So it's Christmas morning today, and I got a few beautiful books from Dark Regions Press; Sideshow by William Ollie, Wolf Hunt by Jeff Strand, and DoOvers and Detours by Steve Vernon. I apparently have a fourth book that I should get at some point - Valley of the Scarecrow by Gord Rollo.

Now I love the look of these books - top notch, and I've never had issues ordering myself from Dark Regions. My parents, however, were the ones ordering these books for me, and they have no experience ordering limiteds from the small press. Amazon is about their limit.

I wasn't worried, though, because I've expected Dark Regions to be prompt with their orders, and try to help potential customers if need be. I seem to be wrong on that, at least in this case.

My mom told me after our gifts today that when she ordered the books, she tried using her debit card. The system told her she couldn't use it (I don't know why, she just said it wouldn't let her). So she used her credit card instead, and it went through fine. However, when she looks at her account, she sees that not only has her credit card been charged, her debit has also been charged. Twice!


She says she sent numerous messages to Dark Regions via the "contact us" tab on the website, and nobody would respond to her. After a few messages, she finally saw that one of the debit charges had been removed, but not the other. She then had to go through VISA and show she had already paid for the books with her credit card to get the second debit charge removed.


Then, as it got close to the holidays, she realized that Valley of the Scarecrow still hadn't arrived. Now I just checked, and it's still listed as pre-order (although it also says ETA December 2010), so I told her that was why it hadn't arrived yet.

However, she didn't know this (like I said, she's never ordered something like this before), and she again sent messages via the "contact us" link asking why the book hadn't arrived, it was a Christmas present,, and again nobody seemed to think it was worth their time to tell her that the book is still a pre-order.

I realize everyone at Dark Regions is busy, especially this time of year, but I find it very unprofessional that nobody bothered to try and communicate with my mom about her issues, especially when she's charged 3 times for one order. That's a lot of money, and while you all may not care, it's a big deal to my parents. And as far as Gord Rollo's book, how long does it take to reply with "The book is still a pre-order at this time."?

I love the books Dark Regions is putting out there, but if this is the way you treat new customers, perhaps we should take our business somewhere that actually cares about the people giving them money.

Craig, I'm very sorry about this experience you had! Our server provider (who also provides our webmail) was going through upgrades at the end of December (great timing right?) so we had other customers stating the same thing, that they had sent e-mails but no response was given. I assure you we were not ignoring you, and I'm most sorry about this inconvenience to you and your parents.

Valley of the Scarecrow was held up numerous times in the production process, but we were continually given optimistic estimates that didn't turn out to be true. Needless to say the book is in stock now.

I'm going to pass your message on and ensure that not only will this never happen again but we will include a free book with your next order as compensation for this ordeal. Very sorry again about this Craig.

Sincerely,
Chris Morey
Dark Regions Press

_________________
Owner and Publisher at Dark Regions Press

Nice!