Ordering online - always a rigmarole

Well sir, I've just ordered that hard drive to get me out of this bad patch.

Now I know what you might say. Why not install that spare internal drive you have into your spare PC and backup to there? Well, I don't fancy breaking both computers. That's why.

Besides, I got a good deal on a 1TB buffalo drive. €1/GB. Formatted. It holds about 931GB under NTFS, fairly typical for the size. That's about 85p in UK money.

Only problem is, they only ship to the UK. Good thing it's easy to solve. Just ship to de nort as we locals say and Bobs your uncle.

10 days, free delivery or delivered by Monday for €20 or something. Didn't bother checking that.

It's a rigmarole because scan.co.uk messed me about terribly. I had to contact them and ask why they hadn't dispatched my drive. Seems they did the sums wrong and shipping was going to cost me an extra £20.

Pull the other one. Tossers. Up yer noses with scrubbing brush I say. You can take your black brick and shove it. I'm buying off amazon.

I was annoyed that they didn't contact me sooner. And now it's Friday - after 6pm. The world is down the pub at this stage getting hammered. I should really just stay in bed. Nothing ever goes wrong in there.

This is just another fine example of why I should quit computers. It takes me far too long to get anywhere.

I walked down to the shops there to buy some breakfast cereal. 5 minutes to get there, 5 minutes to have a look through what was on offer and another 5 minutes to get out the door. Added to that is the benefit of some much needed fresh air. You can't buy that on ebay (nor should you).

There are just some things you can't buy online. You need the smell of them to know. And I don't know if you're like me, but I can't stand that dust at the bottom of the cereal packet.

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Comment by Shtanto on November 15, 2008 at 2:16pm: Sure enough, there's the email from scan already. At least they're professional. Sucks that they outsourced the shipping to a company who overcharges to non UK destinations.

See, what I don't get is that Belfast and Dublin are on the same island, but I get to pay more in shipping from the UK. Pretty dumb. Why are they able to put my stuff on a boat/airplane to land in Belfast for less money? Surely getting the stuff onto the island (Ireland. My island!) costs the same regardless?

I'll have to call Joe about this.

Comment by Shtanto on November 15, 2008 at 1:34pm: Yeah, I dropped them so hard they're still spinning.

@Smogsy, The euro buys 85p sterling right now. Usually it's 79p-81p. Taking advantage of market volatility so I am.

I find sites in the US are harder to come by. Sure I get a good exchange rate from time to time, but I usually end up murdered on shipping.

That's why I tend to find myself typing .co.uk a lot when shopping. Most electronic items from aul briney only have 5% VAT (sales tax) on them. Here in Ireland, VAT is 21% ::shockgasphorror:: Shipping isn't usually too bad, only I hit a bump on this occasion. Cheeky chancers.

All in all over at £79.95. Comes out at €93.67. Pretty good deal for a 1TB drive. Shame about the lost time. At least now I can look forward to smiles. I'm sure scan will try to make ammends on monday. Big mouth bloggers like me can do a lot of damage, especially with the times we're in.

Comment by cliffystones on November 15, 2008 at 7:42am: B.S. like you describe is why I will drop an online retailer. We have one in the states called Sportsman's Guide. On 2 separate occasions I ordered items from them that were offered on the web site but not in stock. Then they didn't bother to inform me until AFTER I ordered the items. Then the estimated date would change, sometimes delayed by over a month, but I only found out by calling them.

When these retailers make doing business with them such a hassle, I say drop'em!