my name is not Normal

"Hello Ms. Barker,

Thanks so much for letting us know about the issue you have raised. I immediately closed the listings and will send all the books back to our warehouse for inspection. We deeply appreciate the way you have handled this - it really means a lot to us!

Best of luck with your studies and may 2016 be an outstanding year for you and your family!

Sincerely yours,

...."

Yeah, blah blah blah blah....

Okay so this thing happened.  I'm a typically pretty organized person, relative to our offspring anyway, which upon writing that, I realize isn't necessarily that organized.  Anyway, I'm usually  organized enough.  AS SUCH, I ordered a textbook for a class I'm taking this semester a little over a week in advance of the start of class.  Obviously, I ordered a "used-in-good-condition" book because who in the heck buys textbooks new??

I ordered it through amazon from a "top seller", with high customer satisfaction and all that.  I also have a prime account, so I happily received the book in two business days.  It was nicely packaged and lived up to its "used-in-good-condition" description.  I leafed through it for about 10 seconds, then put it on my tidy shelf where it would be all set to go for the start of class.

The day before the first day of class, the professor posted the syllabus, which I perused a bit.  In my perusement, I realized the book that was sitting on my tidy shelf was not the book she was referencing in the syllabus.  What the...?

Scenarios flashed through my mind:

• I ordered the wrong book (no way)
• The mean professor changed the book at the last minute! (how dare she!)
• The lame university bookstore doesn't have the right information! (oh for chrissake!)

Either way, I knew I needed the correct book, so I flashed over to amazon to order the different book, then set about returning the wrong one.  Lo and behold! I discovered that I'd ordered the right book in the first place.  The dang "top seller" sent me the wrong one!

To add to the confusion, the book they sent me was similar to the one I'd ordered - same subject matter, similar title - but different authors and, obviously, different ISBN.  So when it arrived, I didn't even think to check if it was the right one.  If they would've sent me something like "Goodnight, Moon", for instance, I mighta noticed!

The right book (from a different top seller) arrived just a couple of days after class started, so no biggie, and amazon promptly processed my return.  I was still pretty disappointed in that original seller, so I wrote a little review.  I did mention that I doubted this was a common problem, and that the book arrived promptly and nicely packaged, but still... I gave them a 2-star "poor" overall rating.

Not ten minutes after my review went live, I got a phone call.  Joe.  Wanting to know what happened. Explaining that he was so very sorry.  That theirs was just a small family business.  That he was worried about the negative effects...

Okay fine.  I told him I'd remove my review.  I mainly just wanted them to be aware of their mistake and  hopefully be more thorough in the future, not so much to deter other customers from purchasing from them.  Obviously, he was now aware.  He thanked me profusely, and after the deed was undone, I received the above e-mail.

Interestingly, as I was removing the review, there was a pop-up window from amazon asking my reason for deleting it.  It mentioned "Don't do it just because the seller asked you to".  Well, yeah, that was kinda my reason, but I deleted in anyway.

I did take note that in the e-mail he sent, Joe spelled my last name, Barker, correctly.  More often than not, those who don't know us personally, spell or pronounce our name "Baker" upon seeing it in print.

Which did you see?  Go ahead, be honest.

I'm no baker, by any definition of the word.  So I give Joe credit for getting that right.  Now, if only he could read ISBNs.

.