Failed purchases and customer service

I briefly stated this in one of the many asset server problem threads, but was curious if I'm being gracious or impatient in awaiting a reply from a merchant who I purchased an expensive item (a horse) from on Friday. When the purchase failed, but the lindens were taken from my balance I sent the creator a notecard with all the transaction details from my transaction history on secondlife.com.

It's been over 2 full days...and I realize not everyone signs onto SL everyday, so I've been patient. At what point do I give up on a response and just purchase the item from another creator?

So my question is this...how long do you wait for a response to a customer service/failed delivery issue before giving up?

My feeling on this one is that you should give it another day or two. For one, it's been a weekend, which might affect the availability of the creator. And perhaps more importantly, transactions have been so broken lately that the creator may be slogging through a backlog of failed transactions. I'd wait another day, and then maybe drop the notecard again with a polite "I'm sure you're swamped, but I'm wondering what the status of this is?"

A while. Can be anything from 5 minutes to weeks. Have faith

The best you can do is wait for his responce, I don't think that Linden Lab can help you in a situation such as this one.
To my knowledge, Linden Lab employees cannot just give you the item - The only solution is to send the object owner the details of the transaction (which you did) and wait.
Unfortunatly there are shady people out there who may not refund you or give you the item that you paid for. A suggestion would be to look at his/her groups and see which one is free to join, then bring up that group list every so often to check if that person is online, or when they were last online.

I have done that and she hasn't been online. I know it's probably more about me being impatient. I do log into SL everyday and take care of any of my customers who have had issues on a daily basis.....I know not everyone can do that, so I'll wait. It's one of those things where after researching the item I wanted to buy for days and finally picking one...I was really looking forward to using it.

/me checks transaction log to make sure it isn't her

Seriously, though, the last few days have been awful with the server issues. It's quite possible your notecard never got through. IMs can get buried in a mass of IMs, never to be seen by the recipient. In short, SL is SL.

Since the weekend is over, I'd follow up with a "I don't know if you got my last message, but I purchased a horse on this date, here's a notecard with the transaction information" IM/notecard.

edit: Since you say she hasn't been online, that's moot. Might just be a long weekend, then.

I would follow up with another Notecard and an IM, saying, "due to SL's fluctuating sense of consciousness, I am resending in the likelihood the original message was simply lost in the depths of what is the Abyss"...


I know I've missed a LOT of IM's, and inventory offers the past week or two. Notecards are inventory, just like everything else, and can easily be lost of missed.

I know I can't be on SL every day, and this is a popular time for vacations in my part ofthe world.

Good luck with it!

I feel like a butthead now. I posted this at 2:59pm and I just got an e-mail that at 3:16pm the creator I was speaking of sent me 3 inventory offers. Hopefully this thread will float to the 2nd or 3rd page quickly in case that creator visits these forums...even though no names mentioned, I still feel like a fool for making a fuss.

thanks everyone!

Yup...agreed with all stated. Things have been so screwy lately that any number of things are possible....not the least of which is this person may not have even got on line yet and got messges.

Being a shop owner I try very hard to get on line daily, and keep up with customers issues if there be any (ok, truthfully...sales suck now anyway and I've not had anyone IM or drop me a note about any failed transactions....but the couple times it did happen...I was on it as soon as I got the messege) But..... I also assume that everyone's real life is more important than their 2nd life......and I don't ever freak out when I don't hear from a shop owner about a failed transaction. There has only ever been 1...ONE occasion when someone has never got back to me. So....honestly, don't sweat it....poeple have lives...maybe the 2yo spilled apple juice on the keyboard....maybe they had a death in the family.....not to be morbid, but seriously... there are so many other things going on in the real world that require our attention.

My guess is that this person will indeed reply, especially if they sell such big ticket items.....they do NOT want bad joojoo being spread about their customer service. Drop another notecard and IM as everyone suggested (often I will actually IM the person....stating my issue and that I will drop them a notecard.....if they happen to be on...I drop the notecard right then and there and see that they accepted it....... if not.... I try again later. That is normally the most effective way...I try not to drop notecards unless I can establish they are on-line)

:\ i advise in my own infocard that on occassion, i can be away on trips to see my family, and to please wait up to 14 days before calling any 'red alerts' on me ... it's just not safe to post one's calendar, like 'hey my home will be empty, please rob me!'

p.s. and yes yes, gosh the grid has been deeply flakey lately, and you may have even gotten response and not even know it yet... i'm hoping the h4 rollouts will cure this disease. :\

Glad you finally got your issue resolved - the slowdown was probably just because of how many problems the creator had to deal with.

I really think that the majority of creators here are doing a splendid job with these issues that have been happening so much the last week or two. When transactions are screwing up and nothing gets to the blog for hours or never and it takes another hour or three to fix the problem, these people have got to be ending up with tons of borked transactions that they have to deal with. The few times that it has happened to me, I have had the item delivered anywhere from 1-12 hours after sending a notecard. I consider that absolutely fabulous service.