A new advertiser once wrote: “I want a refund, I never got 1 call, I will file a claim if u don’t refund, this is outright blackmail, I want my money back, never got any customers. Pls refund.” The ad she paid for was in the magazine that had been on the street 4 days. She got confused with the timeline since we spoke 30 days previous. Clearly she thought her ad had been out a month or more, instead of just 4 days. I wasn’t upset at her note since everyone responds according to their past experience. I wrote, “I can see you’re upset. You’re just confused about the timeline. I can tell by your words that you’ve been taken advantage of before. Our emails in chronological order are below, explaining what you were paying for. If you read our emails, you will see that it is just a misunderstanding. In 22 years I’ve never had a complaint lodged. I promise you I do business ethically. I do not take your words personally because clearly you have had bad experience in the past.”
A friend who was here when the email came in asked wasn’t I upset at the accusatory tone? I wasn’t because I knew the truth of the situation. We’d had several emails and calls and she did a lot of negotiation for what she wanted. The only thing she forgot was which issue her ad was in. She wasn’t trying to cheat me out of her payment. I wasn’t trying to trick her into an ad. It was just a misunderstanding.
Sure, I could have responded to her accusations and threats with some of my own, but that was neither called for nor necessary. All that was necessary was reminding her of the truth of the situation. Having been a criminal defense paralegal for 22 years, I know to keep records so I can always recreate a scenario when someone’s memory lapses. All she needed to see was all our string of emails to be reminded of what actually happened. People want to do the right thing. I do my best to help them do it.
UPDATE: More confusion. After receiving this note, she apologized for being harsh and… paid me again! I refunded it of course. Win/win!