We have 2 laptops, 1 PC, a Wii, an XBox 360, 2 WiFi BlackBerrys and a Vonage router, all accessing our wireless router; they don't all play nicely together. It would be fantastic to be able to troubleshoot problems, rather than just resetting everything and hoping for the best.
I suspect the people who are surprised it would put the PayPal address as the shipping address either don't pay a lot through paypal, or certainly have never sold anything using PayPal as a form of payment. Because the PayPal users registered address or an alternative address supplied during checkout is exactly where it tells the seller to ship it.
When you make a purchase and pay via PayPal, it says right there on the screen: SHIPPING ADDRESS, based on your registered PayPal address. You have the option to change that if you're sending a gift, for example. But if the seller ships it to ANY OTHER ADDRESS other than what is confirmed during the payment step--if the buyer e-mails 10 minutes later and says, oh, can you please ship here instead, for example--they can lose the few seller protections that exist in the system.
In other words, there is no reason for a seller using paypay's checkout to ask independently for a shipping address, and it would be a bad idea to do so.
That doesn't excuse the language, of course, but I'm also pretty sympathetic to the seller for getting frustrated with a buyer trying to get a refund for something that is entirely--entirely!--the buyer's fault. Especially if the buyer continues to insist that the seller is also partial to blame, then calls them rude when they do offer to cut you a deal even though it was your fault!
We use PayPal to handle payments for our online business. Any company that ships to a different address than what's on your PayPal account is taking a big risk.
When a merchant logs into PayPal to view your order, there's a section at the top that says in big, bold letters "Ship to this address:". A seller has to ship to the address PayPal gives them or they forfeit protection under the Seller Protection Policy.
We lost $200 from an order, plus the (delivered) merchandise, when we took a risk and shipped to a different address. That's never happening again.
On a side note, I have found paypal to be horribly unintuitive. I remember trying to change my address and credit card info and it was incredibly difficult.
This sounds like a great book that I could really use. I'm computer literate just enough to get myself out of small problems, but not do a lot of the more complicated stuff. This book looks like it would greatly help me move further down the path of computer independence. Thanks for the chance to win!
I think this thread is a bit out of order. Not only was it your mistake but you are naming and shaming the company for calling you a name when we don't know what you said to them in your emails, so it's only one side of the story.
You knew when you ordered it that you felt something was wrong, yet you did nothing for two weeks, why didn't you contact the company the next morning to confirm the address?
I don't see any reason why the company should issue a refund or feel the need to protect their reputation when it was you that made the mistake and have now belittled them on a wide-read blog.
Very disapointing, and my respect for wisebread has gone down after reading this.
Not sure if you're still in the market for worms, but I have had a FANTASTIC experience with this guy: www.greenmountainsoil.com. Kurt tolerated all my obsessive questions and shipped quickly and reliable.
First, the error was completely Carrie's fault. I just can't see how it should be the responsibility of the merchant to ensure your address is correct for your PayPal account.
But, as Olivia said above, my reputation is more important to me than a few pounds of worms.
I have had customers provide incorrect shipping addresses and had suppliers ship to incorrect addresses. Guess what folks, mistakes happen! In both cases, I made the customer whole. Normally this meant I would reship the item to the proper address and worry about finding/receiving the improperly shipped product later. As a small business, the last thing I need is customers complaining about bad customer service.
To me, and to most customers, it doesn't matter who's right or wrong: All they know is they ordered worms and they didn't get worms.
The worm company had an opportunity to establish a strong and beneficial relationship with Carrie and they failed. Think about it: If Carrie had written an article about the amazing service she received from the worm company, even after she made a mistake with her shipping address, everyone reading would be thinking about building a worm composter and purchasing worms from these folks.
By the way, I purchased a pound of redworms from SouthernBaitWorms.com. Although there was a slight error in receiving my order, once that was taken care of, I had my worms in less than 48 hours. If you buy from this company and don't receive a PayPal shipping confirmation in a day or two, give them a call to make sure they received your order. Overall, I give them a 3 for ordering, a 5 for shipping, and a 5 for worm quality when they arrived.
