Grrr! Order Substitutions!

I hate when I order something and when it arrives it's not what I ordered because the company took the liberty of substituting something else because the item I ordered was out of stock!

A couple months ago I decided to redeem some of my air miles for some merchandise. One of the items I ordered was a fan like the one shown at this link:

http://www.bionaire.com/productDetai...d=2002&cid=128

The reason I ordered it was because of the features:

# Product features:Bi-Directional Grill for 90-Degree Positioning
# Programmable Digital Thermostat Control
# 60-80 Degree Temperature Range
# 16-Hour On/Off TImer
# Space Saving Centrifugal Blade Design
# 3 Speed Settings
# Remote Control

After 5 weeks I called and was told it was out of stock and I had the option of waiting for the new stock or getting a refund for the amount of air miles I spent.

I opted to wait for the new stock.

The next morning I received a delivery from UPS and it was a fan, but not the fan I ordered. And it was obviously on it's way to me even as I was speaking to the girl on the phone the day before.

The fan I received was a Bionaire model BT290R which I don't even see on Bionaire's site. It has no temperature control. And aside from it having a remote control it's just a plain fan that is in the shape of a tower. There is no temperature regulator or timer on it.

I contacted air miles again and they said that they would send me a return address label so I could return the fan. I waited 2 weeks for the label to arrive and finally got the fan sent back. I got an email from air miles some days later telling me they had received the fan back and that the fan I ordered was no in stock but they could send me out a substitution. I told them I didn't want a substitution which is why I sent the wrong fan back. I took the credit of the air miles.

I was looking at the air miles site last week and saw that they now had the fan that I wanted back in stock again. So I placed another order and redeemed 700 air miles.

I got the fan today. But it's the wrong one again! The same wrong one as the one I returned to them last month!

So now I'm on hold with air miles again trying to talk to a supervisor about this and to get a return label to send this fan back.

Thank God that I have a speaker phone. Apparently they have an "extremely high call volume"

Well, they are sending me out a return label within 10 days for me to return the fan. She said they could send out a new fan once this one is received back.

I told her to give me a credit of my air miles instead because there is no sense putting in an order for a new fan to be sent out to me if it's going to be the same "wrong" fan that they keep sending me for some reason.

I've asked for someone to look into the matter as to why one fan is showing on their site as in stock but they are sending out something else entirely; a fan that seems to be an out of production model because it is not even showing on Bionaire's site as a model they manufacture.

I often experience that too when I use points or miles....so I just stopped using them for items.

Sounds more like they really never had the fan they're showing in stock and are opting for a cheaper model thinking no one will notice.

My friend had that problem when we orderd our bridesmaid dresses online. The problem was, none of her bridesmaids were in the same area, so we found out the day before the wedding. Fortunately they weren't so different that you'd really notice. It was still annoying though.

I can't even google the fan model they keep sending me. So far as Bionaire and google are concerned it doesn't exist.

The fan they keep sending me looks similar to the one in this link, only it's apparently by "Bionaire"

http://image.shopzilla.com/resize?sq=400&uid=273831117

Now how they can't see that those 2 fans are nothing alike is beyond me.

Fan advertised on their site is BT200
Fan sent to me is BT290 and doesn't seem to exist anywhere

I remember years ago my Mom would shop from the Sears Catalogue. For the most part it was alright, but sometimes they would substitute a clothing item or something. My Mom usually just kept it because she couldn't be bothered running around returning stuff. There was the rare occasion if something didn't fit that she returned it, but if it fit we were stuck with it, LOL I wore some pretty ugly wool skirts thanks to Sears substitutions!

I heard from airmiles today.

According to them the fan that is advertised on their site is an "old" one and is no longer available but their site was not updated to reflect that. That fact that the fan on their website is no longer available is the reason they keep sending me this other fan.

They are going to update their website to show the fan they have in stock.

They offered to refund me 200 airmiles if I kept the fan because it has less features than the other one they had advertised. I told them I already have a plain fan and do not want to keep this one. The reason I ordered the other one was because of the additional features (temperature control).

So they have sent out return labels to me and are giving me an additional credit of 50 airmiles for the inconvenience. And I'll be getting a credit of the 700 airmiles once their receive the fan back.

I'm glad you are getting some satisfaction from them!

I no longer order anything from anybody unless they have a "no substitutions" box I can check!