Today I got a moderately angry email regarding an order that apparently 1 box is missing from and the box that arrived was damaged in shipment.  I BELIEVE the packages were quite expensive (I'm guessing a total value of maybe $300) and probably insured.  However...  This order was from nearly 2 YEARS ago!  From the look of the email they replyed to, they emailed me while I was on vacation at some point as they got my automatic vacation reply in January of 2006.  I don't remember much of anything about the order, or even hearing about this situation so I'm thinking maybe I never got the email after the vacation reply?  

What would you do?  I normally work to fix ANY problems that I have occur, however something of this value I would have insured and if there was a problem taken care of it this way.  

Should I try to politely tell the buyer they are SOL, or ???

If it took them 2 years to discover the problem, they must not have really cared. I would not either.

Most sane people let their frustrations be known within a day or two of receipt of whatever it is they don't like... they don't harbor it for 2 years and think "well, now I can yell and piss and I'll get a refund." Sounds like someone is desperate and remembered they'd made an expensive deal with you and now are trying to milk it.

Reindeergamez wrote:Today I got a moderately angry email regarding an order that apparently 1 box is missing from and the box that arrived was damaged in shipment.  I BELIEVE the packages were quite expensive (I'm guessing a total value of maybe $300) and probably insured.  However...  This order was from nearly 2 YEARS ago!  From the look of the email they replyed to, they emailed me while I was on vacation at some point as they got my automatic vacation reply in January of 2006.  I don't remember much of anything about the order, or even hearing about this situation so I'm thinking maybe I never got the email after the vacation reply?  

What would you do?  I normally work to fix ANY problems that I have occur, however something of this value I would have insured and if there was a problem taken care of it this way.  

Should I try to politely tell the buyer they are SOL, or ???

As bclarkie alluded, this is likely a scam.  They're probably relying on the fact that you don't keep immaculate records of events that occured 2 years ago, and picked a random auction.  It's probably nothing to do with the original buyer, so my advice is to simply delete the email.

Keeping in mind that I don't buy or sell on Ebay, I would politely point out that this transaction happened almost two years ago, and that given the time lapse there just isn't any way you can help them, as much as you'd like to.

That's about all you can do.   *shrug*

I would ignore them and not respond...ever.  For all they know, your e-mail has changed.  This is a no win situation.  Anything you say is the wrong thing.  Responding gives the claim legitimacy even thought its likely not legitimate.  Keep quiet is my advice.

I don't even see the need to ASK what you should do. I wouldn't even bother responding to them. It's bullshit.

I agree 100%, I was never considering actually giving in to them in any way, just wanted some confirmation that I don't really even need to respond or act politely towards them.  However, I do believe it is the same person who bought this item, as they replyed to a message automatically generated by my email service as a vacation away message (from a vacation taken in January 2006 no less) so I feel that it's probably them.  =/  I went ahead and put them on my buyer blocked list and am going to just ignore the mail instead of politely answering, I think what benjoshua said about giving their complaint legitamacy by responding was probably spot on.  

This was a very strange situation indeed.

Reindeergamez wrote:I agree 100%, I was never considering actually giving in to them in any way, just wanted some confirmation that I don't really even need to respond or act politely towards them.  However, I do believe it is the same person who bought this item, as they replyed to a message automatically generated by my email service as a vacation away message (from a vacation taken in January 2006 no less) so I feel that it's probably them.  =/  I went ahead and put them on my buyer blocked list and am going to just ignore the mail instead of politely answering, I think what benjoshua said about giving their complaint legitamacy by responding was probably spot on.  

This was a very strange situation indeed.

Well,

It could be that some scammers got access to his email account and password.  They could be going through the old emails in that sent box and trying their best to phish some money out of it.

Or maybe it just took two years for the email to get delivered to you.  This sounds crazy, but something like this happened to me.  I got an email from a friend of mine ONE YEAR after he sent it.  Yes, it got lost in cyberspace for 365 days before it appeared in my mailbox.  You never know.

Hey my wife and I just got two E-mails from Games Workshop detaling the delivery dates of some items we bought that were dated late 2005.

Maybe there is a virus going around

Bt the way we got these items around the dates of the E-mails in 2005