Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1998/03/25
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Mr. Chatterton says:
> Last week was like being a fire hydrant in a dog pound.
As the one whose initial posting unleashed this... stream, I'd like to
try to put the whole thing in perspective. It started with my query
(laced, yes, with some whining) which was hardly what I'd call an
unmitigated trashing. In fact, I summed it up with:
> How'd it all work out? The lens arrived exactly when he said it
> would, the price was great, and the lens appears to be perfect. All's
> well that ends well. Chatterton didn't do anything dishonorable or
> dishonest, and yes, I guess you can't expect a company to handle all
> usual traffic when operating at one-third staff. But... somehow it
> still left a bad taste in my mouth.
[note to DC: if you have any interest in seeing my original posting, and
it hasn't already been sent to you, I'd be glad to email you a copy.
I'm at jbm@instinet.com]
The purpose of my posting was not to emit an unmitigated complaint. It
was to tell a story, the sort of anecdote we often see on the LUG. It
was to explain how I'd come away from a transaction with an odd vibe,
and to solicit responses from others with more DCI dealings to see if
they'd come away with a similar vibe, or if I'd just gotten off on the
wrong foot.
I'm definitely not calling the man a crook. And as the thread
progressed, *nobody* called the man a crook. A significant number
of people stepped up to recommend him strongly, and among those who
aren't his biggest fans, there was one disagreement about rating a
piece of used equipment and the rest of the complaints could probably
be classified as personality issues. Given the general phenomenon that
negative experiences seem to drive people more powerfully to comment
than positive experiences, I'd read the sum of the responses as an
overall recommendation(!).
As for me, if he were once again advertising an exceptionally good price
on something I wanted, I certainly wouldn't rule out dealing with him
again (unless I've peeved him so thoroughly he doesn't want to deal with
*me*). The FedEx trick is workable.
> Next, there was a complaint was that we did not promptly accept and
> send send an order to New York,. When attempting to process the credit
> card number, we could not get the credit card company to verify the
> cross match on the address of the card and the location to be shipped
> to.
>
> As 98% of all our losses from credit card fraud occur in either New
> York or Los Angeles. The bank will not accept delivery to a Mail
> Boxes, etc location, without an identifiable signature.
This would be me. While I could nitpick about details (the destination
was in New Jersey rather than New York, and the fax was signed and
included my credit card's billing address for reference), this shipping
restriction may well be a valid business decision, and it's certainly
a decision Chatterton is entirely within his rights to make. What
bothered me (and I *think* I made this clear in my posting) was the
complete lack of feedback. I believed I'd supplied all the information
necessary such that a transaction could take place. I believed that,
barring a lack of stock, a transaction *had* taken place. I was mildly
surprised not to get some sort of order confirmation, but it might well
seem unnecessary to confirm that the expected had occurred. What seemed
inconceivable to me was that an order would be rejected silently.
> When contacted by the buyer,
Exactly.
> we simply advised him of the fact, and suggested a Fedex location near
> him, where it could be signed for and secure. I personaly thought that
> this was a reasonable, secure and professional compromise for both of
> it, based on the information we had to work with.
And I agree. Once we actually spoke, things were worked out
satisfactorily.
Unsolicited suggestions to avoid any further ill will of this sort:
1) A phone system which allows callers to hold, in a time-ordered
queue, until they're spoken to. Even if I'd had to hang on the
line for 15 or 20 minutes, I'd have done so in order to have a
two-way communication. If I didn't want the piece 15 or 20 minutes'
worth, I wouldn't hold that long, and I'd blame nothing but the
intersection of my priorities and the vendor's call volume. Had
there been a two-way communication right at the start, there'd have
been no miscommunication or crankiness.
2) Please notify people of order status when there's been a one-way
communication! Just a few-second phone message or a few lines of
email would do it.
Feedback, feedback, feedback.
yrs,
Jeff Moore