Silk Road forums
Discussion => Shipping => Topic started by: OperationPsyops on September 12, 2012, 04:11 am
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Hello Forum,
I'd appreciate opinions, greatly appreciate opinions, actually :) as I've yet to have this happen (I'm newer seller with 16 purchases)...
I received an order yesterday from a new-to-me buyer and the address appeared incomplete, so I sent a message shortly after he ordered, asking him to confirm the address but he hasn't read it, yet let alone be able to reply. This is an example of what he used as a shipping addy:
John Doe
LuvKittens Street
MyTown, Hawaii 98765
(*no street numbers such as 123 LuvKittens Street, for example)
I'm semi-familiar with the town and would estimate it has 20,000 - 30,000 residents...but that was when I lived several hours away 10 years ago, so give or take now. Small town shipments might arrive with this address but a street in a town with 30,000 people? Buyer has excellent stats and, if it matters, ordered 1 item.
Should I continue to wait for a response about this address, wait a few more days and...do what? OR wait a few more days, then message buyer again and tell him I didn't feel comfortable shipping to his given address...or send a message that I DID ship to the address he gave me to me, after trying to verify with him, receiving no response? So many choices but I just do not feel comfortable shipping to this address because I do not see just how it would be deliverable. So, what should I do from here? :-\ I use DCN for all shipments.
To make matters worse, the buyer used PGP (a good thing) to send me his address, but he had no PGP for me to contact him, so I sent the message with privnote.com just to be able to make contact. "Hello? Mister Buyer, are you really, really SURE you wanna go with THIS address?" If your convinced, please reply with a signed release form stating such & I shall then ship immediately."
How would sellers with more experience than I handle this situation? Thanks for the help. Again ;)
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That looks a lot like a mistake in the address to me. Even house on private lanes have numbers. I would absolutely wait until you get a response before shipping. If that is indeed the buyers correct address, he probably would have started to include an explanation about it being the correct address by now, as I'm sure you wouldn't be the first vendor to have this issue.
If you wait, worst case scenario is you lose a sale. There will be plenty more.
If you send it, worst case scenario is you lose your package and a sale.
Seems like an easy decision to me.
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Hello Forum,
I'd appreciate opinions, greatly appreciate opinions, actually :) as I've yet to have this happen (I'm newer seller with 16 purchases)...
I received an order yesterday from a new-to-me buyer and the address appeared incomplete, so I sent a message shortly after he ordered, asking him to confirm the address but he hasn't read it, yet let alone be able to reply. This is an example of what he used as a shipping addy:
John Doe
LuvKittens Street
MyTown, Hawaii 98765
(*no street numbers such as 123 LuvKittens Street, for example)
I'm semi-familiar with the town and would estimate it has 20,000 - 30,000 residents...but that was when I lived several hours away 10 years ago, so give or take now. Small town shipments might arrive with this address but a street in a town with 30,000 people? Buyer has excellent stats and, if it matters, ordered 1 item.
Should I continue to wait for a response about this address, wait a few more days and...do what? OR wait a few more days, then message buyer again and tell him I didn't feel comfortable shipping to his given address...or send a message that I DID ship to the address he gave me to me, after trying to verify with him, receiving no response? So many choices but I just do not feel comfortable shipping to this address because I do not see just how it would be deliverable. So, what should I do from here? :-\ I use DCN for all shipments.
To make matters worse, the buyer used PGP (a good thing) to send me his address, but he had no PGP for me to contact him, so I sent the message with privnote.com just to be able to make contact. "Hello? Mister Buyer, are you really, really SURE you wanna go with THIS address?" If your convinced, please reply with a signed release form stating such & I shall then ship immediately."
How would sellers with more experience than I handle this situation? Thanks for the help. Again ;)
Hi OperationPsyops,
Just a quick note concerning your use of Privnote when asking if the customer would like to go with that address; I would contact the buyer via SR PM with a simple message requesting their PGP key rather than sending them a Privnote link. Just say "Hi BuyerX, I need your PGP Public Key as I need to confirm something with you."
I know the first time I received a Privnote link from a new vendor I was less than impressed, and it made me wonder a little about how they treat my information. I brought it up with the vendor and he said he'd request buyer's PGP keys in future and it's been plain sailing since.
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Many thanks to you both :)
I don't mind losing a sale...lost package, refund, & mad buyer vs a lost sale & possible mad buyer. I'll take what's behind door #2! So I should just leave it as an open but unshipped? I guess the buyer will eventually become angry when their shipment hasn't arrived and log onto SR to find out just why not! And then become angry over the privnote :-[
And thank you for the suggestion to request a seller's PGP. It surprised me the first time a buyer ordered w/ PGP but didn't have their own PGP. It's now happened twice - the last being after I posted on this forum in the last few hours. I won't say how I replied ::) but I will say I'll send buyers a message to ask for their PGP in the future.
Thank you again!
Well depending on how security conscious they are they mightn't mind too much about the PrivNote, but they're notoriously insecure. Hell, some buyers even think it's safe to send their details via PrivNote!
I'd leave it open and unshipped for the time being, but shoot the buyer a message asking for their PGP Public Key in order to confirm a detail.
Alternatively you could cancel it and send them a message stating that you cancelled it because it looked like there was a detail missing, and you wanted to make sure they get their package, and didn't want their Bitcoin tied up in an order that you couldn't process until they confirmed the missing detail. They're "free to re-order, of course, and you'll get right on it", or something to that effect. :)
It mightn't do any harm to link them to this thread here; some buyers are very paranoid and would be a bit sketchy about a vendor contacting them looking for more information, even if it's just so they can get the order sent out.
Back when I was a new buyer I often forgot to include my own PGP key with orders that I need tracking info for, but if it's just a regular order I don't bother including it. I espouse the virtues of encrypting everything in Silk Road PM's but for a lot of vendors it's just not practical and if there's no sensitive information being communicated then it's not a huge problem. Everybody will see that differently though, I don't actually get products delivered to me personally so the risk is minimal for me.
Best of luck with it anyways! :)
- grahamgreene