Bartertown.com

Hello everyone,
As some of you know, I run an online store, and I had a customer complain that the item he received was missing parts. He appears very unsatasfied with the way I handled the issue, and I wanted to post here to find out what others think, in order to make my store better and not have this sort of problem in the future.

The item in question is the Warhammer Wargames Terrain set (Retail value 125.00) Sold for $100.00

The set contains the following (retail prices listed next to each item)
(Also keep in mind the 125.00 retail price was from several years ago before 2 price increases. The woods set increased $7.25 each since then)
Citadel Woods - 27.25
Citadel Woods - 27.25
Citadel Woods - 27.25
Arcane Ruins - 25.00
Gaming Hill - 25.00
Modular Gaming Hill - 25.00
Grass Tub - 8.25
Grass Tub - 8.25

About one month after the item was purchased, I was contacted by the buyer and told that one set of Citadel Woods, and the Modular Gaming hill was missing from the box.

In responce to this, I asked the seller to return the incomplete set and I would issue a full refund.

In reply I was informed that he had already begun painting and assembling the set, and did not wish to return it.

Since he did not wish to return the set, I offered a refund in the amount of $33.00. I felt that this was a fair refund offer since two of the 6 main items in this set were missing, I would issue a refund of 1/3 of the original purchase price.

The buyer was insulted with my offer and demanded that I refund him the retail value of the missing parts for a total refund of $50.00.

Im am curious to know if people agree with me that the refund of 50.00 is unfair, or if you believe the buyer is right in this instance. Using the same logic, if the item was lost in the mail, I would be required to send him $173.25 to replace the lost items, even tho he only paid $100.00 plus shipping.

Please post coments here ot PM me with your feelings so I can do better in the future.

Thanks,
Andrew

$33.00 refund is more than fair.

Why did he wait so long to contact you after getting it.
It sounds to me like someone on his end stole it from him and he is attempting to recoup his losses by ripping you off.

A month delay?

Nope.. your offer was MORE than generous. Say someone buys something from Walmart, and a month later claims part of the box was missing but the remainder was already being used.. I think WM would laugh that consumer from the store.

Similar here. What you said about a partial refund was perfect, and I concur with Dakkar98.. from your OP, I think your buyer is trying to get more out of you under false pretenses.

I did question why it took so long after the order before contacting me, and was told that the item was a birthday gift. So the one month delay did have a valid reason.

Birthday Gift, huh?
So was it opened at a party with a bunch of other gamer kids who had their GW cases and such with them.
If it was I can almost guarantee you that it walked away during the party and the box wasn't inventoried until after everyone went home.

Was it sealed when you shipped it?

-Dakkar

I was told that it was not sealed when he received it. It was one of GW's large limited release sets that never had shrinkwrap. The ones I received had two small pieces of tape on the bottom of the box holding the lid in place.

I do believe the buyer is being honest about the missing items. That is not really what my post is about. I just want to be sure, as a store, that my attempts to fix the problem were resonable.

I try my best to keep customers happy. If I am in the wrong in this case, I want to know, so that I can better handle it in the future.

Many people cant wait to open stuff like that up when they get it. So even if it was sealed, it was likely opened for perusal at the party.
I agree, chances are, it walked off on them there.
Watching "court" on tv, you see cases where things are stolen. The person sueing always tries to get full new retail value from the items and the judge always tells them a resounding no. They get actual value rather then full retail. In a case like this, the person would get the 1/3 value or less as the missing parts would be valued at the same condition as what is there. As the person has already devalued part of it the missing parts will be valued as well. This means your 1/3 offer is more then generous.

What I was going for was, if it was sealed (even with two pieces of tape) then GW may replace the missing items for you.

If you contact them and tell them that you are a retailer and you sold that box to a customer who reported that pieces were missing GW may send them to you.

If you could do that then you may be able to just send those pieces to the customer, and thus eliminate paying him cash.

You offer to them is fine but may be unneccessary.

-Dakkar

You know, I see what you are getting at. I remember buying fleshhounds from a retailer. I had the head, tail, base and 2 right body halves. Instead of going to the retailer, I contacted GW and told them what was wrong. They asked only the numbers from the package so they could verify that I had bought it and trace it to the batch or whatever. They sent me one of each of the left body halves to make sure I got the correct one that matched the right half I had. If they were smart enough to keep the package, they can contact GW directly and you wont have to bother with it at all.

I contacted GW and told them that I bought a Dark Angels Battleforce Box and the Front End of the Missile launcher was missing off of the Devastator Sprue that was included in the box set.
The said they'd take care of it.
Within a week they sent me a complete Devastator Box set.

I bought the last version of Talsiman board game, not the current version. I bought it at a local retailer. They weren't official GW retailers then. It was missing 1 set of counters. I called GW, they said talk to the store. Their distributor should replace it. I told the store, they contacted Alliance, who is there distributors and was told they couldn't do anything. They said GW wouldn't reimburse them. I was there when the store clerk called Alliance. He repeated to me everything the Alliance rep said to him on the phone. Don't always depend on GW.

As far as waiting 30 day, he could have been busy in RL and waited till he had time to start it.

As far as the OP, I feel he did as much as reasonably possible.
The full refund is a pain for the consumer, since he'd have to reship it. Thus out time and $.
The partial refund is ok too, but it's the main parts of the set, and sets usage is diminished.

I can understand him wanting the full refund value, since that's how much it would cost to replace it; that is IF those parts are available seperately.

Is there anyway you can get just the parts he's missing? Maybe from GW, since you are the retailer. I know GW frowns on on-line stores that offer discounts.

The items, priced as you have them listed, come to $173.50.
MSRP on the lot is $125.
That is about 72% of retail.
So, if we go on that formula, the 2 items are worth $52.50. At 72% value, we get $37.62.
So, had you sold it at MSRP, $37.62 would be fair.

But, you didn't. You sold it at 80% of MSRP.
80% of $37.62 is $30.10 (rounded up from $30.096). Your offer of $33.00 is a nearly 10% increase on the refund that would be fair.

Now, that said, it poses the question; Why not just send him the 2 missing pieces (if you have them in stock) and send him on his way?

Eric

First off, the buyer is untimely. If the item was incomplete, he should have contacted you within days. Maximum 1 week. Not 1 month. Most likely, he's trying to scam you. He decided he wanted more terrain, which is why he wants the retail value, rather than the proportional value of what he actaully paid. If he's not a scammer (doubtful), then he's extremely careless to lose the stuff. Either way, it's his fault.

Your offer to make a full refund was more than fair.

Your offer to refund the "missing" elements was also very fair.

His counter-offer completely invalidates all of your previous offers, and you are under ZERO obligation to make any further offer.

At this point, I would tell him to go pound sand. He is unreasonable. If he can't prove that he was short-packed on receipt, that's completely his fault for not checking contents upon receipt.

ChaosOrc, your offer was more than reasonable. Let him know that normally you don't refund/reimburse items which have sat around for over 4 weeks but, being a good webstore, you're willing to offer $33 as compensation to buy 2 replacements of the missing pieces. Better yet, offer the $33 as store credit!

Sorry, this customer has no reason to *itch. Any brick-and-mortar store would tell a customer who's waited a month to complain about an item to go beat pavement!

I wouldn't worry about it! You have an EXCELLENT webstore (my personal favorite) and you can't please every customer...