The customer is never right...apparently

Warning: T'is a loooong post. 😛 TL;DR: PurelyWhite doesn't do much to help customers (and will keep arguing with you) so I won't buy from them again.

In December, I ordered several products introduced to me via Grommet emails. Grommet is an aggregate of small and independent businesses. I like supporting small start-ups, and had gotten a number of products through learning about them from Grommet. I've been a return customer on a few, too.

But one of the recent experiences soured me.

The other products I ordered in that same week arrived quickly and with zero issues (this included a baking scraper from NexTrend, a hair clip from The Best Hair Clip, and a phone strap from Steady Straps)*. I do recommend all of them!

With the usual holiday daze and my having book contracts and other deadlines to deal with, I kind of lost track of one of the orders. After working and getting through Christmas and New Year, and then returning from a short break away, I looked into that order. According to the tracking info, it was delivered on December 25th.

We (my family of 4, all adults) were home all day that day. If any delivery truck came up our 700+ feet, noisy gravel driveway, one or all of us would have heard or seen them. Nobody had delivered anything. So I contacted the company:

To which they replied (quickly, I must say, so I don't have a complaint about that):

Even though the order number was clearly in the subject line (because I used their notification email to contact them) I responded with the info she asked for, including a snapshot of their original email I had included in the original note:

Someone else picked up the correspondence from there:

In case you can't read the above, her reply was:
"Hello Teresa, thank you so much for reaching out to PurelyWHITE DELUXE. I am seeing all of your order was successfully delivered. I have attached the tracking link as well for you confirming a successful delivery on the delivery carriers behalf. Once your order has been fulfilled and delivered to the intended location stated on your order PurelyWHITE DELUXE cannot be responsible for stolen, misplaced, or lost packages. This includes packages delivered to an incorrect location due to address error input at checkout. Please contact your local shipping provider with the tracking number you received and they will better assist in tracking down your parcel.

Unfortunately we are not responsible once our provided tracking information confirms successful delivery to your provided shipping address. As a thank you for your patience and understanding we invite you to use code PWD20 for a savings of 20% off on a future purchase with us.

Here's the tracking link for your reference: https://www.uniteddeliveryservice.com/(etc)"

My "local shipping provider"?? What? They used United Delivery Service. I'd never heard of them before.

At this point, I was just going to eat the $38.50 charge (product + shipping (riiiigh) + tax) and consider it an expensive learning experience. So I replied:

"Hi Annie,

I had checked the tracking link prior to contacting your company and noted that it said it was delivered. However, there was definitely no package by the front door as stated on that page, nor the door to the garage, or in any of the usual places that people sometimes put our packages in. In the 26 years we've lived here, we had never had a package go missing when delivered by UPS, FedEX, or DHL. [emphasis mine and only in the blog post] I don't know who United Delivery Service is. Amazon deliveries take a photo of exactly where they place a package to share with the customer, and now I know why.

Thank you for your help [and] the offer of a discount. I won't be attempting to buy from PurelyWhite again though; it's too risky to spend all that money with no satisfaction guarantee."

To which she had to have the last word, or was willing to continue arguing with me, and said (underlining and ??? are mine):

I refuse to keep playing this fruitless back-and-forth. Some of us have checks notes and calendar deadlines to deal with. The Spousal Unit says I never listen to his advice, but I do. I almost always heed his advice to "Don't engage." I was now at the "stop engaging" point.

So, instead, I clicked on the "Not Good" for the "How would you rate my reply?" question at the bottom of the email and filled in the feedback box with this:

It seems like the responder is ignoring all my comments about the fact that in 26 years, we have never had a package stolen or go missing when delivered by reliable companies like UPS, DHL, Amazon, and FedEX. Delayed, yes; missing, never. We have exactly 2 entrances to the house, nowhere near the neighbors (I had already stated it's a rural area). 4 adults were in the house on December 25th. Any truck that comes up our 700 ft long gravel driveway would be heard. And yet, somehow, it's our fault.

Would you do anything different in my situation? Any customer horror stories you want to share with me?

*And now you all know my weird buying habits 😂