Flippa will never say sorry to you!

Business
1

Re: A Dispute’s Been Resolved

Hi Danny,

Thanks for your help. Flippa has charged the Success Fees via Paypal, when will I get the refund? Thank you!

Best Regards,
Kevin

2012-05-14

From： Flippa.com
Date： 2012-05-14 15:42:49
To： admin
Subject： A Dispute’s Been Resolved

Hi digminigames,
The dispute you were involved in for listing #2725215
(http://www.digminigames.com/) has been resolved.
Success Fees waived or credited, if applicable. Listing Upgrades to be reapplied to relisted item upon activation.
Unsold item has been placed into a new listing in a Draft status, and appears under the " Auctions You’re Creating "
section of your Flippa My Account Overview screen.
Please let me know as soon as possible if there are any further problems.
Kind Regards,
Danny Pentland
Flippa Customer Support

Flippa
Thanks for contacting Flippa Customer Support.

The listing as been processed and should be returned to you ASAP.

Please let us know if you need further information or assistance.

Kind Regards,

Flippa Customer Support.
May 15, 2012 10:42 am

digminigames
Hi Tim,

It has been 3 day since I required the refund, but now I have not got it. Would you please tell me when I will get it? Thank you!

Best Regards,
Kevin

2012-05-17

From： Flippa Customer Support
Date： 2012-05-15 08:42:30
To： digminigames
SUbject： [Flippa Customer Support] Re: Re: A Dispute’s Been Resolved (ticket #71833)

May 17, 2012 11:52 am
digminigames
No response? Would you please tell me when I will get the refund? Thank you!

Best Regards,
Kevin

May 19, 2012 12:18 am
Tim @ Flippa Customer Support
Flippa
Kevin, Flippa processed a full refund 5 days ago.

The refund is returned to you in the same method you paid us originally.

Flippa recommends you check all of your accounts, PayPal etc first as our system is telling is that you’ve been refunded.

Flippa Customer Support

May 19, 2012 05:31 pm

digminigames
You charged me from my Paypal acoount xxxx@xx.com, I’ve contacted the Paypal and they told me no refund received! I recommend you check all of your processes, PayPal told me that I’ve not been refunded.

May 19, 2012 06:50 pm

digminigames
I hope you can give me a reply in 12 hours, or I will take legal action. First, you charged me but the Transaction is not successful! Second, I did not get any refund but you told me it has been returned. I’m very disappointed in the service I received.

May 19, 2012 07:21 pm

Flippa Customer Support
Flippa
Thanks for contacting Flippa Customer Support.

We have confirmed directly through our Commerce system that your refund for the Success Fee was processed on 14th May 2012.
If you had attempted a PayPal payment reversal on this Success Fee, this may be preventing your refund from processing - please check if a payment reversal was submitted, and if so, please cancel this reversal, to allow us to refund your fees.

Please let us know if you need further information or assistance.

Kind Regards,

Flippa Customer Support.

May 21, 2012 11:09 am

digminigames
I also have confirmed with Paypal that I did not get any refund. I never attempted a PayPal payment reversal on this Success Fee before! I’ve submitted the dispute to Paypal just now because of your bad support! Please do not tell me to check something, you should check your bad Commerce System first!

PayPal.jpg (quick view)
May 21, 2012 11:33 am

digminigames
You said the the Success Fee was processed on 14th May 2012. Can you provide me the screenshot of the transaction details via PayPal?

May 21, 2012 11:44 am

Flippa Customer Support
Flippa
Thanks for contacting Flippa Customer Support.

We have resolved your PayPal Dispute, and refunded Success Fees should be in your PayPal account shortly.

Please let us know if you need further information or assistance.

Kind Regards,

Flippa Customer Support.

May 21, 2012 01:49 pm

digminigames
Thanks for contacting Flippa Customer Support.

We will continue to investigate the issues with your PayPal refund, and will provide an update to you through Support Request # 71833. Legal involvement will not be required in this matter.

