On December 15th 2006 – at 1:16 in the morning – Ponzi placed an order for three eStarling Wi-Fi Gmail / Flickr Enabled LCD frames through ThinkGeek’s Web store. To my knowledge, that’s the only way to get ‘em. They were out of stock, but at least our names were on the waiting list for new units.

On December 27th 2006 – hours before we were to leave on our honeymoon – Ponzi received a genuinely nice form letter from ThinkGeek’s order support staff. Our shipping and billing information were not in perfect alignment (no surprise, as we had just moved into our new house and she’s still in the middle of a name change). They needed physical documentation of the billing address – which was only days old for us. Ponzi responded:

Is there still a discrepancy in billing and mailing address? Everything is updated according to my credit card company, AmEx. If I need to mail in a bill stub I can do that now that we are starting to get bills in. I do not have a scanner to send you one via email. PS: Is this in regard to the picture frames I ordered?

ThinkGeek responded:

This is in regards to the frames you ordered. Also, we will need to receive one of the requested documents before this order can be processed and shipped out. If you have any other questions, please let me know.

I scanned Ponzi’s driver’s license, which had the old address on it. Again, we had absolutely no physical proof that we had moved across town into a completely new address. We returned:

Here’s a photo of my driver’s license and the credit card used for the purchase. We just moved to a new address last week, and if at all possible (since this is a gift for my husband), send it to [insert business address here, where packages were to be sent during our extended absence]

We didn’t hear back from ThinkGeek, so we (wrongly) assumed that they would understand that we no longer lived at the address which was used in the original order. Upon returning from the Caribbean, we checked her ThinkGeek account and discovered that there was trouble in geek paradise. This time, I sent an email to their support team on January 12th – which was later clarified with the following addendum on January 14th:

Upon further inspection, it seems the tracking number associated with that order revealed more details about the journey (and destination) of our package. Indeed, it arrived in Seattle – but as noted by UPS (and by Ponzi before the item shipped in the first place), “THE RECEIVER HAS MOVED. UPS ATTEMPTING TO LOCATE RECEIVER TO COMPLETE DELIVERY, NO DELIVERY WAS MADE;PACKAGE RETURNED TO SENDER.” Now, it seems the package was returned / signed for in Edison, NJ by Rojas on 1/11?

Maybe Pete Rojas moved to New Jersey, signed for our frames, and didn’t tell anybody?

I understand that ThinkGeek couldn’t ship to any address other than the one on file, but we told them that we were under a unique set of circumstances. Why they continued to send it to an address where we told them that we no longer lived, if it was the right address to begin with (as the one on the order form was missing a crucial “South” modifier), is beyond me.

I’ve yet to hear back from anybody at ThinkGeek on this issue – and I don’t know if the frames will be resent to our proper address, if we still need proof of billing (even though most of our mail is still forwarding from the old address), or what? The last message we received from ThinkGeek regarding this order was the 27th of December. I’ve sent several messages seeking clarification since then, and am really not sure what else to do at this point other than wait for someone to sit up and pay attention.

If we need to reorder, fine – but tell us we need to reorder. If we’re placed at the end of the waiting line again, fine – but tell us we’re at the end of the line. If we need to find another way to order several eStarling Wi-Fi Gmail / Flickr Enabled LCD frames, fine – but tell us that we need to find another way.

I’m chalking this one up to the holiday season; ThinkGeek gets the benefit of the doubt for now.

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