Looks like I'm too late for my comment to warrant having the book..but, like the others, I would love to have the book...I'm pretty computer literate, but could always use the extra help...my daughter was my computer person but she moved and took my computer geek with her...:o)...she helps when she can, but is too far away for hands-on help.
It would never, ever have occurred to me that a merchant would ship to a mailing address listed on PayPal. I just checked to see if I had even listed an address on mine (I do and it's correct). I am wondering how the fulfillment works using PayPal; did the company print the label with your address? Was there a third-party doing the fulfillment? For some reason, that practice seems odd to me.
I run a business myself and encourage clients to pay (if they feel comfortable) via credit card because of the strong consumer protections associated with credit cards.
I can't believe people are so negative about Carrie's side of the story (or her telling it.) The company was WAY out of line with the name calling. It really infuriated me to hear it! A (rhymes with rich) is a word thrown at women all too often. That kind of response is never necessary, or justified.
I for one, wish she had named the company so I would know to stay away from them.
I can't believe people are so negative about Carrie's side of the story (or her telling it.) The company was WAY out of line with the name calling. It really infuriated me to hear it! A (rhymes with rich) is a word thrown at women all too often. That kind of response is never necessary, or justified.
I for one, wish she had named the company so I would know to stay away from them.
If I had a small business, my reputation would mean something. There's this story in "The Book of Virtues" about two brothers who were cobblers. They backed their product, even to their own loss. Since the worm guy shipped to your old address in innocence, he could say, "it's not our policy to resend", and be business like about it. His second offer was a valid option. But name calling was totally unprofessional, with that he lost all credibility.
I guess I can see both sides in this case, although it's interesting that he decided to name call. As far as there being too much detail, I think that the occasional sharing of trials and tribulations helps us keep it real with our readers. If a major TV news anchor can share her colonoscopy with the world and Ms. Winfrey has shared similar detail of over the years, I think Carrie can share her worm story.
She was clear above about why she is sharing the story, and it isn't to rant. She is sharing this story as an illustrative example of how we expect to interact with businesses. Several authors on Wise Bread have shared detailed examples of trials on the home front. Hey, I even shared what was going on with our sewage last winter to address the issues of composting toilets and green cleaning products.
There are many examples of personal information shared in media stories, so being critical of Carrie's choice of topic in this area seems a bit off to me.
I could so use this book - as the tech person in my social circle I'm constantly getting calls about how XXX person just bought really cool XXX device and now they can't get it to work with xxx.
I miss the old days when people didn't try to do these things at home -LOL.
This weekend it looks like I've got to figure out how to get a new plasma TV to talk to someone's laptop... any one have a any tips for that?? If so please let me know :)
While I can feel for the small buisness, no matter how many times I change my address in Paypal sometimes their system does suddenly show my old address. I don't do alot of online shopping because of shipping cost & I admit I've run into some Ebay people who were rude but, I find it hard to believe these folks couldn't have reshipped the order. Their whole sale cost isn't that much - I used to run my own buisness & I couldn't believe how cheap the whole sale cost is on stuff.
Years ago I used to work at a grocery store & I remember in some training class they had "For every customer you piss off, you loose about 20 due to word of mouth." And I've found it to be true over the years. If the person at the worm place was having a bad day then they should step away from the keyboard & reply to emails later - that's what I do.
Yes, the article is a little different from most Wisebread ones but, everyone has their own writing style & I think the overall message is good. What she talks about in the article is one of the reasons I don't Ebay anymore - I just usually do Amazon or stay local.
Oh, I'd love to win this book! I cannot even figure out how to have my three printers all print from the same printer, and I'm sure this book would solve that dilemma in no time flat. Thanks!
It seems like it was all your fault. They shipped a product you ordered to the address provided by you to Paypal. Then you want them to give you a refund for delivering the items according to the address on file. This doesn't sound too good on your part.
I would think the company is at fault for failing to provide a section of the form to address where the package should be sent to. If anything they should ask you to confirm if *** is the correct address to ship to. Not a great job at programming...
We have 2 laptops, 1 PC, a Wii, an XBox 360, 2 WiFi BlackBerrys and a Vonage router, all accessing our wireless router; they don't all play nicely together. It would be fantastic to be able to troubleshoot problems, rather than just resetting everything and hoping for the best.
