J K.

I placed an order online at teavana.com for White Chocolate Peppermint tea (on sale for $31.50 but paid $25.07 w/ promo) and added on "Steep it simple" tea sampler (for $13.93). I also paid $9.99 for expedited shipping. I used the Starbucks card to pay for the total of $48.95. After couple of day of no email in regards to shipment, I checked the order status online. I found that my order was on hold, so I emailed customer service, inquiring about the delay and asking to cancel the entire order if there is a delay as I needed the items by a certain date and can purchase in-store if needed. The next day, I got a response stating that the White chocolate tea is out of stock and has been cancelled from my order. But the tea sampler for $13.93 will be shipped at the $9.99 fee, for a total of 23.92.
I called customer service to cancel the entire order as paying ten dollars for a fourteen dollar item is silly when I can purchase it in person and not have to wait. I was told it was too late to cancel it and to contact my financial institution and dispute the charge. Apparently, this would send a red flag and they would cancel the item at that point. The only problem here is most financial institutions do not allow disputing a charge when the transaction is still pending and wouldn't the item ship by the time a dispute is processed? Additionally, this does not apply in my case as I used my Starbucks card. I received an email stating the same so I replied back to the email. When I mentioned the Starbucks card as my payment source, I was asked to call back again to give my Starbucks card number for a refund of $23.88, once the tea sampler ships. Again, if the item has not shipped yet, why not cancel the entire order, also why is the refund only $23.88 when I paid at least $25.07 for the white chocolate peppermint tea? Finally, why modify my order, ignoring the promo codes, expedited shipping etc without getting in touch with me when I had already attempted to contact Teavana preemptively to address the delay? By the way, the White chocolate tea is still available for sale online, no out of stock message. I asked multiple times for a supervisor via email. The agent I was corresponding with simply ignored my request and gave me the generic explanations. This has been one of the worst customer service/online order experience I have had.