Reputation from Mr.Jak - Linus Tech Tips

Mr.Jak reacted to bastrdcrab in Poor experience with Madrinas Coffee April 6, 2019

Hi folks,

Nice to meet you! This isn't really how I wanted to make a first impression on this forum, but after getting nowhere with their customer service, I figured maybe I could post here and someone who matters might notice.

I'll start by saying that part of this is definitely my fault, but the rest I blame on unclear messaging via their store and unresponsive customer service.

After the WAN show sponsor deal for a free six-pack the other day, I decided to try out Madrinas. I figured that two of their "#COFFEE4FUEL SAMPLER" six packs for the price of one made the purchase viable, as that dropped the price-per-can (without shipping) from over $3.17 per to $1.58 per. This was a limited time deal, obviously, so I figured okay, if I don't qualify for the free six pack, surely they'll indicate that somewhere in the purchase process, right?

Nope. To start, the only hint I could see was an order number range on the LTT page, stating "orders from ABC-DEF will get the free six pack." I thought, okay, hopefully they at least include a hypothetical order number somewhere prior to the purchase being finalized (which I realize now was folly, since that number probably isn't generated until the customer clicks "confirm"). Anyway, I get to the last page of the order form and enter my LTT coupon, and... I get $9.50 off. Okay. That's weird, but having ordered from Savage Jerky through another sponsor deal before, I know that sometimes stores have to do weird things to include free items in your cart, and maybe this was one of them. There was definitely no message that the coupon code had expired, or that it didn't include the six pack. Shipping is also pretty expensive at $11.68, but I figure that even with shipping, it comes out to about $1.80 per can if I'm getting the additional six cans. Still viable. So, I click confirm, see my order number, and it's in the range of "GHI." Well, shit, I've now ordered a six pack of coffee for about $3.50 per can including shipping. That's too much for me to justify the order with my budget. And the code doesn't provide free shipping, either, which kind of sucks, because they're advertising a free shipping code on their homepage, and the LTT code doesn't even cover the cost of shipping. So I ended up paying $2 more than if I had just purchased a six-pack as a non-LTT fan with their free shipping code.

Okay, that sucks, but I'll email them right now and get my request to cancel in early - the order and email were around midnight on a Sunday, so they should have both by SOB on Monday. Per their FAQ:

So I should be fine, right? I fire that email off and proceed to wait. 4:30 PM on Monday rolls around and I get an email from Madrinas saying "Your order has shipped!"

Wait, what? Seriously?

I email back telling them I had requested that the order be canceled.

It's now Thursday and I've still heard nothing from Madrinas, not even a "sorry, we didn't catch this before the order went out and there's nothing we can do now!" I've worked in customer service, and it's possible they were inundated with orders through the LTT deal and just didn't have time to get to it. That's fine! I've been on that end of the equation. The problem is that I haven't heard anything from them since I emailed to indicate that they even considered my request to cancel, and that's shitty. I hope this is just a one-off, and Madrinas is usually good about this sort of thing. I saw the other thread in the forum about how they sent that guy extra cans. That was cool, and I wish I'd had an experience as positive as that one. This is where I'm at now, though.

The coffee is due to be delivered today. I hope it's good, because if it's not, I'll be mad that I paid $21 for six cans of mediocre coffee and a bad customer service experience. Between this and what happened with Synergy "2.0" (and that company's subsequent layoff of all of its employees when their product backslid into beta), I'm inclined not to purchase a sponsor deal again, because it seems like LTT has trouble vetting its smaller sponsors for reliability. Sorry, guys. Doubt you'll miss me anyway!

TL;DR I ordered coffee through Madrinas with the LTT sponsor code, ended up paying more than if I'd just used their free shipping code on their home page, and then not only did they not reply when I requested to cancel, but they shipped my order as well.

Thanks for listening to my whining, feel free to flame, etc.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