When you’re buying a house in SL, you don’t expect the end product to arrive like a shambled mess of prims that barely resembled the instore version. But that’s what happened here.
The in store version was fully furnished, and I can only assume that was to hide the myriad of errors. It was a special offer, a just for one day type deal, and as we usually steer clear of this store for being so incredibly overpriced for the product you get, we were excited to visit it to find a house actually worth the price. Hopefully.
So my friend bought the house, because the layout was perfect for her small family, and perfect for sharing a christmas together. She knew she’d have to retexture the inside because of the textures the builder used, but she didn’t mind so much.
When she rezzed it, she was horrified. Prims were off all over the place, including the whole rotation of the house in reference to the rez box. It needed to be manually adjusted prim by prim, which she found when she was trying to even get the roof to match up. Most of the walls had errors in the house, and when you’ve just paid four figures for a building, you don’t expect to have to spend two hours (and counting – she’s still fixing it as I type) effectively rebuilding it. Textures flickered or didn’t line up. Corners were off. And all this from someone with experience of building homes that she regularly charges 10-20k for? Hmm.
So, at my insistence, I convinced her to IM the creator. At the very least, to make her aware that her house had some problems, and she may want to deliver an updated and fixed version to the people who had bought it. It didn’t go so well.
[15:00] The Customer: Hi Paige, I bought the Cozy Caiden today, and while I was super excited about it. I have spent the last 2 hours fixing it before I can even move into it. Between prims not meeting to textures not being lined up, I am very unhappy with the purchase. I just wanted you to let know that it is so full of flaws incase these are things you were planning to fix and send out updated versions later.
[15:00] Paige Raven: excuse me
[15:00] Paige Raven: the house is set up
[15:00] Paige Raven: and is identical
[15:01] Paige Raven: I see no flaws that you are speaking of
[15:01] Paige Raven: and I never sell anything that isn’t as close to perfect as humanly possible
[15:03] The Customer: I’m not saying that the house is not great, I am just saying that when you see the house empty the flaws are more apparent.
[15:03] Paige Raven: well I disagree and I’m looking at it right now. There is nothing wrong with this house
[15:05] Paige Raven: And I built the house, so I did see it empty. It was check over very carefully, as all my homes are
[15:05] The Customer: Alright, but I would check the roof right above the kitchen on the side, it does not meet with the walls.
[15:07] The Customer: Textures were off and flickering, when rezzing the house out of the box, the box was at a perfect angle, yet the entire hous itself is at 0.950
[15:08] The Customer: I love the that house, I was just wanting to let you know in case you were going to fix it for everyone else that was buying it
[15:09] Paige Raven: i see the spot
[15:09] Paige Raven: but you are making it sound like the entire house is a mess
[15:09] Paige Raven: that is one small adjustment
[15:10] The Customer: The house was a bit of a mess, I have spent the past 2 hours fixing it
[15:11] The Customer: Fixing every prim that is off angle right out of the rez box is alot of work.
[15:11] Paige Raven: see
[15:11] Paige Raven: the house was a mess
[15:11] Paige Raven: no
[15:11] Paige Raven: I disagree
[15:11] Paige Raven: one mistake on the roof that is barely noticeable and easily fixed is not a mess
[15:12] The Customer: I rezzed the box at 270.00, picked up the box and every prim in the house is at 359.950, which has to be fixed prim by prim
[15:12] The Customer: That is alot of work
[15:13] Paige Raven: adjusting a roof piece?
[15:13] The Customer: No, all the walls are off
[15:13] Second Life: Paige Raven paid you L$1000.
[15:13] Paige Raven: there you go
[15:13] Paige Raven: no there aren’t
[15:13] Paige Raven: not please stop talking to me
[15:13] Paige Raven: now*
[15:13] Paige Raven: you are rude
[15:14] The Customer: Thank you for the refund, but no I wasn’t. Have a good day.
[15:14] Paige Raven: yes you were
[15:14] Paige Raven: muted
So there you have it. Yes, she did get a refund. But a refund just to shut her up, and no plans at all to fix the building for all the other people who buy it. Even though it’ll probably be 7k tomorrow.
What bothers me always is that in this case
a) why didn’t the customer take a pic when she ressed the item if she was going to contact the seller?
b) ask the seller to come over so she can re-rezz the prim (it’s copyable right?) so they can see what was the mistake
BECAUSE clearly the customer isn’t giving enough details on how the house was build wrong
And the owner did refund, so why this is on ruthed?
Haven’t had ANY good experiences with this chick.
I think if the initial IM was worded differently, it would warrant a different response from the creator. Sometimes it’s not what we say but how we say it. I think her responses weren’t out of line.
That being said, If I was the creator I would have handled the situation differently by asking what the issues were and asking to see the house if I had time, in order to to fix the issues.
http://ruthed.com/2010/06/02/lessons-in-customer-service-by-ruthed/
Katey you should take care of yourself
Just Wondering ? With all the problems this week with SL … Profiles not showing .. crashes … Do you think maybe things were off?…. I have owned about 150 homes from this creator …. and I can say i rezzed a home and only 75% would show … but click the box and clean then re rez – also … I can remember once when I HELPED the creator and customers would REZ 2 homes at the same time
Why to hide the customer name ?
Sabra Ezmae Karu (sabra.karu)
She is pretty rude and lie about the product.
You can call Paige, to rez the house, The house has 0 problems
That’s, the most big shame ever.
Why she did that, because she can’t accept to see Paige to sold a house at 1K.
Ok so firstly, the way the IM from said customer to said store owner was worded was really poor. If someone messaged me that, I’d have been on the defensive too. Secondly, does said customer make houses? I’m going to guess not… therefore s/he has no idea what it takes to create a house… For one, the textures used in that house were the intended textures… every texture is different, therefore the textures that customer may have replaced the original textures with may not have been made the same way as the textures she used… retexturing something always changes it. For two, it was a 1000L house when the designer usually sells everything for 5k at a minimum. And yes, the designer’s stuff is usually expensive, but she puts a lot of blood, sweat and tears into her items… as do all of us other designers. (and her stuff is good!)Three. I DEFINATELY would have responded similarly if said customer IMed me the way this girl/guy did. I make my items and yes, they aren’t perfect…but NO one is perfect and it’s REALLY hurtful to have someone up and message you and say by the way, this item you made is a hot mess…especially when you work SO hard on your items. Yeah, not gunna get a good response. So yeah. Said customer, may want to word things differently next time and maybe the response won’t be so harsh… if you honestly want to tell someone something of theirs sucks, they usually aren’t going to be all super nice.. and DEFINITELY won’t be giving you a refund like Paige did. None of us are perfect, so lets all just love one another and not be dicks to eachother. kthx
Hey Amber!
You mentioned Sabra’s name – information which could ONLY have come from Paige or the owner of Ruthed, and I’m gonna go ahead and say we can all tell which the source was – but you don’t leave your full name. Weirddd.
She didn’t lie about the product. Who’d IM someone to complain about something that’s fine? I mean, I know you weren’t in the same skype call as her, listening to her getting more and more frustrated as she found more and more things wrong with the house.
The above poster was right, SL can be awful glitchy sometimes. But it won’t move *part* of a linkset, it won’t make 75% of the prims wonky, and it won’t be a bitch to a paying customer.
And that last bit is kind of the point, here. If she rezzed the house and it was an SL issue, I’d guess Paige has enough experience in SL to recognise those kinds of issues, and explain them. If she had rezzed it and there was only one or two issues, she would just have fixed them and gotten on with her life.
But she rezzed an item so flawed that she essentially had to rebuild it. She messaged a creator to let them know about the problems – most of them reasonably well hidden to the lay customer, and patched with a furnished instore version. She let Paige know because she naively thought that Paige would want to fix it for future customers, or update the purchases of existing ones. As you’ve pointed out, I too make junk in SL and know all too well how deeply fucking unpleasant it is when something goes wrong and a LOT of people are affected, at the same time, and angry about it. And that was for something they got for free! Imagine how angry people get when they’ve PAID for something!
But Paige didn’t care about her customers, and she especially didn’t care about this one. And THAT is the point of this post.
Thanks for proving how soul destroying it can be to do business with bitches.
Katey
xoxo
My question is where is the designers offer to be TP’ed to the property to see an example? That would have been the first thing I would have asked if I were Paige. Instead it was just automatic walls up and being defensive. Could the original request been worded differently? Yea sure, there’s always a nicer clearer way to say everything. But the point is is that the home builder wanted to take zero responsibility for something that had gone astray.