FYI.. Most new GPS units have the ability to lock them. My Garmin requires a pin or for me to be parked in my driveway to unlock it.
Still hide it, but lock it as well.
I suspect the people who are surprised it would put the PayPal address as the shipping address either don't pay a lot through paypal, or certainly have never sold anything using PayPal as a form of payment. Because the PayPal users registered address or an alternative address supplied during checkout is exactly where it tells the seller to ship it.
When you make a purchase and pay via PayPal, it says right there on the screen: SHIPPING ADDRESS, based on your registered PayPal address. You have the option to change that if you're sending a gift, for example. But if the seller ships it to ANY OTHER ADDRESS other than what is confirmed during the payment step--if the buyer e-mails 10 minutes later and says, oh, can you please ship here instead, for example--they can lose the few seller protections that exist in the system.
In other words, there is no reason for a seller using paypay's checkout to ask independently for a shipping address, and it would be a bad idea to do so.
That doesn't excuse the language, of course, but I'm also pretty sympathetic to the seller for getting frustrated with a buyer trying to get a refund for something that is entirely--entirely!--the buyer's fault. Especially if the buyer continues to insist that the seller is also partial to blame, then calls them rude when they do offer to cut you a deal even though it was your fault!
We use PayPal to handle payments for our online business. Any company that ships to a different address than what's on your PayPal account is taking a big risk.
When a merchant logs into PayPal to view your order, there's a section at the top that says in big, bold letters "Ship to this address:". A seller has to ship to the address PayPal gives them or they forfeit protection under the Seller Protection Policy.
We lost $200 from an order, plus the (delivered) merchandise, when we took a risk and shipped to a different address. That's never happening again.
On a side note, I have found paypal to be horribly unintuitive. I remember trying to change my address and credit card info and it was incredibly difficult.
This sounds like a great book that I could really use. I'm computer literate just enough to get myself out of small problems, but not do a lot of the more complicated stuff. This book looks like it would greatly help me move further down the path of computer independence. Thanks for the chance to win!
I think this thread is a bit out of order. Not only was it your mistake but you are naming and shaming the company for calling you a name when we don't know what you said to them in your emails, so it's only one side of the story.
You knew when you ordered it that you felt something was wrong, yet you did nothing for two weeks, why didn't you contact the company the next morning to confirm the address?
I don't see any reason why the company should issue a refund or feel the need to protect their reputation when it was you that made the mistake and have now belittled them on a wide-read blog.
Very disapointing, and my respect for wisebread has gone down after reading this.
Not sure if you're still in the market for worms, but I have had a FANTASTIC experience with this guy: www.greenmountainsoil.com. Kurt tolerated all my obsessive questions and shipped quickly and reliable.
First, the error was completely Carrie's fault. I just can't see how it should be the responsibility of the merchant to ensure your address is correct for your PayPal account.
But, as Olivia said above, my reputation is more important to me than a few pounds of worms.
I have had customers provide incorrect shipping addresses and had suppliers ship to incorrect addresses. Guess what folks, mistakes happen! In both cases, I made the customer whole. Normally this meant I would reship the item to the proper address and worry about finding/receiving the improperly shipped product later. As a small business, the last thing I need is customers complaining about bad customer service.
To me, and to most customers, it doesn't matter who's right or wrong: All they know is they ordered worms and they didn't get worms.
The worm company had an opportunity to establish a strong and beneficial relationship with Carrie and they failed. Think about it: If Carrie had written an article about the amazing service she received from the worm company, even after she made a mistake with her shipping address, everyone reading would be thinking about building a worm composter and purchasing worms from these folks.
By the way, I purchased a pound of redworms from SouthernBaitWorms.com. Although there was a slight error in receiving my order, once that was taken care of, I had my worms in less than 48 hours. If you buy from this company and don't receive a PayPal shipping confirmation in a day or two, give them a call to make sure they received your order. Overall, I give them a 3 for ordering, a 5 for shipping, and a 5 for worm quality when they arrived.
Looks like I'm too late for my comment to warrant having the book..but, like the others, I would love to have the book...I'm pretty computer literate, but could always use the extra help...my daughter was my computer person but she moved and took my computer geek with her...:o)...she helps when she can, but is too far away for hands-on help.
