Early October, I had dinner with a friend and told her about a book I really liked. After I got home, I checked Amazon.com, found the book, ordered it to be shipped to her, and told her it was on its way. That was on October 6th.
I wondered why I didn’t hear from her about getting the book, but an email from Amazon on October 24th – that’s 18 days later, said:
Greetings from Amazon.com,
We’re writing to inform you that your order 102-9674454-4599426 from dmacaluso2 has been canceled because the item(s) you purchased were out of stock. Please return and place your order again at a later time.
Our sellers strive to minimize canceled orders. We’re sorry for the inconvenience this has caused. Your credit card was not charged for this order. If you have any questions regarding the cancellation of this order, please contact dmacaluso2.
…
We value you as a customer and hope you will continue shopping on Amazon.com.
Ok – that explains why I never heard from my friend about the book arriving, and I ordered another one for her. But I was annoyed by the fact that it took this long to let me know the order could not be filled and decided to give ‘feedback’. So I wrote:
Date: Wednesday, October 28, 2009 8:47 pm
Subject: Order inquiry from Amazon customer andrea-barnett@satx.rr.com
To: “donnabauer@optonline.net”
Cc: “commmgr_seller@amazon.com”
Re my recently canceled order 102-9674454-4599426.
While I understand that sometimes things can be out of stock, I do NOT understand why it took you 16 days to notify me of on out-of-stock item that was supposed to have shipped within two days. I had ordered that book for a friend and had told her to expect it – your lack of service made this awkward.
It’s a shame that the canceled order does not allow me to leave feedback.
My math was off – there were actually 18 days between order and cancellation, and later on, I did find where I could leave feedback after all, but whatever.
And then I received this email:
From: donnabauer@optonline.net
Sent: Wednesday, October 28, 2009 8:33 PM
To: Andrea Barnett
Subject: Re: Order inquiry from Amazon customer andrea-barnett@satx.rr.com
Dear Madam,
If you would have read what I wrote in the amazon response it said that the book was returned to me. It was in an envelope provided by the post office because it was somehow mangled in the process of being delivered to you therefore it was sent back to me. It was in tatters and I couldn’t send it to you that way. The only choice I had was to put that it was out of stock because Amazon doesn’t provide a “damaged stock” option. I am a mom, not a business so while I usually do my own shipping my husband took it for me that day because I and my children were stick with strep. Unfortunately he didn’t get a tracking number from the post office so I couldn’t provide one and honestly I had never had a problem with the post office before so I didn’t think that this would happen. I hope you understand and if you don’t quite frankly you can go kill yourself. I never received such a rude e-mail in my life but I’m happy to return the favor. I could care less about how “awkward” this was for you and friend. Get a grip.
Huh? Rude email? Really? This poor thing must be on a roll of bad luck – She and the kids are sick (strep, none-the-less), the husband doesn’t know how to properly mail merchandise and doesn’t get a tracking number to prove that this item was REALLY dropped off at the post office, then the book gets torn and returned to her, not delivered like it usually does (well, maybe the address part was ruined, too) and it took approximately TWO WEEKS for all this – and the Amazon notice I received did not contain any information about this accident. That’s about 5 strikes of bad karma against her right there, depending on what one counts. Poor thing!
And to think, instead of the above, she could have just explained about the torn book, and I would have responded that I wasn’t aware of that circumstance, but that certainly explains the situation. I probably would have closed with a critical remark about the quality of the service the post office occasionally provides, and we would have been done with it. But NO – she wrote what she wrote, and easily intimidated, withdrawn, and shy, as I am NOT, I had to reply:
From: Andrea Barnett
Date: Wednesday, October 28, 2009 9:51 pm
Subject: RE: Order inquiry from Amazon customer andrea-barnett@satx.rr.com To: donnabauer@optonline.net
Impressive what you write – but attached is the ONLY email I ever received re the cancellation (Where is the part about the damaged return?). And you’re right, you’re not a business, and I only hope your mom qualities are greater than your ‘not-a-real- business’ qualities. And compared to what you just spewed my way, my email to you wasn’t even hinting on being rude.
Unlike you, I already have a grip.
Ok, so not exactly a love letter, but everything I said was taken directly out of her email. No new insults, some sarcasm, but that’s what I’m good at.
