Registered: Oct 1999
Location: Thousand Oaks, CA, USA
Posts: 49

I've reached my breaking point with the "order merge" mess (at least, that is what today's explanation is for the first week order problems). Below is the text of an e-mail sent today to Handspring. I am placing it here for feedback and (hopefully) support:

"Sorry folks, but I just have to write you again (this is my 4th e-mail in the past month).

Just to be thorough, I will have to reiterate what I have stated in previous e-mails to your Company. I am one of those 1st week orders that got messed up somewhere between input & shipment.

I received a phone call from your Customer Service Dept. a few weeks ago to correct a "problem" with my order. After enduring 8+ hours of hold time, plus being cut-off on several occasions, I was able to correct the error. I was told it would be two weeks more before I received my order.

Two weeks later I hadn't received anything (nor had my credit card been charged). Due to this, I called in to check on my order again. The errors I had corrected before were, somehow, part of my order again. I corrected the errors (again), and was told that my order had been "Escalated" and would ship "immediately".

It has been a week since that call. No Blue Visor Deluxe. No charge to my credit card. I called again for an update on my order. After enduring a couple of minutes of excuses on why it still wasn't time yet for me to be concerned about my order, the original errors were, for a third time, found within my order. The errors have been corrected again. I have been told it will be "five business days" before I receive my Visor.

I understand you've had start-up problems. I understand how data can get corrupted moving it from one place to another. What I don't understand is why I have needed to correct your start-up error on three different occasions.

I really don't want to wait "five business days" to find out if my order has been fumbled again. In my opinion, I shouldn't have to.

I want to know what you plan to do, as the corporate overseer of this order fulfillment operation, to correct this ongoing problem with my order.

I would appreciate a phone call to discuss.

Thanks In Advance."

Anyone out there that can top this one???

[This message has been edited by KGrate (edited 11-03-1999).]

[This message has been edited by KGrate (edited 11-03-1999).]

Registered: Oct 1999
Location:
Posts: 17

I can't top you, but I'm certainly in the same boat! I ordered 9/14 am, I called back a few days later (no signs of trouble at this point) to change the cc#, they guy who took the information said it was "no problem". Then I started to see all these posts about screwed up orders but decide to wait it out a little longer. I phoned appx Oct 15 (whenever they said they were shipping) just to make sure and got the "a big batch went out, we can't get to the info, if you ordered 9/14 it probably shipped" BS. A week goes by no charge, no delivery. Call back (by now the wait on hold is excruciatingly long...) Paul tells me that I'm round filed in the "problem" bin because, yes, they did change the cc# (how that happened must be right up there with immaculate conception) but that they had my address in NY instead of MA. I'm magically "prioritized" and should see my Visor this week. Just 'cause I must like to suffer, I called back Mon 11/2 and speak with a CSR who reads back the SAME INCORRECT ADDRESS and no it hasn't shipped. I have now been "escalated" which in French must mean "screwed" because I haven't gotten any responses to the "customer care" e-mail venue or the e-mail I wrote to the customer service head. Obviously the CSR's are working on OLD info so I refuse to harass them anymore. I'm going to write one more e-mail and if I don't hear back by the end of the week I will cancel, this had just become ridiculous. I'd personally like to know how all these other lucky people got things FedExed to them when they can't even get my address right.

Registered: Oct 1999
Location: Thousand Oaks, CA, USA
Posts: 49

Yes, we are in the same boat......Nice to know I'm not rowing alone!

Registered: Sep 1999
Location: Marietta, Ohio USA
Posts: 92

Well...... I WAS in the same boat but I
have found land ! I cancelled my Visor order
Monday and ordered a Palm IIIx.. I got
my $209 Palm IIIx today.. No more pain and
pissin' around...Done. I will be at the
Comdex show in LV this month. I play to
give my customer feedback to HS ...LIVE !
I went through the same corrections 3 times, etc.. Patience is one thing BUT this is really ridiculous especially for the
September orderers like me.

[This message has been edited by MicroMan (edited 11-03-1999).]

Registered: Oct 1999
Location: NY, NY, USA
Posts: 155

Grate, I think you ought to be glad you haven't been charged by them. I would recommend you advise your credit card co. to not allow anything from Handspring or, at the least, to contact you if and when a charge is attempted on your account.

I'm not sure why there are still people who, after waiting two-plus months, are still willing to do business with this company. I got a Visor and within six days it wasn't working (after a three-foot drop!?!). In my attempt to replace it, I have gotten absolutely no response other than "sorry for your trouble, thanks for your patience."

