Black Friday makes Mrs C see red

Ok so Mrs Cross has had a little blogging holiday and is now back. That is, a holiday from blogging, as opposed to a holiday spent blogging, or a holiday with bloggers.

I did say in a earlier post that I was not going to rant negatively about things, so I am doing a slight twist on that, which is reporting on some bad customer service so that you can avoid the same mistakes that I made. And in try Polyanna spirit, "be glad" that you were not me this evening.

So in case you haven't heard, Black Friday lightning deals on Amazon are "amazing, not to be missed deals" that are listed for a limited period (usually only an hour) and it's fastest finger first, literally. The offers include massively discounted kitchenware, books, games and even Wiis which are likely to be highly sought after in the pre-Christmas rush.

I found a lightning deal that I liked that involved a collection of three Nigella Lawson cookery books at a cracking price of £15. This included Nigella's latest Kitchen book which Amazon usually retails for £12.99. So all in all, a good deal. If you can get it that is.

So the deal began promptly and I clicked on "Put in basket" with lightning speed and happily found that I was "in the queue" to receive this top deal. Little did I know that I would be "in the queue" over an hour later. When one hour passed, the deal expired and the Nigella books had never made it into my basket.

When I rang Amazon to discuss this, I spoke to a customer services representative who was very rude and unwilling to help me. To be honest, I think she was reading off a pre-typed sheet of answers, because most of her responses to my questions didn't even make sense. After ten minutes of waffle and getting nowhere, I asked to speak to her supervisor and was put on hold. A couple of minutes later, I was promptly cut off.

Now that I am typing this blog, I find the whole situation quite ridiculous and also very funny. Mostly because I was a complete fool to think I could beat the system and get the Nigella books at a bargain price. I thought if there was one person who could possibly do it, it was me. But I was wrong. And others will follow suit.

Still, for about an hour, I was happily grinning at the thought of snaring this deal, so to return to Polyanna for one final flourish, I am glad that although Amazon wasted a whole hour of my time, I was happy, but under false pretences.

So a couple of hours later, I have pizza in my tummy that Mr C ordered me and have been subjected to Stargate Universe. Which I secretly like. Now that's true happiness.