Cheapskate shop owner

When you buy an item in a shop in sl and you happen to have a problem with it, the shop owner for the most part will exchange it with no problems. Sometimes they'll even tell you keep that one and I'll send you another. It's a no brainer doing this to keep your customers happy and if you have to exchange a faulty item then you do it. This way you don't lose a customer, especially if it's a good customer who spends alot in your shop and a good word will be spread about your shop.

I've spent a lot of money at this one jewelry shop buying different pcs of jewelry for my many friends. Although I have done this many times I can never ever remember seeing anyone else in this shop but I've never given it much thought. Not like some of the other Jewelry shops where you see people each time you walk in.

Now I see why the lack of customers in this shop. About 2 weeks ago I went to this shop called *edited* Jewelry, owned by *edited* as I've done countless of times before. I picked up a Hearts Necklace to replace one I had gotten before that was accidently lost. I brought it and send it back to a close friend.

But she told me when she wore the necklace it couldn't be seen at all. Not a single tiny piece was present so there's no way of enlarging it. I send a message to this character letting him what was going on. First, he didn't answer me for close to a week although I had sent him 3 IM's with one of them he was on-line. Finally, he contacts me and tells me she should make a shape, then do this then do that, turn it around, jump 5 times, shake it a few times, color it blue and it should work.

He's telling me to tell her to do all kinds of things to make it work. I told him, it's much easier just to exchange it for a working one. Besides she doesn't know how to do all this you're talking about nor should she have to I told him. On top of this, I reminded him I had spent a lot of money in his shop thru' out this past year and that he shouldn't be treating a good customer like this. He then didn't answer and that was the end of that conversation.

After a few more days I again contacted him and again he refused to do anything making up sorry excuses instead of just changing it. I wrote him back, told him he knew nothing about being a business man and that I would never set foot in his shop again, he lost a good customer, possibly one of a very few he still has if anything. I also told him he should keep the necklace as he acted as though he was starving and probably needed it to survive. I later found out others had also had similar experiences with him as he also refused to take back his faulty items.

Today, I went and brought six pairs of summer shorts but when I tried to wear them I couldn't see them. I contacted the shops owner where I had gotten them and he responded if in a short while they didn't appear he would exchange them. I made a copy of the conversation and sent it to *edited* along with a note that read, read and learn, this is the way you treat customers.

This guy is a poor excuse for a businessman. Rather then keep his few customers in good standings he rather act like the cheapskate he really is.

I know about the names but this is why these people do the kind of things they do cause they know no one else will know about it. Unfortunately, for him alot more people will know as I'm telling all my friends about him. And if even if only one person here reads this and stays away from his shop, it will of been worth it.

Im not making an excuse for how the jewelry shop-keeper trated you, but I can not stress this fact enough:

This is not real life, ANYONE can start a business so so easy here with no papers involved. Many SL "business" owners do not know how to handle customers, not only that but many times they just dont care if youre happy or not. These are amateur businesses in a virtual world- Do not expect top quality service. Know that if you buy something theres a chance something just may not go right and you may not get your money back. (There are some businesses in SL who im sure have a good customer service record, though) I understand RL has some shady businesses too *holds comment* but there are many more competitors and the possibility of bad reports on the BBB, etc, to keep a businesses` customer service in check. In SL we are not even allowed to post avatar/shop names on the forums.

You do say you have spent quite alot of money at this shop? If someone is a constant customer of mine I tend to know and remember their names and make sure if ANYTHING ever goes wrong they get fixed up. I try to do that with anyone who IMs me who may have had a problem too. So the fact he brushed you off is a bit off. But like I said, some people just dont care.

Was the jewelry no mod? You say she could not enlarge it.. I find it odd for someone to make jewelry no mod and I myself would never purchase a no mod item of jewelry.

Also you should edit your post and erase the name of the avatar and his shop, its against TOS.

I can understand that you are upset if something doesn't work right away. But in this case it seems to be quite simple: I guess the necklace was made for thin necks. Most women in SL have rather thin necks. If now an avatar has a slightly wider neck, the prim attachment will be hidden inside her body.



This sounds to me as if he gave you enough instructions to make it work. I also sell prim attachments (albeit of a more organic sort) and would have told you exactly the same: either temporary change your neck width, or create a new shape and temporarily wear it, in order to see the necklace and get a chance to enlarge it.
Or attach the necklace to your wrist, pull it a bit to the left or right, and then attach it to chest or spine again (there's no neck slot). It will be out of position, but can now be targeted for resizing and repositioning. It can never hurt to learn how to adjust body attachments, since most prim attachments won't fit right away.

