I had the most wonderful Noosie experience with JustPretend.com.  Remember them?  They were bestowed the Noosie back on May 22 when they were unable to confirm an order that Amy placed on May 18.  We never did receive an order confirmation via email or any other means of communication (e.g., homing pigeon -- sorry, this Web address is unavailable). 

Well, this morning, two large boxes from JustPretend.com were delivered to our door by UPS.  The boxes appeared to have just hung on until they arrived at my house.  One of the ends on one of the boxes was wide open (i.e., not tape sealed) -- click here to see a photo.  On the other box, the taped ends were just barely hanging on as one of the flaps was loose, making it possible to see the contents inside this box.

Amy had ordered three items.  Inside the opened box was a single item -- a wooden castle -- that took up about 1/3 of the interior volume.  Very little filler was used to protect the item and keep it from moving around during shipping.  The billing order was still inside the box and it indicated that the other two items would ship when ready to go.  I figured that the other box probably contained the other two items as I could see through its open flap that it contained two items.

Well the other box did not contain the other two items that Amy had ordered.  It contained another wooden castle and some wooden castle furniture.  I might have a plausible explanation for the second wooden castle being sent.  After placing her order with JustPretend.com on May 18, Amy was expecting an email confirmation by May 19.  When an email confirmation did not arrive, she called JustPretend.com's toll free number to check on the status of her order.  The service assistant told her that they had no record of her order and that she should try placing the order again.  Amy placed the order again and enclosed a comment indicating that this was a duplicate order and that only one of the orders should be fulfilled.  (I called JustPretend.com on May 22 to find out the status of both the order and the duplicate order and the service assistant found no record of either one).

This is the type of experience that I have heard so much about and never personally enjoyed.  People have asked me on occasion whether I have had any bad online shopping experiences and up until the last few days, the best that I could offer was that some orders had come a little late or that pineapple chunks weren't delivered with my grocery order.  Well, hallelujah, I have finally had a wonderfully terrible experience shopping (I would categorize the one with AutonationDirect.com as despicable); the kind that most people perceive to be the norm.  Look at all we got in the JustPretend.com exchange:

1) No confirmation email when one was promised,
2) No record of order found by JustPretend.com several days after order was placed,
3) Part of order shows up out of nowhere over three weeks after order was placed,
4) A box containing the partial order is wide open on one end of the box,
5) Two units of an item are delivered when only one was ordered, and
6) An item that was not ordered is delivered.

Wow, what a great Noosie experience.  This one rivals the one earned by Zoots with respect to the mystery clothes that kept being redelivered to our house.

And as would be said by Rod Roddy, announcer on the game show The Price is Right, "but that's not all Bruce...you've also won a brand new CAAAAR had another Noosie experience.  Then, I gush, "I can't believe it, I can't believe it" as I reach out to give Bob Barker (no, not this one) a big hug.  (Of course, I know not to give Bob a kiss -- ever notice that he is very rarely kissed by contestants?)  Rod would continue, "Homeruns has earned a Noosie this time.  First, they never replied to your email from May 26 when you asked for clarification about the procedures for modifying an order.  Second, it appears that you should have been able to make a change on your May 26 when the customer service person said it was too late to do so."

I placed a grocery order with Homeruns this evening (it took about 12 minutes in total as I was buying quite a few items).  The order confirmation that appeared on the monitor read as follows:

"Your order will be delivered between (time and date withheld).
Your Order Confirmation Number is (number withheld).

An e-mail confirmation was sent to celtics@bu.edu.

As a reminder, HomeRuns accepts manufacturers' coupons and bottle
returns at the time of delivery.

To change your order before delivery please call 1-800-882-7867 and a
Customer Representative will assist you. Changes can be made up until
the time your order is sent for processing, which begins at 9pm Sunday -
Friday."

When I called to make an order modification on May 26 at 8:40pm (i.e., before 9:00pm), my recollection was indeed correct that the modification procedures suggested that I could modify my order as long as I called before 9:00pm.  I like Homeruns; as it was the recipient of my first online order from the "official" inception of the Internet Shopping 24/7 Project, this was a tough Noosie to give.  Think of it as tough love.