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How I Collected a Debt from an Unscrupulous Merchant

mtlynch.io

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Re: How I Collected a Debt from an Unscrupulous Merchant

#201

Post by twunde »

et2o wrote: post #187
technothrasher wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes the regulatory route works in the US. We had our main business phone line go down and Verizon customer service basically shrugged their shoulders and said there was nothing they could do and no way to escalate. One call to the state regulator and not only did they fix the phone line within a couple hours, they begged us to tell them what they could do to make the regulatory complaint go away. We told them w…

What regulator did you call?

It was almost certainly the state public utilities commission PUC, which depending on the state may have a different acronym (PSC is also common). These regulate telecom, water, and energy companies including ESCOs (companies that in theory reduce your energy bill by charging you a different rate than the local monopoly). For companies regulated this way, PSC complaints are extremely effective.

Re: How I Collected a Debt from an Unscrupulous Merchant

#202

Post by m12k »

stickfigure wrote: post #42

Geez. This article was hard to follow but... it sounds like the merchant is really screwing up. My SaaS business gets most of our users via an affiliate program, and many years ago I worked in porn where nearly all of our users from an affiliate program. The #1 rule of affiliate programs is to treat affiliates like royalty. Or more accurately - business partners. Be clear about what you offer, be generous, and always…

Do you use any of this affiliate 3rd party software yourself or did you roll your own solution? I'd like to make an affiliate sales program for my SaaS too, but it's hard to figure out where to start. I don't want to invest a lot of time integrating with X if nobody uses X, but I also don't want to invest a lot of time in rolling my own if everyone expects you to be using X.

Re: How I Collected a Debt from an Unscrupulous Merchant

#203

Post by wolco2 »

0xfaded wrote: post #119
stickfigure wrote: post #42

Geez. This article was hard to follow but... it sounds like the merchant is really screwing up. My SaaS business gets most of our users via an affiliate program, and many years ago I worked in porn where nearly all of our users from an affiliate program. The #1 rule of affiliate programs is to treat affiliates like royalty. Or more accurately - business partners. Be clear about what you offer, be generous, and always…

Is there a good way to contact an online business directly and say "It seems you pay a 20% affiliate fee. I would like a 20% discount?" Amazon kinda does this with smile and donations, even though I don't use amazon anymore. I go out of my way, with link strippers, cookie removers, adblockers, to the point of often manually copy and pasting links into a private window if necessary, to avoid affiliate links. When I do…

20% is rarely 20%. Most affilates have to reach a minimum and 90% never do. The small % who do are worth the 20%.

You trying to cut them out. I don't think it's in the sites best interest to offer people like you (cookie killers),a discount. If the affilates find out and they feel cheated they will move on.

Remember the affilate never gives one person at 20% (if they do they never hit their minimum) they give dozen/hundreds/thousands of customers.

Re: How I Collected a Debt from an Unscrupulous Merchant

#204

Post by agbell »

redelbee wrote: post #136

My summary of this article in terms of good and evil: - Kiss My Keto unsuccessfully tries to set up an affiliate program that doesn’t eat too much margin and is still equitable to the affiliates (I believe they are doing their best to be a force for good until proven otherwise) - Mr. Lynch gets involved and finds out the program he thought he was joining is actually not as it seems, so he reaches out to Kiss My Keto…

Isn't he doing good by working so hard for $80. He is effectively discouraging this behaviour in the future by this company and by others. People get away at this behaviour because the harm is distributed and benefits accrue just to them.

Re: How I Collected a Debt from an Unscrupulous Merchant

#205

Post by indymike »

Dumblydorr wrote: post #177
momokoko wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Respect and Courtesy are important at all times I could not disagree more. Ethical and considerate _actions_ are important at all times. Many very dishonest people help themselves sleep at night by pretending that being polite excuses their actions. It does not. Actions have real life, often irreversible, effects on those around you. Being polite has few, if any, tangible effects.

"Being polite has few, if any, tangible effects" This is easily refuted. Being polite is socially expected, therefore being rude is unexpected. When you're rude, people take it personally, and it creates anxiety, anger, and rage, because it is unexpected and frankly, unnecessary. There's just no situation I can imagine where being rude and impolite helps. Every social situation is ameliorated by the engine oil that i…

Being rude and impolite is a tactic. So is being polite. There are probably times where each tactic fits.

Re: How I Collected a Debt from an Unscrupulous Merchant

#206

Post by ignoranceprior »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #45

> I had no evidence to prove any of my readers purchased something Well there goes your leverage. Is this common in the content game?

He could've had someone test this directly, by clicking on the affiliate link and purchasing a product, ideally while recording their screen so there's hard evidence. Then if the company still claimed there were no conversions, he would know for a fact that they were lying.

