Additionally, he does not have a PhD. He is a student getting a PhD. Not that it matters. Or to you, does it?

I would expect my money back since the return was within the 30 days. And not a snarky email. That email probably just costed them a customer. And believe it or not, people make misktakes! Hence the return policy! I know, call me crazy.

What does it matter small or large company. Is that owner worried that Alex is a student and probably living on a modest budget? And how can you assume the owner is taking that much of a loss? He obvious wasn’t that hard pressed to get the book back.

A few points to ponder:

1. Amazon’s return policy is 30 days, so it seems to me the author of the post requested a refund with a full week to spare.

2. The return would have been just as unprofitable for the seller had the buyer waited only a single day to request it–the 3 week duration has nothing whatsoever to do with the profitability of the transaction. The seller could have accused him of gaming the system (differently) had he asked for a refund the very next day.

3. The seller may have been dismayed at the fact that it’s not in their financial interest to have him return the book, but it hardly calls for wild speculation and name-calling. Rather than writing off the customer, they should have written off the loss. Not only are they out $10.78, they’ve likely lost any goodwill the refund might have bought them and have made quite sure the buyer in question will *never* be profitable for them.

4. Assuming the buyer had turned around and rejected the refund as you said he should have, what would be an appropriate response from the seller–”Gee thanks, I guess you’re not a thief after all”?

5. “As a general rule on the internet look for all caps, excessive exclamation marks and such as cues to unbased temper or anger. Hope this helps.” Sarcasm and an overtly hostile tone are also pretty good indicators, see previous line or any of the following:

- “you are still whining because your feelings got hurt”
- “with your PhD are well aware that with the low cost of these purchases it’s not financial feasible to have you send the book back” (how else to read the Ph.D. reference when it’s in Communication and Journalism, not Business?)
- “at least they wont have their fragile ethics ever threatened again”
- ” why not go for the gold, and make them apologize as well and have them say, “We are very sorry for hurting your feelings. It will never happen again, we pinky swear. Whether you keep a book for 3 weeks or three years will will add a note in your file that you are a good person and would never wrong us.”

If there is something I’d be happy to discuss it with you directly like adults. I’m not quite sure what you mean by calling people “names.” In my replies I’ve made sure to quote the exact words of the post or people to supplement my view. So when you make passive aggressive sarcasm, please include actual quotes. And if your actual quote demonstrates what you say, thats great.

In addition, the author made no reference of a 4 week return policy. He added that after my comment to this article. Every other post by me has been in response to comments directed or mentioning me. I have posted no new comments that are not a direct reply.

As to your actual comments about the article, definitely understand your point of view and think they are good points. And I agree if someone called me a thief and I wasn’t you can be sure I’d be responding to them by email or a phone call right away. At the same time, I certainly wouldn’t write a blog post mentioning it, because even though I would be upset about the allegations made in the heat of the moment, I would take a step back and realize that when all is said and done, I got a free a book a full refund, and the company ended up losing money as a commenter noted. There are a lot of points of view where one can see fault for both the consumer, the merchant, and Amazon. This blog posts allows us to all discuss that rationally.

As a consumer I couldn’t care less about what a vendor profits or has to go through to make the sale. If they can’t make a profit from the Amazon marketplace then they shouldn’t be doing business there. I would have thought this was common sense, but apparently that’s up for debate.

If a vendor has a return policy of 30 days then 3 weeks is not too much time to wait before returning the item. Period. Doesn’t matter if the consumer is lazy, stupid, or in prison for piracy–there should be no issue (and wasn’t). Whats flabbergasting is that the “3 week return” was made an issue of at all. The vendor had no issue with it. Why would the commenters here make an issue of it?

Secondly, buying something on the internet is not the same as making a physical purchase. A consumer can want an item when reading about it or looking at a picture, but once the item arrives it might not be what I wanted after all and the product media simply inadequate.

Even physically buying merchandise is not completely immune to returns based on this. A couple weeks ago I went to Best Buy looking to buy a keyboard. The one I was most interested in was not available as a demo; they only had it in the box and were unwilling to open the box to let me feel the keys. I decided I didn’t want to risk the purchase but then the sales person told me to buy it and if I didn’t like it I could return it for a full refund within 30 days. So I did buy it, took it home and tried it out, and hated it. Brought it back and got the full cash refund (which I then spent on a different keyboard).

Best Buy did not call me any names during this whole process. But then, I’m guessing CB and Moe weren’t in the vicinity. ;)