Order delayed... or not?

[BrianS]

Hey,

I wasn't quite sure if I should post this here, or email SCAN direct, but I've seen a few SCAN employees reply here "out of hours" so I was hoping to get a reply sooner this way .

I ordered a DVD Writer, DVDs and some leads from SCAN yesterday (which, ideally I need tomorrow), everything was showing as in stock, the estimated delivery was tomorrow (16th) but since then I've had 7 automated emails, 4 of them telling me my order has been delayed and 3 saying it has been dispatched:

Thank you for your order from Scan.

Please regard this email as a notification of delay in your order due to unexpected volumesin our warehouse. Please rest assured your custom is greatly valued and we will process your order with the utmost urgency. Your order has still been booked for a next working day delivery from the point of despatch and we will send further emails to confirm this.

Should you require any further information or assistance please log a query using our online Customer Support service. Alternatively, you can contact our delivery support team on 0871 472 4747.

We apologise for the delay and thank you for your patience.

x4

The real time status of your invoice is: Stage 4 of 4

1. Invoice printed / Awaiting authorisation - 15 Sep 2008 09:27:00
2. Payment authorised - 15 Sep 2008 09:36:00
3. Order picked / Awaiting despatch - 15 Sep 2008 18:45:00
4. Order despatched - 15 Sep 2008 19:13:00

x3

...and on the SCAN site it says it's been dispatched, which is it?

If anyone, or an employee could let me know asap that would be great because otherwise I'll end up waiting in tomorrow for no reason. Thanks in advance.

[philpem]

Join the club!

This is what's happened to me over the course of today...

Sunday 14th, ~2:30PM Placed an order for the parts for a Phenom-based system. Started reading more reviews, and realised I'd made a massive mistake. No sign of the order on my account profile, or a confirmation email. Resigned to calling Scan first thing Monday morning to fix or cancel the order.

Monday 15th, ~9:15AM Called Customer Services. Order still in progress, not on the system yet. Was told it could take until noon if the weekend order volume was heavy, and to call back after the Stage 2 email arrived.

10AM Stage 2 email turned up.

10:15AM Called CS again and amended the order. Received confirmation ~10 minutes after hanging up.

10:30AM Received Payment Declined email and SMS. Called Payments dept. Was told that payments had gone through (the initial payment and the £2.50 or so difference between the original and amended order). Rep said he'd have a word with Network Support about the erroneous email/SMS.

6:30PM Received Stage 3 email. Order picked, awaiting dispatch.

7:30PM Received delay notification email --

Please regard this email as a notification of delay in your order due to unexpected volumesin our warehouse. Please rest assured your custom is greatly valued and we will process your order with the utmost urgency. Your order has still been booked for a next working day delivery from the point of despatch and we will send further emails to confirm this.

8:05PM Received Stage 4 email. Order dispatched, CityLink tracking number included.

8:32PM Received another delay notification:

Thank you for your custom. We're writing to give you an update on your order and the out of stock item(s) listed below:

Corsair TwinX 2GB DDR2 8500DOM

As detailed in our previous email, the estimated lead date given to us from our suppliers was 12/09/2008.

Unfortunately we've been informed of a further delay which means we're not able to fulfil your order as soon as we'd hoped. Please be assured we're doing everything we can and stock should be with us soon if you're able to wait with us. As soon as stock has arrived we'll despatch your complete order immediately and confirm this by email and SMS.

So now I'm left wondering. What is in that box? Everything but the RAM? Everything and one pack of RAM? Everything including both packs of RAM?



As I figure it, best case is I've got a complete working Q6600 system, worst case is that I have to steal a stick of DDR2 from the MythTV box, middle case is that I've got 2GB of RAM to put in and have to wait for the other 2GB (in which case I'll probably cancel and order it from CCL instead).

But AIUI, Scan's policy is something to the effect of "we don't split orders unless the customer asks us to, and agrees to pay the additional carriage charges". Which implies that the box contains the entire order, and not a partial order, unless someone caused a SNAFU.



This is the second time this has happened to me... Last time it was (allegedly) because Citylink didn't send a big enough van for all the stuff they were supposed to pick up (or that's the reason I was given, at least).

