WineBid Shipping Errors (Major?) (Edit: Not Major)

[TGigante]

Wes
I was curious as well. I know they refunded Tom, but Tom told them all along that he wanted the wine, not the money back

It would have been common courtesy to reach out to Tom, ship him the wine and recharge him with his authorization to do so. However, maybe the refund severed all follow ups in their system so someone would have had to manually note to contact Tom, if and when the shipment was returned. That presents a bit of a challenge. Maybe the best option would have been to hold off a bit longer on the refund request to see if the bottles would turn up although Winebid did not seem in a hurry to expedite tracking

[Brian_G_r_a_f_s_t_r_o_m]

@Wes_Barton

Well, no. They paid to ship the wine to the wrong customer and back. I doubt a marginally increased margin on the hammer price covered that.

How much more did the wines hammer for the second time around?

[Mike_C1]

Also, this logic doesn’t work. If you buy a wine a year prior that has gone up significantly, WineBid/GSN can just refund you, sell the wine and collect the difference?

[Stan_Y]

Tom before I had accepted that wine I would have wanted a decent explanation about what had happened and where the wine had been. Maybe better for all to just do a full reset although I think it is a pretty serious mistake to leave a good, paying customer POed like this.

[Brian_G_r_a_f_s_t_r_o_m]

@Mike_C1

Also, this logic doesn’t work. If you buy a wine a year prior that has gone up significantly, WineBid/GSN can just refund you, sell the wine and collect the difference?

No, of course not. I’m not sure how you took that from what I said.

[Alan_Rath]

Gotta say, it’s disappointing that winebid didn’t recover the OP’s wines and complete his original purchase.

[J_Patrick_Lynch]

He’s saying hypothetically, WineBid could “lose” some bottles in their GSN warehouse, inform the buyer and refund their costs, “find” them, and then sell them at the increased value.

[Mike_C1]

@Brian_G_r_a_f_s_t_r_o_m

@Mike_C1

Also, this logic doesn’t work. If you buy a wine a year prior that has gone up significantly, WineBid/GSN can just refund you, sell the wine and collect the difference?

No, of course not. I’m not sure how you took that from what I said.

@Brian_G_r_a_f_s_t_r_o_m

Because once WineBid reimbursed Tom, they legally owned the wine

And what’s stopping them from refunding at will?

[J_Rock]

There’s a contract. The buyer has the right to the wine they agreed to sell him (or already sold him and are holding on his behalf for a fee).

[YLee]

Sorry to hear this. Definitely leaves a bad taste.

[Brian_G_r_a_f_s_t_r_o_m]

What Jordan said.

You’re making-up a completely different situation than what occurred here.

[Marc_Hauser]

@J_Rock

There’s a contract. The buyer has the right to the wine they agreed to sell him (or already sold him and are holding on his behalf for a fee).

Also, it doesn’t seem like an efficient or sustainable business strategy to actively cherry-pick auctions to cancel and refund on a regular basis in order to capture a sliver of margin.

[David_K2]

Yeah, this is 100% not happening and with respect to what did happen, it’s almost certainly a screwup and not a scheme to net WineBid a few more bucks.

[JIMCOH]

@Marc_Hauser

@J_Rock

There’s a contract. The buyer has the right to the wine they agreed to sell him (or already sold him and are holding on his behalf for a fee).

Also, it doesn’t seem like an efficient or sustainable business strategy to actively cherry-pick auctions to cancel and refund on a regular basis in order to capture a sliver of margin.

I certainly know of retailers that have done just that with futures contracts. It wasn’t too often, but definitively has happened.

[Marc_Hauser]

@JIMCOH

@Marc_Hauser

@J_Rock

There’s a contract. The buyer has the right to the wine they agreed to sell him (or already sold him and are holding on his behalf for a fee).

Also, it doesn’t seem like an efficient or sustainable business strategy to actively cherry-pick auctions to cancel and refund on a regular basis in order to capture a sliver of margin.

I certainly know of retailers that have done just that with futures contracts. It wasn’t too often, but definitively has happened.

Sure, fraud happens (and I’m not at all saying WineBid is engaging in fraud here!). It’s just not a sustainable, active business model, even in crypto. I’m guessing it’s easier to pull that kind of active “management” (fraud) of the process off in futures - there’s no promised delivery date, and the retailer gets the full difference in price + the carry on $$ over 1-2 years - refund costs, while in an auction, the house is only getting 18% of the difference in price (and also takes the risk that the second auction won’t sell) - refund and relisting costs.

I may have a new business model here…

[JDavisRoby]

May I interest you in some light evening reading? 7k posts worth.

Premier Cru Master Complaint Thread (MERGED)

Weve all come to accept it as an amusing little minor frustration with a super reliable store. My question is simply why? Why do they take 6 months to a year longer than every other store? What is different about their importer or their purchasing schedule? Edit: fixed spelling errors due to fat fingers and ipad

[TGigante]

Correct Joshua. Proven to be an unsustainable business model

[TGigante]

Alan

I think that may have been an option at some point but it looked as if the process was going to drag on for quite a while and Wine Bid did not have a specific game plan or time line to communicate to Tom. Don’t recall if Tom pressed for immediate action and that was what triggered the refund. Sometimes we get what we ask for, but don’t get what we need

[Marc_Hauser]

@JDavisRoby

May I interest you in some light evening reading? 7k posts worth.

Ha!

[Alan_Rath]

Yeah, I’m just surprised that they weren’t on top of this better. I can understand a mistake that cascades, and ends up with wines shipped to the wrong recipients, stuff happens. I can understand it taking some time to resolve. What I don’t understand is when they get the wines back, how they weren’t the shipped to the correct buyers. It’s not like there’s confusion over which bottles belong to whom - every bottle is labeled with a unique tag allowing it to be easily matched to an auction, and the winner of that auction.

To be clear, I’m a happy winebid buyer and seller, have never had a serious issue, have had a small number of minor hiccups resolved quickly and positively. Plus I have the luxury of picking up and dropping off at their facility, so no risk of shipping errors. There are some newer people whose names I don’t recognize, maybe there is just some building of experience going on.