Mind Blowing Snow Blower

This is one of those that leave me wondering where to start. I’ve just spent more than an hour in an online chat with a very friendly, mildly supportive and nearly powerful customer service representative at Amazon.com. I’ve printed a return label (prepaid, by them) to return a snow thrower purchased by myself, Heather, and her brother (and possibly Heather’s sisters as well) for their father.

When, at the beginning of December, I was shopping about for a snow thrower I read many good reviews about a particular model made by North Carolina’s Greenworks. I found a couple Greenworks models that were very similar to one another in both price and features. There also wasn’t a lot of variation in cost from retailer to retailer (who had them in stock) after considering shipping costs.

I went with Amazon.com which was carrying both models and selected the more expensive one which had larger wheels and what looked like a slightly heavier-duty wheel and handle assembly. Although I haven’t gone back to find it, I have a vague memory of reading about greater ease of maneuverability with the larger wheel arrangement.

Of course, what showed up was the model with the smaller wheels and what is, really, probably, an inferior axle assembly.

In the time between the machine’s arrival and today, it had been gifted, removed from the box, assembled and used on a few feet of 1 inch deep poofy snow. The box had returned to my house to be reused for another largish present. It was during the preparation of the box for reuse that I noticed the smaller wheels pictured and listed in plain english on the side of the box.

After struggling all day to not be just pissed off at the ineptitude of my fellow humans (what good has that really done me in 40 years of that practice?), I talked about it with my father-in-law and finally, tonight, decided I needed to at least make sure I wasn’t crazy, and at most, make it right and, for a bonus, try to prevent it from happening to another customer. I know. Totally selfless of me, right? Merry Christmas.

When I got back into it, I easily found the record of my order on Amazon.com. As I thought, I had actually ordered the model with the larger wheels. I could see as plain as day the expectation to receive 8-inch wheels was entirely justified. In fact, I couldn’t find any mention of a 6-inch wheel version of the blower/thrower anywhere on Amazon.com! That still sorta tweeks me out quite a lot. Ignore the twitching. Please.

Even a less than brief search on Google almost couldn’t bring one up either, except for on one site: snowblowersdirect.com (which should, probably, be called snowblowerdipshits.com).

If you take a look at these two obviously different machines, on Amazon.com, GreenWorkstools.com, snowblowerdirect.com you’ll see the same model number, 26032 is used for all of them. Even the .pdf manual available at Snow Blowers Direct indicates specifications in line with greenworkstools.com and amazon.com. But what is this one with smaller wheels? Does it have a number? Was it 26030? I’ll have to check on the box tomorrow.

Remember, back when I was deciding which to order, I found myself deciding between two GreenWorks models. This shopper now, though, is hard pressed to find anywhere on the internet the lesser model currently still pictured and described (see screenshots if links get broken) at snowblowerdirect.com. It is as though it has disappeared from everywhere else on the web.

Apparently the last ones in existence are in my father-in-law’s garage and in Snow Blower Direct’s warehouse. I’ve set up a return and a new order for a replacement via Amazon.com. I’ve written to GreenWorks (for the second time) and expect no response.

I hope Amazon has exhausted their supply of the one so I may receive the other. Amazon customer service was not willing to promise the reordered product would meet my expectations. This was true even after I’d stated my expectations exactly mirrored what was listed in the list of the products features.

I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what they send. Next time I order a book, I won’t hold my breath for a book. I’ll just keep my expectations to a minimum. I mean, if they want to send me a dolphin or a keg of beer, who am I to complain? If its not what I expected, after all, I can just set up a return and expect a refund.

Or can I?