Doing Business on the Internet can be Tricky (Updated)

Over the past month or so we have been purchasing various art and decor items online for The Owl. For the most part our experiences have been great. We've already received some beautiful paintings (if you haven't seen them yet check out We Want Your Arts!). But some of our internet dealings have been a little tricky.

We are trying to purchase an amazing painting from an artist named Sasha Montiljo and he has been VERY kind to us in his emails and we are thrilled to be doing business with him! But we've run into a small roadblock - buying his art requires wiring money to Serbia, where he lives and works. I actually think the fact that this painting is coming from as far away as Serbia makes it even cooler than it already was. 

Trying to figure out how to wire the money to Serbia has been a long and fascinating adventure filled with mysterious XML files and travels to a variety of banking institutions. I wrote a suitably long and detailed description of this adventure, but blogger decided to delete it from my draft so you'll have to make due with the cliffs notes, which go something like this:

File can't be opened by Mac programs X3
--->File displays all crazy when opened X2
--->Remove all the crazy parts of the file with the delete (backspace) key
--->Can read file!!
--->Transfer money from old bank to new bank --->Bring printout to new bank
--->Fill out forms
--->Transfer Accomplished!!!
--->Premature celebration
--->Missing information
--->Old bank may have access to the missing information
--->Must withdraw funds from new bank and return to old bank with printed file
--->

That last arrow is a TBD arrow since we haven't completed the previous arrow's directives yet.

In this situation the delays of funds being sent and paintings being received are all on us. We hope Sasha doesn't hate us for our complete and utter lack of knowledge about standard banking procedures and windows based encrypted files.

In this next situation the seller is the one who has caused the delay. I think we've been pretty reasonable in our requests, but if I'm delusional please let me know.

This one started with our purchase of a $350.00 painting on Etsy. We made the purchase on September 2nd and happily waited a week to hear from the seller. We were excited to get the painting so we checked for messages both on the Etsy site and in our email during that first week. When we hadn't heard anything I visited the seller's Etsy page and saw something alarming - her last customer had left negative feedback and stated that he did not receive his item.

We didn't panic though. We waited another few days, feeling use that we'd hear from the seller. After all, we'd just sent her over $350 via paypal, surely she planned on acknowledging that in some way. Just to be safe Aaron sent a message via the Etsy conversation system. Days passed. He sent a second message.

When we still hadn't heard anything on the 18th we really were getting nervous. I checked the seller's profile page to see if perhaps it said she was out of town, or otherwise unable to complete transactions, but didn't find anything to reassure me. I went back to that negative feedback and checked the dates. That person appeared to have waited a month before he gave up. Knowing there were time limits on opening disputes I decided better safe than sorry and opened a paypal dispute as well as an etsy case.

The next day we finally got an email (I have removed her name):

On Sep 19, 2011, at 1:16 PM, <name of seller> wrote:

First of all, I want to thank you for your kind note and purchase of my painting "Wormfare".  I am so very excited to hear it will be hanging in your restaurant.

It will be in your hands no later than the following week.  It lives in Austin, and I have been working very diligently, trying to get it to you from afar.  My apologies for not notifying you of this sooner, you will get it very, very soon.  

I'm sorry if this has been inconvenient for you.  I didn't imagine this process to be such a headache.  

Thank you for your patience,

We were encouraged that we had finally gotten an email, but still wary. After careful consideration I replied:

On Wed, Sep 21, 2011 at 6:53 PM, Justi Manter wrote:

We have a paypal claim already open, if the painting arrives and is in good condition we will close it. Has it been sent yet? Do you have tracking information?

I considered telling the seller than we'd just take a refund, but I really did like the painting and she seemed nice. If she could send us a tracking number then we wouldn't have to worry anymore. We waited for the tracking number.

On Wed, Sep 21, 2011 at 7:32 PM, <> wrote:

Hi Justi,

I'm sorry you felt the need to open a claim.  It should have been sent today.  Again, I moved to Santa Barbara just a few months ago, and getting it shipped from way over here has been a hassle.  It will be in good condition.  If you'd like to send photos of it after, we can arrange this.

My regrets that this transaction has become bitter for you.  I was excited to hear that it was going to such a perfect home.  I hope you like it as much as I enjoyed creating it.

I'll be in touch.

and then

On Thu, Sep 22, 2011 at 1:01 PM <>wrote:

My mother is shipping it tomorrow.  She has been busy.  I will have the tracking info to you when that happens.

Ok, sounds good at this point. We are a little annoyed at how long this is taking, but her replies at this point were prompt.

Then came this

On Sep 22, 2011, at 8:09 PM, <>wrote:

May I have your phone number for tracking?

Thanks!

I was not into the idea of sending my cell phone number to a stranger. I've already had trouble with telemarketers calling it, and besides that this was a business transaction and we didn't have our business line set up yet. All I wanted was an email with the tracking info. I wrote:

On Sep 22, 2011 at 10:28:13 PM, Justi Manter Wrote:

We don't have a home phone number. Just email us the tracking number from ups/fed ex (whoever you shipped it with).  

Justi Manter

And then we waited again, for 4 more days, without a reply or tracking number. I wanted to make sure etsy was kept up to date with the details so I left comments periodically. I made sure to let them know that the seller had contacted me because she hadn't done that herself. Today I sent an update after seeing that she no longer had anything listed for sale in her etsy shop - which wasn't an encouraging sign.

