Scrooge Award Winner: Ulta.com **UPDATE** **UPDATE**

**UPDATE #2**
This just gets better and better. Just now got a SECOND response from Guest Services. (By the way, my niece said she didn't see the snark in 1st response. Pshaw!)

So... at what point was Guest Services going to let me know that part of my original order was missing??? Does this mean that my original order was not late but instead not sent off? They don't even offer alternatives to the missing item. Wow.

I just told the family that their gifts would only be late. Now I have to let one of them know that their gift isn't even coming.

This whole thing has been a bad joke. What crap customer service. The best thing I can say about Ulta now is that their Twitter reps are way better at customer service than whoever is in Guest Services. 

What do you want to bet that if I were someone with a more important name (or social presence), I'd have gotten a better response to my complaints? 

Whatever.

I'm so mad now I could cry. No time to deal with this b.s. anymore because I have to go and find a replacement gift for my niece.



**UPDATE**

So. I finally get an email from Ulta "Guest Services". Their response to this whole fiasco is as strange as the fiasco... I'll just let you all see this for yourselves:

I shaking my head at a couple of things:

1. "Reship"??? What happened to the original shipment? Are they admitting that something happened with that one? If so, I find it a little crazy that the best they can say is "Oh, sorry. Our bad. Merry freaking Christmas."
2. Why so snippy since they are the ones who screwed this all up. If it is my choice to "no be" (yeah, I caught your sloppiness there) to be involved with their rewards program...

Yeah, I love it. They screwed up and can't even just admit that. Then they want to go and get all snarky with me.

Thanks Ulta. Glad I learned this lesson the first time ordering from you. Merry Christmas to you!

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I think I was just bragging about how I did all my Christmas shopping early and on budget. I started buying gifts for the kids back in September so that I could get everything wrapped and paid for. Thank God I used Amazon for most of that because everything came in on time.

My problems started when I shopped online for smaller items to give to the adults in my family, plus a birthday gift. For some reason, I decided to pay attention to all the flyers and emails I was getting from Ulta. I have an Ulta credit card that I'd never used and, of course, I have the Ulta membership rewards card.

On November 25, I ordered approximately $80 worth of items for my nieces and nephews, including a birthday gift for a December 13th occasion. Even though we drew names this year, I still wanted to get something thoughtful for the other folks. And remember that Ulta was sending out all those emails and flyers with their holiday offerings...

(By the way, I have to say that when I placed my order, I didn't initially get the "free" shipping, Because ~drumroll~ I live in Alaska. A very nice Ulta rep refunded the shipping as a "one-time courtesy" when I questioned this policy.)

Actually, the shipping was reasonable

You all know that I do a lot of product reviews. That means I get lots of package deliveries. That means I track my deliveries because I don't want to have parcels laying around outside my door, tempting passerby thieves. (I've already had my car broken into several times this past year!)

When I started checking the tracking of my Ulta order, I was surprised that there was zero movement after a few days. Finally, I notice that there was nothing done with my shipment until December 2. Still, I wasn't too worried because the estimated delivery date was December 14.

Of course, I contacted Ulta. Their response on December 14 was that there had been a "delay" in processing my order and it was sent on December 4th. (I don't know why USPS Tracking showed that they accepted the shipment on the 2nd, but, oh well.) I thought it was cute that they reminded me that they had refunded my shipping fees as if they had done it because of the inconvenience instead of because a rep had done that from the get-go.

The USPS site was not updating the Tracking info so, on the 20th, I used the USPS site to check on the package. They responded with a phone call. How amazing is that? The USPS actually called me about my inquiry. I wasn't given any more tracking updates but was told that my parcel should arrive within the week.

Me: "Before Christmas?"
USPS guy: "Hopefully. The package was sent regular rate."
Me:  "Regular?"
USPS guy: "Slow."

I wanted to scream at him, but what was the use of that?

Apparently, Ulta uses ground shipping (cheap) for Lower-48 customers. When shipping to Alaska, they pass the package off to the USPS for the rest of the journey.

I can understand that shipping to Alaska is not as easy as ground-shipping to the other 48 states. But how about this: how about you start with the USPS for Alaska and Hawaii destinations, It's not as if we are still using the Pony Express! By now, a horse could have made the journey up the AlCan with the package.
                                            
Anyway...

The same day, I contacted Ulta again with the info from the USPS guy and asked that they cancel my credit and memberships cards. I got the standard auto-reply ensuring me of their Ulta's full attention and the promise of a response within 24 hours.

Let me mention that I also kind of blasted Ulta on Twitter on the 19th. And I can tell you something, you get a much faster response on Twitter than you do if you use the standard contact email addresses.

Via Twitter, I at least got an apology. They encouraged me to send incident info to a specific email.

Now, today, on the 22nd (not exactly within the 24-hour time fram) Ulta tweeted that I should check my in-box for a response sent earlier today. I'm checking my in-box, spam-box, deleted mails, etc. I will keep checking, but it really doesn't matter at this point. I've already mentioned to the fam that their gifts will be late. I'd already apologized for the birthday gift so I'm getting used to being left empty-handed and red-faced.

I feel bad that I didn't go with my back-up plan of ordering gifts from another seller when I still had time. Thing is, I can't afford to double-shop like that.

Christmas is not about the gifts, but that's not my point. My biggest gripe here is that at any time of year, customers should be valued more. When Ulta had a "delay" with processing my order, couldn't they have stepped up their game and rushed the shipping to make up for that delay? Or is that my small order (and the fact that I didn't pay the six bucks' shipping) wasn't important enough for them?

Whatever the case, I got burned this time. I bet Ulta would not be so understanding if I was late making a card payment! No worries, though. I am going to pay that credit card off pronto, then cut it into little tiny pieces.

                                           

Let me say right now that if I find out that I just missed seeing an email or am wrong in any other way, I will come back and apologize to Ulta. I'm not really expecting to have to do that, but I just want to be fair.

Peace
--Free