This got me thinking in regards to running a business as a few weeks ago I decided to make a time-lapse camera purchase from a site called timelapsecameras.com as apparently they were the official distributor for this made in Taiwan time-lapse camera called the Afidus ATL-800 4K. It’s always a little nerve wrecking to try shopping with new businesses. But I figured why not as they are the official distributor pe se.
Unfortunately, things were strange from the start as I paid a lot of money for this item and also had the FedEx 2 day shipping service. So you would think it would be processed immediately in a stress free way. Long story short, weeks went by where at first they blamed shipping delays. I thought I would be understanding though and wait.
Another week goes by and no update. When I inquired again I got no response. I waited a few days too and by now I was seriously worried that this business simply took my money to be used for other reasons or that the item was never in stock. I then asked for a refund since it was literally almost thirty days since the order. With no response again, I decided to issue a dispute with PayPal using its dispute resolution process first. Surprisingly, they responded fairly quickly once they got the notice from PayPal.
The story I was provided was that the person ignored my e-mail initially because he thought I would have gotten the product already. Regardless, they didn’t provide me with any information such as shipment tracking numbers to verify the shipment and so I again asked for a refund if it wasn’t actually sent. With no response again after, I just escalated the case to Paypal and just today they refunded me the entire purchase.
As there is a possibility the business simply didn’t read the Paypal message this time, there are odds I thought how maybe the company figured this situation is too messy and to just leave it be as the more they try to explain the situation the more it may unravel in terms of bad or disorganized business practices. That I don’t know. But I think as a business they should have just manually issued a refund versus having the payment processors do it based on investigations as it doesn’t look good from a customer service point of view.
Because for consumers one would often try to seek out other stories afterwards to see if their experience was just isolated. Sure enough, I did find a story on Reddit where a few years ago someone seemed to have gotten the same no response treatment many times. That was years ago according to the date but it would seem some things remained the same.
Another example on why it’s important for a business to try and resolve everything directly with the customer promptly versus requiring the payment processors to do so. The bad experiences posted in the public adds up.