StarBlast 6 Astro Telescope

Done! I placed the order just now...

I got a few of you smacking me upside the head and telling me to buy the StarBlast. "You want to down grade over a tri-pod" one person wrote. A few other well placed comments also motivated me move on the StarBlast.

So I placed the order for the telescope, a 2x Barlow lens, and a moon filter which makes my order will over $250. Now the company I ordered from is Telescope.com, which for this week being national astronomy week, has free shipping. Free shipping....cool huh! Shipping is free for all order over $250, which is my order!

So I plow through the order process, enter in the promo code for free shipping and *click*....my order is placed. So there I am, all sweaty for spending so much money all on one place when I noticed that the shipping is $50.

WTF! Free shipping for astronomy week sure is not suppose to look like $50 on a invoice. So I work my fingers on the telephone and pull up Jon for customer service. He proceeds to tell me that he can take off some of the shipping but since it is an over sized item that I will get charge $35 or something.

Again, WTF! www.telescope.com has it clear on their website that shipping is free. There is no crazy little cross, or asterisks, or marks of any kind that says there is a special condition. Reviewing that statement Jon agreed but stuck to his guns that he could only rebate the shipping and not the heavy. He then went on to tell me that if I noticed a tiny little icon somewhere on the page where the telescope was (not the order page but the specs for the telescope) I would have noticed an "oversized" decal. Then had I known to visit the customer [dis]satisfaction page I would have been informed that special shipping waivers doing apply to oversized packages.

Well.....if I had known that maybe I might have done with telescopeS.com which is a totally different company and maybe they can man up to their promotions. So far my experince with telescope.com (without the s) is crappy. Its not so much the money, which telling the truth I would rather have $50 then not have it, but its being deceived like that. Lets see how the telescope fairs out....

Yours truly and a little grumpy, HCB