Weird Online Shopping Stories

[KAMALARAMBO: BOOMSHAKALAKA!!!]

Either just weird things you’ve found, purchased, didn’t purchase but got thrown in as freebies, or whatever else.

Some that come to mind…

1. I bought a bunch of horror DVDs from an eBay seller. He threw in some freebies that had nothing to do with horror movies. 5 duplicates of the same Christmas CD (this was August) and some kind of used universal remote. The remote was really weird as it had no package and had batteries in it so the little display screen was actually on when I opened it up. I thought it might be something nefarious so I took the batteries out just to be safe. I used the same seller again and never had anything like that happen again IIRC.

2. I made a big order of DVDs from a major indie online retailer. 25% of my order never arrived (they didn’t charge me for this). But instead they threw in 15 (!) free DVDs. Two were duplicates, but the rest were all unique. Again, I was mostly just ordering horror stuff, so some were horror related. However, some were well outside the genre including 2 (!) compilations of stag films from the 1930s or so.

[fg]

When I worked for Sears, I helped many a customer order something online.

Since their website was or is screwed up (what a surprise), many times the site got the shipping address and the delivery address confused even when I tried to correct it. Also, during the week before XMas 2012, they decided to do a system upgrade…the worst possible time to do one. Because of that since the site and the store both had by one get one free pillow sale, the customer got charged for two pillows so the manager on duty had no recourse but to tell the customer that when the pillow comes in, they can come to the store and get the extra charge dropped.

[fg]

When I worked for Sears, I helped many a customer order something online.

Since their website was or is screwed up (what a surprise), many times the site got the shipping address and the delivery address confused even when I tried to correct it. Also, during the week before XMas 2012, they decided to do a system upgrade…the worst possible time to do one. Because of that since the site and the store both had by one get one free pillow sale, the customer got charged for two pillows so the manager on duty had no recourse but to tell the customer that when the pillow comes in, they can come to the store and get the extra charge dropped.

[agent817]

One time I bought a CD off of Amazon and when I got it, it wasn't the CD it was listed. Oddly enough, the seller told me to keep it but gave me a refund. I used the refund to purchase the same album from a different seller.

Another similar thing happened. I ordered "The Main Ingredient" by Pete Rock and CL Smooth. When it came in the mail, it turned out to be Pete Rock's "Soul Survivor" album (the first one). I messaged the seller and he gave me a refund, but also told me to keep "Soul Survivor." It turned out to be a good decision because that album was fire. I ended up ordering "The Main Ingredient" again and got it for sure that time.

This one was actually a weird experience. Back in 2014, I was ordering the steelbook Blu Ray copies of the "Fast and Furious" films. I ordered a copy of the fourth film and when I got it, it was a copy of the first film. I messaged the seller and they told me it was a mistake. So I sent it back, only to have it sent back to me. I thought they weren't taking it back, but then I messaged the seller again and I was told they got it right. I opened the package and it was the right film. Now that took the cake in experiences.

[ayumidah]

I wanted these earrings for a Halloween costume. Ordered them, received them. Went to open them and immediately became confused because I hadn't received earrings, but this thick pair of grey socks. Contacted the seller and was like hey I ordered earrings but got socks instead, and customer service told me to keep the socks, and they'd send me the earrings. That time around, the earrings came fine and I still wear the socks to this day, lol.


Also happened in early days of the pandemic, I ordered a mattress cover from Target. Received this big box and when I opened it, there were three Barbie toys inside instead of my mattress protector. So I emailed them, and they too told me, "Keep the toys, we'll send you the mattress protector." Makes ya wonder how often these places send the wrong things to people that their go-to is "Please keep it, we'll send you a spare" lol

[fg]

Mar 10, 2023 18:12:38 GMT -5 ayumidah said:

I wanted these earrings for a Halloween costume. Ordered them, received them. Went to open them and immediately became confused because I hadn't received earrings, but this thick pair of grey socks. Contacted the seller and was like hey I ordered earrings but got socks instead, and customer service told me to keep the socks, and they'd send me the earrings. That time around, the earrings came fine and I still wear the socks to this day, lol.


Also happened in early days of the pandemic, I ordered a mattress cover from Target. Received this big box and when I opened it, there were three Barbie toys inside instead of my mattress protector. So I emailed them, and they too told me, "Keep the toys, we'll send you the mattress protector." Makes ya wonder how often these places send the wrong things to people that their go-to is "Please keep it, we'll send you a spare" lol

Hey when I ordered a toaster from Sears.com for a customer, they gave the customer…a pressure cooker. The customers took the item to my store. I realized that it’s an item that we didn’t sell in our store (apparently it was sold in other Sears stores.) I got my foreman to help me out and when he heard the story, he got a good laugh out of the gaffe. So did the customers. Man: “We did like the fast service.”

