It happens.
I tend to give companies the benefit of the doubt, until they are jerks about something or truly screw me over.
I bought a barrel from a reputable company back in ... March(?).
Early April, I got an email from them, saying that the transaction was not actually approved by my bank, even though I had 'successful confirmation' at the time of checkout.
Checked my bank, and they were correct. The transaction never hit my account.
Long and short of the resolution: we had to use a back-door through another payment processor, which meant not using the normal channels and processes.
On my end, I had only a transaction number. On their end, they only had a payment with name, address, and phone number.
And, lucky me, the barrels had gone out of stock by the time the company realized payment had not actually gone through for my order.
They told me the next batch would ship a week later.
About two weeks later, I hadn't heard anything.
I sent a friendly email, just asking about the status.
No reply.
A week or so later, I sent another polite inquiry.
No reply.
Last week, I sent another email, from a different email address, with an attachment showing the previous attempts and correspondence.
They replied within about an hour.
They were apologetic for having "forgotten" the order, as I suspected.
My other emails had been forwarded to the co-owner that handled the tech and financial side of the business, so he could look into it. But he had family medical issues to deal with daily, and no one thought to check up on the guy and make sure he was keeping up.
So, almost two months after trying the first time, I finally have a barrel enroute. (Let's hope it makes it through the USPS gauntlet.
)
As long as I get a usable barrel, I won't hold it against them.
(I also ended up getting free shipping, since they forgot to charge for it when we did the 'back door' payment. So, that helps.)
