posted on May 8, 2010 04:14:55 PM new
imagine if you had to deal with this on eBay.
we had an in-store customer that purchased an item from us... almost 3 months ago. we sell vintage, and there is no returns/exchanges.
he calls us up this week complaining about a non working lamp. he has yet to state what he wants out of this, but he showed up today with the lamp in hand. it is a lava lamp and it worked just fine when we sold it.
he claimed it wasn't working properly. so, I asked him several questions about what it was doing and not doing. basically, he claimed it got warm, and then did nothing. hmmm... hard to believe, so I asked if I could plug it in and leave it on for a few hours. so he obliged. i took it to the back, plugged it in right behind my computer and over the last 5 hours i have peacefully watched the lava lamp work exactly how it should.
i called up the customer, told him i had no problems with it and it worked just fine. now, i know when i get a call from my mechanic about my car and he tells me that there is nothing wrong, i am really happy about it. this guy seemed really bummed out that we had no problems with it. geez, do you think he just had buyers remorse? or found something else he likes better? sorry, but he is not getting a refund. for one thing, no receipt, no idea how much we charged for it. he claims he paid cash.
imagine if this was eBay... buyer clicks "item not as described" and next thing I know I am forced to take a return whether there is a problem or not.
posted on May 8, 2010 04:28:16 PM new
well,he has no receipt and paid cash,if this were Ebay then the scenario would be he found the lamp on Ebay,he dealt with you off Ebay and sent you cash .He cannot go to Ebay and complain as Ebay would have no record of the sale and he cant go to Paypal as he did not use Paypal.
But in this case,you have a physical store and he could make life difficult for you by refusing to leave and caused a big scene or contact the local newspaper.
Didnt Fluffy got suspended by Ebay and end up holding a sign outside EBay headquarters for days?
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There is no 'Global savings glut',only wild horses and loose bankers.
posted on May 9, 2010 07:46:22 AM new
roflmao... i avoid worrying about the unknown. i leave that up to the right winged nut jobs who attend tea party rallies and call for the presidents birth certificate.
posted on May 9, 2010 04:08:49 PM new
well,you worry enough to tell us about this incident and that incident,no offense,but we have been serving as your nannies lately!
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There is no 'Global savings glut',only wild horses and loose bankers.
posted on May 9, 2010 04:32:58 PM new
shagmidmod, I appreciate your posts, and others. Even though I have reduced my ebay items, the posts on this board are still of interest to me. I find that I come here many times during the day, so as to break from the daily chores of my store.
Contrary to hwahwa, I find your posts informative.
posted on May 9, 2010 07:57:40 PM new
I'll bet he has older wiring in his home. Dealt with this many years, uneven wattage resulted in more than the appliances could handle.
posted on May 9, 2010 08:31:25 PM new
that could very well be the case. he came back to get the lamp, and asked about a piece of art we had. we had actually pulled it from the floor to make room for other items. i offered to trade it out even for the lamp, considering it is much easier to sell the lamp vs. the piece of art.
the point i was making was that with ebay there is no longer personal interaction between buyer and seller and that ebay policy is that if a buyer wants a refund, they get a refund whether the buyer's claim is legit or not (unless the buyer completely screws up a dispute). in this instance, i was able to communicate with the customer and know that it was buyers remorse, not a defective item. When he came in, he actually said, "I want to be able to leave the lamp on for weeks at a time." I'm not even sure that would be a good idea for any lamp, but to each their own.
hey hwahwa- if you think that providing input, whether useful or not is babysitting, you can find another job. there is a difference between worrying about the unknown, and being prepared for the unknown.
thanks bill. the biggest issue with posting on these boards is that it is sometimes difficult to tell another users intentions. words are words, and most emotion is non-existent. very much like i was getting at in my original post here.
the thing is that this customer wasn't being quite truthful with regards to the issue, and when I tested the item and found nothing wrong, he seemed very disappointed. At that point, it was obvious buyers remorse, not a defective item.
How would eBay have handled a return like this? The guy claims it was not as described (didn't work properly). With eBays new policies, I would have taken a loss, I would have to accept the return and lose the shipping costs incurred. There is just no verification process to this new INAD policy.
[ edited by shagmidmod on May 10, 2010 09:34 AM ]
