Larry L wrote:
I'm a loner ... not "anti"-social, just non-social. I find many things
in life improved by the absence of humanity

BUT ... not everything


today I set out to buy a new digital camera, I had reseached and knew what
model I wanted, researched some more and found the best price.

I filled out the online order form with credit card number, shipping
address, etc and clicked "submit"

Unaware of the magnitude of my own stupidity, I tried to "multi-task" as the
next page loaded on my dial-up. After a minute, I clicked an X to close
a page and it proved to be the browser, by mistake :-( Now I had no
idea if the order had been processed or not, I hadn't seen a confirmation
page but was that because of my error? and my camera was on it's way, my
card billed?

So I tried the 1-800 number shown on the website for "customer service"
A FULL HOUR and 1/2 later I finally got to talk to a human, after being
disconnected a few times, getting busy signals many times, and getting left
on hold for at LEAST a total of an hour before some of the disconnects and
including 27 ( timed ) minutes the last long wait that was finally answered.


I have determined that "customer service" IS a good place to have humans
available to talk to in large numbers ....


Larry L ( who really doesn't find much of our modern high tech culture to be
an 'improvement' ... including phone trees and much of online life,
including shopping )



Your experience is "par for the course", from many of the online camera
dealers. I've had 2 similar experiences, that ended in my canceling the
order. Even if the retailer has a good "rating", I would steer clear of
most, unless you can get some real feedback. i've had good luck with
Abe's in Maine