My "trouble" was getting a Vx this afternoon, and my "patience" is waiting for the building's UPS guy to come and pick up the Handspring box.

What a great company. I'm sure they'll be around for years to come. From the sound of it, Grate, I hope you aren't waiting for another two months for a product to show up at your door. Six weeks for a start-up to get its sh*t together is one thing. The truth is that if the product was that phenomenal, it would be worth it. In either case, I'm sorry my Visor is broken, as I would happily move it to you or anyone else who is willing to wait months on end for a good but miserably-supported product.

Anyway, I wish you luck. Hopefully, this situation will be resolved in a good way for you. Whether or not that means you'll end up with a Visor, well, that's another story.

Registered: Oct 1999
Location: Thousand Oaks, CA, USA
Posts: 49

I might be following you soon. I guess I wait out of morbid curiosity to see what will happen next.

Registered: Oct 1999
Location: Thousand Oaks, CA, USA
Posts: 49

Just a little update:

I just got off the phone with Sandy at Handspring's Corporate Office. She is hand correcting the problem herself.

Sadly, when she researched my order, she found exactly the same error that I had corrected on three earlier occasions.

Hopefully I am turning the corner on this......

Registered: Oct 1999
Location: Herndon, VA
Posts: 17

KGrate,

Dude we are living parallel lives (unfortunately <-- NO OFFENSE!). I ordered 9/15 in the AM. Called soon after they started delivering just out of curiosity on my order status only to find who ever wrote my name down while taking orders wrote "Ansan" instead of "Ahsan" so I correct that. Fast forward one week and I call back curious as to what my status was again, and lo and behold I have to make the same God damn correction! At this point, I still have not been fed the line about "escalating [my] order". Then I called again early this week to find that the correction was NOT in the database (its read-only go figure) but the CSR said he would talk to his supe right away and have my order "escalated". I am THIS CLOSE to cancelling my ordere but I'm gonna wait it out another week after all i've been through.

So who is this Sandy character and how do I get in touch with her? I totally feel that each and every one of us Early Adopters should be given personal attention to correct their bumbling problems.

Ahsan

Registered: Oct 1999
Location: Thousand Oaks, CA, USA
Posts: 49

Ahsan,

Please send me an e-mail ([email protected]). I will be more than 'happy' to give you Sandy's information.

I don't feel right posting it here.....you are correct when you say we are living parallel lives!

I sure hope this experience is worth it!

Registered: Oct 1999
Location: NY, NY, USA
Posts: 155

Grate, et al:

I called today to get an RMA number to return my Ice Deluxe and the serial cradle, and I spoke to Barry (a supervisor) at the 'Spring. Anyway, he was extremely helpful, and apologized for all of the stuff I had experienced. For those of you who haven't heard, I:

1) Ordered on 9/14;
2) Got Ice and serial on 10/26;
3) Enjoyed same for six days;
4) On morning of Monday, 11/1, day six, said Visor fell less than three feet onto carpeted floor and subsequently died;
5) Four hours of on-hold later, they told me $30 would guarantee me "Rapid Replacement" overnight;
6) Today being 11/4, Thursday, no replacement has arrived, and I am enjoying my newly-acquired Palm Vx. No Springboard, no hassles, no waiting in line.

Suffice to say, Barry felt badly but understood there were screw-ups, and I told him I appreciated the sentiment but felt I could not comfortably do business with Handspring at this time, simply because I did not trust technical support or customer service that told me outright falsities.

He was very cool and IMHO very sincere, and it was him and him alone that would perhaps allow me to consider doing business with Handspring sometime in the future, should the company last through May, 2000.

Anyway, point is: talk to Barry and see if he can help you with your problem. If he can't, and you feel you're getting nowhere, buy a Palm, refuse the Visor shipment, and you will have your sanity (and your clean, uncharged credit card) under your control, and not some out-of-control database somewhere in Buffalo NY or Freemont CA.

The Visor is a good product, folks, despite my unlucky bounce. I am anything but down on the Visor itself. However, for those of you who have spent the better part of two weeks/months waiting for a phantom delivery, ask yourselves if the reason why you want a Visor is because it will help you make better, more efficient use of your time, and whether spending hours on hold to be misled by CSR's is a manifestation of that goal.

