In July, a buyer bought two Nancy Drew books on Bonanza: an Applewood Nancy Drew Missing Map with dust jacket and a Grosset and Dunlap Nancy Drew Missing Map with dust jacket. This is an odd combination, and I mention it since a bunch more happens that is strange. Normally, buyers do not purchase Applewood reprints and Grosset and Dunlap original editions with the same cover art of the same title in the same transaction. If they want the Applewood editions, then they buy those exclusively. It was strange.
Also strange was that the buyer somehow managed to pay twice for the transaction through Checkout by Amazon, perhaps by reloading the screen on the confirmation page. This was really unusual. I refunded the duplicate payment and prepared to package the books. A few minutes later, the buyer paid for a Hardy Boys book with dust jacket. I packaged the three books together. I sent a refund for the extra postage paid on the second transaction.
Two days later, the buyer purchased another Hardy Boys book with dust jacket. With that book, he managed to select a total of 10 freebie Nancy Drew pins. Bonanza has several freebie settings, and I had the one selected to allow buyers one freebie per book purchased. Even though Bonanza has the freebie setting of one freebie per item purchased, the number of freebies that can be placed in the cart is unlimited.
Most sellers who offer freebies are aware of this problem, since we have all had at least one buyer try to get extra freebies. I have been aware of this glitch the entire time I have been on Bonanza, but it has seldom caused a problem. Prior to this most recent buyer, I have only had two buyers select too many freebies, and they did not try to get anywhere near 10 of them.
I sent a note in the package explaining the freebie policy. I also edited all of the freebies to have a message in a large and different color of font which was very noticeable explaining that the freebie policy was one freebie per item purchased and that I would not send any freebies above the amount set by my policy. One day after this transaction, the buyer purchased another Nancy Drew book with dust jacket and placed four freebie pins in the order. As with the previous order, I did not send the extra pins.
At this point, I decided that in order to stop the buyer that I had to remove the freebie pins from my booth. I removed the freebie pins, and the buyer did not order again.
I should mention that when I refunded the duplicate payment for the first order that the buyer made, I sent a message explaining that I had sent the refund. I also had informed the buyer about shipping the first and second orders together and about sending the refund for the extra postage.
Around four days later after the fourth order, I received a message from the buyer telling me that he had a duplicate charge and requested a refund for that charge. I explained again that I had already processed the refund and directed him how to find the transactions in his Checkout by Amazon account. The buyer did not answer.
Two months later, I received a message from Checkout by Amazon informing me that this buyer had initiated a credit card dispute for one of the transactions. He chose the fourth transaction, which is not the one which had the duplicate charge (which I had refunded). All I can assume is that he did not understand that I had refunded the duplicate charge. Another possibility is that because he received three packages for four purchases that perhaps he thought I hadn't sent all four books. Additionally, the buyer could have decided to file a chargeback since I did not send him all of his freebie pins.
I almost sent the buyer a message asking why the chargeback was filed, but I decided not to do it. This buyer seems confused, as evidenced by the request for a refund after a refund had already been sent. I supplied Amazon with the delivery confirmation number that shows delivery of the package, and I am now awaiting the credit card company's decision. I understand that I will have to wait around two months before this is resolved one way or the other. I will update this post once I know the decision.
October 28 Update: The dispute was found in my favor.
4 comments:
I wonder if it's an older buyer who doesn't quite understand how online purchasing works.
Well, in any event, I'm sympathetic to you. When I purchase things online, I always save the email confirming the purchase, until the package arrives. That way I know my order has been completely fulfilled. Then again, I'm uptight like that and keep a close eye on everything, which makes life easier for both me and the seller. ;)
I can commiserate with you on this :) I've never really had any issues thankfully with ND buyers that I can recall, but my party site, there seems to be one or two buyers every year out of all the rest, who cause some trouble and it's always their fault. It's often related to their e-mail or their shipping address all of which they had control over when purchasing and inputting or selecting when checking out. My recent headache is a buyer who did a "pre-order" clearly marked as such, who I updated frequently as with other pre-order purchasers (who had no issues), with status via e-mail and after several weeks when the package was mailed, did a dispute through Pay Pal b/c they didn't have the package yet. Never responded to e-mails. So I had to provide tracking info to Pay Pal and then I sent snail mail copies of all e-mails sent to the buyer. Sometimes buyers keep an e-mail as their Pay Pal ID that they no longer use which isn't helpful to a seller as that's the only way--other than snail mail--to contact them or they use an e-mail for Pay Pal they never check regularly or they don't ever check their spam folder. Or they have old addresses in their Pay Pal history that they've never deleted and then have you ship to one and then complain about it. It's very frustrating sometimes. As a seller, I expect people to know who they are, what they're buying, where they live and to be able to read e-mails. I can't be expected to know all of that, they're supposed to inform us :) And if they're somehow capable enough to get online, find your store, and add things to a shopping cart and check out successfully, why is it, if they think someone is wrong with their order, they can't find your e-mail to contact you with? Instead they go to extremes to report you via Pay Pal or as with you, through Amazon check out. That's so highly irregular and extreme to me. When you have a problem with an order, the normal thing to do is contact customer service to resolve it--via phone or e-mail. Filing disputes is a last resort type of option. So I feel your pain :)
Jenn:)
My name is Ken Goguen I live in Ontario Canada and I collect all kinds of books one of which is a 1934 The Clue Of The Broken Locket. Now I know this is not a generally rare Nancy Drew but this is where it gets interesting. The cover of this book is almost a 3D with being what appears to be double printed. The title Nancy Drew Mystery Stories is brown with a red shadow in back. Secondly the picture on front is doubled on every person. its very unusual and have never ever seen a book from this series quite the same. If you have any ideas e-mail me at heavymetalrising@yahoo.ca.
Thanks Ken
What you have is a book that has a printing defect. Something was wrong with the printing equipment causing it to strike the book in the wrong places.
The Old Clock book pictured in this post is one example. You can see a couple more examples in this post.
The flaw can go either way as far as enhancing or devaluing the book. Normally, printing flaws devalue books, but sometimes collectors find them fascinating. The Old Clock book pictured in one of the posts I linked to is neat because the image is actually three-dimensional. If you put on 3-D glasses, the image pops out in places. I like it.
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