Verticallife webshop

So should I post this? 

The topic around my webshop is locked but publicly readable..

To whom it may concern,

I own for more than 15 years a small webshop called Verticallife.nl and try to help the sport I love as best as I can.

After over a year long inquiries requesting for equipment, where I repeatedly suggested ordering in my webshop, with a lot of correspondence through my personal account, Rob finally bought the last pair of ice rock comp picks from my webshop.

These Russian picks are no longer available in the west since the Ukraine war. So he bought “old stock”.

Ice rock was always hard to deal with. Correspondence with Russia was hard and when there stuff finally arrived  there was always something. Comp picks that where thinner than other, shorter, etc. There picks have always been hand sharpened so a lot of variation. The finish “paint” was different on every batch etc. In other words QC (quality control) in Russia is not what I wanted it to be. I loved climbing on the aspeed but never on there picks.

I sold loads of these picks and Aspeed tools over the years. So Its not that weird I did have picks being returned in the past because of QC. This was never a problem because I could supply another pair from the stock. Unfortunately I sold the last discounted pair to Rob…

He specifically asked to send the shipment by UPS since it was the only postale service that would deliver to his place . I ask normally €25 for shipping that’s “PostNL” rates. Now I send these picks for €75 with UPS on Robs request ( driving to the next city to drop them off) 

I have met Rob in the past and most likely will meet him again this winter, so shipped the picks on my expenses because I like what he does, he is still in the game and he really wanted them. I made 0€ on the sale ( ice rock comp picks are €65 whole sale)

Most of the time people will give a small thanks or let you know their goods arrived if you go the extra mile for them.

In this case I just got rude complains; the picks where bad painted etc. He showed the pictures and I agreed they did not look like his other spare new one. 

There is no point in arguing about how they are made quality control, etc.

He did not like it: no problem. I asked if he wanted other model picks because these ice rock are unobtainable, or if he wanted to return these.

I send him my return policy verticallife.nl/terms-and-c…  (these are according to EU law as I’m based in Europe)

In short: Goods have to come back and the money is returned. 

Here everything goes side ways; Rob is unhappy and doesn’t ask anything friendly. I tried to solve this issue that cost me before I started.

I might have suggested that I would return the money and pick the picks up next year. But he just rudely refuses to return the picks . Then tells me to prepay the shipping. And tells me he will open a PayPal dispute to get his money back.

At this point I’m done whit his manner and tell him to do what ever he deems necessary.

So here we are this topic seems to be necessary abide of the PayPal complain he made.

Before his topic opened I already accepted the dispute in PayPal that the picks will be returned and refunded (as suggested).

Actual picks in the conversation before purchasing.

Now what can I do more?

Dennis,

Thanks for many happy transactions through Vertical Life and your contributions to the sport.

Thanks for clarifying this situation. It sucks to get called out so publicly and baselessly.

Unfortunately, many in the US suffer from the delusion that the customer is always right so far as to excuse all behavior even when they may actually be wrong.

Turns out I was also wrong about the picks seemingly being refurbished, based on the photos Rob shared I can understand why he wasn’t happy with them but not for the conclusions he jumped to. You would think someone with as much time spent on IR equipment would be understanding of their QC issues, but regardless, you offered him a solution and he was unreasonable.

Running a small business is unfortunately often thankless and customers can be hell bent on bringing you down with their own misery. I definitely appreciate your kickass shop and look forward to my next purchase!

Dennis and Rob should just kiss and move on   

“Actual picks in the conversation” , upper frame vs the picks I received.

These two things are not the same…

All this verbiage is hand waving. IRE is not responsible for whatever you ship out as new inventory. Exercise some judgment. I mean ask yourself, would you pay €89 a piece for those picks? Nope. You wouldn’t.

It’s a small community. Don’t grift people.

Rob Cotterwrote:

“Actual picks in the conversation” , upper frame vs the picks I received.

These two things are not the same…

All this verbiage is hand waving. IRE is not responsible for whatever you ship out as new inventory. Exercise some judgment. I mean ask yourself, would you pay €89 a piece for those picks? Nope. You wouldn’t.

It’s a small community. Don’t grift people.

I think kissing was optional, but moving on seemed obvious…

Rob, bro, those look like the same picks… You can see the same scratch marks lol. What are you missing? 

Yes, they look imperfect. But so was the photo Dennis shared you?

Most importantly. Return was offered. End of story.

You could always try reaching out to IR directly. Good luck getting a response

For what it's worth, I've only ordered once through verticallife, for the otherwise hard to get Art of Ice Climbing book. It arrived in good condition with a personal note from the sellers. 

@ Dennis, 

I appreciate you posting here to explain your side of the story.  

I guess the best I could say is that if I owned a bussiness I would never sell items of that poor quality and inconsistency.  Situations like this are essentially guaranteed to arise. 

As Rob said, ultimately you are resonsible for what you put in the box, and the integrity of the product.  

I guess this is something to just put in the past and move on. 

I appreciate Dennis chiming in and giving his perspective. Sounds as though the QC on the picks has been marginal. Which at the end of day Dennis knowing that he really should have been up front that quality was an issue. Given what Dennis stated about the QC I am going to assume the picks were not "used." However, the picks in question should've been listed as "seconds" or similar thus the discount. Further the pictures and more importantly the description should have reflected that. The later, and perhaps the former was not done.

Further, given Dennis have previously meet and corresponded with Rob, Dennis really should have been more up front that the picks being shipped were the last two in stock and they were not the best quality. And again thus the discount. 

Rob was not happy with what he received. And while the conversation might have gone sideways at the end of the day as the seller, Dennis failed to communicate.