A great ending to a serious flub...

ursabear

Folks,

There is good out there. In large quantity...

I recently sold a 1/4 oz. eagle and a proof Sacagawea in separate auctions, to different people. Payment was received for them on the same day, and I sat down in the evening to package up the coins. I take quite a bit of time packaging my customers/friends/fellow trader's coins, and I usually don't make mistakes.

However, being tired and stressed from huge development schedules, I inadvertantly shipped the wrong coin to each buyer. I could have lost the coins, the auction proceeds, and (more importantly) two customers.

However, when one of them alerted me to the mistake, I sent out letters to both, offered return postage plus a little fun bonus for the trouble (or even a full refund plus a fun little bonus if they didn't want to complete the transaction). Both guys not only sent back the coins so I could forward them to their right owner, I got positive feedback from both.

I lost money on both deals from return postage, and re-sending coins. However, I think they were some of the most pleasant transactions of my new year.

Food for thought: There's plenty of good out there.

DHeath

I'll admit the same mistake. I did that once with two coins, and one of the recipients was Wayne Herndon. I didn't know Wayne then from the boards, and it was our first transaction. He emailed me telling me I had sent him a lovely coin he wished he had purchased, but that the rightful owner would probably want it. He had already looked up the other auction, and recognized the other buyer as one of his customers. He mailed the coin to its rightful owner, and the other buyer did the same. I reimbursed both for their postage and trouble, and both left positive feedback. That's the way you hope it goes. A public thanks to both of them, and I'm glad to read I'm not the only one to make that mistake.

Loki

That happened to me once, except I was the recipient of a beautiful BU 4 coin gold type set when all I was expecting was a $2 1/2 Liberty. You can imagine the surprised look on my face after opening the rather heavy package. "Hmm, this seems a bit heavy for a $2 1/2 Liberty." 

I received it on a Friday and shipped it back on a Monday. I was sad to see it go.

Anyway, the seller paid me $25 for $16 postage (registered mail), with a chance to bid on another gold type set. I told him I'd make it fair and bid a set amount and if I won he would sell it for $100 less than my bid. Alas, I got sniped at the end.

relayer

I've only done it once (so far) and luckily they were both $10 coins so I just refunded both their money and told them to keep what they got with my compliments.