Wendy's comes through!

So I went with the wife to Wendy's on Saturday night. Hit the drive-through, ordered a #2 (double burger) with fries and a coke. We also ordered a baked potato with sour cream and chives for the wife, as she needs nourishment occasionally as well. Simple enough, right?

I knew there would be trouble as soon as the dude handling the order said, "You want that potato instead of the fries, right?"

"Negative. I want that potato in addition to the fries included in my combo."

"Ok."

So I pick up the bag at the window, pay the man, and we're on our way home. I'm looking forward to my imminent gustatory satisfaction. I open the bag....

No fries.

Jamie notices my crestfallen features and says, "No fries huh?"

"Nope."

"Sucks to be you. This potato is really good. Nummy nummy."

So I head over to Wendy's website, which makes Jamie roll her eyes and ask, "What are you doing?"

"I'm gonna get my fries," I reply.

"You're wasting your time."

So I fill out a customer comment form on the Wendy's site. Right HERE. I mention how heartbroken I was, how my wife made fun of me.

With my sense of duty satisfied, I finish my meal and forget any of this happened.

Today, on Monday, at 1:30 PM, I get a call from a guy on his cell phone who claims to be the regional manager for Wendy's in Omaha. He begins by apologizing profusely for his lackey's incompetence. He fawns over my politely-worded submission, letting me know how often he gets complaints that are somewhat...violently stated.

"Some people are just terrible, you know?"

He apologizes again and eventually, gradually, lets me know that I will be receiving a coupon for a free #2 (double cheeseburger, fries and a coke) in the mail shortly.

I am a happy man.

eVGA Customer Service and how it makes me giggle like a little girl

So, back in April of 2006 I swindled a friend of mine into giving me 300 bucks for my old eVGA 7800 GTX video card and a few computer parts. I take that $300 and take another $300 and pick up two of the new 7900 GT 256-meg cards that came out, to take advantage of SLI on my DFI Lanparty motherboard. The cards are ordered from Newegg, they arrive, are installed, and SLI-fueled gaming joy is mine. Life is good.

This is an eVGA 7900 GT:

Sometime in January of 2007, I start noticing some artifacting in several games I play, mostly Battlefield 2 and Medieval 2: Total War. This is somewhat annoying, as I've put about $2200 into this machine, but due to my reticence to admit there is an actual problem with MY gaming computer, I let it go for a while.

So the artifacting gets bad. I can't game for 20 minutes without spikey jagged graphical flickering obscuring my view. I finally get annoyed enough to start fixing the problem. Evidently, 7900 GT's, such as mine, are now notorious for memory problems which are causing (gasp) artifacting. They're being RMA'ed left and right. So I pull out one card, test the remaining 7900 GT...yup, it's....artifacting. I pull out that card, put in the other one...it's fine. Ok, this is workable, I can still play on the one card while I send back the other for replacement.

So I start the RMA process, which I've never done before, with eVGA. I request an RMA number, receive it the next day, print off the convenient label that eVGA e-mailed to me, and send my card back to eVGA. About a week later, I get a package in the mail, which I presume is another 7900 GT.

By this time, I've settled with playing my games with just the one 7900 GT. It's slower, especially with Medieval 2's 1000-man battles, but overall - not a problem on a temporary basis. So I'm not in a huge hurry to get my replacement video card installed. I get some time one night about a week later after I get home from work, and figure, "Hey, why not open up that package and install that card, so I can have SLI back?"

So I open up the package and this is what I see:

Whoa! That's not a 7900 GT with 256 megs of video ram at all. That is, in fact, a 7900 GTO with 512 megs of video ram. Take a look at that heatsink/pipe setup. The fan's bigger than the 7900 GT's (which means it's going to run cooler, with less noise) Sweet!

Once the initial euphoria settles, I realize that, as cool as this is, I cannot install both a 7900 GT and a 7900 GTO into my machine and have them working together in SLI mode. To have SLI mode working, you need two cards with the same graphics processor. The GTO is faster than my GT. Crap.

So I go to the eVGA website and shoot an email off to their customer service department.

Question (2/25/2007 9:45:30 PM): I recently submitted an RMA for a 7900 GT and sent it in. I got back a 7900 GTO card. While this is a nice card, even fantastic, I purchased a set of 7900 GT's with the express purpose of running them in an SLI configuration. Sadly, I cannot run the 7900 GTO and my remaining 7900 GT in SLI mode, no matter how much I wish I could. So I am now running the new 7900 GTO alone, by itself, while my poor 7900 GT is sitting on my desk, looking at me with forlorn hope of a productive life. What can I do about this? Would it be possible to send in my 7900 GT for another 7900 GTO so I can run my system in SLI mode? I'd understand why eVGA couldn't do this, but then, what's life without a little hope? I purchase eVGA products because of their reputation of customer service, please help me out. Thanks!

I get a reply a few days later:

Answered By Aaron H (2/27/2007 1:33:31 PM): I can work with my RMA department to make sure that we can upgrade your other 7900 gt. I just need you to verify the serial number for your 7900 gt and your shipping address and we can start an RMA for your 7900 gt to a 7900 gto. EVGA Tech

Wow. I totally expected eVGA to send back a polite little "Sorry, but we're not going to give you a free upgrade" note. I expected something along the line of "Hey, why don't you go find yourself a nice big pile of sand and a comfortable hammer, and go pound sand for a while."

Instead, eVGA took care of my needs, and gained themselves a loyal customer for life.

Yay for me. Yay for them.