Hello Li,
Yes thank you for letting us know. You know, this has caused quite a bit of trouble and damage financially, it almost seems malicious.
Our standard policy is not to engage negative posters... we focus on getting rare fish at good prices. We focus on our job, we do not have the time or staff to monitor many boards across the internet and engage posters on debates. If anyone has a problem, they know when they contact us directly we are more than generous (doing more than our stated policy promises), honest and flexible.
We definitely have never stolen and will never steal any money from anyone. Unfortunately, our hundreds of satisfied customers do not go around posting about their good experience, but again, our policy is to do our job as excellently as we can, and believe the rest takes care of itself. We have no interest in defending ourselves from negative propaganda.
We also compete with our competitors by having better fish at better prices, not by badmouthing them. We let them do their job and hope they let us do ours. We know from record (not saying this one is an example of this), that some competitors have done just that against us trough proxy and official accounts.
Anyone who has placed an order with us knows that if we have not sent you anything and you want your money back, all you have to do is ask and you won't get even the smallest of resistance. We don't sell anyone anything by force and don't keep people's money by force. This is a fact, and I tell anyone who has a pending order with us that if they want their money back, its theirs with one phone call. I repeat, with a phone call, and not endless negative posts throughout the web.
In any event, about the case at hand, it seems like a case of extreme paranoia with this customer, which has unfortunately ultimately hurt him. The gentleman ordered 5 L287 Plecos . This is a specialty item which we explained to him at this point would take a little while. They are rare fish not easily found. We often have them in stock, but did not at that point. The customer requested his money back, and then apparently in fear also initiated a chargeback at the same time. We were very surprised by this action, as we had heard no such communication from the customer and did not even know he thought there was a problem.
When we tried to refund the money, we saw the transaction was already in a chargeback. This was a paypal transaction. Anyone who knows the paypal system knows that in such a case, you can either dispute it or accept liability. We immediately (as our records will show) accepted liability and instructed paypal to return the money including a note that told the customer that its unfortunate he initiated a chargeback, because if he wanted his money back, all he had to do was ask. That note is also a matter of record.
Now unfortunately, due to the customer's actions, even though we have already returned the funds, a chargeback is a complex inquiry which takes quite a while to conclude between paypal, the customer's bank and the Credit Card company (Visa, MC etc). So though we immediately returned the funds, the customer probably does not yet have them, and we have 0 control of when he actually will.
Had he not initiated a chargeback, he would already have his funds, without any problem. Furthermore, once we accepted liability for the chargeback, we heard nothing further from the customer until we learned of these negative posts all over the internet. They are wrong, mean, and yes cause other potential customers who would like to benefit from our available livestock to be reluctant to do so.
Out of respect for Monster's we have responded to you here, and feel free to post any part of this text wherever you see fit, but please note what I stated earlier: We do not engage in personal debates publicly in boards. So we will not continue it beyond what I stated here.l We do not have the time, staff or interest to do so. Some people will always much more free time than we will to spread negative words about others.
It is sad that this customer did not discuss ANY of this with us, and instead we are having this discussion through other channels. If you want to relay to him, that we have returned his money from the moment he asked for it (and initiated the chargeback at the same time), then that will be fine, and its only a matter between him and his bank how fast he will receive it.
Thanks and regards,
Erik
River Wonders
