Dirty Words

Here’s a funny: For the first time ever I used the “Notes” box on the USPS click-n-ship site to explain that I changed a customer’s chosen carrier because UPS won’t ship to his PO box. Click-n-ship returned an error. That usually means that the address is invalid or I forgot to tick the stupid return address checkbox that ought to be ticked by default. Nope, this time the reason was “Profanity detected”.

O RLY? I scoured my short sentence for any combination of letters that could be construed as a cuss word. Nothing. On a hunch I changed “UPS” to “your chosen carrier.” Success! Turns out that “UPS” is a dirty word at the post office.

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The Mini-Briefcase Business Card Holder – one of my flagship products with SKU 16 -- came perilously close to selling out when my wholesaler unexpectedly went out of stock. This is the product that I sold to Lord Yabinghoo in last week’s post. Demand really picked up after I exchanged links with The Corporate Gifts Company UK, now my #1 referring site (ahead of Facebook). You’d think the “UK” part would be a deal-breaker, but apparently not. Anyway, they send me a lot of traffic so show them some love.

Speaking of link exchanges, I’m always happy to swap with anyone who has a legitimate site (not a link farm) that doesn’t compete with mine. Such swaps are more about raising your search engine ranking than getting referrals, but any traffic they generate is always a welcome surprise. Email me if you’d like to promote your site here, and tell me where you’ll list Curio City in return. Google loves links.

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My wireless HP Officejet printer suffered a terminal paper jam last Saturday. After removing the accursed paper – in pieces – the printer would not come back. Hours of troubleshooting and more than a few dirty words eventually squared things away except for one detail: It won’t print in black. I think the print head was damaged in the jam.

The printer was exactly four days past one year old, and technically off warranty. I tried anyway. Hunting down HP’s online/email customer service contact was a trial in itself, but I eventually filed my claim.

On Monday a customer service representative named Garret phoned (why do they always phone when the initial contact is online?). After some back-and-forth he promised to FedEx me a replacement print head. On Wednesday FedEx delivered an envelope containing an empty box, packing material, a return label, instructions for returning the defective part, and a packing list enumerating an empty box, packing material, a label, and an instruction letter. You’ll notice that there is no print head in that list.

I emailed Garret again to see if I should expect the print head under separate cover. On Thursday he phoned to offer me a whole new printer, with no need to return the old one. It arrived today. Setting up a new wireless printer is not trivial; it took 90 minutes. But hey: New $90 printer! Kudos to HP. You really can offer excellent customer service when you have deep enough pockets.