Google Checkout is a piece of crap.
I learned a thing or two about a business’ core competencies in my Business 660 Strategy course last semester. I can definitely say that Google Checkout is not one of them. Having been a Google-fan since day one, I really, really struggled to write this blog… but the truth must be told.
Google Checkout is a piece of crap.
You’d think that having a market capitalization of 145 billlllioooooooon dollars might warrant some half-decent software, but apparently, this is living proof that there is absolutely no direct correlation between the two (maybe proof of an inverse one).
Having been suckered by their ploy to gain market share (using Google Checkout meant another $10 off my purchase price), on December 7th, I decided to purchase a TMX Tickle Me Elmo doll from ToysRUs.com. Having purchased the item, I received a confirmation email in my Gmail account indicating that my purchase was “In Progress“.
A few days passed and the purchase status hadn’t changed. I called ToysRUs customer care, and they immediately recognized that Google hadn’t sent the order to them - hence, the invalid order number and static progress indicator. They indicated they would shoot an email off to Googs to see what the problem was. Satisfied with their answer, I sat and waited for an email from Google, aka recognizing how they fu$#ed up.
Three days later, and not surprisingly, nothing.
I decided to call ToysRUs once again, and their system indicated that an email had been sent to Google requesting the status of my order. I find it completely ironic that the ToysRUs back office software was more accurate than Google’s! Unable to even remotely contact a real person at Google (I know, I know, enginerds have no personality), I asked ToysRUs if they would still honor the Tickle Me Elmo price. Unfortunately, at this point, the toy was sold out.
So here I am, waiting for my order status to get out of “In Progress” without any hope of fulfilling my order, and worst of all, nobody at Google can tell me what happened. Actually, they probably could, but they just don’t have a customer presence to tell me what the f happened. I’m not sure who thought it would be a brilliant move to unleash untested software for the holiday season, but I can tell you I’m sticking to Paypal.
I honestly thought that maybe, just maybe, it was a server glitch and I was one of the unlucky few affected. But performing a simple search (using Google), you can find similar experiences like here, here, here, here, and here - for starters. I could probably spend all night aggregating these links.
Not to mention, as the last article points out, they now have my damn credit card, and I have nothing to show for it. I’m not sure if it’s because they have their hands in too many pots, but it might be that time to analyze and see what pots are actually worth stirring.
