Extremely annoyed.

[Mark587]

Regarding my order of an Asus 8800GT graphics card.

I have just received an email (sometime past 8pm) notifying me of a 'shortage of stock'. Hang on... When i ordered there was no such shortage.

Basically, what SCAN are trying to tell me (in a diplomatic fashion) is that they lied to me and told me they had stock, but clearly didn't. Then they send me an email after closing hours to explain my goods will be delayed when i have no recourse to amend my order? How would they react i wonder if i had the option to make an order, receive it, then suddenly decide to have a shortage of money? A good way to do business, i dont think so?

I bought that product in good faith, and their stock system marked that item clearly as 'in stock' which is why i ordered from them, i did have other options - notably Overclockers, Novatech & eBay.

With that in mind i had a look at SCAN's website, in particular the section called 'The Word' where someone made a complaint (dated 15.11.06) outlining the very same problem and SCAN's reply was (and i quote) 'we are actually looking into a way that our systems can activate the automated delay email a lot sooner'. So over a year later and they still haven't amended their system? That's incredible.

It's not even the fact they notified me late, its the fact their website seems to make up stock levels as it goes along then takes your money regardless.

Thanks Scan, I've spent about £400 with you in the last 2 months (feel free to check), that might not be a great amount of money to you but it is to me. On top of that I've just recommended you to the company i work for. The reason I'm upset? If i don't see that product hit my doormat by the 15th of December you've completely screwed my kids Christmas. Jesus, I wish i was making this up.

Thank you, very much.

Yours extremely dissatisfied and amazed,

Mark O'Neill

[kidzer]

I beleive I'm right in saying Scan's stock levels are altered after orders have been picked, rather than when they are placed - so when you placed the order the product may well have been in stock - unfortunatley someone elses order got the last one!

I agree that it's not brilliant, I've had the same thing happen to me on occasion and it is a bit frustrating - I have also had products go out of stock after I order them, get that out of stock email and a dispatch one the next day, there may well still be hope for your order!

I understand that Scan are also currently expanding warehouse capacity, which is impacting operations, but should result in an increased level of service once it is completed - which should be soon (I'd imagine) if the sticky in the forum is to go by!

[Mark587]

I beleive I'm right in saying Scan's stock levels are altered after orders have been picked, rather than when they are placed - so when you placed the order the product may well have been in stock - unfortunatley someone elses order got the last one!

I agree that it's not brilliant, I've had the same thing happen to me on occasion and it is a bit frustrating - I have also had products go out of stock after I order them, get that out of stock email and a dispatch one the next day, there may well still be hope for your order!

I understand that Scan are also currently expanding warehouse capacity, which is impacting operations, but should result in an increased level of service once it is completed - which should be soon (I'd imagine) if the sticky in the forum is to go by!

Thanks for your reply, i just find it amazing their website can say an item is in stock when it isn't. It really grates, especially at this time of year. I've been ordering on the net for a while now, maybe im lucky, but this hasnt happened to me before in 6 odd years.

My kids been going on about this graphics card for weeks and we've had to bide our time to buy it (we're not rich unfortunately lol), so when i saw it was available here on pay day i bought it immediately.

That 'delayed' email gutted me completely, now im worried. Without being too emotive, the lads gonna have a good Christmas regardless, you know? Just possibly not the one we envisaged, but that's out of our control.

[Noxvayl]

I got the same email tonight and it puzzles me as I wonder whether other stuff on my list could have been sent... surely my entire list couldn't be out of stock(6 different items). I have a strange feeling this email might be linked with later than anticipated delivery because of the lack of effort to make a separate email for that instance.

I have noticed lots of people complaining about late deliveries so maybe they have put this preliminary system in place.

However working with computers like they do and having the expertise you would think they could come up with a system that gives you real time stock levels and updates them as orders are placed not when they are picked. I mean it is just common sense to make an item unavailable as soon as its ordered even though it hasn't left yet as you loose nothing if you put it back in stock after the item is cancelled or if payment didn't get authorised. And if the item is the last one and it gets cancelled a person with pre-order can easily be surprised with an early delivery which would make the people receiving pre-orders early more likely to come back to scan.