Never heard of this person or the store.
Buuuut, mosied on down to check out the homes and I see things that would detour me from a purchase with every model. It’s weird to see into a house by looking under the roof, and seeing dotted lines all along many of the larger walls. Maybe it’s a glitch with the creators building axis, who knows…But you know, I don’t think she (the customer) was rude at all. Excusing someone after they just paid you for something they aren’t happy with for legitimate reasons is not good for business. heh
Some creators need to have their egos pricked and remember that the only reason they can run their business is because they have customers, and treating customers like shit will get you shit.
Yes, there are some unreasonable idiots out there. They complain about things which are their fault or which are actually a function of the product, without merit, and demand refunds. But when a customer comes in and says, “Hey, I think there’s something wrong with your product, I’m worried you didn’t catch it”, you should listen! They only want to help!
And “Amber”, (Paige), shame on you! I know for sure that I’ll never be returning to your sim or doing any kind of business with you, and will advise that any of my friends looking for a house do the same. There are much better priced, nicer looking creations out there where you don’t have to deal with idiots.
Something seems highly inappropriate about come to a designer with your own personal agenda and not only provoke her in IM but to also place it in a public forum. For a few small fixable errors I would hardly find myself inspired to use words like shambled mess of prims and myriad of errors? I find this to be either an over exaggeration or an intentional act of provocation. Was there some additional history here besides the customer thinking that Paige’s houses were priced to high at normal price?
First of all if you have problems with it then rezz the house and ask the designer to come and have a look that way she can see that yes there are problems, no this is an issue that was caused when it was rezzed or possibly even when the customer decided to do work to fix it themselves. I’m betting that Paige could have fixed any issues much more efficiently and effectively if asked respectfully. To me this seems like a small couple of issues that the designer could have resolved for you in 5 minutes and not two hours.
I say next time don’t spend two hours doing something your obviously not qualified but instead contact the designer and schedule a consult. Maybe write a respectful note and then wait for your response as this is the proper thing to do. What was done instead was passive aggressive intentional act at causing drama for what reasons only the customer and writer of this article know the reasons.
katey coppola you should take care of you own business before to judging someone. Your reputation is to be a mean girl.
you should bring your CLIQUE here, like you do on second life to bitching everyone.
I wouldn’t surprised if this post, was posted by you.
The reason ? Because you’re a bad competitor.
Paige is a nice woman, always ready to help if the customer is nice too.
It’s fair no ?
I’ve been in SL since 2006, and have purchased a lot of furniture and prefab homes from Paige for my rental sims, as well as for my own use & enjoyment.
I’ve never experienced the perceived “poor quality” issues with her builds that are mentioned in this article. While any creator can make a mistake or not notice a defect, Paige has always proven quick to correct the very few problems I’ve encountered and I know she’s done the same for many, many other customers.
I believe the customer in this case, put the creator on the defensive and was responded to accordingly.
Had she simply asked … “Gee Paige, I razzed the house and the position seems to be off by 0.050 . How do I fix that?”… I suspect Paige would have either visited in person or at least suggested rotating the box by 0.050, thus correcting the house positioning.
The fact that this customer took the box back into inventory before being satisfied with placement of the home is indicative to me of a noob. Even so, she could have deleted the prims in a manner of minutes, and then razzed a new box and start again, this time being sure to be happy with positioning before deleting the box.
Flickering textures can and do often vary according to graphics capabilities of any given machine and/or viewer. I myself have noticed flickering textures in any variety of objects, only to find they’re “fixed” when I log in from my other computer or change my viewer. In short, this customer was admittedly going to retexture anyway, so I’m not convinced it was as big a problem as this article would indicate.
It bothers me that the creator’s name is prominently mentioned in this article, and not the customer’s. This article is biased, and the writer has her own agenda in my opinion. The author’s insinuation that the creator deliberately concealed defects by placing furniture in front of it is ludicrous. Paige “stages” homes for the same reason that Realtors do it in real life … furnished homes sell faster. She takes it one step further, in that she sells “ready made rooms of furniture and decorations”, which are popular with many people, myself included. Every home she sells is staged like this … not just one poor build as the writer would like us to believe.
Deserved or not, the customer in this case got her refund, and that should be the end of the story.
