I would like the opinion of my fellow Bricklinkers.
Recently a Mindstorms set was purchased in my store.
The set was paid, shipped and arrived in good condition.
After about a week the buyer get back to me, complaining that the set was the
Danish version, not the English one.
I apologized, and offer the buyer a full refund if the set was shipped back
or a partial refund if he would like to keep the set.
The buyer replied : "I will not send the set back. I
opened it before I realized it was all in a foreign language so it no
longer has the value of a sealed set." and noted that he expected a full
refund for the price of the set (excluding shipping and fees).
I feel that a full refund is too much, so I offered 50% off the price, and links
to the English instructions.
No, it sounds like you are being reasonable, and the buyer is not. You made a
very good offer to remedy the problem. That fact that he is trying to demand
the set for free is ridiculous.
I would like the opinion of my fellow Bricklinkers.
Recently a Mindstorms set was purchased in my store.
The set was paid, shipped and arrived in good condition.
After about a week the buyer get back to me, complaining that the set was the
Danish version, not the English one.
I apologized, and offer the buyer a full refund if the set was shipped back
or a partial refund if he would like to keep the set.
The buyer replied : "I will not send the set back. I
opened it before I realized it was all in a foreign language so it no
longer has the value of a sealed set." and noted that he expected a full
refund for the price of the set (excluding shipping and fees).
I feel that a full refund is too much, so I offered 50% off the price, and links
to the English instructions.
Meant to add: offering him 50% back is waaaaayyyy more than reasonable. The buyer
demanding it for free sounds like an...well you get the idea.
In Selling, Darth_Smithy writes:
In Selling, jagoop writes:
"A'm I the AXXXXX?"
No, it sounds like you are being reasonable, and the buyer is not. You made a
very good offer to remedy the problem. That fact that he is trying to demand
the set for free is ridiculous.
I would like the opinion of my fellow Bricklinkers.
Recently a Mindstorms set was purchased in my store.
The set was paid, shipped and arrived in good condition.
After about a week the buyer get back to me, complaining that the set was the
Danish version, not the English one.
I apologized, and offer the buyer a full refund if the set was shipped back
or a partial refund if he would like to keep the set.
The buyer replied : "I will not send the set back. I
opened it before I realized it was all in a foreign language so it no
longer has the value of a sealed set." and noted that he expected a full
refund for the price of the set (excluding shipping and fees).
I feel that a full refund is too much, so I offered 50% off the price, and links
to the English instructions.
I would like the opinion of my fellow Bricklinkers.
Recently a Mindstorms set was purchased in my store.
The set was paid, shipped and arrived in good condition.
After about a week the buyer get back to me, complaining that the set was the
Danish version, not the English one.
I apologized, and offer the buyer a full refund if the set was shipped back
or a partial refund if he would like to keep the set.
The buyer replied : "I will not send the set back. I
opened it before I realized it was all in a foreign language so it no
longer has the value of a sealed set." and noted that he expected a full
refund for the price of the set (excluding shipping and fees).
I feel that a full refund is too much, so I offered 50% off the price, and links
to the English instructions.
Am I being unreasonable here?
You were definitely not unreasonable, and I think reasonable to a fault lol You
absolutely went above and beyond, and I really don't think that was required.
Couple of questions since I'm not super well versed in Mindstorms... but
are there separate catalogue entries for the different languages? I couldn't
find anything offhand but I didn't know which version it was either.
As well, wouldn't the programming of it be able to be downloaded in English
and run in English, along with the instructions like you provided?
If so, and if there's not separate catalogue entries where there was a mislisting
under English rather than Danish, I don't think any kind of return or refund
was warranted at all on their part, and you offering to even accept a return
and full refund was going way above what was required. They ordered from a Danish
store, so if a product has a base language included (like software etc) I would
assume it's in the official language of the country, and that there's
a way for me to source the English versions if required.
hi,
to me you did everything right...and not to blame at all.
but maybe you could have added text that it was the Danish version.
although...if you buy in a Danish shop...you must not be surprised the language
is Danish
I would like the opinion of my fellow Bricklinkers.
Recently a Mindstorms set was purchased in my store.
The set was paid, shipped and arrived in good condition.
After about a week the buyer get back to me, complaining that the set was the
Danish version, not the English one.
I apologized, and offer the buyer a full refund if the set was shipped back
or a partial refund if he would like to keep the set.
The buyer replied : "I will not send the set back. I
opened it before I realized it was all in a foreign language so it no
longer has the value of a sealed set." and noted that he expected a full
refund for the price of the set (excluding shipping and fees).
I feel that a full refund is too much, so I offered 50% off the price, and links
to the English instructions.
hi,
probably the outcome to that will be;
buyer has to send the item back and pay for shippingcost him/herself
and as soon as you receive it the buyer gets full refund of the set.
your loss will be the value of the set that is no longer sealed,[sorry]
In Selling, jagoop writes:
Thanks for all the replies.
It turns out the seller is pushing me with talk about reviews, and letting PayPal
sort out the problem, to which I have just replied "okay".
It will be interesting to see how this plays out. I have never has something
resolved by PayPal in this way before.
hi,
probably the outcome to that will be;
buyer has to send the item back and pay for shippingcost him/herself
and as soon as you receive it the buyer gets full refund of the set.
your loss will be the value of the set that is no longer sealed,[sorry]
You might very well be correct. But I am playing this one to the end on general
principle.
hi,
probably the outcome to that will be;
buyer has to send the item back and pay for shippingcost him/herself
and as soon as you receive it the buyer gets full refund of the set.
your loss will be the value of the set that is no longer sealed,[sorry]
You might very well be correct. But I am playing this one to the end on general
principle.
