MezuzahStore.com has enemies. Imagine that.
July 16th, 2008 . by Aaron
From time to time, I like to look through the statistics for our website. I keep on top of how people find us. If it is from Google or if it is from some other page that links to us etc. Today I was going through the stats and I found a new link that I had never seen. It was from a site called AboutUs.org. I wasn’t familiar with the site. Part of what they do is to provide a platform for users to report their experience with different websites. I was happy to see that they have a page dedicated to MezuzahStore.com. When I checked it out I was a bit surprised to see the following comment posted from a user who calls him/her self “vmirzaye”.
There customer contact center number DOES NOT work! I called Aron Sheifer directly and he hung up, telling me “I have the wrong #”. The site charged my credit card 3 times, incorrectly. DO NOT ORDER ANYTHING FROM THEM!! 11:19, 27 May 2008 (PDT
It is not so much that I was bothered that there was a negative comment. It was more the content of the comment that disturbed me. You see, I am the ‘Aron Shifer’ (correctly spelled Aaron Shaffier) that he/she is talking about. I know for a fact that the story never happened. In fact, I don’t answer the phones at all because I live in Israel. The more I thought about the post, the more that I realized that it was someone (perhaps a competitor) who was trying to harm me and my business for personal reasons.
In the end I decided that the best thing to do was to post a reply and lay out my case. Here is what I posted.
This comment was obviously posted by someone who has something personal against me or is running a competing website. Perhaps they are the owner of one of the several sites that has popped up in the last years that try to imitate ours and draw off of unsuspecting customers. Here is why I am sure this is the case:.
1. In the post, my name is mentioned as Aron Sheifer. My correct name is Aaron Shaffier. What is interesting about this is that my friends and acquaintances call me by the Yiddishized form ‘Aron’ or ‘Arun’. Also my last name, although spelled Shaffier, is pronounced Sheifer. If this was some random customer who found our site on the internet, and purchased and then had a bad experience, their only knowledge of my name would be what is printed on our website. The very way that they spell it proves that they know me personally or are in my business field and know of me from colleagues.
2. They claim to have called me personally. How do they have my personal number? I live in Israel! We have an employee in Oxnard, CA who deals with all phone calls. I sometimes will deal with issues that have been emailed, but I do not answer the phones from Israel.
3. Why would we charge their card 3 times? All of our orders go through an automated system which is linked in with Authorize.net, one of the largest credit card processors on the internet. We never once have had an issue of a card being charged multiple times. It is very clear that this person who is either a competitor or has some personal vendetta against me is trying to invent a nightmare story that will be sure to scare away customers. From a psychological point of view, you can understand their intent from their conclusion, “DO NOT ORDER ANYTHING FROM THEM”.
4. They say that our phone number doesn’t work. Unlike most websites, we do not bury our customer service number on some page that you have to search for. We post it loud and clear on the top of EVERY page on our site. If you are wondering, try giving a call yourself. I cannot say that we answer it 24/7. After all we are not Walmart of Costco, we are a small website selling a niche product and we have one person doing customer service part time. But the number does work and if you leave a message you will get a return call. In addition we offer email customer service as well as Live Chat that is often available. (Also posted on the top of every page).
In any case, despite the obvious bad intent of the this person’s post, I would like to thank them for giving me an excuse to share all of the reasons why you should feel great about shopping at our site. I believe that the truth is something that can be seen clearly by anyone with open eyes and that any person who reads the childish post and my reply will see which one is true. 01:34, 16 July 2008 (PDT)
The greatest thing about the internet is that it allows an open forum for all kinds of people to speak their mind. A site like AboutUs.org works very well when you are dealing with a large business that is shipping hundreds of orders a day. Then you have enough customers who will go there and post their experience. Even if you have a couple of people with bad intentions, they will be drowned out by the hundreds of positive post which are posted by real customers. In the end the consumer will be able to tell what is the truth by seeing the overwhelming consensus.
The problem arises when you have a smaller site like ours. We have a much smaller base of customers. This means that one or two people with bad intentions can go and make a false post like this one without much or any response from all of the real customers who have had a good experience.
I guess that in this case all I can do is to make my case in the response and to ask all of my customers who have had a good experience to go to AboutUs.org and post positive comments about us. If you take the time to do that, I thank you in advance.
Aaron Shaffier
Owner - MezuzahStore.com