[saneiac]

I ordered an 256 GB iPod from ebay. It came with the seller's library still loaded on it. The music was all modern rap and R&B. It also held about 10 hours of gay porn. I'm an adult, and not into any of those things, so I just deleted them, but I wonder what would have happened if a kid or an uptight religious type would have gotten it.

[Feyrhausen]

Ordered a shirt, Snake Plissken done Obama poster style. Received a Lincoln version. Contacted them, new one shipped out. Lincoln again. Same and same. Received 3 Lincoln shirts before I finally got my Snake.

[Ultimo Gallos]

I knoW a guy that resells media on the side.

Years ago him nad 8 other guys bought a comic shop that was closing. So my dude ended up with 500 copies of Valiant Turok Dino hunter #1. A totally worthless comic.

He used them as packing material and in the place of cardboard,those that dont know this issue has a Chromium cover so it is thick and heavy,when shipping out orders for a few years.

I get in big packages of stickers. So if I am shipping out say some music cds I will toss in a few music related stickers. The Wrestling dvds I sell at indie shows all have a few wrestling stickers inside the case.

Get the stickers in bulk cheap,works out to be 2 cents a sticker.

On the ordering side.... Many times back in the tape trading days would get in say a vhs of "Best of Negro Casas" where it was 1 1/2 hours of lucha then 5 minutes of black screen followered by whatever the dude had on that tape before then.

One time I ordered Lucha Loonies vol 2 from a fairly infamous tape dealer,no not RF this dude is based in Cali. After Lucha Loonies ended was 2 hours of really cheap looking porn.

[KAMALARAMBO: BOOMSHAKALAKA!!!]

Mar 10, 2023 20:49:51 GMT -5 Ultimo Gallos said:

I knoW a guy that resells media on the side.

Years ago him nad 8 other guys bought a comic shop that was closing. So my dude ended up with 500 copies of Valiant Turok Dino hunter #1. A totally worthless comic.

He used them as packing material and in the place of cardboard,those that dont know this issue has a Chromium cover so it is thick and heavy,when shipping out orders for a few years.

I get in big packages of stickers. So if I am shipping out say some music cds I will toss in a few music related stickers. The Wrestling dvds I sell at indie shows all have a few wrestling stickers inside the case.

Get the stickers in bulk cheap,works out to be 2 cents a sticker.

On the ordering side.... Many times back in the tape trading days would get in say a vhs of "Best of Negro Casas" where it was 1 1/2 hours of lucha then 5 minutes of black screen followered by whatever the dude had on that tape before then.

One time I ordered Lucha Loonies vol 2 from a fairly infamous tape dealer,no not RF this dude is based in Cali. After Lucha Loonies ended was 2 hours of really cheap looking porn.

I used to throw in stickers with my orders too, but since I mostly ship media mail I’m not allowed to anymore. It used to be a fun cheap freebie to attract returning customers.

Maybe if I ever change my business model to rely less on media mail shipping I’ll get back to doing it.

I’d get the stickers in bulk like you. I remember the ones I got on Amazon had a tremendous variety. From standards like the Marvel logo to sexually explicit stickers that there’s no way I’d ever send them to a stranger in the mail. Things like a naked Santa passed out on a toilet or some very “exposed” female superheroes doing REDACTED.

[Ultimo Gallos]

Mar 10, 2023 21:12:55 GMT -5 KAMALARAMBO: BOOMSHAKALAKA!!! said:

Mar 10, 2023 20:49:51 GMT -5 Ultimo Gallos said:

I knoW a guy that resells media on the side.

Years ago him nad 8 other guys bought a comic shop that was closing. So my dude ended up with 500 copies of Valiant Turok Dino hunter #1. A totally worthless comic.

He used them as packing material and in the place of cardboard,those that dont know this issue has a Chromium cover so it is thick and heavy,when shipping out orders for a few years.

I get in big packages of stickers. So if I am shipping out say some music cds I will toss in a few music related stickers. The Wrestling dvds I sell at indie shows all have a few wrestling stickers inside the case.

Get the stickers in bulk cheap,works out to be 2 cents a sticker.

On the ordering side.... Many times back in the tape trading days would get in say a vhs of "Best of Negro Casas" where it was 1 1/2 hours of lucha then 5 minutes of black screen followered by whatever the dude had on that tape before then.

One time I ordered Lucha Loonies vol 2 from a fairly infamous tape dealer,no not RF this dude is based in Cali. After Lucha Loonies ended was 2 hours of really cheap looking porn.

