Acrylic and watercolor on canvas / 11″x14″
2021
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TL;DR –
Purchased music and accessories directly from an artist, the items weren’t sent to me in a timely manner, the artist spent several weeks giving me excuses and conflicting accounts about the delay, they complained about extra shipping costs but changed their attitude when I offered to cover the costs
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Around the end of 2020 I contacted an artist in Europe to buy a copy of their latest music album. I had purchased from this particular artist before and I like their work so when I heard they were releasing their next project in spring 2021, I placed an order. I ordered a limited edition set and was told it would be ready in late spring 2021. Fast forward to that time and the artist contacted me to finalize the order and shipping details. Due to the ongoing health situation around the world I expected that shipping may take longer than usual, especially from overseas, but after nine weeks I had not received my order.
I contacted the artist and it turned out that the package had not been sent. The artist said that a number of other packages that they sent to the US went missing over the previous few months and they were “relieved” that my package was not lost as well. I wasn’t so relieved because I had been waiting over two months for a package that didn’t get sent. The artist assured me that they would mail my package that day and they would add a few bonus items as a “sorry you had to wait” gift. I was appreciative of the extra items and I asked the artist if they would add tracking information to the package so I would know where it would be but they said no because it was “too expensive”. The cost was a little less than $30 USD which to me didn’t seem that expensive or unreasonable, considering the lengthy amount of time I had waited. After giving it some thought, I decided that I shouldn’t act like I was entitled so I offered to cover the shipping myself. All I cared about was getting my order and if that meant putting up with someone who was at least making an attempt to correct their mistake, so be it.
Three days later I received a response and the artist was happy to ship my package with tracking that very day. I was slightly skeptical because the artist had promised to mail my package before and it didn’t get done so I asked where I should send the added shipping costs. Four days went by and I didn’t get an answer or a shipping confirmation so I asked again. The next day the artist replied and said that around the original shipping time in the spring, they arranged for someone else to handle the packages and I assumed that this statement meant this other person failed to send my package. The artist went on to say that they took over shipping duties about a month prior and their country recently lifted some restrictions on travel so they had been away working on other projects. They admitted that sending my package had been a mess but I wasn’t sure what to believe. The artist had given me two completely different stories – In one version the artist said they had taken care of the error and sent my package and in the other version they said they were too busy and hadn’t sent my package yet. Anyway, the artist said they would send my package in two days and at that point I was not inclined to believe them but I thanked them for their efforts and waited. They still didn’t answer my question about where to send the money for the added shipping costs so I was going to wait until I had a tracking number or some other shipping confirmation.
The artist contacted me two days later and provided the tracking number. I sent the shipping costs to the source they gave me for the original order and I hoped they got it because I wasn’t going to send it anywhere else. I received the package about two and a half weeks later with an additional note that the artist would send me a preview of their next project which would be revealed in mid-November 2021. They were going to email me some days ahead of the announcement but they didn’t get around to it until two weeks after the announcement. I wasn’t surprised.