Just last week I was looking for a hard drive on Buy.com and found what I was looking for. When I was checking out I was offered an extra $10 off if I signed up and used Google Checkout. I thought, not bad, save an extra 10 bucks...ok...I'll bite.

Well first problem is that I did not received my $10 discount. I wrote to buy.com and asked them what happened. They said it wasn't their problem and it was something I did wrong or it was a Google problem. Well, it was offered on buy.com's website and I purchased fropm buy.com so I would think that since they offered it as an option, they should help fix the problem. Buy.com at first tried to tell me it was void if I already had a regular Google account, like for email or anything. Problem is the buy.com website very CLEARLY stated, in no uncertain terms, it was for a GOOGLE CHECKOUT account. See here. They actually argued about it even after I copy and pasted the exact offer on their site (and pasted that same URL).

So. I took it up with Google who then said it was not their problem, it was buy.com. If you searched on Google Checkout site, they even claimed that offer was expired. See here. Then they tried to tell me I didn;t sign up on the buy.com website, when in fact I had. I asked them to recheck and tell me what date I did sign up, and from what site. Well, they at least admitted their mistake and said, oops, yes you did, we will credit your account.

It gets better...not. This back and forth took 3 days. In the mean time, my order has been 'In Process' for 4 days  now. No status, no ability to validate when or if it will ship. When I ordered, the item was still in stock. Now it's not. YOu can't look up the order on buy.com website, you ahve to go through the google checkout website. The only way to check on an order is to send an email to Google, who then sends an email to buy.com, who might send one back to Google...you get the picture. So, the order is still in limbo land and I have no idea what the status is, other than 'In Process'.

So, long story short, I have purchased from buy.com in the past and it was very easy. I can see all my past orders, they give me a link to shipping and to current status. Overall I hve never had issues before.

Bottom line, a very implementation of a good idea. It is kludgy and a pain in the ass for the customer and just adds too many steps in the buying process that can get screwed up...and from what I see on other sites, it's messing up a LOT. So, my advice, avoid it....you spend far more time and money in frustration than the discount is worth.