How shopping for two Christmas presents made us want to never visit Disney World again
This is the long and unfinished saga of our attempt to buy two Christmas presents from DisneyStore.com. What should have been two straightforward transactions resulting in sweet holiday surprises for our family members has instead become a disheartening ordeal that has soured us on the prospect of spending further time, energy or money on the Disney brand. We have entered an echoing guest services purgatory in which every email we send and phone call we make is met with a similar tone-deaf script of unhelpfulness.
We just wanted to buy two hats and an ornament.
A Sweet Surprise
Back in 2013, my partner got an unexpected bonus at work and decided to treat his family of 8 (mom, dad, sister, brother-in-law, and two nieces plus the two of us) to a trip to Disney World. His nieces were four- and seven-years-old at the time and had never been on a big vacation or to a theme park before. All of the adults in the family coordinated and planned a big reveal for the two girls: when they opened their presents on Christmas day, they would find Mickey Mouse ear hats and we would announce they were going to Disney World!
At least, that was the plan. We ordered the Mickey Mouse ear hats online at DisneyStore.com and they didn't arrive on time due to a shipping delay.
Not the end of the world. We made the big announcement with a separately shipped Disney ornament that had made it to us in time, and the girls were ecstatic.
We did write an email to Disneystore.com Guest Services about the shipping delay, and they wrote back with the following email, offering us a $15.00 online gift card.
On Sun, Jan 5, 2014 at 8:00 PM, GiftCards@DisneyStore.com <GiftCards@disneystore.com> wrote:
We were satisfied with this resolution; shipping delays happen, after all, and they were prompt in trying to make it up to us.
But then...
Things Get Complicated
We had a wonderful time at Disney World. So much so, that we decided to take the whole family (six adults and two kids) back again this Christmas 2015. Once again we set out to organize some big reveals; this time not just for the girls but for their grandmother as well. First, we tried to order a Christmas ornament from Disneystore.com to give to my partner's mom with the news. Since we still had that $15 Disneystore.com Merchandise Online Gift Card from before, we tried to use it toward our purchase.
But this is what happens when you try to use a gift card on Disneystore.com. You enter your gift card number, but unlike every other modern shopping website, the system doesn't immediately deduct the gift card amount from your total. In fact, apart from the text field in which you enter the card number, there's no indication anywhere else on the page that the page acknowledges your expectation that you won't be paying full price. If you want want reassurance that your gift card is valid, you have to click on an additional link to check its balance.
Doing so leads you to this page. And if, like us, you were never issued a Security Code, there is no way of knowing whether the card is valid, let alone its balance.
So we emailed DisneyStore.com Guest Services to get this sorted out.
From: Z
Sent: 7/22/2015 7:40 PM
To: giftcards@disneystore.com; guest.services@disneystore.com
Subject: Re: DisneyStore.com Merchandise Online Gift Card
Hi,
Last year I had a very disappointing experience with a DisneyStore.com purchase and was issued a DisneyStore.com Merchandise Gift Card by customer service. The DisneyStore.com Merchandise Gift Card number is xxxxxxxxxxxxx525 for $15.00. I tried to use the Gift Card just now on the website, and it is not deducting the gift card amount from the order total when I enter the gift card number and continue with the checkout process. Further, I am not able check the gift card balance following the prompts on your website because I was never issued a security code.
I was trying to order the "Mickey Mouse and Tinker Bell Light-Up Ear Hat Ornament - Disney Parks 2015" as a gift and needed to place my order tonight to receive it in time for an event. I am very frustrated that my first subpar experience with DisneyStore.com has also turned into this second ordeal.
I hope you can help to resolve this issue with a working gift card number and assistance with expedited shipping.
Thank you for your time.
Best,
Z
From: DisneyStore.com Guest Services <guest.services@disneystore.com>
Date: Thu, Jul 23, 2015 at 1:37 PM
Subject: Re: DisneyStore.com Merchandise Online Gift Card
To: Z
Dear Z,
We are delighted to have received your recent email and we appreciate your interest in DisneyStore.com.