On the plus side, at least Track Parcel isn't screwed up any more. The last order I put in had "1 December 2007" as the requested delivery date, and an order placed date of some time in Feb 2008. Do Scan happen to have a TARDIS secreted in their warehouse somewhere?

EDIT2: Just to make it known, I have no axe to grind here. Just that things seem to be going downhill a bit since the new website. Customer Services are still their usual cheery and helpful selves, and at no point in any of the three phone calls did I have to wait for more than 2 minutes for someone to pick up. That's beyond belief, I'm too used to waiting 20+ minutes for a human to pick up the phone... I don't want to sound like I'm being arsey, I'd just like to know what's going on...

[smartie]

I'm in the same situation, placed the order last night as I needed the items by tuesday, all items were shown as in stock so I placed the order. Right through til late this afternoon all the items I'd ordered were still shown as in stock but still my order hadn't progressed past payment authorised. Decided to check my order status around tea time & still no change, so I had a look at all the items I had ordered and now 1 item isn't in stock.

I wouldn't of placed the order if all items weren't in stock & I'd of bought them somewhere else, now I need to chase up customer services to have the out of stock item removed from my order so the rest can be shipped.

[philpem]

Yeah, I noticed that. Pretty much as soon as the Stage 2 email turned up, the motherboard (P5N72-T Premium) went out of stock, quickly followed by the RAM.

I've got the CityLink tracker open -- I'll F5 it in the morning and see if my order has actually left Scan's warehouse. I'm hoping it will have, as I'm suffering Portal withdrawal -- the fan on my 6600GT is fried and the thing hits 100C very quickly when anything 3D is running. I've got a Zalman VGA cooler on order from another supplier which got dispatched this morning, so fingers crossed I'll at least be able to get Portal back even if I can't build up the uber-puter...

BTW, nice rig Smartie. That's pretty much what I had on my order to start with, only an 8800GTX instead of the GTX260 that's on the current order. I was only going to swap the gfx, but went over to the Dark Side (Intel) when I saw the integer benchmarks... I do a lot of software dev work, so integer performance is king (no compiler I know of uses floating-point ).

[BrianS]

Just as an update - everything turned up today on time... so SCAN just seems to have a broken out-of-stock system

[Tetsu]

I'm in the same situation, placed the order last night as I needed the items by tuesday, all items were shown as in stock so I placed the order. Right through til late this afternoon all the items I'd ordered were still shown as in stock but still my order hadn't progressed past payment authorised. Decided to check my order status around tea time & still no change, so I had a look at all the items I had ordered and now 1 item isn't in stock.

I wouldn't of placed the order if all items weren't in stock & I'd of bought them somewhere else, now I need to chase up customer services to have the out of stock item removed from my order so the rest can be shipped.

Yeah I just had the same problem with stuff that was due for delivery today. mobo, 8 gigs of ram few other bits and bobs all delayed because of a 120mm fan that was shown in stock.

Said fan is still showing in stock. but it isnt.

[arthurleung]

Well, something definitely odd with SCAN.

I placed 2 orders on Tuesday (had to split to fit in my cc credit limit:S), got dispatch notice for my 2nd order on wednesday and delayed notice on my 1st order.

OK fine I don't mind friday delivery, but heck I received the first package, but I haven't got dispatch notice for the other package today so now I assume it is going to be monday delivery :S.

May be I should have ordered from Ebuyer as it is cheaper and the super saver delivery would still arrive on time for weekend build :S

[simonf7]

May be I should have ordered from Ebuyer as it is cheaper and the super saver delivery would still arrive on time for weekend build :S

I hate to say it having used Scan for many years, but thats what I'm doing now. I'm now pleasantly surprised when Ebuyer deliver earlier than estimated rather than been frustrated with delayed orders.

Before anybody says it, I know its a delivery estimate from Scan, but I guess I still have high expectations having gotten used to placing orders and getting them next day over the years.

Having said that, todayonly still comes up with tempting offers

Si

[Koolpc]

I did order a TFT with Ebuyer on a free super saver selection and it came the very next day!!! Well pleased.

I only ordered it from them as Scan did not stock the one i wanted.

I do order from Ebuyer aswell as Scan but in all honesty, Scan are still the best, even with the 'Iffy' stock / ordering system.