Kind Regards,
Flippa Customer Support.

Why you told me legal involvement will not be required in this matter? I don’t think so! First, you charged me without checking weather the transaction is successful. Second, you told me the refund was returned to me on 14th May 2012, but in fact, you did not do it! It is your fault, but you never say sorry to me.

Mail Contact
Flippa.com Pty Ltd PO Box 1516, Collingwood, VIC 3066. Australia

Please get ready for my Lawyer’s Letter.

May 21, 2012 02:59 pm

digminigames
Why did you close the ticket without response? Please look reality in your fault! If you close the ticket again, I will post the whole things on sitepoint, WHT and so on.

May 21, 2012 03:21 pm

Flippa Customer Support
Flippa
Thanks for contacting Flippa Customer Support.

Please advise what further information you require on this matter.

Kind Regards,

Flippa Customer Support.

May 21, 2012 03:40 pm

digminigames
Is it difficult for you to say sorry? Your mistake, never say sorry. OK! I say sorry. I’m sorry to trouble you! You provide the best service I’ve received. Thank you!

May 21, 2012 03:56 pm

2

It seems like they are trying to be as helpful as they can to me.

3

But I’m very disappointed in the service I received. Flippa never say sorry to me for the mistake.

4

O well, at least they have tried to resolve the issue. That’s a way of saying sorry. Many companies are far less helpful, so at least they’ve addressed the issue. Mistakes happen.

People on help desks tend not to get emotionally involved—probably because they feel it doesn’t help much. A “sorry” would be nice, but in the end, as long as a situation is resolved, that’s the main thing I care about. A “sorry” from a help desk employee isn’t really worth all that much, when you think about it.

5

Hi Kevin.

I’m afraid we rely on the buyer or seller notifying us if a sale does not go through via our dispute system.

Where a success fee has been paid before the dispute has been lodged, we refund the success fee (as well as credit the seller’s account with all listing and upgrade fees).

For some reason this did not seem to go through automatically in this instance so our support guys did a manual refund. Hopefully you already have the refund now - by all means let us know if not.

Agree this was arguably a bug on our end wrt the initial automated refund failing. Happy to provide the apology if you like … but expect you prefer us adding $50 in credits to your account for the inconvenience.

Be assured we’re not in the business of claiming a success fee (or retaining listing/upgrade fees) in the instances when sales don’t go through. Hope the relist is more successful.

Good luck.
A

6

I’ve nothing to say :slight_smile:

7

Hi Andrew,

Thanks for your reply. I think this is the best way I can accept for the bug. The sale does go through via your dispute system, you can check it via your system. I have got the refund because I submitted a dispute to Paypal. If the support guys can explain the reason as you posted, no apology provided for me, I can understand the bug. But they did not, they just told me check my account again and again, which is so irresponsible I think.

I never doubted your business, your product is excellent, but I’m very disappointed in the support service I received :slight_smile:

OK, thanks for your help and I am very satisfied with your explanation. It’s your choice whether adding $50 in credits to my account for the inconvenience.

Best Regards

8

As a rule of life when you start threatening legal action to a company words like sorry is going to disappear along with all responses that are beyond facts. Perhaps you didn’t like the service level before that point but avoiding an admission of guilt when someone is threatening to sue you, well, that’s just practical.

Although from your last post it sounds like your goal wasn’t so much about getting an apology as it was about getting compensation above and beyond the full refund --and when someone is asking for that outright makes it hard to take any critique seriously.

9

First, please be careful to read the whole story. I want to take legal actions, not that I did not get an apology, but because Flippa continued to insist that the refund has been returned. They told me to check my account again and again. I got the refund after I submitted a dispute to Paypal. When someone refused to admit the mistake, why can not I take legal actions? But you think it’s the threatening legal action.