And then, I get:
From: donnabauer@optonline.net
Sent: Thursday, October 29, 2009 7:14 AM
To: andrea-barnett@satx.rr.com
Subject: Re: RE: Order inquiry from Amazon customer andrea-barnett@satx.rr.com
I have no idea why you didn’t receive the text that was included with the cancellation order, but I will tell you what you can do — take the stick out of your ass and hit yourself over the head with it. NOW that was great, thanks for the laugh!!!!
Seriously, this is someone trying to do business? That’s NOT how it works. So I forwarded the entire email string to Amazon. If I were them, I would want to know how my sellers act. And I also found where I could leave feedback for this seller, left negative feedback (1 star out of 5) and wrote:
“Seller canceled order 18(!) days after it was placed. Complaint email to seller was responded to by extreme rudeness (including the suggestion I go kill myself).”
Still nothing but factual. And again, had she responded reasonably to my original complaint, nobody would be talking about this any more. Ok – I didn’t have to respond to her, either. But I did! And I replied to her:
From: Andrea Barnett
Date: Friday, October 30, 2009 8:23 am
Subject: RE: RE: Order inquiry from Amazon customer andrea-barnett@satx.rr.com
To: donnabauer@optonline.net
Best of Luck with the Amazon Investigation Team.
Oh, and btw – I found where one can leave feedback despite the cancellation.
That was very polite and friendly, right? … and she responds:
From: donnabauer@optonline.net
Sent: Friday, October 30, 2009 1:00 PM
To: andrea-barnett@satx.rr.com
Subject: Re: RE: RE: Order inquiry from Amazon customer andrea-barnett@satx.rr.com
I’m not afraid of you or the people at amazon. That being said you reported me, left negative feedback and now you should be fully satisifed. Please do not contact me again as I will consider it harrassment. You have been warned and I too will forward this and the rest of our communications to the Investigation Team as well. I respectfully request you DO NOT contact me again. Thank you for your kind consideration.
And she has also replied to the feedback I left.
Seller Response:"I e-mailed customer that book came back from post office with their apologies because book was damaged somehwere in shipment and in my opinion it was too damaged to be sold. Customer irrate from a situation beyond my control and from her response obviously a little unstable. " — Date: October 30, 2009
So of course I will honor Donna Bauer’s request and not contact her again. I did send an update to Amazon, so. We’ll see what happens. I don’t see how they could possibly justify having people like this sell for them. Of course she may claim I falsified the emails and she never said what I say she said – but I have not. Everything above is a direct copy and paste. I did not omit or add anything. I did not even correct her typos. (yes, I can be THAT mean if provoked).
And just for the record – I was never irate about any of this. I was annoyed about the late notice, since I didn’t know the reason behind it (and to be honest, I don’t know that I can believe her story, but I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt), I was taken aback by her uncalled for rude reply, but mostly, I’m amused and entertained. Thank YOU for the laugh, Donna!
But since Donna did NOT ask me to NOT write about her in my Blog, she cannot be upset that I do. So I can say — all without contacting her:
Dear Donna Bauer, aka Amazon Seller dmacaluso2:
I was not happy with this transaction, and I said so. That is my right. I was not rude, did not attack, just stated my criticism. Of course I was not aware of the damage issue – had I known, I would have had no reason to complain to you, you did nothing wrong (at that point, anyway) – stuff just sometimes happens. However, instead of just explaining the situation, you added insults. And since I didn’t have much else to do that day, I accepted the challenge …
I do hope that Amazon bans you – you do not deserve to be allowed to make even a dime selling to the public, until you have learned how to behave properly. I’ll keep checking to see if your seller account disappears. Meanwhile, I figure sooner or later, thanks to my friend Google and the couple www tricks I know (including obfuscating my email address in this post but not yours), you may find this post. Just keep in mind – honoring your request, I did NOT contact you. I’m just sitting here, telling MY story in MY personal blog. You just happen to be in it, I cannot help that. I am only stating the facts. Like it or not!
Oh, and in case anyone is wondering, the book that caused all this is "Stones from the River" by Ursula Hegi. It is a great book, and I highly recommend it or any of her other books. I think they are especially unique for a German living in America. I would, however, suggest you find a different seller than Donna aka dmacaluso2, but I do highly recommend Amazon.com – you can find great deals on new and used books of all kinds.
