David, I'm very surprised that they gave you such an answer like that. That truly doesn't sound like they care about their customers at all. But it also doesn't sound like them at all. I'm very puzzled.
And I didn't realise you hadn't received the item yet. I thought that you had so that is why I asked about how long you thought a delay was. I thought the item arrived already within two days and that's why I thought you were being a bit harsh so I'm sorry about that. Since you haven't received it yet, then yes it does warrant criticism.
I can't understand why it took them a day to process your order either. It really depends on what you ordered. If you ordered a scope from them, maybe they were going over it and collimating it and stuff like that
I don't think you are being old fashioned at all. You're right, we are paying top dollar for premium equipment, we have to expect good service in return.
I too expect good communication about my orders, which I never had with the book incident I mentioned in my above post. It is very frustrating indeed. I was the one doing all the chasing up, not once did they take the initiative to contact me and let me know how my order was going.
I guess I was just trying to highlight things from a different perspective. It's hard to understand why a lot of people have had such bad experiences with aussie astro retailers when surely these retailers know what a small market they are catering for. And what happens when too many people get so fed up with the service, start buying everything from overseas? The prices will go up, many astro shops might go out of business and then where would us amateurs be?