I am so frustrated!!

Trolls don't do imagination.
Once this one latches on to a situation, his entire being will be consumed with regurgitating some extract from the TOS as a response to every post.
He gets his life-justification from being "right" in this way.
He gets his jollies from rubbing some poor soul's nose in his own soulless interpretation of the letter of the law.
It is pointless to debate with him. He's not listening.

I agree.

It is true that the merchant is under no obligation to refund the money, but the merchant is under obligation to respond if they wish to have continuing business. It's simple business sense and separates the good stores from the bad.

I don't think you need to be so rude. Why are you so exasperated with her? She's simply expressing frustration.


Tiana, If they lose your business, which is understandable, then might I make a suggestion. I've gone to TRU, and I love their textures. I've always been able to get an instant im response from one owner in particular if I had a question or problem. Once was for a griefer, once for what you did, a double purchase, and once because I was just hopelessly lost.

Unfortunately not everyone who opens a business in SL has ANY business sense. In fact there are people who do not even consider their own SL store to be a business, but rather a fun hobby for them. Some people who open "businesses" in SL, are just "playing store". Customer service is not a part of it.

The merchant in the scenario as outlined in the first post is under no obligation to respond to the IMs, notecards, semaphore flags, morse code signals transmitted on the hydrogen band, etc., etc. None of us are required to respond to anything.

It's presumptive to think that anyone anywhere either in RL or SL has an obligation to respond to our inquiries as they don't whether we give them our custom or not. It's also presumptive to think that the merchant in question is withholding anything as we simply don't know.

Note that over the course of the thread I asked how much the merchandise cost and the OP declined to inform us as to the actual cost of the individual texture package. In other words, the OP can vent while withholding price information, and yet the merchant is under a percieved obligation to answer immediately.

Maybe it's time for merchants to be able to sign up to a volountary "eBay style" feedback system, where when a customer who pays a merchant for goods/services to be able to leave positive/negative feedback - obviously it would be up to the customer if they wanted to prefer to buy from a "registered merchat", but it may be a way forward...

Not sure how it would be implemented or how difficult it would be to stop spam feedback, and it would probably deserve a new thread for discussion - but may be an option for the future...

Gomez

Well, if we've learned one thing from this thread, it's never to buy anything from Elex.

(Course he may not sell anything anyway.)

coco

I'll try one last time....

We are not arguing this. Of course the merchat is under no obligation to respond...

Even basic levels of customer service command that you should at least reply to someone who has purchased an item from you - even if is was for L$0

I was brought up with the basic knowledge that manners cost nothing. Even if it was a simple reply "Sorry I can't help you".

You, however seem to have the attitude of "i'll speak to just the people I want to and be ignorant to the ones I choose not to"... Thats your choice, however it does not make you a nice person....

It might be worth having a look on Amazon for a book by Dale Carnegie called "How to win friends and Influence People"

Gomez

Let us designate this the Elex Dusk Rant Thread and take turns replying to it about what a smart shopkeeper and/or the OP should do so he will keep posting here and be too busy to clutter up other threads with his apparent neurotic need to be noticed and feel "one-up."

By the way, Elex, you have no obligation to continue to exist. You might therefore wish to take your own advice, in order to be consistent with your own statements, and no longer exist. I suggest seppuku: Japanese, gory, gives you time to appreciate what you have done, and being Japanese is very effective.

Ohhh my favourite house builder.

i think he uses a bot to buy land.
doesnt that figure?

If you haven't already, I would ask a friend or perhaps one of the helpful people on this thread to also send an IM to the store owner. There is a possibility that the store owner muted you after the first notecard. Unfortunately shopowners get a lot of notecard spam from mall owners, so what might have happened is that he muted you when he got the first notecard. A third party might be able to resolve this quickly.

Also, for anyone who thinks the shop owner doesn't have an ethical responsibility to refund for the extra purchases, I'm shocked. Sure the initial problem wasn't their fault, but once the problem is brought to their attention, they are honor bound to refund for the extra purchases. The item is full perms, any item that is sold copiable should only be paid for once. I have no problem refunding people who have purchased the same copiable item twice from me. It's outrageous to do otherwise.

