Bas Bleu -- Bah!

I've been getting their catalog for a few years now, and have enjoyed going through it and dog-earring various items. Never got around to ordering, though, until this morning.

I'd seen three items I wanted for Christmas or Birthday gifts and Googled Bas Bleu to get to the website. The first Google suggestion to come up was Bas Bleu Free Shipping. Well, it wasn't exactly free shipping but was a flat rate of $4.99 shipping if the order totaled $50 or more. So I went to basbleu.com and put my three items in my cart and -- look! -- my total came to $53.97 plus $11.50 shipping. Snarl.

I phoned Bas Bleu at 800 433 1155 and was put on hold for a while until a representative came on to speak with me. I told her what was going on. She knew nothing about it and wanted to know where I heard of this reduced shipping fee. While we were on the phone, she Googled Bas Bleu Free Shipping and saw the offer. But couldn't do anything about it. She put me on hold again while she went to confer with her supervisor. Then she came back.

And she told me that she couldn't take the order on the phone and give me the discounted shipping. She said I must place the order on line, get an order number, then wait two or three hours for the order to come up in their system and then call back (and be put on hold again to wait for her, I imagine) and ask for the adjustment (waiting, I would think, a second time on hold while she talked with the supervisor). I declined.

Off I went to Amazon where I found my three items, one for $6 less, one for $3 less and one for $2 and change less, and free shipping.

Sure, I'd rather support a small, specialty business. But not at a cost of nearly $20 for three items.