ANOTHER UPDATE: The case got fully resolved. TastingRoom issued me credit for the wines I didn’t like, for both accounts. This feature is actually advertised on their website as a part of their product offering and seems to be available to every client. I can confirm this works as described.

They also mentioned that the first customer representative to whom I have talked to actually meant that I had two accounts with different email addresses. The one that didn’t work contained a typo. Unfortunately, this is not how I’ve read the response. At first, I have understood it as a complaint that I had two accounts registered to the same email address (the screenshot of that message and my initial reaction is available in this article down below). I can only say that the lack of mutual understanding of both involved parties was the main reason why this issue hasn’t been resolved right away.

UPDATE: After reaching out to TastingRoom again through their Facebook account, a representative of their customer support contacted me. They said that the actual problem I was having was due to one of my accounts having been registered with an typo in email address.

Which means three things to me. First of all, I am the one to blame for triggering the whole situation. It’s always good to double-check the entered email address for correctness. Secondly, had I not tried to contact the service again, I would have never discovered the actual culprit of the duplicate shipment. Which says a lot about the quality of the customer support interaction I received when I sent the first request. And, lastly, a rule I will remember myself: never bill a client without confirmed email address.

Below is the full original article:

One day I stumbled upon an article on Huffington Post. It said that there is finally “the first wine club to get it right”. Which got me interested.

I like to drink wine occasionally, and decided to give it a try. “Buy your tasting kit for just $6.95”, it said. That doesn’t sound too bad, does it?

I registered via Facebook and made my first order. A day later or so, I wanted to check the tracking information for the shipment. But I couldn’t log in with Facebook: their website claimed that my login credentials weren’t found. “Well, maybe my account didn’t get registered in the end?”, I thought. A moment later, I registered via the usual form by providing the same email I have shared via Facebook account before. Same shipment address, same tasting kit order.

Several days later, I received the kit. Which I found quite exciting except for the fact that it had 4 red wines and 2 white wines.

A short disclaimer: my taste in wine would make any wine critic cringe in disgust. I only drink white and rosé, and among them my all-time favorites are Riesling & Gewürztraminer (both French) and White Zinfandel, usually from California.

I chose the wines I liked and provided feedback for TastingRoom’s website so that I could receive a full package of wine tailored to my taste.

And then I got another wine tasting kit. Which was odd. I assumed that my account ordered the kit two times: the first time when I registered via Facebook, and the second time when I registered with exactly the same email again, but via the usual form. “Well, at least now my two accounts are the same since I have the same email”, I thought.

Some time later, I received an email about the full “Club” shipment departing to my place. My card was billed $168.99 and shortly I received a hefty box with 12 bottles of wine. I can’t say that I liked it very much, though 2 kinds of wine were good. As every kind of wine comes in two bottles, that makes 4 out of 12 bottles that I want to drink. Paying three times $50 for 4 bottles of wine didn’t sound like a good idea and I canceled my account. “That’s it”, I thought, “going to the local store which is just around the corner is a much better idea, and at least I get what I really want to drink”.

That would have been the end of the story, but about two weeks later I got another package. Supposedly, 12 bottles of wine, again. “Maybe they have already sent the next order before I canceled the account?” was my first thought. Well, no, I only have one Club order according to their website:

Screenshot from my WineTasting.com account

And this time, no email notification that the shipment has been sent. No invoice. It caught me totally by surprise. And it billed my card $168.99, again.

I emailed the website support, saying that I had canceled my account and that I’d be glad to ship the wine back to them. To which they responded:

Customer support attitude

Which actually sounds like the representative of the company is blaming me for using the same email two times. Instead of asking their Web developers if they have heard anything about unique constraints in the database. And, at least giving me some credit for reporting a bug that most probably affects their sales and cancellations.

I didn’t mind any of that, but their demand to pay the shipment charges did make me unhappy for a moment. The box is heavy and I don’t drive, so I would need to schedule a pick up for it and pay considerable fee just to get rid of it. I tried to make it clear whom I consider to be responsible for the situation and how I wanted to resolve it:

My response with suggestion to bill the recipient

To which they replied with clear insistence to pay the shipment costs and total denial of the bug:

It seems I’m the one to blame here

Which in turn leads to the question: am I being too picky after getting used to the quality of customer support provided by Amazon, IKEA, Jawbone, my local wine shop and the likes? Or is it the company representative who just tries to fight off annoying customers who report bugs instead of trying to keep the client who have already spent money with them?