Update: Looks like the changes that I was recommended to do didn’t resolve the issue. We shall see what GoDaddy support can do.
Well looks like the fun doesn’t stop around here. I have been getting reports of users getting “500 Internal Server Errors” this seemed to be happening for Firefox, IE, Safari. I did some googling and found out that the error is an issue with the hosting provider I use running out of memory allocated to PHP which is running WordPress. I have made the changes that the other sites have recommended and next time that the services are restarted for this server that should resolve the issue. So hopefully the GoDaddy Support team gets an easy close for the support ticket I opened.
To those that get to read blog posts from this via RSS. I wanted to let you know that RSS will be down for approx 72hrs while all the feeds get moved from Feedburner to Google that has not purchased Feedburner. On a side not that means if you are reading this via RSS this doesn’t really apply as the move has worked as expected. To those reading on the site that are going “RSS? HUH? Did you insult my mama?” Well then it doesn’t really apply to you either. I guess what I am saying is that I have nothing to say. But I am working on updating the look of the site yet again. So stay tuned as this is a work in progress in realtime. So changes could come every day or every couple of days to the design. So not really much to see or say.
So Saturday is Valentines Day. I am going to write my experience thus far. I happened to be watching the Super Bowl and saw this rather funny commercial toward the end of the game.
So I got thinking hey this sounds like a good idea. This site looks they do flowers correctly. I think I could make a great impression with flowers like this. So next day I went to Teleflora.com and ordered the.
They show the default flower setup to look like this.
I paid an extra $10 for the deluxe set which they show on the Upgrade your Gift Page to add the following.
I also tossed in some balloons and a medium box of chocolates to my order. Which added up in price rather quickly. I placed my order on Feb 2nd and 1:15pm EST according to the site. I requested delivery for today Thursday Feb 2nd. Well that part goes of fine they delivered them today. But they forgot the Chocolates. They didn’t deliver them at all. I also was sent a picture of what my girlfriend had delivered to her office.
How in the world does that look like a Deluxe Flower Arrangement from what I ordered above. I can go to Safeway and get a better flower arrangenent then that for what I paid. That doesn’t look deluxe at all.
The description on the site for this arrangement reads as follows.
This elegantly romantic bouquet is a win-win gift of love. You’ll win her heart with lush flowers in a ruby red heart vase she’ll treasure. And she could win gloriously real rubies in Teleflora’s Rubies & Roses Sweepstakes.*
The radiant arrangement includes pink stargazer lilies, red roses, miniature pink carnations, red carnations and pink waxflower accented with lemon leaf and myrtle.
Delivered in a stunning clear glass vase decorated with an etched “necklace” bearing a ruby red heart jewel.
Bouquet is approximately 14.5” W X 17.5” H
Item number: 09V100B
So according to this I am supposed to have a Clear Vase with a “necklace” on it. They appear to have not been able to construct what they are clearly trying to sell me. Hmm maybe there is some loophole I am missing. Let’s take a look at their fine print.
So they have a “Substitution Policy” that states.
Substitution Policy Occasionally, substitutions of flowers or containers are necessary due to temporary, regional availability issues. If this is the case with the gift you’ve selected, our experienced florists will ensure that the style, theme and color scheme of your arrangement is preserved and will only substitute items of equal or higher value.
Hmmm this doesn’t appear to be the case. You state a “Clear Glass Vase” It appears I got a dark short vase. It just seems like very little fluff when I was expecting a great deal more. Part of me wonders if I am just suffering from that symptom I had as a child where I saw I got a Tony the Tiger diver on the outside of a Cereal box only to discover it was an Orange Tube. But I feel like I am paying a great deal more then $3 for a cereal box in this case.
So moving on I get a phone call from the girlfriend about how excited she is and thrilled to get the flowers and all of her coworkers were jealous. So I feel on one front mission accomplished. But on the other front I feel like I need to fight this battle. So Battle #1.
The Chocolates.
I ordered a “Medium Box of Chocolates” for $19.99. I could probably order a better set then what they had offered but I was going for the complete package solution. So I wasn’t exactly wanting to coordinate that delivery as well. So I went for this. So I get a phone call around 1:30pm saying “I love you so great my jaw dropped I am told.” I ask about what she got and she said 2 balloons and some flowers. I asked what about Chocolate? She said I didn’t get any. I got rather pissed off about this so I called the company.
Most websites don’t have numbers to call right on the front page. This made it easier so I call them up and press 2 to get to some guy that is hard to understand. I let him know about the situation and he apologizes and says they can refund my account and someone will call me from research. He first tries to refund $9.99. I am like no that’s what I paid for the two balloons you need to refund $19.99 for your “Medium Chocolates” he said no they are $9.99. I went to the site and logged in and I said I paid $74.95 for the flowers and $9.99 for the Balloons and $19.99 for the chocolates on top of all your other fees. He finally agree to refund the $19.99. I would have preferred they just tell their delivery guy. “Hey you screwed up. Go deliver the chocolates.” I would have rather had this and got my service fee refunded. Since that seems like a better deal to me. Because I am still paying for the screw up.
So now I wait for their research department to call me. I will post about that when they call me back. But until then.
Teleflora.com is on my Fail List. I need to bring that page back.
Update 2-13-2009: A day later I still have not heard anything back. I got to see the flowers in person last night and they were even more disappointing then I had expected. I am going to call and complain again today. I feel like I totally got ripped off with this.
I have moved the site over to the new webhost. I still need to move the other domains that reference this site.
tristanpipo.net, siriusdude.com, siriusdude.net, xmdude.com, xmdude.net. They will still come up but there is currently a bit of an issue with this as they are hosted on another server that redirects to this one. So delays are still in place. Also the file.tristanpipo.com and me.tristanpipo.com are still in the process of being moved over since the DNS changed from the previous webhost to the new one.
So hopefully the speed increase works well for everyone. Happy Weekend!
Hello Everyone! As I am sure you are all very aware that this site is very very very slow. My hosting company recommended I make some changes to the database and change some functionality of wordpress. So I did what they asked and the site still takes 15-30 seconds to load. Which this site is not very big it should take just a few seconds to load. So I am entertaining the idea of a new webhost. So I signed up with a GoDaddy account just to see what they can offer me for the time being.
TristanPipo.com will be the first site that I have to be moved over to that hosting company. Most of this transition will probably be translucent to you. Since it will probably go from the site loading slow to the site loading fast.
So I apologize it has taken me so long to get around to this. It has been pretty much the main reason why I haven’t been blogging. It is just painfully slow for the time being.
That shall be changed soon enough. And I will probably break a few things in the process. =).
