Trade Me Trolls

Every time I think I've seen the worst society (and our modern education system) has to offer, someone comes along to surprise me.  Sadly, much of it comes from Trade Me customers.

I don't like surprises of this sort.  I'm quite happy in my ignorance of the idiocies and unrealistic expectations of these people.

The most recent example was a customer who made a purchase Monday last week.  Thursday, she emailed to ask where her purchase was.  It was answered.  Saturday, she emailed again to say it still hadn't arrived.  Our reply asked for patience as rural post takes a bit longer.  She responded with she doesn't live rurally, so that doesn't work as an excuse and on Tuesday laid a non-delivery complaint with Trade Me.

I sent her item a few days ago, but hadn't been near the computer to send her an email.  So I emailed her today to let her know it was on it's way and pointed out that while she may not live rurally, I do.  I've driven into our nearest town and posted parcels fastpost and they've still taken a week to arrive.  In the interests of staying polite (I've been a bit touchy lately) I signed off as I always do with "Blessings".

I got an email back that simply said, "Thank you.  Bless yourself."

I posted neutral feedback stating that she had unrealistic expectations.  She posted bitchy feedback and comments to my feedback - "Oh I don't give a toss about your feedback and your lady emotions. Live long and prosper. BLESSINGS"  After that, I changed mine to negative feedback.

My son looked at it and shook his head. "Mum," he said, "You're being trolled."   Trolled on Trade Me?  Over a $5 sale?  This is a new low for teh interwebz.

And frankly, we have 350 positive feedbacks from 276 separate customers (that's a lot of repeat business in there) and a rating of 99.3% positive, she now has 15 from 10 and a rating of 90%.  Do I care that she's trolling?  Not in the slightest, not hurt, not angry, not having "lady emotions" (whatever the hell that's supposed to mean) and I'm not taking it personally.  I'm just generally disgusted at the behaviour.  My teenagers (who like to troll on facebook) have better manners than this - and they're better trolls.

In all honesty, I've had times when I don't send parcels out for a couple of weeks.  Sometimes it's because it's such a small item that "I'll do that one shortly, it'll be quick" type of procrastination drags on for longer than it should.  Sometimes, I've had it all packed up and ready to go, but keep leaving it on the bench when I drive into town.  I could put it in my letterbox with cash for the postie to pick up, but I don't usually have cash to use.  Sometimes, I just have too much other stuff going on.  Today, all my best laid plans went out the window when I stepped outside to find my pigs had escaped and were eating the angelica in my herb garden and cleaning up all the spinach and ruby chard from my vege garden.  It took me hours to find the fault in my electric fencing and then round up my lovely pigs and try to get them back in their paddock (ever tried to make an adult pig go where it doesn't want to?).  This time though, while I was probably a few days later than I should have been in sending it out, I think that her little tantrum really was unreasonable and a symptom of the expectations of instant gratification that really are a problem in our society.

I've had the odd customer issues in the past.  There were the parcels sitting on my deck waiting for the courier to pick them up when the earthquake of February 22nd happened.  I was a week without power, 3 weeks without post or courier services and had a whole lot of bigger concerns going on.  Most of the customers were fine.  Send it when you can, they said, so I added something extra to their parcels as thank yous for their patience.  One asked for a refund and then posted negative feedback because the sale wasn't completed.  Luana had been in touch with her very quickly, but this wasn't good enough.

There was a lady who bought our calendar and then asked if she could send it back for a refund because she'd bought heaps of fairy calendars for $5 and couldn't see why we charged $25 for ours.

There was the trader (who has done this to me repeatedly) who buys stuff on Trade Me but has big major dramas and will definitely be paying me next week - this can and has gone on for six months on more than one occasion.  Now as someone who seems to have constant dramas over the last couple of years, I'm generally sympathetic but I'm not stupid.  I know it takes longer than six weeks between finding that you have gallstones and having the surgery.  The urgent waiting list is more than twice that long.  Keep your lies simple (or better yet, tell the truth) or they'll trip you up when you forget what you've already said.

Seriously, if you're buying stuff on Trade Me, be realistic, be honest and don't buy something if you really don't want it.  If your kids were playing on your account and hit buy now by accident or with no intention of following up (I've had that one come to me before) then let me know.  I'm happy to let it go.  But don't dick me around and expect me to remain nice about it.  I've got much better things I could be wasting my time on.

Blessings

Debbie