Complaint Review: Aaron-Jessie Coles-Matheny

I think the amount of time it took to even respond to this report (almost a year), speaks for itself.  Not going to bother addressing their rebuttal point by point.

I am the merchant who dealt with the transaction listed above. I am simply here to give the factual information regarding this transaction and how it complied with my own rights policies of my shop as well as policies of Paypal through which the transaction occurred.

There will be no opinionated or objective statements made in this reply.

On Febuary 8th, I received an order from this person (who I am going to be nice enough to leave un-named, I would never post someone's name without their permission). I have a jewelry shop in which all of my items are made to order. I run an Ebay shop, my own online shop, and one other shop on a selling venue online. I had about 100 orders this week, each one takes about 1-2 hours to complete as items are made to order (which is stated always on my sites).

Customers receive a notification letting them know that items take 3-9 business days to complete because they are made to order, and that high volume of orders will cause this to be to the longer duration of this spectrum. This is stated on my website before the order is placed as well as in an e-mail confirmation once the order has been placed.

So, needless to say, I had an extremely high volume of orders this week. I got the first message from the customer on February 16th, 8 days after their order had been placed. I had just gotten to their order on my list which I print out each week and fill in the order in which they are received.

I responded with the following: (exact copy from e-mail) "Hi there, Let me first of all let you know that we really appreciate
your business and your happiness is very important to us. We got extremely slammed with a huge volume of orders for Valentines Day, and have only recently gotten down the list to your order. We are creating your item as we speak and your item will be shipped out tomorrow morning. Please let us know if there is anything else we can do for you."

I then proceeded to print my shipping labels for the day, which is something that I do every day before filling the orders. This way I can put the label on the package and put the item directly into the package once it is complete for shipment.

I have been accused of making a "fake" shipping label, but this is not a possiblity. The labels are printed directly off the paypal website via USPS, not UPS as stated. A direct link to the shipping label is attached vis paypal to the transaction inside their paypal account, and a shipping confirmation is sent to them via paypal which I am not able to "fake".

However, later that night I received the e-mail from the customer stating the following: "Tell me when I can EXPECT it to actually ARRIVE."

I have only had a few customers that have been this demanding. Each time I have tried to follow through with a transaction when it is obviously not possible for me to make the person happy, it ended in several harassing e-mails and too much stress. At this time, I had just gotten done dealing with another demanding customer who had me recreate their items several times and sent me e-mails IN ALL CAPS with DEMANDING responses for weeks.

 It was after this that I decided as a merchant, that I too have rights and feelings that are important. I, as anyone who sells anything in this country, have the "Right to Refuse Service to Anyone at Anytime for Any Reason" (this is a sign you will see in most establishments).

So, the decision had been made on my part that I was going to start cancelling orders and refunding people if it was obvious that I could not make them happy. I hold to this policy and have only so far had to exercise it on this occasion, because most people are reasonable once I have let them know the facts of my situation. (and surprisingly, most people actually consider my situation).

Refusing service is something that is an implemented rule that is stated on Ebay, Paypal, and many other sites. It is an accepted term and its use is condoned by written policy on all seller sites. We, as merchants, have the right to refuse service.

I had stated that the item would be shipped in the morning of February 17th, which was actually only 6 business days from the transaction. This was not enough to make the customer happy, so I decided to cancel the transaction.

I issued a refund which can be tracked to the customers account via paypal. A refunded item can surely not be considered a "ripoff". They received their money back and I have all the links and backing from paypal to prove it.

My response to the customer was exactly as follows: "Hey, I'm not sure exactly what I have done to deserve capital letters
which means basically anger and yelling... But I've been doing my best. I said I was going to mail it tomorrow morning, but I think I've changed my mind. You are being unreasonable and I am now going to refuse service to you. Just because you are the customer and I am the seller doesn't give you the right to project those feelings at me. I'm refunding you."

I don't regret it, and would cancel and refund anyone else who was being overly demanding to the point of disregard of my own situation.

I am a person too, and I don't believe that I should endure abuse that causes stress because that stress bleeds over into the rest of my life and makes it more difficult to be productive. I am a person, a human, and believe that every interaction in life should be treated like a friendship and with equal consideration for personal situations without selfishly impossible demands.

If anyone reading this decides to not buy from me after they have read my side of the story, which again, is factual to the situation and completely honest, then I encourage them to not order from me because I probably will not be able to meet their needs.

It is rare that my items take as long as they did to complete, but around holidays sometimes it happens. I love my work and most people are very happy with their products. I have over 3500 sales and they keep coming. I am very happy to do what I do and receive lots of appreciation from very nice people who are reasonable and kind, caring people. I am very appreciative of this.

In the end, one has to ask one's self, who is really "immature" in this situation? The one who voiced her feelings to the other, cancelled the order and moved on with her life, or the one who held onto the resentment and had to publish it on a website for revenge?

I leave it up to each individual to decide.