I am sure that I could modify there current system to work as explained above inside of 2 weeks with my limited knowledge of programming and that's from learning how to utilise the system to implementation not just coming up with a way to make it work. It would take a matter of hours to figure out how to alter the system(if you knew how it worked already or created it) to get it to work in real time and then a few days to implement that into code and test to make sure it works.

It really isn't hard its just that you would have to get your staff to change the way they do things slightly which seems to be too much effort... why is it that new ways of doing things are always shunned its not like its going to harm your customer service it will actually increase that service by making your site more up to date.

There is no excuse in this day and age for stock discrepancies as there are way to many ways to avoid them that are simple and cheap as well as the numerous ways in which you can hide discrepancies from customers so that they don't even notice.

No doubt your customer support is first class and until tonight I have had absolutely nothing to complain about but it does grate me that something as simple as this is still present in a company 1 year after they said it would be sorted out.

Come on scan you are capable of much better...

[longshanks]

Waw. I was going to place an order with them for some bits and bobs for chrimbo. Think i will look elsewhere now!! I need the bits for chrimbo presents!

[Noxvayl]

chimp I have complete faith that my order will be completed by Christmas its just that a simple stock system that is out of date and left presumably un-changed(it seems to be producing the same results as the last one if it has been changed) for a year after they said they would look into it gets to me.

I may have gone a bit overboard in my reply but I am rather annoyed by this as it will have ramifications for me that may turn out to be very costly.

I think this happens everywhere especially this time of year its just that not everywhere has support like this with a forum so you don't notice it happening. I have been dealing with scan frequently for over a year now and not once(until now ) has it happened to me.

I would still come back to Scan as I know the chances of it happening again are less here at Scan than at numerous other places with worse costumer support.

We actually don't know whether it is stock discrepancies or just an abnormal amount of orders that they were unfortunately not able to process today.

Time will only tell so maybe just wait until Wednesday before you order as middle week the stocks are always correct and they should of worked through the weekend orders so delays are even less likely.

[Typhoon2000]

I have similar problems with stocke level. If I want say 6 of something, the system does not seems to know if there is 6 or just 1 in stock. So when it comes to picking, you get the order delayed/ stock level email whilst the system still shows the item you want in stock- has lead to a lot head scratching.

[Noxvayl]

Well mine were all separate items and are all still showing as in stock tonight so surely by now the system would of been updated with out of stock. This leads me to believe the email is only to notify you that the order won't be completed as early as expected but will still be completed during this week which is promising.

Lets hope my assumptions are correct about this as I really need the parts asap.

[Mark587]

I agree with AgentK & Typhoon completely. Also, i'd like to ask why is it that Overclockers/Novatech/eBay all have 'live' stock levels and Scan doesn't? If SCAN don't have stock i'll go elsewhere and come back when they do have something i want, not a problem. Stock levels are part of the business, we all understand that but after this experience im wondering who SCANs system benefits? It certainly isn't me.

They've been aware of this problem for over year and clearly haven't done a thing about it. It makes their stock levels my problem. It shouldn't be. No-one running a respectable e-store should be passing their problem onto the customer, especially not at Christmas.

Edit: Also I'm hoping someone from SCAN can explain why I'm sat here, after taking the day from work to wait for a City Link delivery that isn't going to appear. Maybe their service is like their stock, there one minute, gone the next? Who knows.

[moogle]

it must put too much of a load on their server i suppose. was it in stock when payment was taken? ie it moved to stage 2 and the item was still in stock? If payment was taken and it was in stock the next day you should have it. I think the levels update each day. How much did you pay for that GT? I managed to get me a BFG OC2 version for only £188 inc del, which is only £12 more than what most retailers on average are charging for a standard card. Anyway off to make my own thread to see if I can order with them. Hope you get your parts for christmas.

[Mark587]

it must put too much of a load on their server i suppose. was it in stock when payment was taken? ie it moved to stage 2 and the item was still in stock? If payment was taken and it was in stock the next day you should have it. I think the levels update each day. How much did you pay for that GT? I managed to get me a BFG OC2 version for only £188 inc del, which is only £12 more than what most retailers on average are charging for a standard card. Anyway off to make my own thread to see if I can order with them. Hope you get your parts for christmas.

Hi. The card was in stock the entire afternoon, up until around 5pm which made me feel confident i'd bagged one. I bought it on a Saturday morning (around 10am) so i didnt expect any notifications until Monday because of the weekend. I'd gotten to stage 2 (the part where my money enters their account) by the end of Saturday though. Monday comes and i didnt hear a thing until after 8pm. I paid approx £189 inc. P&P for it.

