Why do I have a picture of a ratty old box, that smells. It smells like pee it really does. This is the box that arrived today with the rest of Allison’s birthday gifts. You see I got her the complete series of the Virginia Lanier books in hardcover. This was not something that I could go to Amazon and choose to buy directly just from Amazon. I had to scour the sellers to find those who had the hardcovers in good condition. A few are old library books but two or three were brand new. I got one directly from Amazon. That one arrived in perfect shape. I ordered another from a site near us and that one came in quickly and in great shape.

However, the third seller is the smelly box seller. I got 4 books from this seller. I paid $13.96 in shipping to this seller for the 4 books. Please take note of how much it cost to actually ship the books in this nasty pee box. $3.99, that is a $9.97 markup on shipping. Hence the need to leave this feedback to the seller.

2 out of 5: “Paid $13.96 for shipping, Shipping cost to seller was $3.99, order arrived in an old smelly box. Glad I paid $9.97 extra for shipping. What a rip off!”

You see, I probably wouldn’t have had much of a problem if the stuff came in a decent box with upwards of $7.00 shipping costs. but $13.96 for shipping when it only cost $3.99 is ridiculous.

Allison did like her gift. We both read this series before and she mentioned at that time that she wanted to collect the whole series because she liked it so much. I filed that away and went looking for as many 1st edition hardcovers as I could. I think they all were first edition because there wasn’t a huge run on these books. It is too bad too because they were excellent. Virginia Lanier was a fantastic writer and her story of becoming a writer is fascinating and inspiring. She started when she was 63. She read a bad book and decided that she could write a better one. But she made so many excuses as to why she didn’t write that book. Her husband Hoss would not let her give up. He countered every reason why not with a reason why. And I am sure glad he kept after her because I really enjoyed those books.

It seems like these past few weeks customer service has not been a high priority of the retailers we have dealt with. As you know Allison’s baggage from her trip to PA came home almost one week after it left her site in the Providence Airport. She was denied the use of a car that I reserved with my Hertz points, but was given a free 3-Day rental from the woman at the counter. However on this past Friday I was charged $225.41 on a credit card on my Hertz profile for a car that was supposedly canceled because Allison could not use it, and furthermore was reserved with my Hertz points. So not I was out 1500 point sand $225.41 plus the $12.72 that Allison paid when she returned her rental car (I’m glad it only cost her that much, that was great). So today Southwest Airlines got a letter detailing their incompetence with Allison’s baggage plus copies of receipts for the expenses that Allison incurred while sans baggage. And Hertz got a letter from me detailing how when I got the bill for $225.41 I called Hertz to explain that my wife got a free car rental and I used my points to reserve a car that we did not use and was canceled. They credited me $185.00 and said I still had to pay for the taxes and fees at the airport. Huh? Pay for a car that Allison did not even use. Pay for more inconveniences to her trip. Yeah that sounds fair. So it does pay to have good customer service because an angry customer tells at least 10 people. There are 10 people reading this, right?

On a better note, my iTip to power my soon to arrive iPod has arrived for my iGo power adapter.