Block customer

[clamor]

Hi Everyone

 

I need your advice again. I have been dealing with an issue from a disgruntled 'customer' today. My site is based in Australia but has a .com address but it is clear on the website that we are based in Australia. An item was ordered from the US on 25 April - an important national public holiday in Australia to honour war veterans, which was followed by a weekend this year. I processed this order on 25 April but posted it on 28 April, the first business day after the holiday, to avoid any damage to the item from damp / rain over the weekend as the item is a sewing pattern made from paper.The shipping policy makes it clear that shipping times will vary according to the location (which I thought would be clear to international customers) but obviously I need to update the policy and cart to include tracking options at an additional cost. Anyway, a hold was placed on the PayPal payment last night and this triggered a cancellation of order payment email via the cart to the 'customer' so the PayPal payment is on hold. So at this stage, I have outlaid the cost of the merchandise plus packaging and international postage payments with no payment from the 'customer'. Initially the PayPal payment was approved when the merchandise was posted. The 'customer' is very irate and went on an email rampage overnight while I was sleeping and has opened a dispute with PayPal. The claim is now under investigation even though I had no opportunity to respond to the 'customer's' emails. I am not sure what set the 'customer' off (possibly the cancellation email) as the item will more than likely arrive within a few days. Specifically, this person is accusing me of fraud, claiming that the item is still listed on my website (false and probably a caching issue on her own computer - and how would she know if I have additional stock listed after her purchase?) and accusing me of listing the item on my Etsy store (also false as I have only recently opened the Etsy store and the item has never been listed on that platform). Also, threatening me with opening a dispute on Etsy (???). Meanwhile I cannot organise a refund because she has frozen her payment on PayPal by opening a dispute. Seriously, life is too short to be dealing with this aggravation and discourteous communication over a $10.95 item, despite being out of pocket for the price of a significantly reduced brand new item, packaging, petrol to the post office, my time and international shipping, so my questions are:

 

1) How can I deactivate the automated cancellation of order email as I would prefer to communicate with customers directly to avoid unnecessary escalation of issues.

 

2) Is it possible to block certain customers from purchasing via the shopping cart or could you please consider this option in future upgrades?

 

I am looking forward to your valued advice as I have not been enjoying the quality of my life today and I would prefer not to deal with people like this. My communication to the client is professional, as always, if delivered with gritted teeth!

[Al Brookbanks]

Hi Calmor,

 

I'm sorry to hear of your problems. In CubeCart v5 (assuming you are using that) if you view the customer list you will seen green ticks down the side. If you click it to change it to a red cross and click save the account will be disabled and they won't be able to login. This can also be done by changing the status from the customer edit view. 

[clamor]

Thank you so much for your excellent advice, as always. I will wait a few days for the outcome from PayPal and then activate the red cross - what a great option! I have had other orders from the US so I am sure most people from that country conduct transactions consistent with their values.

[bsmither]

This conversation details edits to the code to stop a customer from cancelling an order.

 

If you are interested, we can explore other edits to stop PayPal from instructing CubeCart to cancel an order.