Bad Taste in my Mouth

After being on Etsy for almost three years in either a buyer or seller capacity I had a really bad situation arise with a seller.

I received their product in the mail today and it was absolutely awful! It was unexpected because they had such great feedback. But, since their policies said they had a 100% satisfaction guarantee and a 10 day period to contact them, I contacted them right away to send them back and get a refund. It was $60 so it was worth it to me.

Well, their policies were nothing but show. They refused to give me a refund. Wow, I was surprised. I was then given an explanation that the amount of time they spent on my items would be wasted and that since the items were glass the colors would be dull because glass did not come in bright colors.

Honestly pissed, I wrote a long post about "do you think I'm dumb?" "do you think you're the only lampwork artist I've bought from" and a laundry list of links of bright beads I have purchased in the past. BUT, I erased it and didn't send it.

Instead I filed a claim in Paypal for "item not as described" . I guess a notification was sent to the seller because they refunded my money and told me I didn't have to return the items.

I know my work is quality and, while I am happy to refund if the person is not satisfied, I always require the item to be returned. If these were as great and time valuable as they said, why would they not want them back? Because they were crap and they knew it.

ah well, I got my money back. I'm going to send the items back to the seller. Really I have no use for them.

I just can't understand why a seller would not do a refund. Nothing is worth it to me to upset one of my customers. As long as I get my item back I am happy to refund. Now I have a bad taste in my mouth, still have the option for leaving bad feedback, and will NEVER buy from them, recommend them, etc. It just makes me shake my head not understanding what they think they would benefit from refusing a refund. I think some sellers get too short sighted. Oh well, I'll move on and I learned some lessons:

1. you get what you pay for (this was a "deal")
2. filing a PayPal claim isn't too hard (this was my first and I hope last) but I was lucky because Paypal would not force a refund because the item was "shipped"...so sellers could ship empty boxes and the buyer would have no recourse as long as the box reached it's destination! sheesh!