Paid for an item, didn't get it, seller doesn't respond - what are my options?

[Arquet]

So I bought this bed in the Saturday Sale… Or rather, I paid for the bed, and it was not delivered to me.  I checked my transaction history, it definitely appears. I tried the redelivery terminal in the store, the purchase doesn't appear there. I tried to contact the store owner (there is no CSR) - no acknowledgement whatsoever. Maybe he hasn't seen my message/ notecard. Maybe he has and doesn't care. Maybe he's muted me. After all, he has my money. Customer service - who cares about that, right?
I did create an alt (my group list is full) to join the group so that I could check whether he had logged in recently, because you never know, maybe he has problems at his end and can't login. But nope, he has logged in the day before, so it's not that.
Now, at some level, I know it's very little money… but I'm really pissed off. This is not a particularly small store, even if it's not as big as some. And OK, it seems to be primarily a poses store, but that should make no difference? A tranasction is a transaction.
So… I could do with some advice.
Is it worth contacting Linden Lab and try and have the transaction reversed? Would that work?
Should I continue trying to contact the store? (I don't suppose there's a way to see if I've been muted?)
Is there anything else I can do, besides never ever shopping at that store again?

 

[belindacarson]

there's a category on the support tickets for marketplace items, and sub category item "failed marketplace delivery".

 

Try using that.

Edited July 14, 2021 by belindacarson

[Gwin LeShelle]

It's only a few days, first advice is...calm down and don't panic! Many vendor systems had problems over the weekend in different stores. Ever thought about the fact that you were not the only one sending a NC about it? And the creator is just a human being...they need to work though the pile. And Linden Lab surely won't do anything about it in this case tho. So just stay patient and send the NC again. Tomorrow.

I also do not know why you jump to the conclusion of being muted XD really calm down. So many people in SL always expect the worse. When you would send me a NC while I'm online there is a good chance I would miss it because I usually AFK alot and just hit the X without checking and boom it would be lost so maybe they didn't even get it! 

Edited July 14, 2021 by Gwin LeShelle

[Alwin Alcott]

18 minutes ago, belindacarson said:

there's a category on the support tickets for marketplace items, and sub category item "failed marketplace delivery".

 

Try using that.

if it is the saturday sale, i think  it's no MP issue, the ticket will be closed, and if inworld, it's a resident/resident issue( to be solved between them, LL is no party)

Edited July 14, 2021 by Alwin Alcott

[Arquet]

25 minutes ago, Gwin LeShelle said:

It's only a few days, first advice is...calm down and don't panic! Many vendor systems had problems over the weekend in different stores. Ever thought about the fact that you were not the only one sending a NC about it? And the creator is just a human being...they need to work though the pile. And Linden Lab surely won't do anything about it in this case tho. So just stay patient and send the NC again. Tomorrow.

I also do not know why you jump to the conclusion of being muted XD really calm down. So many people in SL always expect the worse. When you would send me a NC while I'm online there is a good chance I would miss it because I usually AFK alot and just hit the X without checking and boom it would be lost so maybe they didn't even get it! 

OK, thanks for letting me know about the vendor problems, that's useful to know. Is there somewhere that I could look at to keep track of those issues?

About being muted - that's what's frustrating about not getting any acknowledgement - I have no way to know. I don't like not knowing. 😉

I'm pretty sure the store owner was offline when I sent the notecard, so it's not that. So, yeah, I'll resend it. I just don't know at which point I should reasonably give up?

[Phil Deakins]

1 hour ago, Gwin LeShelle said:

It's only a few days,

This is the 4th day since Saturday, and the 5th day if you count Saturday. The store owner has been inworld during that time. IMO s/he should have dealt with it before now. Leaving a customer to wait this long is very very poor customer service. By now, I'd be settling on the idea that the store owner isn't going to make it right, but I hope s/he does.

@Arquet Do you know if the bed in no copy? If it is, then the store owner might be thinking that you're trying pull a fast one by trying to get 2 for the price of 1. S/he has no way of knowing whether or not you received the item, and I'm sure that s/he does know that some people are happy to cheat.

I just reminded myself of a time when I'd left a sex bed for sale at 10L instead of 1000L. The next day I saw that someone had bought 5 of them. No problems there. It was my mistake. I'd probably have bought at least 10 lol. Then he came back to the store, saying that he'd bought a bed yesterday but he now prefers an 800L sex sofa, and can he swap it lol. I told him what I knew and I didn't swap it, of course. Many people are more than willing to cheat. In that case, he didn't cheat by buying 5 beds, but he tried to when he came back to swap one.

