I would like to nominate TigerDirect.com for worst customer service anywhere.

I was doing my end of the month financial checkup that I usually do and I noticed that my Discover card was still showing a hold on funds for right around $168. Oh, that’s right. That’s exactly the amount of my recently botched PC order from TigerDirect.

I called them up and after a 15 minute hold, the customer support asshat begrudgingly entered in a request to release the hold on my card. This is after he looked up my order and put me on hold for another five minutes to “get some help with this.” Apparently, this activity will take 24-48 business hours.

Why do I care, you may ask? Again, it comes down to principles. If they cancel an order, they should do it in such a fashion that my ability to use my line of credit isn’t impacted. If I had car trouble or something, I wouldn’t want to be prevented from using my card because their hold on funds handicapped me. I didn’t argue or get mad with the minimum wage-jockey that I had to talk to, but as pointed out, it seems like they only chose to do something about this after I called to complain about it.

So we’ll see what happens in 24-48 hours. If those funds reappear as available, I’ll be happy. Otherwise, Discover will get the opportunity to release those funds and TigerDirect will get another VERY angry call from me.