Don’t poke the bear.

I have tried to keep my blog game related, but this is something I felt that I wanted to write up and it is at least internet related (somewhat).

At office there are a few people that I don’t always get along with and they do things that I find really annoying/lazy, I would often joke that I wanted do a little something to discourage theses habits. My then boss Keith (who has moved to a biggest office within the company) would often tell/warn me “Don’t poke the bear.”, because theses same people could really make my job miserable if I provoked them and it wasn’t worth the cost.

Well this time the shoe is on the other foot and frankly this foot is made for kicking. The other day I ordered some books from Amazon and from the (re)sellers. Now I don’t check my email very often, but I do check the Amazon page when I have open orders. So I was a bit surprised when I checked my email to find that one of the (re)sellers had sent me an email saying the they had refunded the order cost because they couldn’t find the book and were not going to be sending it (aka I need to order it again and begin the waiting process over). Now since the Amazon page still open, I had the opportune to leave this person feedback. Now Amazon on their feedback page says “Please contact fast__shipper to try to resolve any problems before submitting feedback.”, given the email that was sent, this chance to resolve the problem was taken out of my hands, so I don’t feel my feedback was unwarranted.

1. (Awful) Disappointing and Unreliable. I think theses quotes from the email seller sent says it all. "This notice serves as confirmation that we have initiated a refund.." "Thank you for your purchase but we're unable to find this book.."

I really don’t think this was unfair of me nor was it rudely written, since as I said in the feedback I was quoting directly from the email and that was the bulk of my comment.

Seller Response: "Unfortunately, this book wasn't in stock so a full refund with an explanation email was sent to the buyer right away. We don't really understand why a 1 rating (worst possible rating) was given when the refund was full and immediate."

Ok fast__shipper, you have poked the bear. 8Þ

"Unfortunately, this book wasn't in stock”
So it is not your fault that you listed that you had it available to sale?

“full refund with an explanation email was sent”
So, I should thank you for not keeping my money and not sending the book?!?!? I have suggestion, the next time you go to the store and buy only a gallon of milk, at the checkout thank the clerk for not charging for you for the 3 dozen eggs that you are not getting. If that sounds ludicrous, then you should reread what you wrote. Also in my feedback I cleared mentioned the fact that you gave a refund and it’s not like I made you out to be a thief.

“We don't really understand why a 1 rating”
What do you think you deserve? Based on the feedback scale?
5 (Excellent)
4 (Good)
3 (Fair)
2 (Poor)
1 (Awful)
I think that it’s fair to say that 5, 4, and 3 completely off the table. Given the fact that I now have to mess around reorder and start the waiting over again, awful fits in my opinion.

Now I’m not saying that this person is not be a good seller they probably are and given the fact that they have 5200+ (at the time of writing this) and most are positive. But I use the rating and amount of ratings to help me choose when I’m using a new (re)seller (at least new to me) and I will pass up cheaper (re)sellers for one that has a long and clean track record (as I’m sure many people do).

Up until now I have been reluctant very much (if at all) to talk about my job, since it isn’t in the game industry at all and really doesn’t have much of a place here.

The company I work for is a very service based business which provided support for law firms (and I have no legal training, so no free advice or suggesting that I be in the 100 lawyers at the bottom of the ocean *old joke*). Where our clients are very/insanely demanding in both deadlines and quality. And in the time that I have been with the company going on 12 years now (*cries a little*) and our prices haven’t gone up in that time, in fact in some cases they have dropped some (what have you bought lately that has stayed the same price or even dropped in the same time frame?). And there are times when we do make a mistake or late on a deadline that we will discount the charge or even give it to them for free. And keep in mind that in most cases (no pun intended) the cost of our services are passed/billed to their client (with a markup I’m sure) and I very much doubt when we give a discount that it is pass along to the firm’s clients.

So that said, I think that I know the value of feedback and good/quality service. Personally if I was a (re)seller on Amazon while trying everything to avoiding this even happening and it did, I would extra eat the cost and order a new copy from Amazon to be shipped directly to the customer along with sending an email to the customer explaining that was a mistake but it was handled and wouldn’t effect them (cost or time). Then I would find the person at my operation in charge of inventory and smack them in the back of the head and tell them not to let it happen again. But then again I’m old fashioned at times, I remember when I was young (late 70's to early 80's) that when you went to a drive-thru and the (at the time) rare case you had to pull into the lot and wait for your food, they would often throw in something for free (extra fries or a dessert).

So do you think a 1 was to harsh?
or
All that thought over a book? Man, Lost you have some anger management issues.