Essence of the Ages

Initial Business Response /* (1000, 12, 2015/10/28) */
This customer is absolutely incorrect in all his complaints.
NO WHERE on my site does it promise ANY delivery date. It does not state a "7 working day delivery" on the website or anywhere else. What is does state on the order confirmation...

email is "Note: PLEASE allow 7 BUSINESS DAYS for shipping to occur before contacting us about your order. A BUSINESS DAY is Monday through Friday, US Holidays excluded. Please be patient for your order to process, ship, and be delivered."
The next email the customer refers to where he alleges that the order would be sent in 4-5 days is an AUTO-RESPONSE EMAIL to an email he sent that I did not receive. I did not personally send out that email and it states such in the body of the email: "PLEASE NOTE: This is an auto-response message generated by my website. If you do not receive a personal reply after 3 business days please assume that I did not actually receive your email and resend it to me. Not all sent emails actually get to their intended address."
Further he alleges that he has never received an order from me in less than 20 days. Again, a lie. This customer has ordered from me 3 times previously. Here are the order dates and the ship dates:
Ordered: 02/22/2015 Shipped: 03/06/XXXX XX business days
Ordered: 06/04/2015 Shipped: 06/17/XXXX X business days
Ordered: 08/10/2015 Shipped: 08/11/XXXX X day!
The problem the customer is complaining about is entirely due to his not remembering the message that accompanied the product that he ordered on 09/03/2015. The product was out of stock at that time but there was a message beside the order line that stated: "This item is temporarily sold out. It can be selected but your order will be held until it comes back into stock, estimated to be middle of October." That message had been placed on my site, by that product, on 07/25/2015.
Since the customer placed an order for the out of stock product I assumed that he 1.) Had read the message, 2.) Understood the message completely, and 3.) Accepted that his order would ship in its entirety when the product came back into stock. Obviously one or more of my above assumptions were incorrect.
In addition to nasty emails from this customer and several attempts on an extremely popular incense blog to smear my name, he complained to the Revdex.com. But HE is entirely in the wrong.
I have cancelled his order because I no longer want to waste my time with his childish tirades and unfounded accusations. This man supposedly owns his own business but certainly does not possess the skills needed to communicate clearly and without lying. I have NEVER cancelled a customer's order because of the way they have treated me but this customer went above and beyond to smear my business. I will no longer do business with him.
This matter is settled. His order is cancelled. His money should be returned to his credit card as per customary 3-4 day business banking guidelines.
I realize that the entirety of this complaint/reply will be posted on the Revdex.com website and I am fine with that. Again, consider this matter settled.
Initial Consumer Rebuttal /* (3000, 14, 2015/10/28) */
(The consumer indicated he/she DID NOT accept the response from the business.)
First of all, It is absolutely impossible for an order to be received in 1 day. Period. There was one time that I did receive a delivery from her in 5 days. That was fine. I do not appreciate being called a liar because I am not. [redacted] This is simply NOT true, this is something I always look for when ordering, especially an E. Indian incense because I know that deliveries from that part of the world are tenuous at best. again, [redacted] And yes, I do own a business and I can tell you that customers do not care how tired or understaffed you are. If you are offering a service they expect you to deliver, or at least communicate and not become aggressive and angry at a customer simply because they want what they paid for! And why can I not receive the portion of the products that she claims that she does have in stock and then receive the remaining one item when it arrives? Is this unreasonable? I also do not accept or appreciate being told that this situation is resolved! [redacted] In fact I have never lodged a formal complaint in my life. All I ever wanted was my order or communication or some sort of customer service and this is what it has turned into.[redacted] And as far as name calling, all you have to do is read her response. Who is doing the name calling?? Unbelievable. well,I will check my bank and report back in 3 days. I am not holding my breath that she will actually refund my money but if I am wrong, I will apologize because sometimes I realize that I AM wrong sometimes. [redacted]
Final Business Response /* (4000, 16, 2015/10/30) */
This customer is DANGEROUSLY close to having a libel suit filed against him for defamation of character. I suggest that he cease his tirade immediately or I will file charges
His order was cancelled and his money refunded on 10/23. I have NO control how quickly the money makes it back through the banking system and to his credit card.
This has become ridiculous. Please close this complaint as it has MORE than been resolved.

Yes, it is true that this customer placed an order several months ago. Due to severe illness, I not only got behind in shipping but Essence of the Ages was completely CLOSED for 4 months. I received an email from this customer asking for her delivery address to be updated as she had moved and I...

replied. That was the last correspondence I received from this customer. I did not receive an order cancellation from her, either by phone or by email. Her package was shipped on the 18th, at which time she was sent an email confirmation of the shipping. Today's email from her was the first that I know of a cancellation email.  She is free to send the order back. If the box has not been opened, she can write REFUSED on the box and it will ship back to me free of charge to her. On the return, I will waive the 15% restocking fee, but her refund will be minus the original shipping cost.