I also understand that it is upsetting if a shop owner doesn't react to an IM. But it often happens that IMs get lost. I'd trade a notecard to the shop owner if I don't get a reply to an IM.



Invisible clothing is either caused by your client software, which sometimes fails to rebake your body textures. You can manually force it to rebake the texture (Ctrl+Alt+D to get the client menu, Client --> Character --> Rebake textures). Sometimes it's also an asset server problem and the texture simply takes a few minutes to load. Things in SL often take a little patience and troubleshooting.

If I'm in a hurry and don't have much time to talk, I'll simply refund customers too or quickly resize an item. But often I take the time and explain how to adjust the wares. I always assume that the customer is willing and able to learn something new, since learning seems to be the only way to get around in SL.

Btw, it's usually against the forum rules to name a resident when you write something negative about them. I'd suggest you edit the post and take out the name.

I am not defending the shop owner, but in my experience, things like necklaces can become buried in the avatar. You might as your friend to reduce her height and size (perhaps put a Ruth Shape on) and see if the goods appear, assuming they do, she can then raise them and change back her shape.

BTW, naming names on the forums, is a sure way of getting the thread locked and possibly sent for review to LL.

I won't bother repeating what everyone has said already, they are all on the money. But jewelry can be a pain to deal with, especially necklaces and bracelets, sometimes you hve to fiddle with them a bit. It took a bit of learning but it's not hard. get a posing stand, and go to it.

A friend gave me a necklace that she had just made to test out the amount of bling. I put it on and liked it, but wanted to wear a choker that I had as well, so I had to attach it to my spine. During editing it disappeared (yikes!). It was hidden in my chest. With a little camera manipulation I found the jewelry buried in there (I always thought I was filled with cotton candy and Jolly Ranchers...ya learn something new every day ). I was able to get it out and place it properly...and in the meantime I learned a bit about how to better use SL. Curiousity and patience helped a lot. In fact, I *always* try on my own before I contact a shop owner.

I'm not assuming that the OP hadn't tried any of this - I'm posting it in case any other youngin's read this. Oh, and it's not "worth it" if you get banned from the forums because you violated the Forum Guidelines. No need to name names.

One thing you can do when you lose attachments like that is hit Ctrl/Alt/T and they will appear as red shadows. Makes it easy to find them.

If you purchase an item that is too small for your avatar then thats your own fault I think. You should either buy a larger version or get a smaller neck. Its not the job of the business owner to create a custom necklace to fit your friends fat neck, in fact it sounds like they went out of their way to give instructions on how your friend can change their shape to accomodate the necklace. Naming this person and their business on the forum is out of line on your part. Posts like this can damage a business in SL and I think your complaint is entirely unreasonable. If you feel you have been cheated then contact the SLBB and they will mediate your dispute for you. This is a much more effective way of resolving your issue rather than naming and shaming on a public forum.

I'll IM the business owner in question and alert them to this post so they can a have a chance to defend themselves before the thread is locked.

Or maybe the business owner should state up front that the item is only suitable for certain sizes. Barring that, a refund might be appropriate.

In any event, consumers needs to be aware. If you get burned, don't go back to that shop.

Naming names ia a big no no on this board (see the forum guidelines). You may wish to remove the shop's name and the shop owner's name from your post.

Mari

One of the coolest features of SL is the ability to establish a business model cheaply and effectively and test it. This opens the door for a LOT of people who want to learn from it. Unfortunately, it also opens the door for a LOT of people to destroy such business' (because the cost is so low and everyone can be anonymous). I'm fairly sure the jewelry maker didn't set up business just to frustrate people. They probably want to be successful at what they do. Why not help them rather than try to destroy them. The constructive criticism was a good approach. Naming names in a public forum was not. The later is the first step to starting a public witch hunt. That kind of recourse should only be reserved for self confessed criminals, and it shouldn't happen here because it's a TOS violation. Take it some place else. There are plenty of 3rd party forums with different rules.

Biggest thing is from what I can tell is the product WAS NOT broken.

ALL prim attachments are built to fit an avatar, usually the one the maker creates. Some occasionally will give a couple of sizes but at the end of the day more often than not they will need adjustment to fit. It's a fact of attachments.

If you cannot see the item then as said before temporarally reduce the size of the avatar, enlarge, then re-enlarge the avatar.