It would never, ever have occurred to me that a merchant would ship to a mailing address listed on PayPal. I just checked to see if I had even listed an address on mine (I do and it's correct). I am wondering how the fulfillment works using PayPal; did the company print the label with your address? Was there a third-party doing the fulfillment? For some reason, that practice seems odd to me.
I run a business myself and encourage clients to pay (if they feel comfortable) via credit card because of the strong consumer protections associated with credit cards.
I can't believe people are so negative about Carrie's side of the story (or her telling it.) The company was WAY out of line with the name calling. It really infuriated me to hear it! A (rhymes with rich) is a word thrown at women all too often. That kind of response is never necessary, or justified.
I for one, wish she had named the company so I would know to stay away from them.
I can't believe people are so negative about Carrie's side of the story (or her telling it.) The company was WAY out of line with the name calling. It really infuriated me to hear it! A (rhymes with rich) is a word thrown at women all too often. That kind of response is never necessary, or justified.
I for one, wish she had named the company so I would know to stay away from them.
If I had a small business, my reputation would mean something. There's this story in "The Book of Virtues" about two brothers who were cobblers. They backed their product, even to their own loss. Since the worm guy shipped to your old address in innocence, he could say, "it's not our policy to resend", and be business like about it. His second offer was a valid option. But name calling was totally unprofessional, with that he lost all credibility.
I guess I can see both sides in this case, although it's interesting that he decided to name call. As far as there being too much detail, I think that the occasional sharing of trials and tribulations helps us keep it real with our readers. If a major TV news anchor can share her colonoscopy with the world and Ms. Winfrey has shared similar detail of over the years, I think Carrie can share her worm story.
She was clear above about why she is sharing the story, and it isn't to rant. She is sharing this story as an illustrative example of how we expect to interact with businesses. Several authors on Wise Bread have shared detailed examples of trials on the home front. Hey, I even shared what was going on with our sewage last winter to address the issues of composting toilets and green cleaning products.
There are many examples of personal information shared in media stories, so being critical of Carrie's choice of topic in this area seems a bit off to me.
I could so use this book - as the tech person in my social circle I'm constantly getting calls about how XXX person just bought really cool XXX device and now they can't get it to work with xxx.
I miss the old days when people didn't try to do these things at home -LOL.
This weekend it looks like I've got to figure out how to get a new plasma TV to talk to someone's laptop... any one have a any tips for that?? If so please let me know :)
While I can feel for the small buisness, no matter how many times I change my address in Paypal sometimes their system does suddenly show my old address. I don't do alot of online shopping because of shipping cost & I admit I've run into some Ebay people who were rude but, I find it hard to believe these folks couldn't have reshipped the order. Their whole sale cost isn't that much - I used to run my own buisness & I couldn't believe how cheap the whole sale cost is on stuff.
Years ago I used to work at a grocery store & I remember in some training class they had "For every customer you piss off, you loose about 20 due to word of mouth." And I've found it to be true over the years. If the person at the worm place was having a bad day then they should step away from the keyboard & reply to emails later - that's what I do.
Yes, the article is a little different from most Wisebread ones but, everyone has their own writing style & I think the overall message is good. What she talks about in the article is one of the reasons I don't Ebay anymore - I just usually do Amazon or stay local.
I could use this! I've spent hours on the phone with linksys and I haven't even begun to network our printers or accessories.
Oh, I'd love to win this book! I cannot even figure out how to have my three printers all print from the same printer, and I'm sure this book would solve that dilemma in no time flat. Thanks!
It seems like it was all your fault. They shipped a product you ordered to the address provided by you to Paypal. Then you want them to give you a refund for delivering the items according to the address on file. This doesn't sound too good on your part.
Sounds like an interesting read.
I would think the company is at fault for failing to provide a section of the form to address where the package should be sent to. If anything they should ask you to confirm if *** is the correct address to ship to. Not a great job at programming...
Wonder how THEY felt suddenly finding a box of worms on their doorstep.
Yes....I'd love to win this book!
Thanks
Oh, I could definitely use a book like this. Networking makes my head explode.