Kurt's Thoughts

I received a couple Nokia DT900 Wireless Charging Plates through a clearance sale of sorts online. 

One of them sadly had a broken power cable, but I figured no big deal, right?  Nokia’s notoriously awesome at customer service and I’m sure it’ll be a piece of cake to get a replacement power cable.  After all – it’s just a stupid cable with a materials cost of probably less than 25 cents, right?

OMG, WRONG.

NOKIA ON TWITTER
I first tried the Twitter feed for @nokia.  Nothing.  Okay, my bad.  Let me see if they have an actual support feed.  Sure enough, they do and it’s called @nokiacareus. 

I fire off a tweet to this new twitter feed, asking them for the process of buying a new, replacement power cable.  After all – they must have ‘em lying around in droves right?

Here’s the response:

Wrong answer, Nokia.  Try again.

This back & forth went on for several days & you can read the rest of the thread HERE but the point is after talking with Nokia Support and a little research on my own, the following became clear to me:

1. NO REPLACEMENT PARTS DEPOT
   There is no official avenue for replacements parts like these for Nokia accessories.  This is a bit unfortunate.
2. THE POWER CABLE’S NAME IS DT-21
   Nokia does have a part name for the DT900 Wireless Charging Plate’s power cable:  “Nokia DT-21”.
3. A PRICEY AFTERMARKET EXISTS
   There is a small aftermarket for parts like this power cable however it’s pricey:  $21 for a power cable.  (Yeah – I know.)  Here’s a few links that I hunted down:
1. http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_trksid=p2050601.m570.l1313&_nkw=Nokia+CA-211&_sacat=0&_from=R40
2. http://www.2buya.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=CA-211
4. NOKIA STILL HAS PHENOMENAL SERVICE
   Let’s just say, Nokia ultimately resolved the issue of my “not having a power cable”.  I’m not going to explain what the resolution was but if you read the Twitter thread, you can probably figure it out.  Yes, Nokia Support went way above & beyond the call of duty in the matter.

Again, thank you Nokia Support.  You were a little slow, but dammit you came through for me.

What is up with the services that I’m using recently?  Criminies, I’m rarely a complainer, but damn…all of sudden every service I use is screwin’ up.

I entered in a delivery location into Dominos.com (“10250 Santa Monica Blvd, Los Angeles”) and it auto-populated the store doing the delivery as Store #7802, 1371 Westwood Blvd., Los Angeles (see below)  I completed a $100+ order and waited.

Our group waited and the order never came.  I found out later after I called that the order was cancelled because the store the website gave us doesn’t deliver to the address I provided – despite the Dominos.com web site assigning the task to them.

The correct store to deliver to “10250 Santa Monica Blvd, Los Angeles” is Store #7806, 10616 Pico Blvd, Los Angeles.

Dominos:  PLEASE FIX THIS.  I can’t order online because of this and I typically order a lot of pizzas, chicken & soda in bulk because I run a user group and ordering via phone is VERY inconvenient.

Have you ever had such a bad customer experience, you were simply beside yourself?

I called FiskIt Plumbing of Culver City, CA because I had their “Call us” magnet stuck to my refrigerator & in past years, and I hadn’t had terrible things to say about them.

The last time they came, they guy was waaaaay outside the window of time they’d promised, (over an hour & a half) and was otherwise rushed and dismissive, but their past work had built up some goodwill equity with me & ultimately, I was able to accommodate the time shift in that case, so fine. Nothing worth writing about.

But today was different.  I had no such luxuries.

MAKING AN APPOINTMENT
A few days ago, I called to make an appointment with Fiskit specifically when our condo building’s water was being shut off during a window of 3-6PM on a Monday. I explained very specifically that I needed repairs done during this time because what I needed done required the water to be shut off and having the water shut off meant the WHOLE CONDO BUILDING’S water was being shut off.  This is a big deal for us.

The girl on the other end said she understood and would make a note of it and she could have someone arrive around 4PM with a two hour arrival window. Wait – two hour window? I absolutely NEED this to happen between 3-6PM. This is the time during which all the neighbors have been notified that the water is being shut down for repairs in the building.   I need the repairs done then – there’s no option in this. She repeated that she’d make that clear.

AND OF COURSE, NO ONE SHOWS UP
I took half a day off and waited at home for FiskIt to arrive. Of course 5PM rolls around, and there’s still no one at my home. I call and ask if anyone’s coming and she tells me she’ll call me back. 5:20PM hits and I get this on the phone:

“Um… like, we’re having… um… computer problems and some appointments got deleted… and your appointment was one of them.”

What?

Awright, whatever – just get someone down here ASAP. I have only between 3-6PM – I made this very clear when I made the appointment – and y’all have 40min left. This isn’t just an mild inconvenience: I took time off from work and you’re burning my time, in addition to losing the window I had to do this in. She says she’ll call back. At 5:40PM, she calls & says she talked with a plumber and they’ll work “late” (as if they’re doing me a favor at this point) & she says they’ll be here at 7:00PM.

7:00PM? What the heck good does that do me? I said 3-6PM repeatedly: Get someone down here NOW.  If this was an overflowing sewer line, I can’t imagine the world of hurt I’d be in if I’d trusted you with my business.  I get that you screwed up and yes, these things happen & normally I’ve very understanding about this but you folks made a commitment to me – one that cost me time & money by taking part of the day off – and 7:00PM doesn’t fulfill that commitment one bit when I’ve repeatedly said over and over and over again that I need someone between 3-6PM. What are you going to do to make this right?

She says she’ll have a manager call me.  I’ll give you one guess as to whether or not anyone ever called.

AND AFTER THE WATER GOT TURNED BACK ON…
Without a call to confirm, two plumbers showed up out of the blue late in the evening, long after the water had been turned back on.   I told them to leave since there was nothing they could do now that the water had been turned back on and all my neighbors were home cooking dinner, bathing their kids, and otherwise needed the water on. 

They talked about “coming back” later to do the work at another time and I explained that FiskIt wouldn’t be doing any future work for me.  I wasn’t blaming the plumbers but rather their front office:  Never mind their costs:  They wasted my time & that’s something I have in very little quantity these days.  You don’t get a second chance from that.

A NOTE ON THE YELP REVIEWS
I was astounded at how little their front office seemed to care that they’ screwed up and they put me in a bad position so I checked Yelp.  Lo & behold, something has apparently happened to this company because it’s clear that they’ve got nothing but 1-star reviews over the past few years. 

Now I typically don’t trust Yelpers with only 1 or 2 reviews to their credit, since the reviews are usually emotional & inexperienced…  so here’s my review, coming from a former two-time Elite Yelper with close to 90 reviews exhaustively written & a record going back to 2007.

After sitting on my refrigerator for a long while, I tore up FiskIt’s refrigerator magnet and threw it in the trash.

I squealed like a girl when I saw this.  Like chocolate & peanut butter with a side of cognac.  Awesome.