I am rejecting this response because:Re thisFirst of all, anyone who believes that the 'customer is always right' is seriously disillusioned. I do not, and have never agreed with that. And certainly if you ask any business owner, they also will agree with me. I have not received 6 emails from you. The only one that I did receive was on 05/04 and you sent that email 2 times, right after one another. One email does not constitute 6 emails. If you truly did send 6 emails, five of them never made it to me. You should have received an auto response email on 05/04 asking for you to "... please allow me 2 to 3 business days to respond to your email. You have not allowed me that. As for 'hiding from customers', the phone has NOT been disabled and as I do not have time to post anything to Facebook, I took that down 2 years ago. And there has never been the Facebook logo on my site. Sorry you are so disappointed with my service lately. Between running two business and being in and out of the hospital for the last 4 month with pneumonia, it has been a battle trying to keep up. That, I will agree with you. Anything else is just supposition on your part.If you wish to publicly respond, please use the link below. [redacted] This is a further example of Beth [redacted]' passive aggressiveness and hostility to ANY criticism of her business practices. First, I can forward you all my Emails. They were sent to you AND your customer service address. I suggest you get a better computer-it is very convenient for you to assert you never received the Emails, when in fact they were sent-I have no way to prove you received them, except that they were not bounced. Each Email was numbered as well. Your phone is not listed on the EOA site-I had to go to Revdex.com to get it and nobody responded, there is no voice mail. If you wish to quibble feel free, but effectively since the phone is not listed on the website, it is cut off. You used to have a FB page-it is no longer up. I did not say there was an icon on your site. I have allowed you the extra time-for several of the 6 I waited the 2-3 business days. You don't bother to provide the courtesy of a response. If you had told me you were in and out of the hospital, and provided the best anticipated delivery date you could manage, that would have been fine by me. I have asked multiple times for a delivery date. It is not asking much. What I find upsetting is your opaque business interface that simply ignores inquiries. And Yes, "the customer is always right". I like buying from you and I wish to go on doing so, but your customer service needs work. Please send me an approximate delivery date! Thank you.

Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me.My complaint against Essence of the Ages has been resolved, thanks to the assistance of the Revdex.com.   My order was sent...

out on the day following my complaint, and I received my goods about a week later.  I have made a small donation to the Revdex.com in acknowledgement of this assistance. Thank you for your help. Vicki [redacted]

Initial Business Response /* (1000, 12, 2015/10/04) */
When a customer places an order with me they receive an email confirmation of that order. CLEARLY stated on that confirmation is the message, "PLEASE allow 7 BUSINESS DAYS for shipping. A BUSINESS DAY is Monday through Friday, US Holidays...

excluded. I am a small business and my only employee. Please be patient for your order to process and be delivered."
This customer placed their order on Saturday, August 1st. FIVE business days later the customer emailed asking if their order had shipped. I replied saying no, the order had not shipped, and pointed out the timeline message from their order confirmation.
The next email from the customer came of 08/15. I replied apologizing for the delay, stating that I was waiting for a shipment to arrive from Nepal and that as soon as I received my shipment, the customer's order would ship. As soon as possible were my words.
I sent the SAME reply to the customer when she again emailed me on 08/25.
I did not reply to her emails from 08/27 or 08/31. I had already supplied the customer with the information she wanted.
As to her phone call to me from a phone number supplied on my site: I DO NOT have a phone number posted anywhere on my website. The reason for this? Running two businesses by myself unfortunately does not allow me the time to chat on the phones with customers. I ask for customers to contact me by email. That way I can reply to questions at time when a return phone call could not be made.
As a side note: my shipment from Nepal took longer to arrive to me than I expected. The gentleman that worked with me in Nepal for 10 years, who not only made incense for me but was also gathered incense from other manufacturers in Nepal for me, was killed in the Nepal earthquake in April 2015. Since then, having to work with new people, the gathering, manufacturing, and shipping has been slow getting product to me.
This customer has received her order. She was also sent a generous discount coupon to use on her next order.
Please consider this complaint closed.
Initial Consumer Rebuttal /* (2000, 14, 2015/10/05) */
After more emails were sent to seller, the order was finally shipped on September 29. Order received on October 3. Even though I am very satisfied with the products, I regret that seller never replied to my multiple emails. I think that it was the least proper thing to do.