At least we agree on one thing -- there is a severe disconnect in your understanding of how this process works. To wit -- you are a vendor and I am a customer.
At the time that I used your website, it was not entirely clear to me that I would get my shipment some four to five months later. That was absolutely not clear to me at all. It would be one thing if you put a "projected delivery date... March 15, 2014" on your website. But that is not what you said on your website. Your website said six to eight weeks. As you can see, we are now well past any reasonable time frame for delivery. That is why I am upset now.
Further, as a customer, I do not appreciate that you are putting the entire burden of a missing order on me. I have to notify you that this order is missing. I have to tolerate your mistreatment towards me. Your tone indicates that you have absolutely no respect for me, the customer, that provided you with my hard earned cash and now I'm completely out while you're effectively blaming me for having this problem.
Again, I am demanding a refund. If your fulfillment team blew it, that is NOT my fault.
MD
At the time that I used your website, it was not entirely clear to me that I would get my shipment some four to five months later. That was absolutely not clear to me at all. It would be one thing if you put a "projected delivery date... March 15, 2014" on your website. But that is not what you said on your website. Your website said six to eight weeks. As you can see, we are now well past any reasonable time frame for delivery. That is why I am upset now.
Further, as a customer, I do not appreciate that you are putting the entire burden of a missing order on me. I have to notify you that this order is missing. I have to tolerate your mistreatment towards me. Your tone indicates that you have absolutely no respect for me, the customer, that provided you with my hard earned cash and now I'm completely out while you're effectively blaming me for having this problem.
Again, I am demanding a refund. If your fulfillment team blew it, that is NOT my fault.
MD
There is a responsibility on our part to make things as clear as we can, which I believe we did even at the point in time when you ordered. Specifically:
1. A reminder to read the delivery and returns policy when selecting a shipping method:
2. Timelines directly on each of the shipping methods when selecting them (this would not have been there when you ordered, which seems to conflict with your 6-8 week statement):
3. Making the customer tick a box to indicate they have read and agree with the delivery and returns policy before they can make payment:
The delivery and returns policy has now got a pretty blue flowchart (https://openrigs.com/information/information&information_id=6) that it didn't have when you placed your order, precisely because people seemed to forego reading the first two paragraphs.
There is a marked difference between a website purposely misleading customers by keeping hidden charges in fine print tucked away in the middle of nowhere, and making a set of timelines as clear as possible. Due to the nature of our product it was not possible at that early stage to hold massive amounts of stock and just miraculously expect to know what customer demand would be like - it's still not possible now, really. This is an on-demand item, and is produced on-demand and in line with the timelines that we state openly and plainly.
Your order was processed within the timelines you agreed to (you can confirm this yourself by logging in and checking your order history against the timelines on the delivery and returns policy), if there is a particular stage in the process that spilled well past expectation feel free to point it out. I can save you the trouble by reiterating: we processed your order and it was shipped within the timelines you agreed to.
To be clear, there is no responsibility on you to do anything at this point, because your shipment is not missing. That assertion can only be made once we go past the maximum transit period, which we have not done as yet. It also is simply not possible for us to follow up on each and every package; not every country's postal service bothers to provide tracking information for international arrivals. For many parcels they simply give it a local tracking number and we are none-the-wiser. Our insurance has to reach out to the destination post office for confirmation of delivery for every claim (and we've had a handful of situations where people have tried to claim after receiving it).
In summation: the timelines were as clear as we could make them, and you indicated you had read and agreed with them. We processed and shipped it within the timelines you agreed to. We are currently within the transit timeline you agreed to. Had we genuinely erred on your order in some way we would definitely move to rectify it (see wobbzz and joshvette01's experience elsewhere in this thread), but in this instance we did not.
I sympathise with your frustration, I really do, but I have already indicated the action I will take to assist you given the circumstances and timelines. If you feel that it is insufficient then that is a point of disagreement and we have reached an impasse.