 

Edited July 14, 2021 by Phil Deakins

[Gwin LeShelle]

59 minutes ago, Arquet said:

OK, thanks for letting me know about the vendor problems, that's useful to know. Is there somewhere that I could look at to keep track of those issues?

About being muted - that's what's frustrating about not getting any acknowledgement - I have no way to know. I don't like not knowing. 😉

I'm pretty sure the store owner was offline when I sent the notecard, so it's not that. So, yeah, I'll resend it. I just don't know at which point I should reasonably give up?

I totally get the frustration tho, but I also learned in SL that creators rarely do this on purpose. So I would just send it again, until they notice x3 and at which point you can give up? No idea, honestly...I had designers that answered my questions or problems after 2 months lol T^T and I had some answering right away! Have you tried IMing them while they are online? Maybe this helps otherwise I am out of ideas but hope your problem gets fixed really soon.( ◜‿◝ )♡

[Michael Blackwood]

53 minutes ago, Phil Deakins said:

@Arquet Do you know if the bed in no copy? If it is, then the store owner might be thinking that you're trying pull a fast one by trying to get 2 for the price of 1. S/he has no way of knowing whether or not you received the item, and I'm sure that s/he does know that some people are happy to cheat.

Honestly? In which case I find that a good shop owner would just do it anyway. I am a entrepreneur and business owner myself. If I had no copy items for sale and the feeling someone is contacting me to try and cheat him/herself into a 2nd item, I would just pretend to believe the sh*t and give them the item.
It's not worth the hassle, because I didn't pay anything for the production of the 2nd item. But it's also not worth losing a customer, because pleasing my customers is the absolutely highest priority for me. Heck, I probably would have even returned his/her money as compensation for the "troubles" and given them the 2nd item anyway.

[Gwin LeShelle]

Dear @Arquet sorry for letting this derail happening that long, but I can just repeat to try it again!

Only a very few designers in SL are running their stores full time nower days in SL so many just need some more time, than we customers would wish for! So as I said already jus drop the NC again on them and maybe ask in their stores goup if anyone else had a problem that day or who you can contact ❤️

[Phil Deakins]

It's a perfectly valid way of seeing it, @Mikey Shu. I did exactly what you said you'd do. BUT it never stopped me thinking that the person may be cheating.

A seller friend of mine back then gave someone an item because it was claimed to have not been received. And maybe it wasn't. Then their friends kept turning up, saying the same thing. Many people will cheat if they can. I don't think that most will, but many certainly will, and it's something that sellers do have in mind.

[Rowan Amore]

If there were vendor issues on the weekend, the seller may literally have thousands of people sending him notecards about failed delivery.  He may still be working through them.  People have full time RL jobs, also which, of course, take priority as you know.  

As was already mentioned, I'd wait another day or two and then resend a note.  Some people aren't as well organized as others especially if overwhelmed with redeliveries.  

[Rowan Amore]

1 minute ago, Phil Deakins said:

It's a perfectly valid way of seeing it, @Mikey Shu. I did exactly what you said you'd do. BUT it never stopped me thinking that the person may be cheating.

A seller friend of mine back then gave someone an item because it was claimed to have not been received. And maybe it wasn't. Then their friends kept turning up, saying the same thing. Many people will cheat if they can. I don't think that most will, but many certainly will, and it's something that sellers do have in mind.

This would be one of the main reasons I never buy No Copy items.  Gatchas excluded, of course.

[Phil Deakins]

Just now, Rowan Amore said:

This would be one of the main reasons I never buy No Copy items.  Gatchas excluded, of course.

Copyable items don't suffer from the same reason to mistrust

[Lillith Hapmouche]

All that much of a hassle and in the end, chances are high that the shop owner didn't receive the NC in the first place.

By the description of "pose store, selling beds", I think I have a certain idea who is meant...

[LittleMe Jewell]

2 hours ago, Arquet said:

So I bought this bed in the Saturday Sale… Or rather, I paid for the bed, and it was not delivered to me.  I checked my transaction history, it definitely appears. I tried the redelivery terminal in the store, the purchase doesn't appear there. 

