Missing Packages

I am going to gripe a bit more today because I am curious to know if this is happening to anyone else. I’ve placed three orders in the past four months that have yet to be filled. I think I mentioned the first one, which was an order through Accuquilt for a 2-1/2" Studio strip cutter die. I placed that back in November. It never arrived and frankly, I forgot I had ordered it. The dies went on sale again in January and I remembered that I needed one, so I ordered the same die again. I looked at my account history and realized that I now had two orders for the same die, so I contacted Accuquilt. I asked where the first die was and if I could cancel one of the orders. I was told that no, once the order was in the pipeline, it could not be canceled, so I am going to receive two of the same die. According to the rep who answered my inquiry, the (new) Chinese supplier was having trouble filling orders. I was told it would be shipped in mid-February.

Here we are, a month later, and still no dies. I have given Accuquilt over $300 and have nothing to show for it. (The dies are not cheap and I bought them on sale.) I contacted them again a few days ago. Same response, although this time they said they would give me a 25% refund on the purchase price, so that’s something, I suppose.

Back at the beginning of February, I placed an order with Pacific Trimming for some interfacing. I thought I might include it in my class kits, but the order still hasn’t been filled. Pacific Trimming is not some fly-by-night operation. They have a store in New York’s garment district. I ordered three Bosal interfacings, all of which were listed on their website. None of them was noted as being out of stock. It’s now six weeks after I placed the order and still nothing. I e-mailed them to find out the status of the order.

[I am beginning to think that interfacings—other than the same eight kinds of Pellon sold at Hobby Lobby—are unicorns. Why so much trouble sourcing them?]

I get that there might be supply issues from time to time, orders get lost, etc., but it seems that a lot of online retailers are listing and selling items without knowing if they will be able to fill the order. I suspect much of that has to do with “just in time” inventory; they don’t want to keep items on hand so they wait to get them until a customer places an order. However, if the retailer can’t get an item, or if it takes longer than a few weeks to fill the order, then it behooves the retailer to contact the customer and let them know what is happening. The customer shouldn’t have to be chasing down orders.

What’s even more galling is that Accuquilt has put NOTHING on their website to indicate that if you order a Studio die, you might be waiting for months to receive it. They are knowingly continuing to sell those dies even though they can’t fill the orders.

Is AI causing this? Can AI fix it? (I have no love for AI, let me tell you.) I follow Alaska Airlines on Twitter. AI bots now respond to tweets. Seattle got snow yesterday and Sea-Tac—which is the Alaska Airlines hub—had all sorts of issues with delayed flights. Someone posted on Twitter that when they called the customer service line, they were told there was an eight-hour wait for their call to be answered and they couldn’t get help through the app. They tagged Alaska Airlines on the tweet and the bot responded—by telling them to call the customer service number. (?!?!?!?!)

It’s a dystopian hellscape some days. Don’t get me started on QuickBooks. I called our account’s “payroll expert” the other day with a question and she couldn’t answer it. And it wasn’t a complicated question. These are first-world problems, I know, but this is the water I swim in right now.

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I-90 over Snoqualmie Pass was closed overnight. The road was too treacherous to travel and there were a lot of spinouts and accidents yesterday. Highway 2 over Stevens Pass was also closed because people who went up to ski parked in the highway and the plows couldn’t get through. Aside from the utter selfishness and idiocy of some people, think about the fact that the two main routes for getting in and out of Seattle from west to east are impassable. That leaves I-5 north to Canada or south to Portland. To the west is Puget Sound and then the Pacific Ocean. That’s it. There are no back roads or surface streets over the Cascades.

We got snow as well, about 6". It is supposed to be 52F on Tuesday and in the low 60s next weekend. My mother was in a windstorm in Cleveland yesterday. March is really trying to make a statement.