I used to throw in stickers with my orders too, but since I mostly ship media mail I’m not allowed to anymore. It used to be a fun cheap freebie to attract returning customers.

Maybe if I ever change my business model to rely less on media mail shipping I’ll get back to doing it.

I’d get the stickers in bulk like you. I remember the ones I got on Amazon had a tremendous variety. From standards like the Marvel logo to sexually explicit stickers that there’s no way I’d ever send them to a stranger in the mail. Things like a naked Santa passed out on a toilet or some very “exposed” female superheroes doing REDACTED.

When I use media mail and include stickers I just place them inside the book or comic. And in the decades of shipping using media mail i have never had a package opened and checked.

Oh yea those big packs on Amazon got so much stuff. I got a bag of 5lbs of assorted band stickers. and For 2 years sticker bombed the town. Sure there is people that say used the bathroom at Burger king and looked at the paper towel dispenser and wondered "Who or what is Love & Rockets"

The best is the pack of WWE ones I got in. With totally not STOLEN art from the BOOM studios WWE comic. Those mostly got given to any one that came to my table and bought anything. Also covered my totes with them. Since everyone pretty much has the same red or deep blue colored totes.

[Ultimo Gallos]

There is my table I covered with stickers from those random lots.

When I moved into this place that table was in my beedroom. The top is covered with badly painted flowers.

I took the handful of left over random lots stickers and used some Pannini WCW stickers to cover the top. Looks like Eddy Guerrero is the only WCW sticker you can still see most of.

[KAMALARAMBO: BOOMSHAKALAKA!!!]

Minor update on my second story. I placed a fairly substantial order last week. It’s still processing which isn’t unusual for this company. But today I get both an e-mail and a phone call that due to the size of my order they wanted to verify some information with me.

The weirdest part is after I talked with 2 or 3 company reps I got the distinct impression NO ONE is ordering from them. The reason is when I talked to each one they said some variation of, “Oh yeah, you’re the guy with the BIG order.”

Again, my order just wasn’t that big. Not like even enough to pay full-time salary for one person for one week if they earned minimum wage. I’m sure Amazon gets thousands of orders everyday for thousands more than what I spent (which didn’t even break a thousand). But here I am the guy with the INSANELY BIG order according to these reps.

This company just ended they’re moving sale, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re actually going out of business which is unfortunate. Another indie company I bought from earlier this year had a moving sale and sent out messages saying they looked forward to working with customers more in the future. The next message was announcing they had gone out of business.

Not unexpected at all given these are physical media companies in 2023. But it still feels a little odd to get verification you’re literally the only person buying at a certain level from a fairly substantial company.

[Cranjis McBasketball]

I had to order some toner for the printer at work. It said it got delivered. I couldn't find it anywhere. Did some digging, found it got delivered in Ontario, I'm in Alberta, that's not even close. So I called UPS, who staked out the position it got delivered, didn't it? They did their job. What was supposed to be 2 day shipping turned into a series of emails and phone calls with UPS and Amazon and took up a month. The worst of it is, the f***ing printer won't recognize the new toner, thinks it's empty now and refuses to print. That was a good use of time.

[HeyYo]

I ordered Nike sneakers through Sportchek in Canada maybe 6-7 years ago, our version of Dick's Sporting Goods. They were on clearance and I ordered one pair. I got sent three pairs of them with a hand written note saying that they were they last pairs they had for my size, they were just taking up space, and they wanted to get rid of them. Obviously was really happy with that and had my gym shoes set for about five years.

[ayumidah]

Oh, I forgot one. So in 2021, they announced Demon Slayer funkos and I preordered the full line of them from Hot Topic. It kept getting delayed, then once it started telling me in August that they wouldn't be sent out till early 2022, I found a place where I could get them sooner, and contacted Hot Topic customer service and confirmed through them that my original order had been canceled, ordered them from the other website website, and got them a few weeks later.

Imagine my surprise when, towards the end of the year, I get an email from Hot Topic telling me my order had been shipped, and I became very confused because I didn't have an outstanding order with them that I knew of. So I open the email and it tells me that one of the five Funkos I had preordered, then canceled, had been shipped and I'd been charged for it. I'm still not sure how THAT happened.

[Vice honcho room temperature]

I remember just randomly getting a book from Amazon. Never got charged, never a book I looked at, just came in the mail

[Jaws the Shark]

I bought a fairly costly set of guitar tuners on eBay from a guy who sent me the wrong ones. When I offered to send the others back he told me to keep them, but was weirdly rude and snappy even though I was trying to help him avoid taking a £50 loss. So I ended up with both free tuners and a load of attitude. That was pretty strange.

I also had something that wasn't shipped from Scandinavia but was packed in pages from a Scandinavian newspaper.