disgraceful customer service a well known retailer - Chambers Street Wines

Wine/Spirit buyer beware: DISGRACEFUL customer service at CHAMBERS STREET WINES for first time customer (http://www.chambersstwines.com)

here is what happened to me when trying to make an order at CHAMBERS STREET WINES (talking shit about their customer behind the back while emailing a “sincere” apology by Jamie Wolff - partner of Chambers / late inauthentic bottle verification after order processing / inadequate slow inventory system that over sells / playing favoritism among diff customers after Chambers make several serious inventory mistakes and lying about it / cancelling customer’s orders without consent ):

DETAILS of what happened if interested:

  • On March 18th, Chamber St sent out an email advertising they had in hand verified 34 bottles of 1970s Green chartreuse and 20 bottles of Yellow chartreuse from a collector, and anyone can go on their site to make purchases.

  • I made 2 purchases online for the green Chartreuse within minutes of email from Chambers, and both processed smoothly. Given that they are the same shipping address, I emailed them to combine it together. But when they replied they said that they had a slow inventory updating system, and that they sold more than they have, and my combined orders for the Green Chartreuse will be reduced by 40%. Although abit disappointed, I figured its probably a technical glitch from Chambers, and gave them the benefit of the doubt. So I politely agreed to reduce my order down 40% even though a big chuck of the order has now disappeared, and they were happy that I agreed to it.

  • 6 days later while I was traveling to a diff time zone, I got another email from Chambers saying that another “miscount” has happened on top of the last one, and they now have to reduce my order down another 66% for a total of 80% combined reduction from my original order.

  • A bit mystified of this, how hard is it to count bottles that they can miss it by 80%? that’s like saying 10 = 2!? I called them to ask what happened? They explained that its not in fact a miscount, but that they found bottles that were “inauthentic” to the description they sent in email when they were preparing shipping, so the order had to be reduced again. Now I applaud them for finding inauthentic bottles, but shouldn’t they do this part before they advertise it online given Chambers long history as a wine retail shop?

  • While upset about this second serious error made by Chambers, I said okay assuming you had these inauthentic bottles, are customers with confirmed orders on the original bottles being reduced the same percentage? Chambers said 100%! Whether you are first time customer like me or their best regular customers, everyone had the same PERCENTAGE reductions.

  • That sounded fair but is it really true? This statement from Chambers means every customer had the same second 66% order reduction amount (which also means 66% of Chamber’s 34 bottles were inauthentic?) I wanted to double check w them if thats true, Chambers then started to back track, saying that their best customer with the highest allocation of bottles had the same # of bottle reduction as I did. I am no math genius, # is diff from %, (Chambers told me earlier others had higher allocation of the original order) this itself means all customers didn’t have the same equal PERCENTAGE reduction, and also that Chambers played favors in taking bottle away from first time customers to give to other customers even though all mistakes were made in Chambers side.

  • I emailed Chambers a couple more times to ask them to explain if they can for sure confirm that every customer had the equal percentage reductions. I get no confirmation, simply that if I keep asking this question, Chambers will cancel all of my orders all together by the end of day. That sounded a bit of threatening.

  • Eventually Jamie Wolff (expert in old world Italian wines, also partner at Chambers) got involved in the email chain. I got 2 email replies simultaneously from him, the first addressed to me with a “sincere” apology and saying again they will cancel the order if i don’t stop asking the question about customer treated equally that they can’t confirm. The second email was supposedly to be sent to other colleagues at Chambers but Jamie was being an idiot and replied it to me instead, it was talking shit about me as a customer asking too many questions and ordered explicitly to everyone not to answer the question of “if every customer is being treated equally and fairly?”

  • How is a customer going to believe Chambers or Jamie’s “sincere” apology if that person is talking shit about the customer at the same exact time but too dumb to send it to the right email address? I am almost more offended by Jamie’s stupidity than his emails itself.

  • I emailed back pointed to Jamie’s own contradicting emails of talking shit of a first time customer and his sincere apology. Shocked at his own stupidity, I get another sincere apology for the apology, but Jamie kept his word, he cancelled all my confirmed bottles without my consent as a way of punishment for finding out how stupid Jamie can be.

  • What a “gentlemen” and “great” customer service! if you are not happy why Chambers reduced your order, how about getting 0 bottles sound to you sir while i talk shit about you and at the same time sincerely apologize to you.

