Contributors

Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Bad manners and the Internet

Perhaps I am just getting old and grumpy, but occasionally I am still amazed at how rude some people are when the send emails. I received this email today.

Subject: New contact us

New contact us from .........: membership
rip off

Ian Knox
It seems you have ripped me off $40!
I payed the upgrade as an experiment with (university name), I used this site for one
project, and found it to be disappointing.
Why is there an automatic annual charge?
Is this just a way of ripping peolpe off?
Please switch this off now!
refund my money now!
Regards
A very upset user
(name deleted
P.S. please don't feed me some crap about T&E

We use a paypal subscription system for FolioSpaces. The onus is on the subscriber to cancel the subscription. I can understand that this can be annoying (I got an auto renewal for a web page this year, but hey I should have cancelled) but we are just a couple of guys running a (mainly free) ePortfolio hosting service because we believe in it and we believe in the concept of free ePortfolios for all. I am not quite as feisty as I was when I was younger because frankly what is the point. Some people are just rude, whilst the vast majority are wonderful.

My response was just -

Hi (name),

Paypal subscriptions always have an automatic renewal. All you have to to is cancel it at any time. All you had to do in this instance was to tell me you do not want to continue your subscription. I would be more than happy to refund your money, although I do find your attitude and manners appalling. Refund my money now indeed!!!!

Regards, Ian

Now it is probably a bit petty even making this blog post, but I teach eBusiness and I am constantly amazed at the way some people use email. I always suggest that students read an email a few times before they hit the send button as they can't take back what is said. It is also worth considering what result you want to achieve (in addition to behaving like a decent human being anyway).

Anyway it has been a lovely day and the sun is shining.


No comments: