Banana Republic Goes Down - My Fault?

So I decided to check up on an order that I placed with Bananarepublic.com because I knew it would be shipping soon and, frankly, I was looking forward to the threads. Nothing too special, but the fit is very nice for me.

Anyway, so I check the website and it keeps giving me these SERVER TEMPORARILY UNAVAILABLE messages or, alternately, a BR page with "page not found" bannered out in small print where normally clothes appear. I call the customer service hotline, fumbling with the number the first time - Damn you large fingers! The second time I have no such excuse; I misspelled the BRSTYLE and nearly got a physic stripper who wanted to read my tarot. I relented though and decided to call back Banana.

I somehow managed to steer through the dovetailing process of choosing the right number in their automated (though the voice sounded like a lovely brunette). My number was four.

I get Customer Service Rep #1. He is nice, affable and doesn't throw in any references to the Peloponnesian War my may within the first 30 seconds of conversation. The witty exchange goes as follows:

Me: Why is your website down?
Him: I didn't even know it was down until just right now. Wow, lemme just...
Me: Are they just updating the store or something?
Him: What browser are you using?
Me: I've been hitting refresh... okay, wow, now it works. What the hell.
Him: Yeah, I think they were just doing some updates to the store.
Me: Well you, sir, are magic. Magic. You've just saved the site. Magic.
Him: *laughing insanely* Well, thank you very much.

Not a funny story so far? Well, guess what. After that little conversation I prowled the sale items quickly, but didn't find anything so I returned to the homepage to see what was different again (I'd looked earlier it was a picture of a woman lounging on a chaise. The theme was light, trendy green (peaish?) and soft brown. It was a nice site... until I hit refresh. Here is a text glimpse of what I saw:

Sorry, our store is temporarily closed.

BananaRepublic.com is currently unavailable due to a scheduled maintenance.

We're updating our site to create a better shopping experience for you.

To compensate for any inconvenience this may have caused you, please return later to get free shipping on your next online purchase.* Simply enter promo code CLOSED at checkout. (Please note: this offer expires on October 23, 2006.)

*Offer valid through 11:59 PM (ET), October 23, 2006 at BananaRepublic.com. This offer is good for standard shipping within the United States and Puerto Rico to the first "ship to" address in your order. If you choose express shipping, additional charges may apply. Qualifying amount applies to merchandise only, not value of GiftCards or online gift certificates purchased, packaging, taxes, shipping & handling, or payment of a Banana Republic account. No adjustment on previous purchases. Offer is nontransferable without consent from Banana Republic. Not valid at Banana Republic stores or Banana Republic Factory stores. Cannot be combined with any other offers. Employees are not eligible. If you have any questions, please call 1-888-BR-STYLE or email us at custserv@bananarepublic.com.

Banana Republic

Link to the URL

My advice? Grab some FREE SHIPPING! I do wonder what they've changed though...