Dear Jammie,
For the past year I've been selling Illinois deer harvest buttons on Ebay. Whenever you shoot a deer in Illinois, I guess they give you a button to prove it. I've made a ton of money from these. The first few I sold, I got more than $20 PER BUTTON from. I've been steadily lowering the price of the buttons over the past year as I've saturated the deer harvest button market. Currently I'm selling sets of 10 for $20 each. Still a very nice profit.
So this lady on Ebay buys a ton of them from me last week. Like $80 for about 40 buttons. She paid me with PayPal and I sent her the buttons. Then yesterday I get this email from her:
Brad, I want to thank you for sending the buttons, but they are not what I
was looking for. I was wanting the actual (original) buttons. I am returning
the package to you, June 7th. I am so sorry for the inconvience this may
cause you, I was really excited when I ordered them, thinking they were the
originals, but I never guessed that they were not.
Again I am sorry,
Tracy
The problem with my deer harvest buttons is that they're a bit smaller than real deer harvest buttons. I think the real ones are 1 1/2" and my fake ones are 1". So if someone has some real buttons and they buy my fake ones to complete the set, the sizes are a little off. But I'm very clear about this in the auction. The very first sentence explains that these are replicas and that they're just an inch in diameter. I'm not trying to trick anyone into buying cheap knockoffs. I'm very upfront about these being replicas. I even have a few repeat customers. Nobody else has a problem with these being replicas and if they do they just don't buy them. So I send her this reply:
I don't offer refunds. The auction clearly stated that these were
replicas. That was the very first sentence in the auction. I even
wrote the word REPLICAS in all capital letters to avoid confusion. I
also wrote in the auction that the buttons were brand new. There was
no guessing about it.
Brad
This evening I get the following email back from her:
Brad, I am again sorry. I am very new to buying on ebay, so I did not
honestly see anywhere it stating that these were new or replicas. I had
already placed the pkg in the mail today & you should be receiving it by
Saturday, Monday the latest. I am begging you to please take them back. If
you could charge me $25.00 for the trouble I have caused you, I would be
more than wiliing to pay you that amount. I feel like such a dumb#$@ for not
seeing things when I ordered. I guess this is why I have never really
ordered before, I have been scared to, and now I know why. Please I
sincerely ask you to consider my offer.
Please & Sorry,
Tracy
So now she's already sent the buttons back to me and wants a refund. My question is, do I give it to her? Or do I send the buttons back to her? I don't feel like this is my fault. I don't think it matters that she's new to Ebay. She totally fails at reading comprehension and that's nothing to do with being new to Ebay. I do feel bad for her, mostly because she's being nice about the whole thing. But on the other hand, she's an idiot and I hate her. The $80 really isn't the issue. It's the principle. I shouldn't have to deal with refunds when there's absolutely nothing wrong with the product.
What should I do?
Brad