That said some sellers will offer a premium fitting service but they will need to spend time with you and often charge for the service.

The maker in this case couldn't just give you a 'fixed' one because they wouldn't know what the shape they where fitting to was.

Well in an ideal world there should be demo's for people to try etc, but advertising that an object is only suitable for a certain size is a problem with pretty much everything in SL. I have a oddly shapped Av and nothing I buy off the peg fits me. Even from those poeple that are considered as brand leaders. I personally sell prefabs and got a comnplaint from a furry avatar becasue they couldnt walk up the stairs because they were too small. The stairs had a height of .25m so perfectly acceptable for nearly every other avatar. Im not going to display a sign saying only suitable for avatars over 4 ft. Im not going to give them their money back because the item is copyable, so I advised they get some longer legs. I think the store owner did the right thing by offering advice on how to adapt the Av to suit the product and by not offering a refund. If there is a chance that a product will be too small, i.e. jewellry then make sure you only buy modifyable objects so you can adapt them rather than adapting your AV

When SL isn't 'borked as normal' I usually rez a too small object on the ground and enlarge it there. Then I wear it and adjust down from there. Saves me from mucking with the avatar shape and I can get a clear look at it to make sure it's adjusting to the larger size evenly. I hate how SL sometimes will NOT change a prim's size when 'stretching.'

I very rarely get a no-copy item, but if I did I think I'd be afraid to rezz it on the ground when failure to rezz there can be the first notice you have that things are borked, and you stand to lose the item. Maybe the other poster's idea of rezzing it worn on a wrist might be a better way to go?

Well at any rate, the thread title is inflammatory and the OP has "named names" and not bothered to come back and edit. Lame.

Cole made it fairly clear in the original post that he/she doesn't care about forum rules:

The irony here is that Cole posted a name because he/she knows it takes some time before LL will find out about it - The same motive (aside from vindictive behavior), it seems.

*nods* Oh, probably.. but I don't usually buy jewelry or prim attachments that are no copy for this reason. Those that I do (and I have got to love the piece before I will), I do tend to wear and change, but I've had a lot more practice with resizing And with SL's idea of sticking out it's tongue and not resizing that ONE farking linked prim that is in the back of the avatar! And this is enlarging we're talking about, not shrinking, so the .01 limit isn't the reason for the problem.

I have a really malnourished avatar form for those moments... my first try at a shape, straight from orientation island. See, there are uses for the first mistakes!

Yeah, the moderator will lock this thread and may report you for naming names in this manner. If you want to keep the thread active, I would blank out a portion of the store and avatar name.

Also, remember most people are very frustrated with LL issues impacting their businesses and I'm sure they are not making any real money on this venture. So try to understand when you catch someone who has run out of patience.

Gotta love the "I spent a lot of money at your business, so service me." quip. I consider that rude and snotty no matter how legitimate the customer's needs are. What do people actually think when they say that? That the business owner isn't going to give a shit unless they know the customer spends a lot of money? So the customer who spent L$100 at a store is worthless and worth ignoring over the guy who spent L$10,000? Lovely.

Back on the side topic of how to edit an object lost inside your av's body:

I often use Ctrl-Alt-Shift-4 to hide my av (on my screen, others can still see me). I haven't tested this, but I'm pretty sure all your prim attachments will remain visible. If so, you can just hide your av and the edit the object to move it to the side. Once it's outside your body, you can re-show your av and put the item in the appropriate place.

I think bottem line here, people should be willing to learn, especially modify prims. I have been around only a few short months and I have learned to do this, it's not hard at all. I may end up selling some of my builds, I will not nesissarily return money for all defects, sizing and positioning on mod items being one of them.

Scripting and animation errors I will "warrenty", but size, position, or use with inappropriately shaped Avs I will not. For size and position I would instruct them on how to adjust the item (If Mod), or for other Av issues reguarding my build I would advise they use the supplyed Av shape (I intend to sell these separate and bundle them with the build.) or detach anything that may causing their issue.

If they are not willing to to handle non-warrenty issues, I may try to accomidate them, but as I am planning my endever as a "Break Even" recreational business I am not always going to drop whatever I am doing just to help out. I am sure many business owners are the same way though as I doubt they want to spend all their SL time working an not enjoy it.

I would like longer legs and a longer neck irl, please.

coco

I don't understand why a business owner would not post a refund to an unhappy customer for a no copy item (especially a steady customer). It's not like they are getting ripped off.

*locks*