The Bumps of Selling On Line

Hello, My Friends!~~

I had dealt with some not so pleasant people in recent on-line sales. I need to vent in a public forum, as perhaps you may say "yes, I have had theis happen to me!" and may feel better after reading the following rants.

Here is story number one...

In early-December I sold some vintage Mercury glass beads on that big on-line auction site that will remain nameless but you all know which one I am speaking of. These beads were for crafting and described as vintage. I always invite potential biddders to ask me as many questions as they wish prior to bidding. The winnning bidder took about a week to pay after I sent the invoice, well past my requested 3 days for paymant. I mailed them promptly after payment. Soon after the bidder recieved the item, I got a nasty-gram from this person claiming the beads are chipped and faded and no use to anyone. OK, clearly this person has never seen vintage Mercury glass beads as none in my vast experience are perfect unless they are new reproduction beads. I wrote this disgrunteled gal back saying that she could send them back (even though I clearly stated no returns in my listings) as long as she did so within 7 days.

Twenty days passed and nothing arrived on my doorstep. Twenty-one days later I get an email from her saying she flies on an international crew and couldn't send them back. I told her that she could still send them back as long as she did so right away. Then I decided to play investigator and I checked that during the past twenty-one days, she bought MANY things on this on-line auction site. Clearly she had email access. Why didn't she email me and tell me about her delay in returnign the item? I wrote her again and told her this along with emphasizing that she get theese beads back to me right away or no refund AND that she needs to write me back and let me know that she got this email. Nothing. Three days later she writes a long note essentially letting me know that she put our transaction on the "back burner" and would it still be OK to send the beads back? She said it's my call.

OK. so I wrapped it up by telling her the following (in condensed form for this blog post): 1. being that she was active at the on-line auction site in the past 25 days since her complaint to me, I don't buy her excuses as to why she couldn't send a one-minute email letting me know that there will be a delay in returning the item. Being put on the "back burner" is essentially rude on her part (although I didn't call her that, but you know what I mean). AND 2: I will still let her make a return but I will not give her return postage or postage that she paid to originally have the item sent to her. At this point I don't feel I should be out of pocket on this transaction.

Whew! Glad I got that off my chest! Thanks for letting me do so. Would you like to see the item?

Aren't they lovely? And she got them for CHEAP! I was just de-stashing a little bit and this one came back to bite me in the butt. We'll see if I ever get them back.

NOW, here's a story, from another on-line selling site where I sell vintage goods for what I feel is cheap cheap cheap. This customer, who had never bought a single thing from me before, wrote a very NASTY note essentially telling me that I am a terrible person for not disclosing the exact condition of one item in a lot of six vintage pieces of ephemera that I was selling for $3.50. She ranted on saying that she would throw everything into "the garbage" as none of it was useful to her. And she wanted a partial refund. I gave here a partial refund but she then came back insisting that she get a full refund as she only wanted the one item of 6 in the lot. How is that my problem? If that one item was so important to her, why didn't she write and ask about its condition? After checking her info on-line I found out that she sells antiques and I's guessing that she expected to flip this one item for big bucks. Well, hey, this isn't my first rodeo and I checked on the value of this item before selling it for cheap. So after reading note after note from her condeming my selling style and how she would improve me in that areana, I finally refunded her all of the $3.50 and told her that her relationship with my on-line show was over. $50 worth of effort on her part for a $3.50 item--gimmie a break. BTW, I have over 3000 feedbacks on that site and she has a little over 400. Just sayin'

I love selling on-line, I do. But once in a while you deal with folks who just freak out and treat you like the second coming of Osama Bin Laden. Common courtesy was clearly lacking in both of these circumstances. I always want to make things better but I do get annoyed when buyers initially think I am the bad guy. Like I have nothing better to do with my life than make theirs miserable.

Thanks, my friends, for reading my rant. If you have similar stories please share. I will do my best to get back to you, but for some reason Typepad is blocking your emails and replying to you is not possible. Sigh...but please share your stories here. We can give each other a virtual hug. And I always appreciate to bits the 99.99999% of fabulous folks out there who appreciate my wares. Love you!~~~XXOO, Beth