Regrettably, our site only recognize credit cards and PayPal, therefore you will see the full amount charged to your credit card. We do not charge our Guest until their order ships, which is when you will see the deduction in the payments.
Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have further questions. We look forward to future opportunities to be of service to you.
Sincerely,
Taneshia
The DisneyStore.com Team
Huh? Nothing about that response made us feel like Taneshia spent more than 30 seconds reading our email.
Time was running out to order the ornament. We decided to get to the bottom of this by calling Guest Services directly.
I spoke to Annie on the phone. She was polite and apologetic, but ultimately unhelpful. She explained the limitations of the gift card system and offered to help us check our gift card balance. It was a nice gesture at the time, but ultimately turned out to be an empty one--to this day we have never received any correspondence from Disneystore.com Guest Services with our gift card balance.
At this point it seemed like a lost cause to try to buy the ornament; we would need to pay for expedited shipping (which cost as much as the ornament itself) and we weren't able to find out our gift card balance. I thanked Annie but told her we probably wouldn't be using the gift card or buying anything from Disneystore.com again. Her response to this was an upbeat pitch about the terrific sales Disneystore.com often has, including one that just passed for a generous percentage off the entire site. So not only were we not buying the ornament or getting to use our gift card, we had just missed a great sale. Thanks.
Disney's customer service is legendary, which made this frustrating inability to get any assistance doubly disappointing. We wrote a letter to headquarters and sent it via USPS.
Meanwhile, before it was even possible for our letter to have reached Disneystore.com headquarters, we received this cookie-cutter email.
On Fri, Jul 24, 2015 at 3:43 PM, DisneyStore.com Guest Services <guest.services@disneystore.com> wrote:
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Disney Guest,
At your earliest convenience please contact us at 1-800-328-0368so we may assist you.
Thanks,
Princess
Thanks again and may your day be MAGIC!!!
The DisneyStore.com Team
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So we called. It was a bust, as you can see in our reply below.
Also, was her name Princess? No, it was just a form letter where the sender clearly forgot to add her name. Cute branding fail.
From: Z
Sent: 7/24/2015 3:17 PM
To: guest.services@disneystore.com
Subject: Re: DisneyStore.com Merchandise Online Gift Card
Princess -
I just called this number as instructed. After waiting on hold, a representative answered but didn't know what the email was referring to. They re-explained how the gift card system worked and made no effort to look up the details of my case. No resolution was reached. It was a thorough waste of my time and I left the call feeling even more upset about my experience with DisneyStore.com Guest Services. If you require my further attention, please send the information in an email.
- Z
And what do we get in response? Another unhelpful rehashing of how the gift card system works.
From: DisneyStore.com Guest Services <guest.services@disneystore.com>
Date: Sat, Jul 25, 2015 at 3:11 PM
Subject: Re: DisneyStore.com Merchandise Online Gift Card
To: Z
Dear Z,
Once you apply your gift card to your order, the total will not show the new amount with the gift card being applied. If you'd like, you may apply the gift card to your order, place the order, then contact us to see if the gift card was properly placed.
Sincerely,
Jedi Master Darren
May The Force Be With You!
The Disneystore.com Team
And then a week later it seems headquarters has received our letter and sends us this email.
From: Presidental Service <presidential.service@disneystore.com>
Date: Thu, Jul 30, 2015 at 1:09 PM
Subject: Disney Presidential Service Ref #: 31687404
To:
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Dear M,
We are so sorry to hear of your recent Disneystore.com shopping experience. I would appreciate the opportunity to speak with you. At your earliest convenience, please provide us with your phone number and the best time to call.
I look forward to your reply.
Sincerely,
Keyona
D23 Guest Relations
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Will we continue to spin our wheels in an endless cycle of emails and phone calls with Disneystore.com Guest Services? Hopefully not.
Will we cancel our upcoming trip to Disney World? At this point we're hardly feeling warm and fuzzy spending thousands of dollars on Disney when they've shown little to no interest in helping us to spend $30.
What do we expect? A little magic would be nice.
To be continued....