In the heart of a gentleman villain belly(以小人之心度君子之腹) - A Chinese proverb for you. I do not care about getting an apology if you give a reasonable explanation. I also want to say if you make a mistake, you have to pay for it. If I were in urgent need of the refund to deal with something, but you take up the refund for your mistake. Should I not be compensated? I also said it’s Flippa’s choice whether adding $50 in credits to my account for the inconvenience, I never require it before.

10

I think we’re talking past each other. I’m not questioning your threat (at least not in the post I made… I’d certainly challenge threatening to sue a company a week into a refund process but I’ll chalk that up to hot air anyways – a lawsuit at that point would have clearly been silly) – I’m explaining that when you do so the company is naturally going to “lock up”. Words like sorry take fault. It’s not unheard of for a company threatened with legal action to respond stopping all communication unless it’s to the legal department – it’s you may feel it’s the right route to take but once you make that choice you exclude other responses and options.

To be clear I’m a fan of a company owning up to an issue when it’s their fault. Not to utter the meaningless letters s-o-r-r-y but to take responsibility for resolving the issue – is simply best. Of course there are times you don’t believe you’re at fault and while sometimes you bend (the customer comes first), sometimes you don’t.

As far as compensation the answer is no. You deserve to be replied to swiftly and refunded promptly. If the company wants to keep your business they may opt to do more to make it up to you but that’s not something you ask for, it’s something they offer as a gesture of good-will, an embodiment of taking fault to the next level, of showing you they value your business. But asking for it, that’s compensation jumping at a minimum and often becomes reputation extortion (the emails start with you “you can” and then someone else moves too “or i’ll post about it”). It’s a practice companies have to protect themselves from or they end up with a siege of letters trying to game them – not from you but from everyone who reads your post and sees how “easy it was”.

When you you say they could it means they should and that changes the equation.

11

You’re a company and I’m a customer, it’s the difference, different viewpoints, different attitude and so on. Anyway, thanks for your sharing opinion with me.

12

Not so much. Staff on the forums are all voluntary and are not directly part of Sitepoint HQ or Flippa et al.
Ted is giving you his perspective as a customer/client as well as seasoned businessman.

13

No problem. Just to be clear, those credits were added to your account before we even posted here.
Regards,
andrew

14

Just to expand on that:

Mentors ()
Advisors ()
Team Leaders ()

^ ^ ^ are volunteers, non of us are employees of SitePoint.
Administrators () are employees of SitePoint.
SitePoint Staff () are empoyees of SitePoint.
SitePoint Author () AFAIK no current holders of this badge are SitePoint Employees.The Alumnus () Ex Administrators (I don’t know if any holders of an Alumnus badge are current SitePoint Employees)
Podcast Host () I don’t think anyone currently holds a Podcast host badge
Private Advisor () they are moderators for a specific forum (@HAWK; I can’t remember, are they SitePoint employees or volunteers)

I hope that helps

15
Off Topic:

I’m not sure of the exact legal relationship between SitePoint and Flippa, but it’s possible that none of the above are technically employees of Flippa. Anyhow, getting picky now. :slight_smile:

16

Looks like a lot of pre-set templates to me. Maybe it’s just happened that they don’t have the word “sorry” in these template. :stuck_out_tongue: Whatever, they did try to help, didn’t they?

17

Just so we’re perfectly clear here… I’m far from an employee, representative or any sort of agent of Flippa. Like you I’m a member of this community and, after several years of contributing was given the opportunity to take a volunteer role, under the watch of other volunteers, to help moderate discussions. Aside from free sitepoint books there’s no compensation, no discussion of the business end of the network, nor have I met the team behind that business – And as Hawk noted below, SitePoint is not Flippa.

Perhaps one day I’ll have a reason to use Flippa myself but for now I’m simply responding to your critique on a service with my own $0.02 on the issue and since this is not a Flippa support forum, the larger implications of it on customer experience and business.

18

They are volunteers. I am the only person that is paid to do this job. Having said that, I’m paid by SitePoint, not Flippa. We are completely separate companies.

Correct!