Where does Customer Service start and end?

I ordered some cigars that come in a glass humidor during one of the sales of the last few weeks and it arrived last Friday. When I opened it up there was a layer of mold across the top. Now you may be thinking that the cigars are toasted, but actually as long as the mold is just on the surface it can be wiped off without affect the cigar. On the other hand actually receiving product from a vendor that has mold on it is unacceptable.

So I sent the vendor’s customer service an email stating the problem and asking what could be done. The response I get was that they were sending me a pre-paid return UPS address label so I could return them and they would credit back my credit card since they were now out of stock, they also closed the “ticket”. Fine and dandy if I had wanted to just return them but I bought them with a specific purpose in mind and returning them for credit wasn’t an option I wanted to hear. Besides no one gave me any options, just here is what we are doing, live with it.

Well today I got on the phone with the vendor’s customer service and basically got the same response, not what I wanted to hear. The thing that burns me the most is that I wasn’t even contacted with a list of choices; even if those choices were to only keep the product in the condition I received it in or return it for a refund.

Customer service is there to interact with the customer, not to follow some flow chart and perform the end ritual.