Prepare to be flamed, Le. Chamber Street Wines is a favorite of many on this board. A customer complaint as a first post is going to be viewed harshly in any circumstance, whether that is right or not, and when it takes on a board favorite, I am afraid it will not be well-received.

I am sorry you had difficulty with them, but as is usually the case with such posts, it is difficult to discern the truth from a tale told by only one side to the dispute.

I don’t think this is a flame, but I am not sure that a poster whose first post ever is a long and vitriolic complaint about a not-too-awful commercial practice doesn’t deserve them.

In any case, yes, I buy from Chambers, and have often found that their inventory ordering system allows one to “buy” a particular bottle (or bottles), and yet find out that (presumably) between the time they were placed in the cart and the time your purchase was paid for by credit card, someone else has accomplished the same a bit swifter.

Perhaps this is not the case, perhaps some customers get a better shot at any given selection, but really, is this unethical? Is it bad commercial practice? Is it really unusual? Honestly, I think it is none of these, and no, I don’t think I am “entitled” to quiz my vendor about exactly how they handle these situations. I am of course entitled to shop elsewhere if I don’t like their policies, and of course sometimes I do.

I am prepared, I am sure there are many fans of Chambers Street Wines as they are a well known retailer for many years. I been buying mostly from Flatiron and Crush for the last 5 years. I have Jamie’s own email to his staff that mis-send to me instead at the same exact time he sends me a “sincere” apology. People can read the post and interpret on their own. To known this much detail of an order can’t just be made up all together.

I didn’t know about this site until I told a friend about my first time customer experience at Chambers, I feel that people should atleast know this is kind of stuff can happen especially at a well known place (like Chambers) where every one expected roses to be present.

I have worked in the industry, my only review of any kind was a fantastic review of MILK&HONEY cocktail bar I regularly attended when it was about to be closed. You can check it on my yelp site.

Sounds like they did the right thing.

Getting fired as a customer is hard to do
But you have succeeded!

Le, it looks like Chambers Street was making sure you didn’t get any bottles with a little “Wang” in them.

[video]- YouTube

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Frankly, shit happens and this time it happened to you. Get over it and move on. Secondly, if you tell me you’ve never talked smack about a customer before you’re lying. It just so happened that you accidentally got to see those barbs that were meant for your back. neener

I’ve had inventory update issues on the websites of much bigger companies (e.g., Lands End, LL Bean). It will show something that isn’t available when I go to check out. And the quantities on those special offers at Chambers Street are very small.

So I say, “ho hum,” not worthy of a rant.

this is not just an inventory update issue, they didn’t check the authenticity of bottles, proceeded by taking bottles from first time customer and gave it to their regular customers, and then lied about about it. And then talk shit about it while apologizes.

I’m empathetic to your situation and understand your desire to make it public. But I have a little advice: don’t waste a bunch of time here defending your position. You’ll change no one’s mind and want to kick yourself later for trying to do so.

I think the accusations of them lying is where you crossed the line. Do you know what they told you is not true or did you just not like the answer?

I’ve worked with many wine merchants over the years and quite a few turn out to be bad at customer service and I stop doing business with them.

Chambers Street? Top decile in my experience on service and being fair.

Again, how do you KNOW they lied?

Yes the math didn’t add up. If the customer with the highest allocation (they told me is not me) got the same # of bottle reduction as I did, then by simple math that person’s reduction % is lower than mine.

You’ll be sorry. Trust me. They’ll suck the blood out of you.

My opinion of Chambers St. is improving every time the OP posts.

Your reaction seems out of proportion to the situation. This is not worth giving yourself a stroke over.

Dear 1st time customer,
One of our long standing customers bought the same bottles you did. We are selling him the bottles as he buys $$$$$ from us. We are sorry this happened and do hope you will give us another try.

Does this make you feel better?

So, let me see if I understand. Le Wang joined Wineberserkers an hour ago to flame Chambers Street. Le, you have come to the wrong wine bulletin board. Your self-entitled rant will garner you no sympathy and boatloads of scorn and derision here. The proper wine bulletin board to make complaints such as yours is http://winedisorder.com/. You will be treated with all due and appropriate respect there.

Cruel

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So your saying you’re upset over a percentage. That’s cool. I get upset with abstract things all the time too. [berserker.gif]