Re: How I Collected a Debt from an Unscrupulous Merchant

#207

Post by momokoko »

danparsonson wrote: post #175
momokoko wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Respect and Courtesy are important at all times I could not disagree more. Ethical and considerate _actions_ are important at all times. Many very dishonest people help themselves sleep at night by pretending that being polite excuses their actions. It does not. Actions have real life, often irreversible, effects on those around you. Being polite has few, if any, tangible effects.

> Ethical and considerate _actions_ are important at all times Agree with that; > Actions have real life, often irreversible, effects on those around you agree with that also; > Many very dishonest people help themselves sleep at night by pretending that being polite excuses their actions I could believe this is true, although I suspect most habitually dishonest people don't even see themselves as dishonest or think…

> in my experience, the latter is more effective at getting the best outcome, regardless of who is nominally at fault.

This is exactly my point. You are using politeness as a manipulative tactic to get your way.

Instead, realize getting the wrong order at a restaurant is an incredibly insignificant issue. There was never anything to be upset about in the first place. Regardless the outcome. If someone messes up your order you just say “Looks like we have the wrong order. We ordered X”. There is zero requirement of being polite or impolite unless your goal is to manipulate the situation for your own gain.

For example if you are trying to get your meal for free now or something else they did not immediately offer. If you are a decent human being, you’ll realize the free meal probably comes out of the server’s paycheck so you don’t push for it.

See, in this case it is your actions, not whether you are polite matters.

Of course, just being a jerk maniac and screaming at someone is awful. That is no different than trying to be polite for your own advantage. Both hurt people. I was not saying you should be a jerk or that being a jerk is okay. I’m saying you don’t need to be polite as much as you need to not hurt people.

Re: How I Collected a Debt from an Unscrupulous Merchant

#208

Post by nondeveloper »

The “organized professional” tone reminds me of patio11’s post on dealing with banks and credit reporting agencies when disputing: https://www.kalzumeus.com/2017/09/09/identity-theft-credit-r...

He also invoked the “professional” archetype.

> “Angry people demand; professionals ‘require.’”

Re: How I Collected a Debt from an Unscrupulous Merchant

#209

Post by csydas »

sverhagen wrote: post #89
ornornor wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I moved to Europe, I was VERY surprised to say the least that this doesn’t apply at all here. The attitude is more like “you should feel lucky we let you give us your money and purchase something from us. Now fuck off.” I tried the professional attitude, I tried threatening legal action (I have legal insurance that would pay an obscene amount of lawyer fees if it came to that), I have tried the angry consumer, I…

The US system is based on liability and the threat of legal action. The European system is based on their regulatory framework. If you have a complaint that is clearly managed within that framework (my laundry machine spontaneously broke down within the statutory warranty period) they'll comply, else, yeah, good luck. I moved in the other direction (to the US) and I'm amazed when my wife gets a $50 little blender rep…

Frankly, I'm not sure how this is customer service so much as either:

- A promised warranty being fulfilled

- A battle of attrition until Macy's gave in

I'm sure there are more nuanced options also but I'm not going to take the time to guess each one as frankly I'm just not quite sure what the definition of Customer Service should be from this post. Should we focus on "The device was used to its limits and still replaced"? That Macy's actually honored a guarantee?

I have a very dour view on customer service since my particular line of work is B2B with IT professionals and it's rarely a pleasant experience with many regions, with the US (yes, nationally) and the UK (yes, basically all of it) being some of the most challenging customers to deal with simply because of their expectations and definitions of Customer Service.

The majority of the time they're not even aware of the terms of their support contract and constantly are pushing the boundaries of support or from the get-go are just far beyond anything that should be reasonably expected, and the amount of complaining and legal threats really takes an emotional toll on my team (since a lot of them do really want to help).

With the EU clients, the same boundary pushing happens, but I find there's usually much more of an honesty about it. Usually one of three things comes from our EU clients:

- The client openly admits they know we don't provide support for said thing, but they really have no other source for help

- The client honestly tells they had no idea we didn't provide support for such things, and humbly asks if there's anything we can offer to help out

- The client honestly had no idea we didn't provide support for such things, and closes out the case of their own volition

I'm not sure that I can say which result has the best "customer experience" for my clients, as in each case they don't get what they expected from the case they open. US/UK clients tend to add a 4th option:

- The client doesn't care what is/is not supported, they want a resolution

I can easily say which of the 4 outcomes is the most time consuming and emotionally draining for everyone involved.

I think that the idea of service is really misunderstood; service workers are not slaves, and while management __should__ work to make them do their job and honor the business' obligations, management also needs to help clearly define the boundaries of such obligations and explain how to gracefully deescalate situations that toe or exceed these boundaries.

Re: How I Collected a Debt from an Unscrupulous Merchant

#210

Post by RaoulP »

nondeveloper wrote: post #208

The “organized professional” tone reminds me of patio11’s post on dealing with banks and credit reporting agencies when disputing: https://www.kalzumeus.com/2017/09/09/identity-theft-credit-r... He also invoked the “professional” archetype. > “Angry people demand; professionals ‘require.’”

Indeed, the author credits that same post in the third paragraph of the article.
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