First of all, I do admit to attempting to buy a water pipe from Shivadas Glass. It was for a friend of mine who has bad habits, but as a birthday present, you buy things to make people happy.
I purchased a 13 inch water pipe for about $154.00 including tax and shipping. After I clicked the "Purchase Now" button, an e-mail is sent to me about a day later notifying me that Shivadas Glass is currently out of that type of water pipe. And the day after that, they place an "Out of Stock" label over the product... Go figure.
Now first off, it would have been so nice if they had notified me (by placing an "Out of Stock" sign below the product) about that particular water pipe being out of stock before I had purchased it. So being patient, I let them know that it was alright and that hopefully they can ship it soon. But I had not envisioned it as being a longer wait.
Now if you want to buy a birthday present, it usually helps for it to be on time (and I wanted it to be a surprise). 2 days went by, so I grew a bit impatient because my friends birthday was soon approaching. Being the nice guy that I am, I nicely let them know that I could no longer wait and that I needed the water pipe sooner rather than later. Shivadas Glass did do an OK job at giving me the choice of cancelling the purchase or waiting for the product. I wrote, "Hey Nate, well as the days have been going by I've looked to different options and am just going to visit my local glass store to buy my glass. So if you could give me a refund for the purchase that would be greatly appreciated, sorry that I couldn't be patient but I was buying this as a gift for my friend and his birthday is soon approaching. Thanks for atleast replying to my emails and hopefully I will be buying from Shivadas glass in the near future."
Fair right? I changed my mind, but only 4 days after telling him that I still wanted it. His response was, "Thanks for your patience until now. We'll get a refund to you soon." So everything seemed cool and both sides were happy, but that was the last time that I have gotten a response from Shivadas Glass. Now, this last response came on Thursday, February 19th.
Today is Sunday, March 8th and I have only been able to talk to a voicemail machine, write emails to business people who don't respond, and pay off the $154.00 credit debt without actually receiving the product I wanted (and forgive me for wanting a perfect credit score). Now tell me, is it wrong for a company that sells "tobacco", I mean marijuana paraphernalia, to attract negative attention from it's customers? Although the business of selling water pipes and bubblers is quite fun, it is still a business and must be handled in a business manner.
All I am asking for is a little bit of help on what I can do to get back at these guys for ignoring me and keeping my $154.00 for this long. People may look at this and say, "man it's only $154.00 get over it", but it's more than that, it's respect and the ability to confide your trust in American businesses (especially ones that undermine United States laws).
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