NatureScapes

** 1/4/16 update - the owner of Naturescapes has reached out to me with an apology and is ending me my order for free to make up for any bad feelings. ** In Dec 2015 Naturescapes.net ran a promotion whereby when you buy a gift certificate for at least $40 you get a free gift certificate for $20. I asked my family members to buy me these certificates for Christmas and used them to order a tripod gimbal head. I then posted about this promotion on a deals website as it was a great deal. When Naturescapes found out that I had posted this promotion on a deal website I received a very rude and nasty email from Greg Downing, the CEO of Naturescapes: "Dear Matt, We unfortunately did not catch on to the trickery you pulled on our website until it was too late. I hope you are happy with the new gear you scammed us out of and sleep well at night knowing you took advantage of a small company who's main mission is to help others. Not only did you scam us but you also posted how others can as well - and all during the holidays. So $#*!ing FESTIVE of you. A piece of work you are. You have no morals and any future attempts to purchase from our store will be denied - legit or not. We do not take money from losers. Happy Holidays - Rot in hell." I was appalled when I received the email, both at the language and that I was being accused of scamming. I immediately offered to return the item or have them invoice me the difference:"Greg I am honestly at a loss to understand how I scammed you. I will send the item back if you would like, but I would still like to understand your accusation. Here are the sequence of events: 1. I asked my family to buy me gift certificates for Christmas as you offered a very good $20 free deal. My wife, brother and parents all bought me certificates and I bought one for myself. 2. I called to see if you would price match on the gimbal head as you were selling for $360 when all other retailers are selling for $325. Even Induro sells it for $325 on their website Indurogear.com. 3. I then used the 25% coupon advertised on your site. If the problem is that I used the 25% coupon instead of the 15% coupon then please just invoice me the 10% difference ($32). I suspect there's more to it than $32 though given your language and would appreciate an explanation. Regards Matt". Greg responded: " You scammed us through a convoluted loophole and then bragged about it and posted it. Thus you basically admitted to your scheme of getting around what was not the intent of the coupon or the gift certificates. We have retrieved the items back and will be issuing refunds on all the gift certificate purchases that were used in this elaborate scheme of yours to rip us off. Does that explain it? Greg Downing". Me: "No Greg, it does not. Are you saying it was your intention that I was only allowed to revive a gift certificate from 1 individual?". Greg: "YOUR intent was to pull one over on us - period - and thus our response. It was not our intent for folks to "pile on" 4 [giftcards] and 4 bonus [giftcards] of the same promotion with the intent to make one single purchase. It's called collusion. In the future we will list collusion as not allowed. Either way we are not allowing it so it's really irrelevant at this point." Me: "Well I am sorry you feel that way. Clearly the promotion was intended to get more people to buy certificates as gifts and that's exactly what my family members did. There was no intent to deceive and I don't see the difference to you if give away $80 on one purchase or $20 on four different purchases. Anyway you look at it, the $20 free certificate and 25% off are good deals and hence the posting. I am sorry that this issue has caused you so much rage. Merry Christmas"

This is appalling customer service. Any company that sends emails to its customers containing the F word should not be getting business. As the emails attest, I tried to resolve the misunderstanding in a polite and reasonable way but was accused of organizing a conspiracy.

Buyer beware.