I was doing some Christmas shopping at an online store named Belk. There are a lot of Belk stores near my sister’s home, and I really liked their stores, but….

I found some things I wanted to buy and the order total was over $100. They offer 20% off your order if you apply for one of their credit cards, and I thought, why not..So I applied and was approved and was given my card number, expiration date etc., but no code for the discount. I was convinced I’d done something wrong, so looked on their website, but found nothing that would help. So I went to their contact information. It sent me to an email site where you describe your problem and they’ll get back to you in a day or two. Of course the sale ends tonight, so I don’t have a day or two, and when I went to my email, there was an email response from Belk telling me that it would be a day or two, but if I wanted an immediate answer, I could call their 800 number (something I’d been frantically looking for, to no avail.) I called, and the recorded response said I would have a 30 minute wait, so I put my phone on speaker and laid it beside me while I responded to YouTube comments. Maybe 10 minutes into my wait, a recorded voice came on and said push 1 and instead of waiting, they’d call me back. Great, I thought, and pushed 1…nothing happened. I pushed it again, still nothing…so I’m back to waiting. Probably another 10-15 minutes passed and a younger woman’s voice came on, asking how she could help me. I told her my issue and she said she’d have to talk to her supervisor about the discount code, then came back on the line and said she’d email me the code, and I should have it in about five minutes. I’m not sure why she couldn’t just give me the code, but apparently she couldn’t. That was three hours ago, and still no email. I guess I could call them again, but seriously, what’s the point.

I don’t know about you, but it seems like every time I call an 800#, I end up feeling like I’d have been better off if I hadn’t. I will probably get three or four email responses in two days, and by then I won’t care about the problem any more, as I didn’t submit the order and the sale is over today.

And I thought Black Friday hassles only occurred when you actually went into a store..welcome to Black Friday hassles 2.0, the online version.

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