Catalog orders can cause problems

Throughout COMBAT’s 30-year history, disputes with mail-order companies consistently have been in the top five problem areas that prompt consumers to contact us for help. Unless you are dealing with a well known and reputable company (L.L. Bean, for example), think twice before doing catalog, phone or mail-order business with a company you don’t know. Here’s just one example typical of thousands of related complaints we have handled.

A Bangor woman, Ms. T., contacted COMBAT after she had ordered a technical book from a Salem, Ore., mail-order house. Ms. T. had seen the book advertised in a professional magazine to which she subscribed. The ad stated that a limited amount of copies remained so ordering promptly was important. Ms. T. filled out the order blank and mailed it along with her check for $21.50.

When the book did not arrive within a couple of months, Ms. T. wrote the business. After hearing nothing from the Oregon merchant for another two months, the consumer wrote again. Again, the mail-order house did not reply. Frustrated and angry, Ms. T. contacted COMBAT saying, “I just don’t know what to do at this point. I have read your columns in the Bangor Daily News and I’m appealing for help. I enclose a copy of my canceled check and order form.”

The COMBAT volunteer mediation and information specialist assigned to the case promptly wrote the Oregon company on Ms. T.’s behalf requesting a reply within 14 calendar days. After two weeks passed, we had received no reply so we wrote a second letter to the business. This time we told the company that its failure to respond to COMBAT would force us to contact the attorney general of Oregon as well as the firm’s local postmaster if we did not receive a reply. When the company yet again failed to reply, COMBAT contacted the Oregon attorney general and the state’s chief postal inspector on Ms. T.’s behalf.

Approximately one month later, we received a telephone call from Ms. T. advising us that she had received a letter from the Attorney General’s Office in Oregon assuring that the book would be coming within a few days. The Oregon attorney general further explained that the business had filed for bankruptcy.

A few days later, Ms. T. called to tell us the book had arrived and thanked us for our tenacity.

Ms. T.’s case typifies several often repeated themes of this column. It is always better to buy or place an order locally than to do business with a faceless entity hundreds or thousands of miles away. One individual is easily ignored by large companies and bureaucracies. In this case, the Oregon attorney general was helpful when COMBAT made contact because over the years we have established personal relationships with virtually every state, federal and private consumer assistance agency in the United States. As the oldest nonprofit consumer organization of its type in the United States, COMBAT has developed some clout. It’s not always what you know, but whom you know.

If you have a consumer problem and need help, write Consumer Forum and we’ll go to bat for you. And if you have good problem-solving skills, are local to Bangor, and would like to donate time as a COMBAT mediation and information volunteer, call 947-3331 (option No. 3) and leave your name and local telephone number.

Consumer Forum is a collaboration of the Bangor Daily News and Northeast COMBAT/The Maine Center for the Public Interest, Maine’s membership-funded nonprofit consumer organization. For help or to request individual or business membership information write: Consumer Forum, Bangor Daily News, PO Box 1329, Bangor 04402-1329.