Dana
Katey if Paige don’t care of her customers service, Do you care of your ? Maybe you need a reminder : http://ruthed.com/2010/06/02/lessons-in-customer-service-by-ruthed/
Plus strangely Sabra is your friend, and you was with her when she has buy it.
Weirdos no ?
So KATEY, you’re onto this house, with your friend, so if the house is really messed, why she has buy it ?
See that has simply non sense.
What do I think here, you’re coming on the store of Paige, because you hate her and because she is about to fuck your business, because she is more talented than and cheaper. Everyone here is invited to check the house, and you will the truth, it’s ugly but true, Katey coppola is and a liar. Hey katey, we have a picture of you onto this house. Enjoy and XOXO
Ok so I just got to read everything that was written here. I have to say that since I’ve know the product of Cozy Homes, not only has Paige been very sweet to help, fix errors, and retexture things to make them match, but always has been very kind. She has people that help out, as much as they can, and what they can’t do, she does herself.
I see the intial IM and see that the customer could of worded things much nicer, and if they were nicely stated, Paige would not of felt backed into a corner. Nothing like logging on and getting bashed. I mean even I would be pissy with someone if they came at me like that.
SO we are all allowed to have off days, money was refunded and I am more then sure the “customer” is living in the house that she just got for free.
DO ONTO OTHERS AS YOU WOULD LIKE THEM TO DO TO YOU!
Seems that those are good words to live by!!
http://cozythoughts-lovebug22498.blogspot.com/
Here is my response to this silliness! People who live in glasses houses, shouldn’t throw stones.
P~~~~
AJ to spread rumors, like you can see now, i’m not Paige.
You confirm just what I said, tyvm !
AJ, we don’t have to get any lessons with you, you should take care of your own reputation too, I know your SL name, don’t force me to post it here. Your reputation is to be RUDE and COLD. so keep your comments for yourself.
Yep, I submitted this post!
I hope Paige learns from this experience, as I learned from mine. I don’t have a clique, I have friends, and if I was going to command them to do anything, it’d be something useful and not beating this dead horse.
It’s nice in a way, to see how much this has affected Paige, because hopefully she’ll use that energy to make better products and her business will improve. I know mine did
Oh, and Amber? Why no full name? Strange!
Maybe it’s not a house the complaining customer was looking for….maybe she was just looking for a reason to BITCH BITCH BITCH. Point taken, and maybe she should have been brave herself in the original post and not only posted the creators name. NO one here thinks you are an angel, and after going to the place where your small avatar creates, you are for sure not one to throw stones while you live in a glass house. Today I found flaws in your hot air balloon bedroom set….maybe I should message you and attack you about how this is not lined up or textured right. I dont think you would enjoy yourself, being attacked and something also tells me that you would BITCH right back.
Think before you copy, and paste and pass items around. Karma will get you everytime!
Ok guys this is getting out of hand. It’s almost Christmas..please stop with the angry comments. It’s over now. <3 I think in life we all have moments where we could have worded something different or responded to an IM differently. We ant change it after its happened. Amber is not Paige, Amber you need to calm down with the calling out, please. It's Christmas. Happy holidays!
I fail to see how the customer’s first comment was confrontational personally Amber. The customer didn’t even ask for a refund and appears to have been making that comment just for the creator’s future reference. In fact the customer was very polite during the conversation and their problem merely seems to be with how the house was assembled and even stated after they fixed it that they loved the house.
I totally agree with Dana. I am not only a competitor of Paiges, but a friend. SHe is very competant as a builder and as a sales person. I can relate to this incident as it happens to most creators in SL. If customers would not insist on “attacks” and just ask for help, they may get a better response, instead of IMing and saying, hey,this house is a mess! We try to make as many people happy as we can but as learned from past experiences, its impossible to make everyone happy !
Reading Kateys comment, I hardly think she has learned anything.
But the point. Everyone can be a good customer aswel. I have had problems with house and furniture sellers before, mainly them accidently using temp. textures which would turn grey in time. What I did, was simpy write a notecard, tell them the problem, take a pic, add it in the notecard (you can even upload the picture in the internet if you don’t want to waste your L’s in the snapshot itself) and send it to the creator. I did not start my notecards with “your stuff is rubbish, wrong textures, blahblablah.” instead, I just asked if this what it was supposed to be. I got a response with fixed product.
