My Battle With BargainCell

My lovely fiancée and I both recently got wonderful new phones. Since these phones have pretty impressive GPSs and using handheld cell phones while driving is now illegal, I decided a great present to us both would be cell phone holders. I got two of them for less than $2 each from an Amazon.com seller, BargainCell. I knew full well I'd be getting what I paid for, but I ended up having an email battle with their customer service after the holder proved to be worthless.

Here's part of my Amazon review:

This product basically can't do anything it's supposed to do. Before turning off my street, I hit a rather insignificant bump and my phone slipped right out. I replaced it by tightening it much more so it had a death grip on my device.

Seemingly overcoming the first hurdle, I ran promptly into Design Flaw #1. Yeah, a 6" pedestal shaft is all well and good, but when the car is moving, the shaft causes small vibrations the shake the phone to the point where there's no point in having it mounted anywhere, since you can't even look at it.

Just as I was getting fed up with it, I discovered Design Flaw #2: the suction cup isn't designed for a heavy phone held 6" away. It came right off the window. I have since attempted numerous places to reattach but the suction cup never remains fixed to the window.

So, yeah, it's a piece of crap, which didn't exactly surprise me.

Now here is my corrspondence with BargainCell:

Me: I purchased the Car Mount Cell Phone Holder ... recently. In the description, it says that you can clip it to the car's air vent. Is there some sort of vent clip that was supposed to be included? If so, I didn't receive one. If not, how exactly does one clip the holder to the vent? Thank you.

Them: Hi thanks for contacting us. Please try the following instructions:

1. Make sure the small switch near the suction cup is push down toward the suction cup.
2. Push the rubber suction cup against your windshield
3. While pushing the suction cup, lift the switch near the suction cup up.
4. The Car mount windshield should be secured now, if not please make sure your windshield and the suction cup are dust free, or clean with water. Then repeat the steps above.

Me: Thank you for carefully reading my email and responding quickly. I especially like the part where you answered my original questions, which I will provide again so you can see how apt your answer is: "In the description, it says that you can clip it to the car's air vent. Is there some sort of vent clip that was supposed to be included? If so, I didn't receive one. If not, how exactly does one clip the holder to the vent?"

Obviously no further correspondence is required.

Them: Hi thanks for contacting us. You can call us at (626)-593-5001 9AM-5PM Pacific Standard Time, Monday to Friday, to assist you with this matter.

Me: Obviously you have the time and personnel available to read my emails. I believe my questions were very clear. If the phone is the only way my questions will be answered, would you please call them, ask my questions, write down the answer, and email it back to me?

Thanks.

When they didn't respond, I took that to be a "no". So, I gave the seller a bad review. I asked them essentially 3 times a very simple question, which they ignored. Suddenly, after I gave them a 2-star review, they wrote:

Them: You recently left us negative feedback regarding the order you placed with Bargaincell on Amazon.com. You indicated that "I wrote an email to them asking a very specific question about the product and why it did not function as described. They waited days to write back & completely ignored my questions, obviously not having read my email. When I responded asking again for answers, they responded by telling me to call a #. No. I e-mailed them specifically because I didn't want to call. Questions still unaswered. ". We are sorry for this inconvenience. Please let us know if you would like a refund or replacement for this inconvenience. Thank you for your time and consideration, we look forward to hearing from you soon.

Me: All I want is for my questions to be answered, which I will paste here and ask a third time:

In the description, it says that you can clip it to the car's *air vent*. Is there some sort of *vent clip* that was supposed to be included? If so, I didn't receive one. If not, how exactly does one clip the holder to the *vent*?

Please do not respond with instructions on how to use the suction cup or what phone number to call.

Them: Hello Timmortal, we are very sorry for this late response to your question. This item does not come with the vent attachment. Since this item was listed incorrectly we will refund you in full for this item. We will also not ask for this item back. Please keep this as a courtesy for our mistake. Please let me know if we can do anything further for you. Happy New Year!

It's nice of them to eat the $4, but it shouldn't take me 3 or 4 tries to get a question answered.