Vendor not responding

During the Saturday bork, I purchased an item and never received it. I've contacted the vendor 3 times already without any response. Should I be concerned, and what can I do about it?

Thanks, clever people!

I've had this problem about three times so far in the past few weeks. I usually create a notecard named 'didn't receive item purchased' or something like that. Then i tell the owner the circumstances of the purchase. I also include my transaction history for the sale. You should also mention that you've restarted and cleared your network cache (and you should also do it). Then drop the notecard on the creator. Make sure you are sending it to the right person.

So far I have received all three replacement items from the creators and have still not received anything from the original bad transactions.

This poster quited is giving great advice. I have my IM's capped many days (recieving too many) though most are just letting me know whose been riding the train at Fhelzgud, I have had to put this advice to send a notecard on my profile. It may also slip thru the cracks as well even with a notecard so, send the notecard and follow up.

I would hate to think someone did not get what they paid for and would do all to correct it as I am sure many would.

This has turned into a real problem for customers and creators. We should all address this to Lindens too, as creators are being nice sending again their products (many non copyable) trusting the word of anybody that claims not receiving the product they bought.

Customers get mad when they dont get an inmediate response, some creators dont come online for a few days and that turns them into untrusty people.

I have been lucky as most creators I have IMed have replaced my purchases, others simply have told me dont buy anymore until Lindens say its ok to do it again. Not a word on sending what I paid for. But I do understand, why would they trust a total stranger?

As a creator, I try to respond to IMs as soon as possible, but some of my customers get out of hand sending IMs each hour, lol, I work rl full time, I am gone at least 10 hours a day, so you can imagine my e mail getting overflowed by IMs!

Please Lindens, please help us! We do need reliability to be able to buy/sell in SL. This has been going on for 2 weeks now, its too long, please HELP!

Tell me about it...


Same time every day, IMs start rolling in from people who bought and didnt get things, half an hour later LL post on their blog about "various issues" and warn people not to do transactions, of course no one reads that blog and they dont warn people inworld, then the blog will say "resolved" and half an hour later they will post again its happening.

Ive taken to closing my shops the moment the IMs start coming in, its becoming like a daily routine, of course this gets as many angry IMs as the problems themselves, so you cant win.

Customer is often another word for "unreasonable".

Aside from the issues created by these borks though, if people were a little more understanding and went to some trouble of their own instead of wanting to be spoon fed, they will get a far better response.

If you do not get an item delivered, why not go to your account on the website and get the transaction number. Then, write a sensible notecard to the vendor. If an item is copy/mod and no trans then the likelihood of you getting a rebuffal is much smaller. If it is trans and no copy then it really is down to the vendor.

Make sure before you contact the vendor that you've done the standard clear cache etc.

I've never - and I mean NEVER - received a bad response from anyone about any items and I've always had things replaced. I've often received a little something extra for trying to be helpful and for not yelling, screaming, shouting or even really complaining. Or - frankly - expecting them to make up for something which ain't their fault at the end of the day.

I look at it this way. I'm a Customer Service specialist and trainer. I get escalated manager calls every day from people who might very well be trying to defraud the company. Who yells loudest is not always right. The ones who are happy to send in the evidence and give information generally are genuine.

Why not show that from the start and save these creative and talented people a headache? Leave them time and space to make more stuff AND get the things you paid for?

Same for me.

I had one particularly unreasonable customer on Valentine's Day (when my shop was rather busy, as you can imagine) who wouldn't tell me what hadn't been delivered, wouldn't send me Transaction History proof, accused me of trying to defraud him (for L$79), blamed me for the non-delivery, accused me of poor customer service...

It all made me wonder why I even bothered, until I read this thread in SL Universe Forums: http://www.sluniverse.com/php/vb/business-land-economy/6227-rules-second-life-retail-according-specific-insane-customers.html
which made me feel better.

1) do -not- rely entirely on IMs; aside from cap limits, they do occassionally have probs staying put for the creator to log back in to find. if it's been a few or three days, do drop them a notecard with your problem!

2) vacations, family emergencies, etc - the creator -may- be away for an extended time. i write in my customer infocard to please wait a full fourteen days before calling up any red flags...

