An Apology

C

Cumberland Knives

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Jul 17, 1999
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Last week, during Haggling week, a customer purchased a La Griffe neck knife. The purchase was made on 5/3/01. I was contacted by the customer on 5/10/01 stating that they had never received their email confirmation of order. I had sent it, but evidently they did not get it. I re-sent the confirmaton, and stated that their shipment went out on 5/8/01 and to expect it shortly. They never got it. It shipped out via U.S. Postal Priority mail. I was then contacted again, replied again. By the way it is sounding, about 75% of the email I had been sending this customer had not been arriving. I did get a message through that I would be re-shipping and began the process of getting a replacement. I was contacted today about this from the customer and told that they would be bringing the matter to this area of the forum. Here is my reply sent in email just a few minutes ago:

I think that there has been a email problem that has all of this muttled up.
I have replied to each email that you have sent. Many of these emails have
been returned to me as undeliverable. I hope you get this one. Your order
did indeed ship out on 5/8, and you should have gotten it by now. It was
shipped via U.S. Postal Priority mail, which as you know has no tracking
system. Anyway, I later stated in a reply to your email of 5/15/01 that I
would get another and re-ship. However, due to the inability to communicate
with you accurately I have just refunded your entire purchase. Should the
original shipment arrive, and it still may, keep it at no charge as a token
of my apologies. Should you feel it necessary to post to the GB&U, I totally
understand.

Sorry this didn't work out,

John

I feel terrible about this and wish to offer my sincere apologies, and note that a token of this apology is going out in today's mail to the customer.

Trying hard to make it all work every day,

John


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Visit john@cumberlandknives.com

<A HREF="http://www.cumberland-knives.com" TARGET=_blank>www.cumberland-knives.com
</A>
for all your knife needs.
 
Whenever I sell or trade from my personal collection, I almost always use priority mail. I also use delivery confirmation (about 40 cents). This enables you to see if it was delivered, and if not you can see where it was last scanned similar to UPS tracking. Well worth the small change it costs. Anyways, sounds like you are one to look out for your customers and do everything to make them happy.



------------------
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John,
I think you went more than the extra mile here, especially by your generous offer to keep it if it still arrives. We all know that email can have it's problems. Perhaps a phone call might have straightened the whole matter out. The only part that confuses me is that you don't seem aware that for about .40 you can track priority mail.
Again, I don't think any dealer could have done more than you have to make this one right and it definitely will make me confident to deal with you in the future.

Dave
 
Guys,

I use delivery confirmation with every order that ships. It is not a true tracking system. It only tells you that an order has been shipped, and that it has arrived. Often, not even that. The delivery confirmation number for the shipment in question is 03001290000756324837, it shows nothing not even that I shipped it. It works great most of the time, but is far from infallable.

John

------------------
Visit john@cumberlandknives.com

<A HREF="http://www.cumberland-knives.com" TARGET=_blank>www.cumberland-knives.com
</A>
for all your knife needs.
 
John,

Perhaps a phone call could have solved the problem before it came to this. It's unfortunate that both you and your customer relied exclusively on an e-mail system that quite apparently left you both incommunicado, by no fault of your own. Not to mention that when people speak to one another using their real voices in real time, they have a tendency to come to some sort of an understanding before things get get messy.

Chances are you didn't have this person's phone number. Perhaps you could have posted here, asking that person to call you. It may have saved you a token of apology.
 
Sounds like you really went out of your way to deal with the problem and that was before anything was really resolved as far as 'what happened'. Major kudos for that and just another example of how great the Members of this Community are.

With the Delivery Confirmation the one thing I've found is you must ship from the Post Office and watch them scan it in front of you and if they don't remind them or ask them to do it immediately. I've tried sending from grocery stores or other 'sub-stations' and it is rarely scanned and thus you end up with your problem with no information until the item arrives at its' destination. Once I started requesting the scan at the Post Office they now recognize me and do it immediately and I've never had a problem since.

Hope this works out and I doubt the buyer can call this a 'problem' anymore as he's making out like a bandit.

Shawn
 
John,

I too, use the Delivery Confirmation option on all of my transactions. I send an e-mail to the buyer giving them the option of tracking it themselves and as proof that it has, indeed, shipped when I promised. I have dealt with numerous people here on BFC and have done this with almost every transaction I've handled. I realize that this was an e-mail problem and this wouldn't have helped you, but it's something to consider. I also will be getting into the habit of phoning the would-be buyer just to firm things up.

I think you also went above and beyond to make it right and that is a commendable gesture. That alone put you on my list of good guys to deal with.

I hope things work out for both parties involved.

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Ken
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firedept_md_wht.gif
"Don't interfere with anything in the Constitution. That must be maintained, for it is the only safeguard of our liberties.
----Abraham Lincoln
 
I quit using Delivery Confirmation as John pointed out it doesn't work very well, I found that packages that have been delivered never show being delivered on the system, so why waste .40, small price I know but it if doesn't help I'm not falling for it anymore.

On packages of some value I do insure for at least $100 so a signature is required but even that fails as they sometimes just leave the package on the doorsteps, BUT, I have had the BEST of luck using Priority mail and will continue to do so.

As to you John, sounds like you have more than done your part and any one that can't see that is not one I'd want to deal with...

I hope all goes well as this comes to an end probably tomorrow, when he/she gets the package....

G2
 
Hopefully, in good faith, that person will send you the money you are owed, knowing that you took every measure to make sure that he was contacted. Please let us know how it turns out.



------------------
Ken
-------------------------
firedept_md_wht.gif
"Don't interfere with anything in the Constitution. That must be maintained, for it is the only safeguard of our liberties.
----Abraham Lincoln
 
Its nice to see that there are people who have no problem with providing shipment details to their customers. You all sound like you go well beyond halfway, your customers should show the same consideration. I hope the consignee in the original post considers he is still not due a refund if he received his knife, I know I would resend the money.

Just my $0.02
Stuart
 
I would like to come forward as the customer in question. I had contacted John about a neck knife that I was interested in purchasing as a gift. We haggled back and forth for a while and agreed on a price, which I thought was an excellent buy. I ran my credit card through at that time and waited for a confirmation, which did not arrive. So I emailed John a week later to check on my status. He had stated that he would resend the confirmation and that my order had already been shipped earlier in the week. Some time went by so I emailed John to see if there was a tracking number as I still had not received a confirmation. I waited 48 hours and did not here from John so I emailed him again. In my last email I stated that my expectations might be too high and I would post this question in the GBU. I had given myself a couple of weeks for the gift to arrive and became anxious each day it did not.

John was very professional not to use my name or screen name in his post. I would have given him the same consideration, as I was not trying to blame anyone just find out what was a reasonable time for delivery. Now that I have read his apology I see that he had received my emails but I was not receiving his. It appears that we arrived at this situation because of a communication problem, so I would also like to apologize to John. I have no intentions of not paying for the knife if it arrives. Although it will be too late to use as a gift I would like to keep it for myself as a reminder of how easily a deal can fall apart.

I am aware of how competitive the Internet knife market is and how slim the margins are. For John to take the time to post an apology says a lot about his integrity. I look forward to doing business with John in the future.

Southpaw
 
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