We got screwed over not once but TWICE by FutureShop trying to order a camera online last week. First time we ordered during the ‘customer appreciation’ sale for pickup from a store that they said had stock & they sent us an order confirmation email. Following day, after the sale had ended, they cancelled our order & refused to let us reorder for collection from a different store at the sale price unless we could find some retail flyer. Second time, after ordering from a different store at the higher price, they emailed us to tell us the item was now put aside for us and available for pickup. We made a special trip into town to collect it from the Granville St store… only to find that it (the last one in the store) had disappeared.

What I think happened is one of the salespeople had a customer who wanted that camera and saw our reserved one behind the counter and stole it to sell to their customer so they’d get their commission.

Were FutureShop helpful? No. Could they care? No.

Will I ever order anything again from FutureShop? To be honest, it’s hard to avoid them sometimes, but we’ll be doing our best to buy from places that value their customers instead.

My wife blogged the full story in more detail:
http://triagefromhome.blogspot.com/2008/12/down-with-big-box.html