November 2023 by Bethany W (Pittsbirds)
My dad works as a college professor in TN and likes collecting collegiate sweatshirts from around the country. Chantham has a unique color scheme compared to a lot of colleges so I wanted to get him a sweatshirt with their icon and name and deep purple color for his birthday. Ordered online and paid an extra $20 to ensure it would get there in time.I get an email a full business day later saying my order had been cancelled with no explanation. I sit through their tedious phone center operations to finally talk to a person who seems equally as confused as me until she says I needed to use my student email for this purchase. The problem being I'm not a student and nowhere on the website is it indicated that's a requirement to make a purchase, and why would it be? She's unable to help me directly and has to escalate the situation to a superior, which can't be done over the phone. I wait two more business days to finally get granted the honor of Chantham allowing me to use my non school email to give them money. Problem is, their feet dragging put me way past the date I'd need for the item to arrive. Even if I paid the nearly $40 overnight shipping fee at that point, it wouldn't have gotten to my dad in time for his birthday.Luckily Carnegie Melon has no such asinine system and don't have hurdles in place for people to give them money, so using the exact same card, email and delivery address I was able to get him one of their sweatshirts in time. Unbelievably bizarre and frustrating experience all the way around