Update: Paypal decide the case in my favor. The amount on hold has been released.
hi,
probably the outcome to that will be;
buyer has to send the item back and pay for shippingcost him/herself
and as soon as you receive it the buyer gets full refund of the set.
your loss will be the value of the set that is no longer sealed,[sorry]
You might very well be correct. But I am playing this one to the end on general
principle.
Update: Paypal decide the case in my favor. The amount on hold has been released.
has an additional note asking sellers to specify which language the user guide
their set contains is in, but few sellers have bothered to actually do it. That
may have prevented this situation. I suppose it may be too much effort for one
or a few sets, though.
I would have prefered to solve the matter directly with the buyer. Even if that
would have cost me a few dollars for an english set of instructions.
On the other hand, I am please that escalating to PP wan't a ticket to a
free set.
I fully understand what you are saying.
However, the buyer didn't get what he expected. He got what he ordered.
These two differ. That's my point.
I recently sold a battery box without it's bottom lid (because I don't
have it).
As the lid is a separate part.
Buyer expected a full box, so with the bottom lid.
I feel sorry for the buyer, as he expected something different than he actually
bought. So I tried to help him find a bottom nearby. That felt ok for me as a
seller and the buyer was happy with me trying to help him get a full set.
Well, that's fine news. As a 'free' set was feared, a financial loss
for the seller has been prevented bu the PP ruling.
However, still 2 lose here in my view:
- buyer doesn't get what he expected
- seller has a dissatisfied customer
So despite the PP ruling in favor of the seller, I still feel something got lost
between the lines exchanged.....
Am I the only one?
They were offered a massive 50% refund which is beyond generous. They were also
offered a full refund upon returning it but they said they did not want to return
it. If you put yourself in the shoes as a buyer, and you ordered from a Danish
store and your instructions were in Danish, not Dutch, what do you feel is a
reasonable resolution, especially as you received product exactly as you would
expect someone in that country would have?
You were just offered 50% off the cost of a brand new sealed retired set, and
you have access to online instructions in Dutch. The catalogue also had no mention
of language so the seller could not have known (especially on a sealed set).
Wouldn't you feel like you won the lottery in normal circumstances? The main
product is all still fine (the LEGO). I'm also assuming the Mindstorms programs
that you download from LEGO can be selected for your preferred language, as the
brick itself is handled by the programming language.
Instead the buyer escalated as a full claim. They wanted to get a full refund
and keep the item without returning it. Maybe we're missing additional context
from the exchange they had as that's always a possibility, but assuming what
was written in the post is accurate, I'm very curious what you would had
anticipated as a proper resolution. They were wanting to work with the buyer
but the buyer refused.
You'r missing my point completely as I do not want to get into 'what
do you/we/I/they think is reasonable', so here's a story to refer to,
maybe you catch my point .
I recently sold a battery box without it's bottom lid (because I don't
have it).
The lid is a separate part in the catalog and can be bought as such.
My buyer expected a full box, so with the bottom lid.
I feel sorry for the buyer, as he expected something different than he actually
bought. So I tried to help him find a bottom lid part nearby. That felt ok for
me as a seller and the buyer was happy with me trying to help him get a full
set. That connection between buyer and seller got lost in the sale of the OP.
And I read your reply as a bit angry towards me. Not sure it's meant to be
read like that?
To close of: my reasoning is never someone else's reasoning and the reverse
can't be either. So that's why I won't make any comment what is reasonable.
It completely depends on one's perspective.
You'r missing my point completely as I do not want to get into 'what
do you/we/I/they think is reasonable', so here's a story to refer to,
maybe you catch my point .
I recently sold a battery box without it's bottom lid (because I don't
have it).
The lid is a separate part in the catalog and can be bought as such.
My buyer expected a full box, so with the bottom lid.
I feel sorry for the buyer, as he expected something different than he actually
bought. So I tried to help him find a bottom lid part nearby. That felt ok for
me as a seller and the buyer was happy with me trying to help him get a full
set. That connection between buyer and seller got lost in the sale of the OP.
And I read your reply as a bit angry towards me. Not sure it's meant to be
read like that?
To close of: my reasoning is never someone else's reasoning and the reverse
can't be either. So that's why I won't make any comment what is reasonable.
It completely depends on one's perspective.
It's not meant to be angry, and I completely understand your point about
expectation vs what they ordered. But that's also my point, and the seller
said they wanted to work with the buyer. They buyer was entirely closed off to
discussion from the sounds of it.
You mentioned that you felt that there wasn't a good resolution on the outcome
which is an indication that you feel the seller didn't properly resolve the
issue, and I was asking how you felt it could have been better played out assuming
the buyer wasn't working with the seller. They even responded to your comment
by saying "I would have preferred to solve the matter directly with the buyer.
Even if that
would have cost me a few dollars for an english set of instructions." which
is an example of working with the buyer to satisfy their expectations, but you
responded with your example as if that wasn't enough either.
I always feel awful knowing if someone ordered something and it wasn't what
they expected (a common one with new buyers is not getting accessories with a
minifigure for example). I think anyone who has ever reached out to me knows
I'll go to great lengths to help them with any issues whether is based on
error or expectation. But to your point about the outcome, I'm still at a
loss as to what more you feel the seller could have done in this situation.
Denmark
Canada, Ontario
Netherlands, Noord-Holland
USA, Illinois
.