Again, the Visor itself is a great product, but considering that they guaranteed me I'd have a product the next day, that they charged me $30 for that "privilege," and that tech support was of absolutely no use, I personally cannot see entrusting my personal and business life/organization in their hands. The way I see it, they had their shot and they blew it.

Mebbe down the line, I might consider doing business with this company again, but I'd actually be more hopeful that the company continues on its path and the Springboard ends up in the hands of a qualified company like Palm. At least then we would know that it was reliable, supported technology, and that it wasn't going anywhere but up.

As far as you people awaiting Visors, I wish you nothing but good luck in getting them, if that's what's in your best interests.

Registered: Oct 1999
Location: Herndon, VA
Posts: 17

Hot Carl,

sorry to hear about your problems with Handspring. I'm sorry to hear about ALL our collective problems with Handspring. Hopefully they will get their act together but not at the expense of those of us who ordered in mid September. I totally feel like I'm a forgotten customer.

Any how, KGrate, thanks for the info. Here is the letter I sent to Ms. Torres. You know what? I don't even know who she. What's her position up there? Hehehe.

---

Dear Ms. Torres:

I am sorry to have resorted to writing you an e-mail about the status of my Visor Deluxe (ICE) order which was placed on September 15th sometime before noon. I understand that your company has been overwhelmed by the demand for what is sure to be an excellent product. However, as an "early adopter" of your product, your company's treatment of our orders leaves a lot to be desired. We are the people who were most anticipating the release of this great product and were excited to place orders on the first few days of its release.

My problem actually is more concerned with the knowledge or lack thereof on my part but more importantly your Customer Service department's part about the status of my order. I have spent a few hours of my time trying to find out whats going on exactly and it seems that if I wasn't persistent about it, the problems with my order would not have been fixed. In fact, even after 3 calls to your Customer Service Department I am still not convinced that my order is "out of limbo".

This is my predicament:

I called over 2 weeks ago soon after your product began to ship only to find that whoever "took down my order on paper" apparently had bad handwriting and when my name was transcribed to your database, it was mis-entered as "Ansan" rather than "Ahsan". Otherwise all my order info was correct. The kind CSR let me know at the time that she would take care of the problem and have me prioritized. I was told at the time that the product would ship with the next batch of Visors early the following week.

So come the following week, with no charges to my credit card, I decided to call you guys again. I was disheartened to find the error with my name was not even corrected yet! I am not sure how your database system works but the CSR merely told me that he would make sure it was corrected once again and would talk to his supervisor. He then let me know that my Visor would ship within two weeks. I figured this second time would be it and I was anxiously awaiting the arrival of my Visor Deluxe.

Come this week I called again. This being the third time I called to check on the status of my order (placed on 9/15), I was extremely disappointed that my name was STILL incorrect and was given some line about my order being "escalated". I asked the CSR about my Visor possibly being Fed Ex'd to me because of the extreme nature of the problems on Handspring's part so he asked his Supervisor who told him nothing could be done and that I'd have to wait two weeks.

So for the past 3 weeks I've been told that I must wait "two weeks" for my shipment. I have no idea how I am supposed to track this shipment and I feel like it is totally unnecessary for ME to make the calls to Handspring to make sure everything is ok. Even when I call I do not feel satisfied with the response I receive from the CSRs who I understand have no way of really knowing what is up with my order other than to let me know the information I gave them way back in early September.

I would just like you to expedite the process of shipping out the early orders for myself and all my fellow patrons to your site who placed their orders in mid-September.

I'm sure you understand that many of us who have not received our Visors are anxiously waiting to show off this fine product to our friends and colleagues and the way this whole predicament has been handled leaves a lot to be desired. Personally I told several friends of mine about this great new product when I heard about it. I don't even know what to say to them when they ask me where it is! Actually I do know what to say to them but you can figure that part out

Thank you for your help and I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Sincerely,
Ahsan Ashraf
Order Date: 09/15/99 (by phone)
Visor Deluxe (Ice)

Registered: Sep 1999
Location: Hong Kong
Posts: 200

HotCarl,

was your fallen Visor damaged? I mean any visual damage? If it falls on a carpet there should be nothing you can see!

I know it's canning, but why not just say it died for no reason!?

PS: What I don't like on the V and Vx is that they have no solid cover like the III series.

Registered: Oct 1999
Location: NY, NY, USA
Posts: 155

Train:

Thanks for the good wishes. Don't feel special -- lots of people feel like forgotten customers with respect to Handspring :-)

Hopper:

No visual damage. It was so incidental I didn't even think to turn the thing on after it bounced. IOW, I didn't notice it until about ten minutes later when I was out of my apartment and waiting for my ride. Weird.


