UPDATE:
The situation just got weirder: I just got notification e-mails from the seller telling me that they’d just recieved payment for the movie poster and had mailed it:
“XXXPosters. com”
to me 8:59 pm (1 hour ago)
Hi there Snay,
We have received payment and it has cleared. Your item(s) are now on the way. Please be extra patient as we ship over 10,000 orders a week. Items can sometimes take up to 14 business days to arrive but IT WILL ARRIVE (Priority and Express Shipping arrive MUCH quicker as stated on our check out). Please also understand that this order has been passed onto our shipping department and actual shipping dates may vary.
This is the notification e-mail I recieved the other day:
Feb 25 (2 days ago)
I just wanted to let you know that I’ve shipped your auction winnings as detailed below.
I bet this is going to be one of those situations where I wind up with two posters for the price of one and get to sell the second one on eBay for a profit!
ORIGINAL:
Waaaay back on February 7th (nineteen days ago), I used “Buy It Now” to purchase a movie poster of eBay, and used PayPal to pay for it. By last Friday, when it hadn’t shown up, I dashed off a quick note to the seller. Today, a message was awaiting in my inbox:
Hi,
It has just come to my attention that your order was sent back to us because
the post office managed to mangle it up. Since this was absolutely not your
fault we will gladly send out a new order to you at no cost. Your order is
now on the way. We are so sorry for the delay and we WILL make sure you get
your order ASAP. We do apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for
being extra patient. If for any reason it does not arrive we will make sure
this matter is handled.
Is your nose twitching, too? I betcha anything the posters didn’t ship to begin with, as evidenced (1) by blaming the post office* and (2) this development “just” having coming to this seller’s attention.
In my line of work, this would be the line of thought in resolving such a conflict:
(1) Does the customer have any potential future requirement/desire for our product?
(2) Do we have any competitors to whom this customer might turn to satisfy that need if they have had an unsatisfactory experience with us?
(3) Aside for blaming the postal service, is there anything we can do to encourage the customer to return to do business with us as opposed to our competitors?
Here are the answers: Yes, it is possible that I will wish to purchase movie posters in the future. Yes, you have many competitors to whom I can take my business. Yes, there is something you can do to possibly gain my business back, like, I dunno, refund my shipping? Offer me a discount?
Here’s the best part. I don’t intend to leave this seller unqualified positive feedback. As long as the product arrives in good shape, I won’t leave negative feedback. But I think right now the best they’re going to get is neutral feedback: “Product Good, Problem with Shipping Took Three Weeks” … or something along those lines. Maybe: “Will Blame Their Own Effups on USPS!”
One thing’s for sure … they won’t be going on my “favorite sellers” anytime soon.
(In fairness, I don’t think I use eBay enough to put anyone on my “favorite sellers” thing …)
