About two months ago I sold a fursuit commission on furbid. The terms were that it would be finished by Anthrocon. I knew that would be cutting it close, but I work fine under pressure, really, so I wasn't worried. I ordered fabric for the suit at the beginning of this month, as that would give me three weeks working time, that should be plenty, and I made the head frame while waiting for my fabric delivery.
Unfortunately for me, the fabric never came. I went to find out what had happened, it was out of stock! Hadn't been shipped, and heaven knows when it would be shipped!
Well... that's just screwed me over. I've got enough on hand to finish the head, hands, tail and feet, so I wrote to the customer, let him know what had happened, apologized profusely for my screwup, and told him that I still was certain that the partial suit would be done in time, but unfortunately the full suit was impossible, a new fur order from somewhere else would still take too long to arrive.
It took two days for him to reply, which kind of stressed me in and of itself, as I'm hanging out in limbo not knowing whether I should be working on this suit or not.
I got his reply today. The entire body of the message was "..."
That's it! What am I supposed to do with that?! I know I screwed up. I apologized! I promised the very best I could do under the circumstances, and I'm stressed to death now. I cannot give a full refund. I've spent money, I've done work. And I don't have the money just lying around. I don't even know if he wants a refund, because he hasn't freaking told me! I really don't know what to do here. I mailed him back asking what he wants, but I'm really stressed. I've been late with things before, but I've always been able to work it out with the customer so that he's at least mostly satisfied. I am not happy at all about this. I should have double checked the fabric order, but I've never had that happen before! I don't want to have an unhappy customer, and I don't want to screw him over, but I have no option here. I can't conjure fabric out of thin air. I thought a partial would be acceptable.
Augh.
Edit: WTF?!!!! He replied telling me that he doesn't know what he wants me to do, he doesn't want a refund, and he's cancelling his reservations for the convention. WHY? WHAT? I said he'd have a partial suit by then! And even if he didn't, 90% of furries at a con don't have fursuits anyhow! What?
Edit again: apparently he's just not very articulate. Anyhow, solution has been agreed on, refunds are not needed, and I'm a little less stressed about this. Though it's still horribly annoying.
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