Dysfunctional Pet Drugs

What a pleasure it's been doing business with this company. Though I'm not sure if they really are a company or just a guy in his mother's basement with pallets of stolen pet food.

Now that Ninja/Mr. Bitey needs special, kidney-friendly food, I have to find it online or else pay out the ass to buy it from the vet.

I found a couple of vendors - Pet Food Direct and another outfit, Discount Pet Drugs. Pet Food Direct was super easy - found the food, entered the vet info, checked out - package arrived a few days later.

With Dysfunctional Pet Drugs, I found the food, entered the vet info, checked out, and waited. And waited. In a day or so I got a cryptic email:

Hello,

You have not selected the food order option for shipping. Your shipping cost may go up. The shipping cost is $12.99 determined by weight. This only applies to pet food orders as stated on the website.

Please reply to this e-mail for your order to ship Shipping process will takes 7-8 business days for Food Items. If any questions us a call at xxx-xxx-xxxx

Thanks
Petrick

Never even noticed a "food order option" in the check out process, so I replied to ask for more information. I received this response:

Hello

We apologize
You have not selected the Food Orders option in Shipping method as below :

Via Food Orders
Your current invoice is as below :
[boring invoice info]

Please reply this email to ship out your order.
Thanks
David

As shown below. Below what? Where? There IS no "Food Orders option" to select below, you jackass! Nevertheless, I replied and approved the order for shipping. That was on February 7th.

I received this response the same day:

Hello

Thank you for sending the approval. Shortly, we will ship your order and send you the tracking number by email. Shipping process will takes 7-8 business days for Food Items.

Thanks
David

I'm still waiting for the email with the tracking number. Yesterday I sent an email asking for a status update. I received this response:

Hello

We apologize for any delay. Shortly, we will inquire your order from shipping department and inform you by email.

Thanks
David

When I didn't hear back from "shipping department," I sent another inquiry this morning:

Hi again…
Still waiting for a status update - or the product – really, I’d rather have the product I’ve already paid you for.

This is not good. My cat needs this food – I can’t just run down to the store to get it. Please let me know when this will arrive and why it’s taken so long. I have to say, I won’t be ordering from you ever again. This is totally unacceptable.

You charged me $13 for shipping which is already an astronomical charge, then the product doesn’t arrive for weeks.

How do you stay in business? This *is* a business, isn’t it, or were you going to donate the food? Because if you’re going to make it a charitable donation to my cat, that’s very thoughtful, but not worth much if it never arrives.
-J

I haven't received a response, but I did get a call from a wonderfully polite UPS robot letting me know that I'll be receiving a shipment tomorrow that someone must be present to sign for.

No idea if it'll be the pet food or a multi-million dollar check from an anonymous patron of snarky blog writing. To be totally honest, I'm hoping for the latter.

Update 2/25/10: Turns out, the UPS Robot Call was for something else. Still no word from DPD about where my order is. Complete and total failure.