Happy Ending

[firstfrost]

A commercial interaction, in dialogue:

Froogle: Look, there's this place selling very cheap burgundy tablecloths.
Me: Lo! Company, let me buy one of your tablecloths!
Company: Sure. Oh, and we take Paypal.
Me: Well, sure. Have some paypal money.
Company: Yay!

<A few weeks pass>

Company: Oops, sorry. The place we get these from doesn't make them any more. You won't be charged for the order.
Me: But I was already charged for the order. I paid you via Paypal, as per your advertisement.
Company: No, you didn't, we never got that money.
Me: What?
Me to Paypal: Um, so, I bought this thing, and I paid them, here's the transaction number, then they said they were out and were cancelling the order, but when I asked for a refund they said they never got the money. Can you help them find it? They seem nice but confused.
Paypal: This is an automatic response. We'll investigate whatever it was you told us.

<Something like five hours pass>

Paypal: You've been credited with a refund.
PHONE CALL from Company. From a live human being: We're really sorry about that. We've refunded your money. We're terribly sorry about the problem. Paypal is a little confusing for us still. We really really apologize for not giving you a refund sooner. Honestly. We're sorry.

I feel as if I called the Super Star Destroyer down upon them for my twelve dollars. I'm just glad it was on my side.

Comments

[firstfrost.livejournal.com]

I have bought a bazillion things on ebay, and had two bad transactions. (One was someone who lamed out for months, and did eventually apologize and send the thing much later; the other was the first place I bought saltpeter from, and they just fell in a black hole and ignored me forever. That was a little worrisome, as it had a deadline. :) )

I try to abide by the rule "don't buy anything over ebay that I would be too put out should the seller be hit by a bus on the way to the post office and never mail it to me", and it's worked very well for my peace of mind.

(The wedding swords were an exception to that, but they worked out fine too. I even returned one for a new one when justom's had the wire on the grip come loose.)

[merastra.livejournal.com]

don't buy anything over ebay that I would be too put out should the seller be hit by a bus on the way to the post office and never mail it to me

Ah, ok. That works. Cool rule of thumb. :)

Though for some reason I'm still weirded out by ebay in general. Hm... bears thinking.