And more than that, I have had my houses also rezzed completly wrong,but that was the issue of the land that I had rented (such as land being too small for the house or not enough prims).
I don’t think the customer was rude at all, if I got that im the first thing I would say is “Will you please tp me so I can see the problem?”. She never asked to see it (it’s not just the customers to responsibility to ask for the creator to do so). I probably wouldn’t have given a refund since it was most likely no trans but she didn’t even really attempt to fix it and just gave the girl shush money. The one thing all creators must accept is that your creations are NOT perfect. You will have seams, things miss aligned and much more. So don’t be offended when someone points it out in a constructive manner. I just don’t get how people feel so very insulted when people offer constructive criticism, makes me wonder how they would handle if someone was actually rude. And all the personal attacks on the customer are pretty sad, just because Paige is usually pleasant doesn’t mean this person didn’t have a bad experience.
I’ve been in SL since 2007, have a few of Paige’s houses, in fact just bought another one over the weekend. I also have some of her furniture and recently bought a boatload of baby items and I have yet to find anything wrong with anything. As for Paige herself, I’ve never found her to be anything but helpful, to the point of rezzing a house for me that was retired and no longer inworld but still on marketplace, just so I could see it. In almost 5 yrs in SL I’ve had issues with some items from other creators and 99% of the time the issue is taken care of. But then again I usually start a conversation with “Hi, I’m having a problem with _____, When you’re not busy are you able to help me? Thanks in advance.”
IMO Making a notecard of the conversation with the creator of anything, whether it be a good or bad experience is just causing drama. But then again, some in SL live for that. *hands out popcorn so the rest of us can watch the drama queens earn their Oscars*
Amber= Stephanie Leclerc from Sweet Baby. She’s friends with Paige and they obviously share the same view of customer service- Customer is always wrong and everything they made is flawless.
http://ruthed.com/2011/06/11/how-not-to-ask-for-customer-service-in-sl/
Did anyone ever even stop to think that maybe this could have been a problem with the rezzer? (If there was a faux rezzer in this case I mean.) Maybe this was a big misunderstanding and what the customer saw was a glitch and not how it was supposed to look, yet when she messaged the creator it sounded to me like she was insulting her work. As a creator myself, I know it sucks when you spend weeks on something and a customer comes to you like they think they can do a better job then you. I don’t think the creator would have left the build as it has been described buy the unhappy customer. It had to be a glitch or rezzer problem somewhere. It just doesn’t make sense otherwise.
Any number of things could have caused the house to mess up like that, even besides a rezzer problem (rezzed on property line, not enough prims, etc). The customer should have taken pictures or showed her the issue in person, that would have been much more helpful then just telling her it’s a crappy build. Again, just a failure to communicate.
Hey Mairi ~ Just because I’m friends with Stephanie, doesn’t mean I have the same customer service policy. Every single IM that I receive is answered, I have personal assistants also that deal with customers and the problem is either fixed or the money is refunded. In this particular case, it was obvious to me that the customer was nit picking and to be honest I wasn’t in the mood to play stupid games. We obviously had a difference of opinion on this house, hers being it was a flawed mess and mine being that I would NEVER sell anything that I wasn’t sure was as close to perfect as I could get it. The small flaw that she did find could only be seen when you zoomed right in. I did refund her money, that should have been the end of the subject. Instead people love to fling around accusations about how horrible I am. If you knew me at all, you simply know that isn’t true. I have been in SL now for over seven years and I have been a creator for six years. In those six years, I have had four customers that actually complained and have actually brought me to tears. Any other issues have always been dealt with easily and without this kind of frustration. I have never claimed to be perfect, I never would. Approaching a creator the way Sabra did, isn’t the best approach and in 99.9% of other creators wouldn’t have 1. given a refund 2. even responded.
Before you go point an accusing finger at people maybe you should get your facts straight. Just because I’m friends with someone, doesn’t mean we share the same brain or the same policies! Have a great day.
Mairi, you should take care of your own poor life.
It’s so easy to accusing everyone without any proof.
But yeah, Paige and me are friends, and that don’t mean we mix our business.
You’re kinda rude Mairi, for that reason you hangout on this website.
Should I care of your poor little comment ?
I don’t, because my customers are really happy with my products.
And yeah for sure, if a customer, don’t have any reasons to being mad, or upset at me, I don’t see why I would care, Don’t mix, creator, and promiscuous.