"I will never purchase anything from Bits and Pieces again! I placed an order with Bits and Pieces on 12/1/07. Their website says that orders should be received within 7-10 business days. Once that time-frame had passed, I tried numerous times to reach Customer Service, but they have a recording saying they're too busy to take the call and then it kicks you off after about 5 minutes of holding. I finally found a person to speak to by calling their Sales line. They couldn't help me, but they transferred me to Customer Service and after holding for about 10 minutes, I actually had a live person to help me. They told me my order had shipped on 12/9. I don't understand why it took them 9 days to fill my order, but at any rate, I was able to get a tracking number from her. I tracked it for a few days and wasn't getting detailed info from UPS online. When I called UPS they told me that Bits and Pieces chose a service in which UPS only take the package as far as a nearby town to the recipient and that the post office would be delivering it to my home. With my package in the post office's hands, I had no way to track the package. It finally showed up on 12/17 (17 days after ordering) and one of the items was broken. This was supposed to be a Christmas gift for my grandmother and it barely arrived in time for me to ship it back out to her for Christmas, but for it to also come to me broken was a real disappointment. What was I going to send her now? I've been trying since then to reach Bits and Pieces to inquire how I can return the broken item to them without having to pay the postage myself, afterall, I didn't break it! I've had no luck reaching anyone live at the company. My next step is going to be emailing them with a threat to dispute the item on my credit card if they don't cooperate with me. Wish me luck!"
"Ordered 11/22/07, preauthed on my credit card, but never shipped (or charged)...YOU CANNOT CONTACT CUSTOMER SERVICE! Afer 5 minutes, it tells you they can't answer and hangs up on you, with no opportunity to leave a message. They don't answer email either. AVOID."
"They will not return my e-mails, can't get past their phone tree. After sitting on hold several times, it kicks you off. Then they won't answer your phone call at all.
Very unhappy with this company. DONT ORDER FROM THEM"
"Dealing with Bits and Pieces is by far the WORST experience I have ever had with mail order. Mid- December I ordered 2 puzzle boxes. The total for 2 equally priced boxes was $80.97. I was shipped one box and charged $50.98. Huh? I figured this was just crazy accounting, the other box would show up shortly, and the balance of $29.99 would be charged at that time…
When it did not by the end of January, I called to check on the status. I was informed that “the requested item has been discontinued and is no longer available to purchase”. I argued that since I had a confirmed order that said I would be receiving two boxes that it was not appropriate for them to restructure the order and charge me that much for a single box without my approval. I was rudely informed the details of an order could not be check for an order “that far back”. I asked if I could send my confirmation to them and they could look at it and let me know if they would make a correction. Not having heard back by the beginning of May, I called again. After being rudely asked, “What do you expect me to do? I can’t send you a discontinued item,” she ended with the same story: “Send your order confirmation and I’ll look at it.” I said I’d sent it before and never heard back. Rochelle told me to put her name on it and she’d take care of it. Now I’ll get some results. No such luck. I never heard from Rochelle. I just got the same reply: “the requested item has been discontinued and is no longer available to purchase”. I tried a few time to e-mail and indicate that I knew the item was discounted and that that was not the issue. No luck, just “the requested item has been discontinued and is no longer available to purchase.”
Well, it turns out THIS IS A BOLD FACED LIE. Mid-May I ordered 2 of the boxes I have repeatedly been informed were discontinued and no longer available for purchase and they have shipped to me. They had them in stock for purchase. What a scam! You think someone along the line would have said, “We now have that item in stock and will gladly finish filling your order if you’d like”. Of course then they would have only been able to charge me the outstanding $29.99 on my original order. If they made me reorder they could nab another $50.98. I called again and was told that “the requested item has been discontinued and is no longer available to purchase” meant, “We could not get it to you by Christmastime, so didn’t what to disappoint you by having it arrive late.” WHAT?!?! Well you’ve more that disappointed me. You’ve proved you are more that bad a customer service – you are underhanded and deceitful."
"Dealing with Bits and Pieces was one of the most unpleasant experiences I have had with ordering items online. I ordered some Christmas gifts for my employees as a little thank you for their hard work this year. I placed the order on the 3rd of December, they charged my credit card for the order on the 4th. When I placed the order they said the package would arrive within 7-10 business days which is kind of slow but would still have the order to me by the 15th, well before Christmas.
The 18th rolled around and no package had arrived so I used their website tracking which indicated my items had shipped on the 5th. So my items should have arrived on the 18th. I tried calling their customer service line all day each day on the 18th, 19th, and 20th it just keeps coming up as busy. I also sent an email to their customer service on each of those days with no reply.
I finally had to send an email threatening to tell my credit card company to treat their charge as a fraudulent charge before I got a reply from these people. They sent me the tracking info for my package...it was actually shipped on the 14th not the 5th as indicated on their website. So my employees will not be receiving their gifts for Christmas if they are lucky they might get here before new years.
Long story short they charge your credit card immediately they don't get your items dropped off to ship for a week and a half then they use UPS basic which takes two weeks to deliver. You can't contact them to find out what's going on with your order and they will not respond to any emails unless you threaten them.
Do not buy from these people unless you are willing to receive your items a month after they have charged you for them.
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