Unfortunately, I experienced problems dealing with local sellers than with international ones. There was this one girl Romina, unfortunately, who made the holidays depressing and frustrating for me!
I bought several products from her, with a Herbalife satisfaction guarantee to lose weight in 30 days. She was a rather impatient seller while I was inquiring through SMS, probably dealt with bogus buyers, so I didn't fault her much for hurrying me up. But she was much nicer upfront, and seemed to be trustworthy, so I bought the items from her. (Though a friend of mine, had this gut feeling that the girl is "antipatika". I just defended her, saying things like, "Bakit nmn? Hindi mo nmn siya kilala para sabihin iyon." She cannot say anything, she said it's just a gut feeling.)
Anyway, unfortunately, nothing was happening in 2 weeks. By that time, one of the Herbalife products was already almost empty, since I've been using them consistently. I was afraid that if I didn't return it, my guarantee would not be honored anymore, and I didn't want to buy another one, because there doesn't seem to be any effect. However, when Romina and I met, according to her, there was a "significant change" because there was a 1 cm decrease in some of my measurements, like my waist. But then, I thought 1 CM IS NOT A SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCE, isn't it? Because it can be modifed by the position of the measuring tape (considering that the first time measurements were made by her, and the second time, I did the measurements), by my clothes, by how heavy I ate earlier, and even by my breathing. Regardless, the weighing scale didn't budge, and I wasn't satisfied... Which was what Herbalife guaranteed.
That's when the antipatika started acting up. She said that she had to go out of the country, and she cannot process the return of the items. So being persistent and all, I was the one who processed the items, and went to the trouble of going to Herbalife itself... Which unfortunately, wouldn't return my money, because the dealer has to be the one to process it. Herbalife would replace the products I would return, but no money will be exchanged, it would go through the dealer... Since Romina and I disagreed on the 1 cm as significant difference, she doesn't believe that she will refund the money. Instead, she will just replaced the items to me... Which I think is unfair, considering the MONEY-back written in the satisfaction guarantee. But being nice and considerate and all, I said fine, I thought to myself that I will just sell the items myself to get my money back)
Regardless, I have to wait for the dealer to come back from her trip. Fine... patience is a virtue...
Then when I got home, I got an email message asking for the transaction through ebay to be cancelled. In ebay, there is a 1-wk policy for me (as the buyer) to accept or not the cancellation. For me, I would have happily agreed to the cancellation... IF the transaction was already over, or if Romina wasn't going out of town for about 10 days. I even asked EBay Help for help on what to do, and basically, I refused to cancel the transaction because I believe it is too soon to close the deal, when it is being prolonged by her trip out of the country.
At least, the rest of the transaction is in eBay Message history! (most recent messages are at the top; hence, start from the bottom towards the top :)
Tsk, tsk... And I thought I learned already!
Unfortunately, even meet ups doesn't entirely work all that well...
I just have to look into my other successful transactions that were soooo good, I still want to continue online shopping despite transactions like these that turn sour!!
I wrote this blog several weeks ago, when the feelings were just so fresh.
As an addendum, she finally paid me the rest of my money today (Jan 25, 2009), which is almost 3 months after the transaction. I just have to blog it out like this for people to know what really happened with our transaction! There's actually, more email messages, but it's kind of tiring to be angry at someone, and write about it. So, I won't add them up anymore. I think I got my message across, anyway. Also, I don't want to give a negative feedback, while I know that my money is still with her. As I said... it's a trust issue.