When I started selling I made sure that my customers had thorough knowledge that they would recieve full support in the event of any problems and made sure that they could contact me using various methods.

Because of the problem with IM's getting capped and external emails when offline getting overflowed as Mily points out herself, I designed and created a 'Info / Status Terminal'.

From this terminal, people can page me or my alt when online regardless of where I am on the grid, they can type a message in chat and leave it at the display which to my knowledge stores upto 1000 messages, there are instructions on how to post a notecard also at the display and an option to forward a message to my external email address.
In addition, I also added a "Known Issues" button that when problems like failed transactions occur I update the display to notify customers of these issues.
It basically looks like a large laptop so when buttons are touched the information on screen will change to show the corresponding info.

I covered all aspects when I designed the Info Terminal, making sure that full instructions and information was available.

The end result is my emails do not overflow, my IM's don't get capped as most people leave a message at the terminal, my IM's are free for friends to communicate and my customers are fully informed.

with the last days, imagine the slx staff burried with failed transactions and withdraws...

i`m still waiting to get my money from them ffs

I have had two problems with vendors. One never responded after multiple attempts. I will NEVER buy from them again. The other (with suggestion from the fine members here) did reply after a few days and resolved the issue quickly.

I will repeat what I was told and what I tried:

- Send IMs

- Send a notecard (the vendor was surprised to get a notecard, he said mine was the first he received in quite some time).

- Look for them while online

- Look for partners or associates (check SLX and onrez) and contact them, politely asking for assistance in contacting the vendor or creator. (that worked for me).

Another option is to look at what groups they belong to and see if any have open enrollment then join, you would then be able to see when the creator was last online or if is online from the members role tab.

Then you could contact them using IM or group IM and if they really blank you and ignore you see if the group will allow you to send a group notice. I would personally only use the latter if it was available in extreme circumstances.

Another frustrating thing.. for me.. is those weird "logging in underwater" crashes.. obviously I've dropped some packets during login or something, but I have no vatar, the screen is deep blue, and I can't move.. everything says "Loading..." and I have to relog to get back on.

But when that happens, ALL my offline IMs, inventory offers, group notices.. all "vanish" and I never see them. If you haven't heard back in three days, keep trying.

Last days were indeed a hell to do business.

In one case I had a customer buying a set through a HippoVend vendor, and on the Hippo website the transaction did not show up. Weird enough it did in my transaction history, so I could give the customer what they paid for. But it clearly shows how much the system was borked, I have seen a vendor not working before but in that case the sale keeps pending on the website.

If you do have problems, IM and drop a notecard, and do not hesistate to repeat that after a day or two. 2 days ago I discovered a notecard I received 2 months ago and never read (not of a customer, i'm glad to add). So if they are selling much, the chance is there they dont even see the first IM and notecard. But in my experience most merchants are happy to help out!

Thank you everyone, for your good advice. FWIW, I did send the vendor a polite request for help with the transaction number. I too have never had this happen before, and I am aware that this situation is as much a hell for the vendors as it is for the buyers. Being green, I was uncertain just what the parameters of a timely response were, and you'e answered that for me. Thanks.

RL problems or situations can sometimes prevent a person from getting into SL for a week or two. Such as vacations, travel out of town, sickness. Last month the only computer I can access SL with had to go into the repair shop, it was 11 days before I could access SL again.

Sometimes you just need to be patient.

My experience is that when IM's get capped, group notices and inventory offers also get capped. Certainly if I'm offline for long enough to be capped, although I can see I've received inventory offers and group notices from my e-mails, I don't get all of them when I log into SL.

This makes sense as if you look in the viewer source code, inventory offers and group notices are basically different types of IMs sent by the server but then handled slightly differently by the viewer.

So I don't see now sending a notecard really helps avoid IM capping.

Matthew

Something I would also suggest in addition to all the great advice given is make sure the person you're trying to contact is not on your Mute list. It does occasionally happen for whatever reason, usually by accident.

It prevents vendors from delivering products, and the creator can get your IMs - you just won't see their response (if they do respond).

It's not all that common, but at least it rules it out.