Just got off the phone with a very nice, but stressed out salesperson. Deal taking nosedive.

He had to deliver me a message that the Sweetwater.com accounting department wanted to speak to my wife on a landline phone about a new purchase we were making for a guitar that cost $2,800. They said this was for our “security” apparently because talking to us on Skype / VoIP was a problem. Specifically they wanted to talk to my wife on a landline phone because we used her debit card (remember, we canceled our credit cards). Nevermind the fact that on Friday she talked to them over Skype and personally authorized the charge. Should have been end of story, right? Wrong.

WTF? I had to do a doubletake when the salesman told me this. And the more I thought about it, the more bothered I became, particularly when the guy told me it was for my own security? Huh? You don’t want to talk to me on the phone I called you for directly for the sale? Here are the problems with Sweetwater.com request:

1. I initiated the sale. How? By calling the salesman. Over Skype.
2. We do not have a landline phone at our home. We have *one* landline phone at our offline business. Since that business has nothing to do with a personal purchase, we’re using the phone we have: our personal phone. And it shouldn’t matter what type of phone we use to call in an order, should it? Why?
3. Our bank declined their charge and it would have been necessary for us to contact the bank and authorize the purchase this morning personally when it opened at 10am PST. In other words, Sweetwater wasn’t going to get any money from us without us contacting the bank directly to personally authorize the charge. How is that for increased security, already? Why would there be an additional step to speak to us on a landline phone?

You might be wondering why our bank might decline Sweetwater’s authorization? Maybe this sounds fishy. Were we trying to scam them or something? No. Our bank actually declined their charge twice. Once on Friday and once this morning. According to online account information plenty of money is there so it has to be some sort of internal bank thing. The bank the card is from is a local small town bank so it’s possible in the interest of protecting us from possible fraud they declined the charge.

The Sweetwater salesman said they’ve seen this before because some banks do not trust online purchases and customers need to authorize the purchases first. Fine, we were willing to call them and do that, but no, we weren’t also going to speak to their accounting department on our single landline phone. This isn’t a loan, we were planning to pay in full, essentially in cash. As customers we should not have to jump through (unreasonable) hoops to buy something. Screw that. The Sweetwater accounting department can stick it.

You might find the landline request dealbreaker absurd, but stop and think about this for a minute.

There’s a picture above and to the right of what I was planning on buying: a custom Gibson metallic green robot guitar that tunes itself. A limited edition of only 1,000 that are being made. Talk about technology, eh? This thing looks like a lot of fun. I thought it would be great to have for jamming with the boys so I could easily use alternate tunings, but if I’m buying from a company that doesn’t trust VoIP, or rather doesn’t trust talking to me using that, what happens when the robot guitar breaks down someday? Will they tell me I can only talk to them on a landline to put in a service request?

You might say this is a silly reason to kill a deal for the guitar, but to me, the sale is far and away not the end of the purchase. There is service that goes with it and if Sweetwater doesn’t trust technology for a technology purchase, then they can sell that guitar to somebody else who still has a landline phone in their home.

I do feel a bit for the salesman because he’s out a sale and like me depends on commissions, but I told him to go back to his accounting department and blame them. It wouldn’t surprise me if in 10 years it’s considered very normal not to have a landline phone.

Sadly, VoIP still has a long ways to go in the respect department. At least from VoIP snubbing accounting departments of online vendors.

Did this post make you go hmm?

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