In general:

The point of the lucky bounce isn't meant to imply that the Visor is a lousy product, and I would like to reiterate again that I think the Visor is a good product. Not lousy, not great, but good.

However, if the company behind the product is so inexplicably incompetent at supporting (or even delivering) the product, then it drops below acceptable levels IMHO. Not knowing anything about Handspring, I would think the Visor is a solid product. Campy yet unique, thoughtful design, decent quality, and able to compete with the Vx. However, after the fall-out from the bounce, I have no interest in their products because I am concerned that the next problem will be worse. Mebbe it's a weird fatal error, mebbe the batteries seem to be draining quickly, mebbe there is a problem with the screen. I am not willing to wait a month and spend hours on hold to complain, and then months later, accept a phone call from some CSR asking me "Are you pleased with your Visor?"

All I know is that if it is this difficult to obtain the initial product (like pulling teeth from a non-sedated, horny rhinoceros), then it ought to be real fun for those who are first-time PDA users, and even more for people who have very little time on their hands and very little patience for stupidity. Fortunately, these are now non-issues for me. I'm a new Palm Vx owner :^)

Registered: Oct 1999
Location: Corvallis,OR
Posts: 38

Hey KGrate,

Isn't Sandy awesome? I write a mail to thanks her and forward to Donna also. She won my confident back. Knowing that there is a dedicated manager like Sandy in Handspring, I will definitely order more product from them.

Registered: Oct 1999
Location: Thousand Oaks, CA, USA
Posts: 49

Sandy is great, but she isn't out of the woods --> I don't have my order yet!

I will wait the prescribed amount of time before flaming, but I will admit that Sandy seemed very nice, efficient, and (especially) overwhelmed.

Registered: Oct 1999
Location: Thousand Oaks, CA, USA
Posts: 49

I can't say that I don't have my Visor anymore --> It's here.....It's great!

Registered: Sep 1999
Location: Marietta, Ohio USA
Posts: 92

Good for you !

Registered: Nov 1999
Location:
Posts: 10

Ordered: 9/17
Called to verify info: too many times to mention.

Something caught me funny about how I called once to change my address and to fix my credit card number: I called the toll-free number and got our CSR friends to verify and change info. I called last week to verify again and to get my new shipping address. They told me they had a "read-only" database and I wondered exactly how they could have changed my info when they had a RO DB, so I just called their corporate office and asked for someone who could help me.

One hour after I called the 650 area code number, I had an order number, and the next morning (today), I got a tracking number. My visor should be here tomorrow

Registered: Nov 1999
Location:
Posts: 42

The more people that cancel the sooner I will be able to get one.

Hot Carl - tell me, what is your background since you obviously are convinced this company will fold soon. Yes, there are startup problems, but when I order mine in a month or so, it will probably show up in 3 weeks. If you don't think they can survive with the screwups, just look at the Micro$oft track record over the past 10 years. Not to mention about 50 other high tech companies.

PS - not sure why someone NEEDS a PDA immediately, my Planner still works.

Registered: Sep 1999
Location:
Posts: 52

KD, you asked why someone needs PDA immediately, because your paper planner still works. Well, what if you didn't have a paper planner? What if you'd been using a Palm for a few years now, and, suddenly, it died? The good news is that all your data is safely on your computer's hard drive, and possibly even backed up on disc. The bad news is you can't access it without your computer. And, even a notebook is tough to lug around everywhere. So, since this happened to me, I needed a (replacement) PDA as quickly as I could get one. I e-mailed HS (this was 2-1/2 weeks ago) to see if the 4 to 6 week wait was still realistic. Figured I could wait 2, maybe 3, weeks for the world famous Visor. Haven't gotten a response yet. I called HS to ask the same thing. While on hold, I went to VA online. Signed up for the $20 credit. Still on HS hold. Signed up for the $100 credit. (Luckily this was just before these promo's were halted.) Still on HS hold. Went thru the online Palm IIIx ordering process. Still on HS hold, now over 45 minutes. Figured I wouldn't hear from HS, so I clicked to order a IIIx for $142. Two days later, I thought it would take a week to get from Virginia to Arizona, I received the IIIx. Updated to OS 3.3 before loading any data, hot sync'd, and haven't looked back. Works like a charm, including IR, and, not to be overlooked, I was able to get a Slipper III case and PDA Panache stylus right away.