Taking care of your stuff

There will be 11 online journal issues a year, the December issue will be printed and mailed to members of the collectors club. There will also be a yearly club members-only piece. The first one will be a Fabrege Santa ornament.

Read more about David Strand Designs. . .
^{Photo (c)David Strand Designs}

The name on this contraption was purposely blurred - it would have given it away! So what do you think this was used for?

Add your guess in the comment.

Last week's Mystery Antique and Answer.

• Wordless Wednesdays on About
• See more Wordless Wednesday Blogs
• More Mystery Item Quizzes

What's happened to customer service? It doesn't matter what the economic temperature of the country is - customer service should still be one of the most important things driving a company, be it an auction house, department store or online store.

In the past few months I've had amazing examples on both ends of the spectrum. For instance I tried to buy an item at an online mall, tried at least four times to buy said item. No I didn't want a discount. I was willing to pay full price, but I after an initial email from seller, he no longer responded to my putting the item in my "shopping cart" and trying to pay. When I emailed the owner of the mall, I was more or less told they had no control over what a seller does in that regard. At least my money wasn't taken, so I guess I should count myself lucky.

Meanwhile I bought my husband a Kindle DX for his birthday, after one week the faceplate was cracked! I then found out that the official case/holder that is sold by Amazon is faulty and is known to crack the Kindle DX. No, it didn't hurt the workings, just the cosmetic outside. But I was extremely annoyed to say the least. I emailed Amazon customer service on Friday, July 3rd in the evening. Within an hour they responded and asked me to call. We now have a Kindle DX and case on the way, next day shipping and we have several weeks to get the broken one back to them before incurring any additional charges. Now that's customer service!

What's your story about customer service? Tell us folks you've been pleased with and folks that you'll never deal with again.