Ghost ship

Second update: My dearest has received it! I must say, this episode has resolved itself at last, after some really unnessecary nonsensical customer service from the folks at teddybearland.com.

Update: I have just received an email from the sales staff apologising for missing my order! I replied back and now it’s back to ‘ghost mode’ again (meaning, no reply!)

Sir Ellwood
Russ Vintage Edition
Teddy Bear Extraordinaire


Boy, oh, boy, have you ever heard of the ghost website? Not about ghosts, no, it’s about the website. A website that is:
”…Operating fine and seems to be valid and current, but in actual fact has been abandoned by its operators and owners”
And hell, yeah! I was suckered into one such website. An e-commerce website, specifically. I thought that special teddy bears might be a nice change for a birthday gift. So I did the following (it’s amazing that everything still works!):
  1. Went to www.teddybearland.com (beware!)
  2. Browsed through the shopping list, which was all intact.
  3. Show an individual teddy that was just gorgeous (Sir Ellwood).
  4. Registered as a member.
  5. Logged in as a member.
  6. Put the teddy in my shopping cart.
  7. Logged out. Decided to shop in other places for maybe better gifts.
  8. Logged back in. Put the teddy in my cart again.
  9. Checked out my shopping cart.
  10. Entered my delivery and credit card details
  11. Submitted my order.
  12. Received a confirmation email from the “sales” email a day later.
  13. …………………………………..Then the fun began……………………………..
So far, so good. I just casually sent an email back to ask for a delivery date as the automated email did not say and I HAD to make sure it will arrive before my dearest’s Birthday :)

Next day, no reply. Sent another email, this time sending it not just to sales, but the person in charge of sales, the person in charge of Customer relations and even the person in charge of the website! Just had to make sure, you see.

Next day, still no reply…That’s weird. Tomorrow is D-Day, but still no reply? My card is still not charged. Plus the website promised next day delivery. Panic?! Hell, no. They have a phone number listed, so let’s call them.

(30 minutes later….)

Help! I’m confusing myself with this international call. Is this the correct number? 603-9058 8503. Yup. Or have they mixed fax and phone. Nope. I’m still getting the “This number does not exist” nonsense. Have I flipped 8 and 5. Doesn’t work either. Aargh! I must be tired from work. Give it a break….

(15 minutes break….)

Now, let’s try again. {Super clarity phone dialing} Aargh! Still doesn’t work. Sleuthing mode. Malaysia yellow pages, maybe they have changed their phone number? Nope, no sign in the yellow pages. How about a WHOIS search? Yup, found the owner of the website, Cornerstone Consulting Sdn Bhd and a Zach Ho. Googled Cornerstone and found a non-working website with a telephone number. hurray! Nope, same “do not exist” number. Google owner’s name “Annie Lim”, found news from 2000. Aaargh! It was then, it hit me:
The website is a shell, with no human behind it! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!
So yeah, no news still either from my email or from the website’s order tracking thing.

Sigh…Thank you, dear for Plan C