(And I might decline to sell it to you)

Yes, yes... Elex is a bad bad manz. My problem with the thread is it's a venting thread. Instead of giving the merchant enough time to respond the OP has taken to the forums to tell us the horrible horrible tale of woe.

For whatever reasons (most likely a bug or possibly an overactive mouse-finger) the OP wound up with three copies of the merchandise.

If we point out this wasn't the merchant's fault we are unsympathetic.

If we point out that the situation can't be resolved under the Terms of Service we are unsympathetic.

I feel it foolish to decline to do future business with the merchant over a bug either in the client software or the backend server. My feeling is that the OP should eat the mistake/error and continuing buying the textures they like.

I'm personally not fond of venting threads and warning threads as, upon close examination of whatever scenario, it turns out to be the person's own fault, or in this case, the result of a bug in the system.

Should we insist on merchants providing customer service? We can. Should we expect a merchant to provide customer service? Nothing prevents us from doing so. But, as pointed out before, once the expense of servicing the customer exceeds the value derived from the sale of the goods or service the merchant is left holding the bad end of an unprofitable transaction.

For example, if I sell someone a L$10 beer object do I have an obligation to provide thirty-minutes of personal tech support talking the customer through digging it out of their inventory and attaching it? It's a US$3-cent object. What about a free T-shirt? Should I spend thirty-minutes talking the person through how to get dressed? Especially as this is covered on Orientation Island and Help Island.

Ah, I don't use bots as I'm not in the land trade. Simply because I've pointed out that landbots are not forbidden by the Terms of Service does not mean that I'm "for" or "against" them. It simply means that they're not forbidden by the Terms of Service.

As I pointed out in a different thread: If I warn you not to drink and drive and you consume fifty-beers and then crash into a tree I'm neither an opponent of the brewery industry nor an agent of the State. I simply find it to be an unwise idea. After you crash into the tree I don't have to accept your claim that the tree darted out in front of you.

Actually, I do have an obligation to exist:

http://secure-web9.secondlife.com/whatis/explore.php

Someone has to run that damn bar.

Ah! I went there once. It was empty. I took the hint. Methinks others should too.

Ty, JessyAnne!

Elex, I don't think it was at all your typical venting thread, much less your typical warning about "the bad business owners" thread.

This person was asking about and got a lot of advice about how to approach the situation.

As for your customer service and time thing, it takes all of perhaps 10 seconds to refund a customer what they paid for a copyable item that didn't need to be bought several times in the first place.

Even courts of law don't stress the letter of the law to the point you do.

I really think your approach is quite in the minority, as regards business owners.

And here's a question for you: If you sold an item that was copyable, and the buyer inadvertently purchased two or more of them, would you refund the difference? Would you refund it if they asked you to?

coco

That was our first annual Inside Har's Head Day. The echo was fantastic. And a good time was had by all.

*smoochies*

I think this thread has outlived its usefulness.

*agrees* Though, its still amusing to read!

*Shouts* "Everyone into the Pool!"

I'm presently involved in a refund of L$490,000. The Terms of Service actually let me off the hook, however, I have an obligation of doing right by the membership in that particular enterprise. And the refund was my own idea. So... have I done refunds? You bet.

But if it's a L$10 beer object and they buy two I tell them to give the other one to the attractive person next to them and strike up a conversation.

Well, I'm glad you are doing the right thing in the larger instance.

But I think the L$10 beer object is still L$10 to your customer, who bought your beer object.

And since it is only $10, wouldn't it be just as easy - and much friendlier - just to give him the $10 back, with a pleasant comment, than to tell him no and to give it to a friend?

And by the way, are you selling copyable AND transferrable beer objects, as this would imply? Remember, I was asking what you would do about COPYABLE objects inadvertently bought more than once.

coco

Have you SEEN whats in that pool?? *stands and stares at the pool*

I didn't say I was going in........