Went on-line to determine the price for two - 40 lbs. bags of cat litter. Didnt need delivery, but PetSmart's website offered free, same day, delivery so my wife figured what the heck and placed the order with delivery.
Unfortunately, you get what you pay for. We placed the order about 1:30 p.m., and finally got a notification that the delivery would be arriving at 8:33 p.m. PetSmart employed DoorDash to handle delivery itself, and this is where things went sideways.
When the driver arrived he just sat there, at the bottom of our driveway. One of the reasons for taking Free Delivery was not having to lug 80 lbs. of cat litter up our drive. I finally walked to the curb to see what was happening. The driver pushed open the passenger door and pointing to the two bags began to speak... SPANISH!!!
It has been decades since my high school language class, and I had no clue what the driver was saying. Finally, I picked up the bags and lugged them to my porch. However, the driver continued to speak and I continued to not understand what we were talking about. He followed me up the drive, with me carrying 80 lbs. of cat litter. He kept pointing to his phone which had the DoorDash app open, but it too was in spanish. I apologized, "lo siento", stating that I did not understand, "No entiendo". At this point I had pretty well exhausted my bilingual skills, but the driver continued to speak, and to point to his phone. I used Google to translate that I didn't have the DoorDash App and that my dealings were with PetSmart. To no avail.
I finally called the local PetSmart store to try to resolve this situation. While the lady I spoke with was apologetic, she couldn't help me and directed me to the national PetSmart customer service number.
The operator at the national number didn't know what to do, so I asked if there was someone there who spoke Spanish. After an interminable wait on hold Tamara answered my call. Again she was very nice, but again she didn't know what to do. Tamara said the driver was supposed to drop the order on my door step, take a picture of the delivery and go on his way. I used Google to translate this for the driver, but he continued to stand there and point to his phone. Tamara summined her supervisor, but that added nothing to the equation. Tamara agreed that this shouldnt have happened, and she apologized, but at this point my wife and I and the driver had been standing out on my driveway for over 40 minutes, and nothing was resolved.
Tired of the endless and circular conversations with both the driver and the folks at PetSmart, I gave the driver a cash tip (above and beyond what was already included in the PetSmart order), gave the driver our phone number, told him (via Google Translate) to call us if there was a problem, snd said good night. I hung up with PetSmart (nothing had been resolved) and headed for the door. The driver continued to stand there staring at me as though I had stolen the cat litter from him.
Lets it this in perspective. The cost of the order was less than $45. This debacle consumed at least 45 minutes of my time, my wife's time, of the driver's time and the time of at least three PetSmart employees. The store is less than 5 miles from my home, and a trip to have purchased the order and brought it home myself would have taken 20-30 minutes tops...
Who is at fault?
This is not an immigration debate. However, this is the United States, the entire transaction was performed domestically, and using US currency. I don't care if the driver only spoke Spanish, or Portuguese, or Russian, or Martian; if you come to my door I expect to converse and transact business in English.
I can't speak to the operations of DoorDash, PetSmart contracted them for delivery, they were acting as PetSmart's agents for this transaction, but sending a driver who can not converse or communicate is total Horsecrap. PetSmart, as nice as their telephone staff were, is absolutely USELESS! I don't care if they are selling gold bars for pocket change, I will never again do business with them.
I know that PetSmart got paid. I'm sure DoorDash got paid. I hope the driver got paid, but at a minimum, someone owes me and my wife for our wasted time and aggravation.
Alas, why should I complain. we got PetSmart's feeble and meaningless apologizes, and a life lesson in the real cost of free delivery. read more