Keeping Customers Honest (And Helping Good Causes!)

Oh man, this so strikes home. I've been pretty lucky overall, only had a few tards for customers. My favorite case was not even a customer really, it was a casino owner who wanted a completely full rights copy of my games to integrate with their camping chairs. Scripts and all. They promised they would just keep it to themselves. Haha, yeah right. I told him I would be more than willing to arrange that as soon as I had his real name on a legal document approved by my lawyer. His response was 'Huh? What? You mean a REAL LIFE document? You'd actually take me to court? You're crazy!' and promptly scuttled back into his hole. Emphasis on 'real life' is his, not mine.

I've had people tell me they've 'lost' my product for a variety of reasons. The one I've had most often is 'SL ate my game!' I usually consider the likelyhood they're telling the truth and often end up replacing them. Yeah, they might be trying to scam me, they might've even succeeded, but that makes which one of us the ass? I've only had that happen a couple times, and it was usually after a major update when the grid was really whacked out, so I was willing to believe the asset server choked. A pretty thorough questioning as to exactly what took place can usually reveal holes in the story if they're not being honest, but some people are good liars too. I generally try to convince myself that the person is honest and either just made a mistake or genuinely has a problem unless there's a glaring reason not to, such as in the OP's case.

I've only had to deal with the returns issue once, and that was on a vehicle a long time ago. Some guy IMed me and was being ugly. I calmly asked for a teleport and joined him at Busy Ben's to see what the problem was. I showed him that the vehicle did in fact work (he had rezzed it partially inside another object, thus physics failure) and he said 'Oh, poopie, well, I don't want it.' Eh, no transfer, sorry. Then he got all irate and started telling me what a jackass I was and how I knew nothing about business and (insert some random friend of his) gave refunds for non-transfer items, so clearly I was just stupid. I muted him and went on with life.

You nailed it, this is exactly the problem.

Every time someone feeds the scammers, the problem becomes more 'worth it' to them.

I treat my real customers like the (literal) gold they are.

And they are classy people. Not ONE real customer has ever been rude or confrontational during my entire Second Life experience.

Agreed. The overwhelming majority of my customers have been truly wonderful folks. I even found a notecard the other day in my inventory from a customer.

Get this.

He takes the time to write me a notecard explaining how much he loves my product, he THANKS me for making it and encourages me to continue building stuff in-world.

That was one of the most truly touching gestures I've ever received from a customer. It just made me burst with feelings of good will. Made my three and half months of exhausting effort building Crusader completely worthwhile -- a sensation that the money can never alone give you. Having your customers recognize the hard work that goes into your product and respect you for the quality you put into it... that's a feeling that is so wonderful I can't even describe it. Right up there with the day you receive the very first paycheck of your life or receive your first big promotion.

Yeah, there are dirtbags out there, but there are also great people. Whch makes me even more loathe to reward the dirtbags.

As purely a consumer, I haven't had any issues where I have needed to ask for a refund. I figure on the no transfer items it's a given you won't get one due to the fact that you can't give the item back to the creator.


It's great to see signs stating what the return policy is. Or being able to read the policy in the creator profile picks. It lets me know ahead of time what I am getting into.

I was at one clothing store and the designer had a kind of shitty 'POLICY" sign out for everyone to read. The attitude of the sign was basically "too fucking bad for you if you don't like the item, it isn't my problem once you buy it." I quit buying clothing there. If you have to be an asshole and leave a sign like that, then you deserve the headaches you get.

It was actually posted that the complainers were a small percentage of the clients and that the designer didn't have time to bother with them. WTF kind of customer service is THAT? ALL customers deserve equal respect (except the obvious scammers) and shouldn't be told that they basically don't matter. That still pisses me off to this day, and I have no clue if the sign is still there or not since I haven't been back. I'll tell in PM who the designer and store is if anyone wants to know and go check for themselves.

After all my sales, I've only ever had one refund request, from a person who couldn't figure out how to fly a jet. I didn't grant it. In fact I don't ever plan to grant a refund on a no-transfer item. If a person buys something from me without asking for a demo, they are taking a chance that they might not like what they get. It's nothing personal - it's just that I would like to avoid being scammed.

If someone tells me they didn't get their copy from the vendor, and I have records proving that they bought it, I'll give them another copy. If they say they didn't get that one, I'll tell them to file a bug report. At that point, it's either a technical issue or a liar, neither of which is within my power to fix.