Well, Good luck with your parts, i hope you have more joy than i have so far, Happy Christmas.

[moogle]

Hi. The card was in stock the entire afternoon, up until around 5pm which made me feel confident i'd bagged one. I bought it on a Saturday so i didnt expect any notifications until Monday because of the weekend. I'd gotten to stage 2 (the part where my money enters their account) by the end of Saturday though. Monday comes and i didnt hear a thing until after 8pm. I paid approx £189 inc. P&P for it.

Well, Good luck with your parts, i hope you have more joy than i have so far, Happy Christmas.

lol, I ordered on saturday too! must be one unlucky ordering day for us eh

[Mark587]

lol, I ordered on saturday too! must be one unlucky ordering day for us eh

Haha. I dont think i'll be ordering on a Saturday again. At least not without this

Ill check back in later, see if anyone's mentioned what's going on. I still have my fingers crossed there was an error or something. Good luck.

[Chris P]

Mark587

I can understand the confusion the e-mail has caused telling you that the item you ordered from us in good faith is out of stock and then the frustration causing you to post through the forums. We do understand the importance of prompt turnaround of orders and I would like to assure you the turnaround in this particular order is certainly not our standard. The last few weeks have seen us receive almost double the amount of orders we were expecting and subsequently the volume of workload into our picking and support departments has doubled. I would like to assure you that the turnaround on your order is not a reflection of our normal standard and it is purely down to excessive volumes, which has increased due to the time of year.

I can fully understand the points you have raised and the comments posted in return from the other users of the forum but I will say that before we are sent to the Gas chamber give us the chance to look into your problem first .. If you wish go to trial before we are gassed.

Your order was placed on 01/12/07 10:30:04 due for delivery today 04/12/2007, meaning we have had to ship the order yesterday 03/12/2007. We received only 2 cards in stock 1 allocated to yourself (Part Picked but not actually zapped to the invoice) and the 2nd card to a different customer thus the web site then changing to show the item as out of stock. Once a product is sold out we place the SKU on our re-order list, which was done on the 3rd December.

Remember that your order was due to be shipped out of the 3rd December the same day the product you had ordered was placed on our re-order list. As the item hadn’t actually be zapped to your order BUT had been reserved the e-mail you received was an “ Out Of Stock “ E-mail, BUT of course was wrong and you should have received a delayed e-mail due to a volume of order’s.

I can understand the conclusion you have made that we have lied to you but I hope you can now understand that this is not the case, the card has been reserved and will be dispatched today for delivery tomorrow, all be in 1 day late, which I can only apologies for.

To re-iterate in this case there has NOT been a problem with the stock levels, our web site did not give you misleading information and we are not liars, this is a case of the wrong w-mail being sent, yes a problem it itself and I have brought this issue to the relevant people to ensure this doesn’t happen again.

Your order is in a queuing system at the moment, the card will be zapped shortly and your order will be dispatched today for delivery tomorrow 5th December.

I would again like to thank you for bringing this to our attention and hope my reply has explained the situation.

If you have any further queries please don’t hesitate to contact me directly

Best Regards

[Mark587]

Thanks for your explanation Chris, its good to know someone is listening, to be fair that is a rare thing these days and i appreciate you taking the time to do that. I can only go on the information you send me, nothing more, nothing less, hence this thread. I dont seem to be the only person with this problem so i hope everyone else has their issues sorted out. Christmas is crazy enough as it is.

That said, im delighted a card was allocated, my lil ones present was my main concern as we had made a lot of plans surrounding it. Thank you for your time, i have locked the gas chamber doors and will order again in the near future.

Mark.

[Noxvayl]

Its because of guys like Chris that I keep coming back to scan... they do actually put an effort in and with a more informative automated email we would have been more than happy with how things have turned out.

I see that the automated email has my name, account number and invoice number so it shouldn't be that much of a bother to add a little extra to the info each email gives a customer. Just something that would help stop confusion that happened with us

I would normally have ordered monday morning which ensures next day delivery 90% of the time but some items I wanted were on today only for the weekend so ordered earlier to save myself £12

Thanks for the prompt and informative response