I must have jinxed myself last time with the story of the customer I dropped. I had to drop another one. This customer was sly, I’ll grant him that. Here was his plot. I’ll eliminate names and specific facts to conceal their identity.

I have two copies of a stamp. A lesser quality item at $70. And a sound copy at $100. The customer bought the $70 copy and complained profusely about how badly I described the stamp. At the customer’s suggestion, to “make things better”, I should sell him the $100 at the same price as the $70 copy.

In the interest of being a good businessman and in order to salvage the relationship and keep a customer, I agreed. In doing this, I made almost zero profit by selling that $100 copy for $70.

Then he ordered another lesser quality stamp and had similar complaints about it. Again, he suggested that I sell him the higher quality stamp at the lower price. I immediately saw through his strategy. I explained that the higher quality stamp was already gone. Send the other stamp back to me. I’ll issue a refund check. And I dropped this customer from my mailing list.

What he really wanted was the higher quality stamp. However, he didn’t want to pay the higher price. He bought the next copy down from there and complained about it. Thinking that I would feel badly, of course I would sell him the better stamp for the lower price. It worked once. When he did it the second time, something else was going on.

I get a few returns. It happens to every dealer. I want satisfied customers. I’m happy to take any return back, especially when it’s my fault.