This is the first in my “Customer Service Incident” (CSI) series, in which I blog about notable customer service incidents, both good and bad.

I often use excess frequent flyer miles to get magazine subscriptions (”Magazines for Miles”).  Back in June I ordered the Wall Street Journal through Continental’s OnePass website, received a confirmation email … but never got the paper.  I waited the requested 6-8 weeks and finally called in to find out what happened. The Continental customer service rep immediately told me that the website was not accurate and that the WSJ was not actually available, so the order was never processed.  I didn’t even get a “Sorry we didn’t tell you.”

Throughout this interchange, the Continental customer service rep seemed not to care that their live website still showed the Journal as being available, and would still send a confirmation email if I went through the checkout.  I asked why Continental didn’t update the site to reflect the available offerings, and all I got was a “Yeah, that would be nice.”

Today, about four months later, I tried to order the Wall Street Journal and decided to check in on good ole Continental.  Low and behold: it’s still on the website.  Having learned my lesson, though, I called up, pressed-zero a couple times to get to an operator, and asked if the Wall Street Journal was actually available.  To my surprise, the rep said yes and took my order.   I was feeling pretty good and asked him about getting BusinessWeek, which is also listed on the website.  “I’m sorry, that is not available.”  “But it’s on the website,” I said.  Not available.  Nor is Wired, BestLife, Forbes, and several other magazines that can be ordered on the website.  I asked what would happen if I ordered from the website and the rep said it would look like it worked but the order would not be processed.  Wow!  Great job Continental! (You probably can’t sense my sarcasm, Continental, since you clearly have no empathy.)

Just to show you how devious this whole thing is, check out these screen shots I took while I ordered BestLife (which is not actually available) today:

And yet, after going through all of the above, I’m not going to get the magazine.  And yet even though Continental knows from the start that I can’t get the magazine, they won’t tell me until I call to ask. The only thing I can credit Continental with doing right is not deducting the miles from my account.

One might think that since the customer service rep was using a computer to tell me which magazines were available to me (and the availability wasn’t even based on me personally, since he hadn’t asked for my name/ID yet at that point in the conversation) that there might exist enough Technology to correlate what he sees on his screen with what I see on mine.  Someday, someday.