Before Christmas I was doing some Internet shopping.  I placed five orders from five different places on the same day.

The last order I placed was from www.eddiebauer.com.

Upon trying to "send" the order, I discovered the website's security certificate had expired.  I felt it would be unsafe to place the order, so I called Eddie Bauer instead and placed the order that way.

Lo and behold, I got an email confirmation for an Internet order!  The order # was different from the one the representative on the phone had given me, so I immediately called them and inquired about it.  Somehow (and I admit there could have been some sort of foul play here… with a toddler possibly hitting the "send" button for me on the computer or something?) I had placed two orders for the EXACT SAME ITEMS.  I asked them to confirm this, and they did. 

It had been roughly an hour since the phone and Internet orders were placed.  I asked them to cancel one of the duplicate orders. 

THEY SAID NO.  Clearly, there was a mistake.  Clearly, this was a case of accidental duplicate orders.  Surely they could cancel one of them.

NO.

They said they have no way to cancel orders.  I asked to talk to a supervisor.  They still maintained they could not cancel orders.

I find it difficult to believe that a company as long established and well respected as Eddie Bauer has no way to cancel orders. 

They told me I could just receive the package and then return it to a store or mail it back free of charge.  Does that make any sense to you?  My order included free shipping, so that means they paid for the initial shipping and return shipping.  They would rather do that than cancel an order?

They also told me that I hadn't called soon enough to cancel the order.  I called approximately 60 minutes after the order was made.  Eddie Bauer was the only website of the five I ordered from that day that took an extra day to ship the order (also the only website to charge a $3 handling fee).  Four packages arrived a week later.  The Eddie Bauer package arrived one day later than the other four. 

But they still could not cancel the order, even with the extra day allowed for "shipping".   

What if I had dropped a book on my keyboard and accidentally made 15 duplicate orders.  Would they suddenly be able to cancel an order then?

I feel this is terrible customer service and that Eddie Bauer should be ashamed of themselves for wasting every one's time, money and energy.