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What to do with a late payment for out of stock service?
randvegeta
Member, Host Rep
Had a customer who ordered a special (and limited) offer service for $7.
We only accepted BTC payments for this offer and initial order was paid with Paypal. This was immediately refunded.
Customer ordered again but then did not pay for several days. They then made a BTC, but only a partial, that went through CarrotPay. Since we do not recieve partial payments, we never saw anything, and due to high demand, we canceled the order and invoice. They later contacted us informing us of payment (even though it was only a partial) and provided proof of payment (BTC tx record).
We advised that they need to get in touch with Carrot directly, who suggested they pay the remaining balance. After several days, eventually, the payment was made and transaction was completed and we received our $7.
Unfortunately, this was a limited stock offer and it was sold out days before the completion of the transaction. Currently that $7 sits in their account as credit.
Client has not really complained or made any demands or anything but we are unable to offer this special offer any more as the servers we setup are full and we have no plans to re-stock this special offer.
I have suggested that they can keep the balance in the account and use it for the next special offer (which will be different) which will be released some time next week. I've had no response since, but how do you feel about such a situation?
Comments
The pitfalls of BTC. As you cancelled and refunded when the Paypal payment came through I don't see any issue. That the client ignored that and ended up sending the BTC payment anyway after selling out of the product is unfortunate.
Don't fuss too much if it's a $7 thing and customer is being reasonable. If they're ok with leaving the $7 with you as credit towards next offer, the problem is solved. Otherwise offer to refund it by BTC or Paypal. That maybe goes beyond your obligations but unless it happens enough to become a problem, it's the customer-friendly thing to do.
Like @willie suggested, it's a situation where a friendly response is the right thing.
How can VPS offers sell out? Did you run out of IPs?
No. It was a special offer built on top of surplus hardware and so not economical to do so with new hardware.
Hm... so 1 client would be a loss-leader? I'd just provide him the offer on other hardware.
Huh? It's not exactly a loss leader, since that implies that there is a loss on the sale of every one of those VPS. I did not have to buy new hardware to accommodate these special orders. I would not be able to offer the same plan on another node without incurring some other cost of some sort.
if he is not happy with your new offer or if he asks for refund, refund him the full amount bearing some loss on your side. He will return back in future.
So far, I think he's waiting for the next special offer. Since the next offer will be different, who knows if it will be acceptable or not. But we plan to make new special offers every 2 weeks or so.
A refund on a $7 BTC transaction? Honestly speaking it wouldn't make sense considering the guy already paid around $3-4 in fees just to pay with BTC and we would need to apply fees to send it back. Anything with such low value just doesn't make sense to process a refund. You can barely buy a cup of coffee with it and the time to process is valuable.
Here's to hoping one of new special offers will be acceptable!
What about "Sorry, your payment was late and the offer is out of stock. As soon as someone else cancels we can accommodate you, or we can refund you now, either through paypal or through BTC, where the BTC refund will be lower due to payment processing fees, your choice"
Open new LET thread with title "insert customer name here IS A SCAMMER!!"
/joke