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The Grinch Rides Again or The Inmates are Running the Popcorn Asylum There's an old saying that when a company has more than 25 employes, it generates so much internal paperwork, it no longer has need of the outside world. You've also heard the one about the inmates running the asylum? Well, here we seem to have a case of the kernels running The Popcorn Factory, which has blown my Holiday orders in every conceivable manner over the past four years. Would you let me get away with screwing up four orders in a row for you? I think not! Makes you begin to wonder what kernal is in charge of the popping machine. I order gift tins of popcorn each Holiday season for local businesses that support me-- my printers, my mechanics, my UPS driver, post office employes, and others; it's a gift everyone can enjoy and seems to me to be better than chocolates or flowers or fruit. Here's the history: in 1999 I faxed a three-page order to The Popcorn Factory; each page was numbered, and more than a dozen orders were also each numbered in sequence. I asked for confirmation of the order, and offered four means of contacting me (letter, phone, fax or e-mail). Not only did I NOT receive a confirmation, but someone with an IQ approximating octane managed to lose Page 2. One would think that pagination interruptus or order sequence interruptus would be enough to at least raise an eyebrow -- but not at The Popcorn Factory. in 2000 With a similar order (14-15 cans of popcorn), again I requested confirmation of the order and did not receive it. Then, without informing me, the company substituted a different decorated can for all the orders -- a can which, to me, was far more religious in nature than the "seasonal" can I had chosen. I was offended. another chance for them to screw up in 2001. What new inventive technique could they invoke? This time they double-shipped every order and double-billed me! Their first solution? I could return the second shipment -- yes, I was apparently supposed to call the more than a dozen recipients (three weeks after the Holidays) and tell them they had to return one can of popcorn to the company. Really???!!! Why do I submit myself to this flagellation??????? Now we are in 2002. I'm really looking forward to seing what happens. But I'm ahead of them this year. Instead of letting them make individual shipments to all the local recipients, I decided to have all the tins of popcorn delivered to me, and I would make personal distribution. Sixteen cans of popcorn (seven large, nine small). Wonder of wonders, the seven large cans arrived by UPS on December 19th (of course, it took FIVE days from the time I faxed the order until they entered it in their computer). When the others had not arrived by the 23rd (again, no confirmation of the order or of shipping ever), I called. And was told that the "warehouse" made an executive decision to ship the other part of the order by Parcel Post instead of by UPS -- the expected delivery date? January 2, 2003. I was also told that since they had already been shipped, the order could not be cancelled. I guess they never heard of refusing delivery. FOUR YEARS Four different screw-ups, a flat refusal to acknowledge an order or shipment (they could even have used UPS shipping confirmation, and it's FREE). No wonder so many people have a pre-disposed bad taste in their mouth when it comes to buying something on-line or from a mail-order company. Thank you Popcorn Factory (now owned by 1-800flowers.com) for your years of stupidity, lack of responsibility, and complete disdain for the consumer.