What do you make of this conversation I had? Spiteful or Justified?

You did not come off as spiteful at all. I had similar emails with a company regarding a DVD release. The emails went on for months. I kept getting emails stating they were out of the office, or that the DVD release date had been altered.

Customer service should be the first and most important job of evry company trying to sell things. Often, this is forgotten, as it clearly was in the case you outlined.

One should never have to pay for something, then have to initiate communication about where their something is and when their something that was paid for will get to them. It should be transparent from the second you plunk your money down.

You were a bit spiteful/angry, but imo totally justifiably. What type of website doesn’t tell you they’re out of something at the moment? And what type of business goes away for X days without leaving some kind of note that they’ll be gone and unable to process your order until after you’ve made the order?

I’d be pretty PO’d too.

Yes, you were a little spiteful, and whether it’s justified or not is beside the point.

“Don’t be offended personally” (except you are dealing with A PERSON), “it’s the manner of business I’M ATTACKING” (seriously, an attack? Whatever happened to a helpful suggestion or a diplomatic complaint?).

I think that you already know this, and it’s why the comment is sticking in your craw. You know what will get it out of your head? Call the company back and say that you regret having come off as so critical over such a minor problem. Thank them for their patience in dealing with you.

It’s not a matter of who is right or wrong, but how you conduct yourself as a compassionate person with others. We all forget at times, and when we do, it’s nice to go back and see if we can make things better.

You were annoyed, justifiably in my opinion.

Sounds like too few people trying to do too much. I’d cut them some slack.

Interesting. I think it was unreasonable for them to charge you so far ahead of their ship date, particularly since they knew they were going to sit on it. Knowing that, they should have been going out of their way to be nice to you, so I think they dropped the ball twice.

However, if that had not been the case, I think it would be reasonable to think that they just didn’t get your first email before leaving the office, and were then simply reacting to your first annoyed email, and the multiple sends before they could reply.

And… spiteful is not the word they should have used. To paraphrase Inigo, I do not think that word means what they think it means.

I think you were totally within your rights and owe no one any apology.

@GoldieAV16 Please don’t take this offensively. Just want to clear some things up. I do feel I was a tid bit of a hardass. But honestly, it was just a business transaction. For me, they could have been the coolest people ever, uber hippie world peace save the planet or whatever, that’d be nice, but I wasn’t paying them to be nice, I was paying for a product. Yes true, it seems like they’re a super small time label, but hey, it takes money to make money and maybe they shouldn’t be investing their emotions with the realms of business. If I were them, I’d hire someone to strictly handle customer service. I was even lucky to find out so soon if I hadn’t initiated any contact, phew.

They certainly should not have charged you for something until they have shipped it – Isn’t that illegal? That is clearly not ok, not cool, in any case. No refund should have been necessary, only a cancellation.

And in my opinion it’s lame to advertise something that they can’t ship, truly amateur hour. Maybe they are too hip to care.

I’d be tempted to call the credit card company regarding charging for something with no shipment in sight. That’s probably against that contractual agreement too.
But hell, I’m getting cranky in my middle age.

@whitecarnations I get that the product you wanted was not delivered and that their customer service left much to be desired. But it’s how we react to the “small stuff*” that matters.

I’m not trying to go all buddha on you here. If you felt fine with the interaction, I’d say good on ya, mate, you let them know how you feel! But you don’t feel fine, which suggests to me that you, at heart, are a bodhisattva, so I suggested that approach. :-)

*It’s all small stuff.