Has anyone else been having trouble ordering the Entrez CD-ROM from the US
Government Printing Office? I have had plenty of difficulty.
I initially faxed an order, waited, received no response and faxed a
query. Still no reponse. Thanks to help from the Net, I managed to locate
their voice telephone number. I had in fact sent the faxes to the correct
telephone number but they had been ignored because they didn't include a
check (?...but that's what they said). I wonder why they even have a FAX
number.
When you call the Gov't Printing Office, you are put on hold for a long
time. When someone finally answers, the audio is so faint as to be almost
indiscernable (maybe 5 dB above background). I and one of our secretaries
have called them on four separate occasions and have made very little
headway. The audio always borders on the inaudible and whoever you speak to
passes the buck (and you) to someone else. You can just tell that they
aren't interested in selling you this CD-ROM.
Turns out that they won't send out the goods without prepayment. UCSD
P.O.'s aren't good enough. But UCSD can't generate a P.O. number without an
invoice. The Gov't printing office doesn't want to send invoices without
the goods. Catch 22.
**<<flame on>>**
It ticks me off that I'm paying taxes to support these bozos in a job
that they don't give a damn about.
**<<flame off>>**
Maybe the best thing to do is not to order from them. That way maybe the
Gov't won't be able to justify paying all those bozos to jerk us around.
Richard
