I wanted wasn’t expensive. Not in the least. I have spent more on single Amazon orders. Hell, I have spent more in one go in most other online shops I have bought stuff from. But I won’t buy from Pixmania, as they suck.
Better yet. I have just looked at the mail in Apple Mail, and no sign of this do not reply business, but rather a dull and insipid HTML-esque type thing. So, I fire up mutt, and lo:
Please do not reply to this message. Go to this webpage: http://www.pixmania.com/uk/uk/c_action/faq_clients/index.html
Do I reply, then, or do I not? I decided not, went online and tried to cancel my order. Given all I have said, do you think this would be easy? Not in the bloody slightest. I can’t cancel my order. I had to fill in a webform, which allowed me 500 characters to whinge. And I used every single one of them. But I have to wait 24 hours before I hear from them to confirm my order has been cancelled. Considering I haven’t sent them my passport, nor will I, I can’t see my order being sent.
I will buy my lens elsewhere, from places I have used before, and should have used this time.
