I've had a problem order that's been bothering me well, all year.
In January I placed a large order from a seller in France and paid €166 at the
time of order via PayPal. Then, I waited. After one month I sent a polite message
to the seller since the status of the order had never changed (some of the negative
reviews on their store stated that they took a long time, so I felt this seemed
in character). I simply wanted to make sure they had received the order. I got
a very curt message back chiding me as if I were a child, stating that "of
course I have taken your order into consideration - I am late and my site states
that." I had not seen a notice before, but now the store said orders were
running late. OK, no biggie, I have time...
What followed was a series of messages back and forth which were polite in nature;
there was always some excuse for why they seller wasn't able to get around
to completing my order. After five months, I asked them to kindly please complete
and ship my order, or issue me a refund. The seller told me in June they were
sending the order that weekend. Feeling that this was genuine, I believed it.
(Its important to note this was approaching the 6 month point at which PayPal
would no longer be able to assist me in seeking a refund). July, August and
September came and went with no change to my order.
Out of frustration, I filled a a Problem Order with Bricklink for a NSS. The
seller quickly responded to the NSS stating that they had sent the order on 3
Sept, but that they could not change the status of the order for some unknown
reason (dubious?). I removed the NSS and waited a full month. No order arrived,
nor did the seller respond to my messages asking for tracking info, or even to
state which courier they used. I re-opened the NSS in October, and canceled the
order after the period of time to do so elapsed.
I want to point out this seller had a spate of NSS / bad feedback in the Oct
and Nov timeframe and their selling privileges were revoked. I felt a sense of
relief to see that other's were having a hard time with this seller too,
and others also had never received their order (at least I wasn't alone in
my misery). I posted them negative feedback stating honestly that I paid 10 months
ago and had no order, and they refused to issue a refund. In trying to prepare
for seeking a refund, I discovered via my message outbox that the seller had
been deleting my messages without reading them since around April.
I tried to get PayPal to help but because I had given this seller the benefit
of the doubt, the transaction was outside of their policy window. My credit card
company also declined to help refute that purchase / payment. Because I canceled
the order Bricklink considered the problem order complete and won't reopen
or take further action on it.
Recently I noticed that their store had their selling rights restored and he
is back in business, still getting recent negative feedback on delinquent orders.
And then I am left feedback that I'm a "NPB" despite the fact that
I paid the man €166 in January. I had noticed that everyone who left him negative
feedback had, in turn, received negative feedback from him. I honestly feared
getting a negative review out of retribution, which was why I had waited so long
to give him any feedback. Yet here we are - both branded for life, but I have
not even 20 reviews and he has thousands to hide his negatives among.
How did he regain his selling rights? Did he provide them some bogus shipping
info? Or did my canceling the order trigger the Problem Order closed regardless
of no resolution? As of the date of this post, I've neither a refund nor
the order.
I'm beyond frustrated at this point and got over the anger and shame at what
I consider being "scammed" by someone who either is highly-disorganized,
or high-and-mighty in that they feel they can just disregard portions of their
customers after taking their money. Has anyone else ever had a terrible problem
order experience?? I'm resigned to the fact that my money is gone, and I
should've just filed the NSS in June and let PayPal get me my money back.
Sadly the seller had ton of great vintage pieces that I was looking for, so I
tried to stay the course and placed my faith in him.
*Note: I will happily share privacy-redacted images of this entire ordeal if
there's someone who doesn't believe me, as I've all the proof to
back this horror story up. The store is NINJALUDO, anyone can pop by there and
read all of the feedback for themselves, it's public knowledge*
I tried to get PayPal to help but because I had given this seller the benefit
of the doubt, the transaction was outside of their policy window. My credit card
company also declined to help refute that purchase / payment. Because I canceled
the order Bricklink considered the problem order complete and won't reopen
or take further action on it.
I'm not sure why PayPal refused, as you didn't get the order and the
tracking doesn't show delivered...
How did he regain his selling rights? Did he provide them some bogus shipping
info? Or did my canceling the order trigger the Problem Order closed regardless
of no resolution? As of the date of this post, I've neither a refund nor
the order.
Please open an Help Desk ticket on BrickLink!
While you made some mistakes in the process, probably being too kind and comprehensive
(thank you, that's rare!), this is absolutely NOT normal - at least insist
being refunded.
THANK YOU for your quick reply. Indeed I'm most mad with myself here for
being too trusting. PayPal said their policy was any transaction older than 180
days is outside their window for assistance. I did file a trouble ticket with
Bricklink on Nov 25th, so perhaps sometime this week I'll get a response.
I'm pretty new to all of this stuff, so most of the time the only person
I can blame is the person whom I can actually hold responsible - myself. But
again, thanks for your response! I can reply to poor Papymarco that he isn't
alone!
In Problem Order, 1001bricks writes:
In Problem Order, Shrike2050 writes:
I've had a problem order that's been bothering me well, all year.
... After five months
Oh wow, while it's NOT your fault, you shouldn't wait more than a month
for an order to be shipped, at least!
I tried to get PayPal to help but because I had given this seller the benefit
of the doubt, the transaction was outside of their policy window. My credit card
company also declined to help refute that purchase / payment. Because I canceled
the order Bricklink considered the problem order complete and won't reopen
or take further action on it.
I'm not sure why PayPal refused, as you didn't get the order and the
tracking doesn't show delivered...
How did he regain his selling rights? Did he provide them some bogus shipping
info? Or did my canceling the order trigger the Problem Order closed regardless
of no resolution? As of the date of this post, I've neither a refund nor
the order.
Please open an Help Desk ticket on BrickLink!
While you made some mistakes in the process, probably being too kind and comprehensive
(thank you, that's rare!), this is absolutely NOT normal - at least insist
being refunded.
Well at least BL removed his negative feedback (since he was paid - even if he
didn't send any Lego, nor processed a refund). So I guess there's at
least that.
Australia, Australian Capital Territory
France, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur
United Kingdom, England