Today is the 26th, and almost immediately after I wrote that I got an email that wasn't quite as nice as the others. The rest of our conversation went like this:

On Sep 26, 2011, at 2:28 PM, <>wrote:

I don't know how else I can express to you that I am getting your painting over to you right now.  I have been in touch.  I asked for your number because UPS has a shipping option to alert you when and where your shipped item is.  I wasn't trying to do anything else with your phone numbers, my mother asked me if you had one to give the clerk.  That is all.

I am not Walmart.  I am an independent artist who's painting is in another state and who is trying her hardest to get it to you as quickly and efficiently as possible without being there.  I am really trying to work with you here, I have no intention on stealing your money, okay?  I want you to have the painting just as much as you, I promise you.  

The painting has been shipped.  I am trying to get a tracking number.  As I said before, I will be in touch with this information once I get it.  

and then:

Your painting should arrive tomorrow.  I've given pay pal all of the information.  You can view it there.

and then:

Also, I want you to know this is the first time I've done this.  I'm still trying to figure it out, I'm not an expert.

Note:

<--------------

This was my last reply:

On Sep 26, 2011 at 3:36:15 PM, Justi Manter Wrote:

As I was writing this I received your other message and a message from paypal. I'm still going to send this because I really think you should read it even though it probably wont matter for this transaction now. Even for an indie artist who is not, as you said, walmart your priority should still be customer service. We could have avoided all this if you had simply taken a moment  to write to us and explain the situation when we first purchased the painting. After waiting 2 weeks without any acknowledgment of the purchase we were understandably concerned.

You say this is the first time you've done this and you're not an expert. Not sure what you mean by that... selling on Etsy? It shows on your page that you've had 25 sales....

Here's some advice you probably don't want -  posting publicly on your etsy page that your pieces might take longer than usual to ship would let people know what they are getting into before they make a purchase. The general time frame from purchase to delivery on the other art we have bought on Etsy was a week to 10 days tops, and they all sent us emails confirming they received payment, and another email when the item was shipped. I was very excited to be buying your painting and I wish things had gone smoothly from the start so that we weren't left with this bad experience. 

Honestly, if we were buying something less expensive we might have been willing to just give you all the time you needed and not open a claim - but you only have a limited time period on paypal to dispute something and we didn't feel like it would be a good idea to wait without knowing what was going on when there was $350.00 at stake. We've made the mistake of waiting before and have lost money because of it.

As long as the painting arrives tomorrow, as the tracking info shows it should, we will close the paypal/etsy disputes.

~

(Below is what I started writing before I got the tracking email and the 'I'm new at this' email. I sent both halves of this message).

~

The tracking number will be on the receipt. You could probably also request it from the store that you shipped it through if you give them our shipping address (or maybe the return address you used). 

The reason we have been so concerned about all this is because my husband Aaron tried several times to get in touch with you via email and etsy to find out what was going on. If you had responded to those emails we would probably not have felt the need to open the paypal/etsy disputes. We paid for the painting on 9/2 - we didn't open a dispute until 9/18 - I feel that we gave you plenty of time to get in touch with us and explain that there would be a delay. We also saw the negative feedback from your last customer, who also waited a month and claims he didn't get his item - can you really blame us for being worried?

Are you possibly not receiving all the emails we send? I replied immediately when you asked for our phone number and said we'd prefer you email us the tracking number, we didn't hear back from you with or without a tracking number until I left updated comments on the etsy case. 

I'm sorry that you seem upset by this transaction, but we are absolutely not being unreasonable in our requests for timely correspondence and a tracking number. These things are normally provided without question by independent sellers on both etsy and ebay. 

Justi Manter

If you look at the timestamps you'll see that I took nearly an hour writing my reply, trying hard to keep a measured tone - polite but stern. Helpful, but without ignoring the fact that this whole thing was handled poorly. Part of me doesn't even want this painting anymore, all it's gonna do is remind me of this hassle. Here's hoping that fades with time.

Well, this was a very serious blogpost. I started out trying to keep things light. I meant to have a little more humor mixed in too, I swear. Oh well.

Allow me to leave you today with a link to a friend's blog. It coincidentally arrived in my email today, and you'll note how appropriate it really is when you get down to the section entitled Communicate. Customers Rule! by PiXELGRiN

I promise hope to never subject you to such a rant again, but it sure do feel good to vent sometimes ;)

Another reply from the seller in response to that last message:

You're right.  I'm sorry.  I hope we can move forward with this, and I hope my painting brings you lots of happiness when it arrives.


I do feel much better now that I've read that. Hopefully the painting will arrive within the next few days and we can move on to bigger things, like surgery, dentists, building renovation, forbidden forest clearing, and opening The Owl.

My reply, if you're on the edge of your seat wondering how it all ends:

It's ok, this whole thing has been a mess on both ends. We'll let you know when it gets here. If you feel like you need some pointers on the whole etsy thing I have a friend who writes a fantastic blog about it. This was, coincidentally, the post update I received from her today: http://pixelgrin.wordpress.com/2011/09/21/customers-rule/


(Look Jen, I linked you twice!) :D