 

Since it wasn't delivered and didn't show on the redelivery options, the vendor system itself was possibly having problems.  Before contacting the seller again, I'd recheck the redelivery terminal.  If the vendor system had issues and is now fixed, it might now show there.  

[RitaCallisto]

I can't tell you how many creators i've notecarded about issues and never got a reply back until I sent a second notecard. At least 2 of them were tripping over themselves in apologies because SL must had eaten the first notecards. SL always seems to eat notecards.. don't know. Heck, i'll be writing a second notecard about an issue to somebody this week lol.
If you've already sent one, try another.

[Rowan Amore]

38 minutes ago, Phil Deakins said:

Copyable items don't suffer from the same reason to mistrust

Exactly.

[Lillith Hapmouche]

Why write a new notecard? Something like "sending again..." on top of the original should do.

[Arquet]

@Phil Deakins yes, I tend to think that by now, they should at least have acknowledged me contacting them, even if to say "I can't deal with it right now, but I will eventually" (or similar, or even "nah, sorry, I don't care" or whatever. Then I know where I stand.)

Yes, the bed is C/M/NT - so it's not that...

@Gwin LeShelle they never seem to be online when I am, unfortunately. Which may be a good thing - I can hope IMs go to their email. Mind you IMs might go to their spam folder, and they might not check their spam folder so there's that... It would be nice if content creators put some sort of note as to when a customer can expect a reply if they contact the creator, especially if their SL business is part-time (as you so rightly point out).

@Rowan Amore if 100's or even 1000's of customer are having the same problem, wouldn't there be some kind of group notice, as a way of reaching out to all those customers at once? Well, at least, that's what I would do....

@LittleMe Jewell yes, I tried the redelivery terminal several times since Saturday - no luck...

At this point I've sent the notecard twice, and two IMs. Will try and resend the notecard again <sigh>.

I've hung out in the group chat a bit, and it's pretty dead, so I don't think it's a widespread issue. I could be wrong, of course.

I've named the notecard "I haven't received an item I paid for, please can you help?" (and in the nc itself, I explain the situation, and copy the transaction details) - do you reckon that's specific enough?

[Lillith Hapmouche]

Hope you mentioned your name somewhere...

[Chris Corvinus]

Why don’t you just Skip the notecard method and just IM him? Most of the issues I’ve had were all resolved in an IM. I hate notecards.

[Emma Krokus]

43 minutes ago, Chris Nova said:

Why don’t you just Skip the notecard method and just IM him? Most of the issues I’ve had were all resolved in an IM. I hate notecards.

I hate them too - but will do it if requested as preferred method of contact.

However, these days - with IMs going to email - what's the problem with capping? Surely you're more likely to lose notecards sent that way....?

Also you can't read notecards on your phone or offline - that is why personally I prefer an IM myself - although I let customers choose THEIR preferred option.

 

Edited July 15, 2021 by Emma Krokus

[Lewis Luminos]

If the creator is running the business on their own with no CSRs maybe they are sick or on vacation or their internet has failed or something like that. I wouldn't worry too much until you've waited a couple of weeks to allow for those things.

If you NEVER get a response then sadly there is nothing that anyone can do. You've lost the money and you know what store to never buy from again. Linden Lab will not take any action and you can never get your money back.

[Chris Corvinus]

21 minutes ago, Emma Krokus said:

I hate them too - but will do it if requested as preferred method of contact.

However, these days - with IMs going to email - what's the problem with capping? Surely you're more likely to lose notecards sent that way....?

Also you can't read notecards on your phone or offline - that is why personally I prefer an IM myself - although I let customers choose THEIR preferred option.

 

I usually go straight to IM even if they say to send a NC. I’ve heard notecards get lost if the person is offline so they may not even see it or know it’s there unless they religiously check their notecards lol. I dunno, IM is just easier.

[Finite]

21 hours ago, RitaCallisto said:

I can't tell you how many creators i've notecarded about issues and never got a reply back until I sent a second notecard. At least 2 of them were tripping over themselves in apologies because SL must had eaten the first notecards. SL always seems to eat notecards.. don't know. Heck, i'll be writing a second notecard about an issue to somebody this week lol.
If you've already sent one, try another.

I'm not sure why vendors don't just make an alt. Have customers send concerns to alt and alt have it setup so that offline messages get forwarded to an email address which is easy to setup. Notecards are kind of archaic and don't they go to your lost and found if you're offline and messages are capped?