Wednesday, July 8, 2009


I'm not an easily ruffled personality. I tend to go with the flow whenever possible, why stress over things that you cannot change. It is best to accept the hand you're dealt and work with what you've got. There are of course exceptions to this course of action. I'm not a complete push over, I just prefer not to get worked up over the little things. That being said, I got all into it yesterday over, well, a little thing. Monday morning I made a sale that needed to be delivered by Thursday. It was in state, no problem...until Paypal flagged the payment. The site stated it would take 'up to 24 hrs' to review and release the funds. Ok, I have a day, it's still cool. right?

Twenty-five hours later, still no cleared payment. Now, I'm annoyed. Finding no resolution on the site, I made a fruitless phone call where the agent tells me the review takes '24-48 hours' to review. To which I respond,'Then why does it say up to 24 hours?" The fellow clearly ruffled says I can send a message on the site. Frustrated, I bark my goodbyes and hand up. I proceeded to write my message and right after I clicked send, I received the cleared payment message. Aaarrrggghhh.

I must point out that my problem was not with the time frame of the review, I get it, I do. They are covering their own bums and consequently mine. I appreciate the effort. My issue is with their ability to communicate. If the time frame is 24-48 hours, just say that for goodness sake. If you think that something might even remotely take longer than you say, you might just want to add, 'some reviews may take slightly longer'. See, that was easy. if you're going to miscommunicate with your customers, at least do it the other direction. You know, under promise and over deliver. That I can hang with, everyone wins when you say something will take up to a week and it only takes two day. I could be saying that because it's what I do, but I still think it's the better way to go here. Whew, glad that's all out of my system now.


Beth said...

I'm with you. It seems so often that one hand just doesn't pay any attention to what the other is doing at a lot of companies and the users suffer needlessly for it. Sheesh! Glad the payment got cleared, though :)

Ashe Mischief said...

UGHHHHH. It would be so simple, both for you and for your buyer, if Paypal could add in that additional information. Then you could forward it along, saying, "I'm sorry this is happening, but..."

I hope it gets sorted, dear!

Myke Amend said...

Paypal has a way with that. I had a problem with them once where my details at the phone center were incorrect - so every time I had to call them for something, I was unable to verify my details. I had this fixed three times with them before the fix finally took... frustrating ordeal.

Of course the hell I have had with just getting my Amazon payments to me... more of a headache. The fact that Amazon money is not good anywhere but Amazon until it is sent to ones bank account, makes me really like paypal - despite the mishaps.

Kim said...

good point... they'd rather look like it takes a shorter amount of time than...loose a few customers? I dunno

Lynn said...

Oh ya, I totally agree. I would much rather be happily suprised when something clears a day earlier than I think it's going to, rather than find out it will take longer than stated in the first place. It makes more sense for a company to cover their butt with overstating than understating. Kind of like dry cleaning - we all know some of those things can be washed by hand.